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translation believed done by Jain Charin, known as Jain Farstrider, shortly before his disappearance
Hmm . . . So is Noal Jain or just a relation . . .?
With any luck, furious generals would not see where he was leading them until it was too late. And if they did . . . Well, he had a second plan.
o.O
“I will start at the beginning, Davram. And go slowly, so you can understand,” she added with a small smile, pausing to thank the women who draped a white linen sheet around her bare torso. “I returned from my ride to find two strange men ransacking our tent. They drew daggers, so naturally, I hit one of them with a chair and stabbed the other.”
Hahahaha.
No one except Tumad was close enough to hear him, but he spoke softly anyway, and chose his words cautiously. Sometimes, the price of carelessness was death, too. “You know where to find the man who came to me yesterday? Find him, and tell him I agree, but there will be a few more than we talked about.”
???!
How could any Aes Sedai swear fealty to anyone or anything other than the White Tower itself? How in the Light could a Red swear to a man who could channel? Maybe Verin had been right about ta’veren twisting chance.
Ooohhh, the iiiiiironyyyyy.
What was known about women who had been stilled was little better than rumor. They ran away and hid from other sisters; eventually, they died. Usually, they died soon rather than late. The loss of saidar was more than most women could bear for very long.
You just said they run and hide from Sisters. How could you possibly know how long they do or don't live? 😑
“Lord Dobraine’s been murdered!”
Noooooooooo!!
Despite his complaints about the weather, Noal had come along to the river without urging or invitation. From things he had said, everyone he cared about was long years dead, and the truth of it was, he seemed almost desperate for any sort of company.
😩😩😩
His hands had been broken badly, maybe more than once by their lumpy appearance, yet they were deft in winding his line around the bamboo pole.
???
“That fellow’s dark as an Atha’an Miere,” Noal muttered absently, staring at the passing soldiers. “Dark as a Sharan. But I’d swear he has blue eyes. I’ve seen the like before, but where?”
Mat started to ask Noal where he had been, but the old man darted nimbly after Juilin, calling over his shoulder that he would help let the others know the show was leaving. Well, two could spread the word faster than one—Vanin and the four surviving Redarms shared a crowded tent on one side of the show, while Noal himself shared another with Thom and the two serving men, Lopin and Nerim, on the opposite side—and the question could wait. Probably, he had just delayed to put his precious fish somewhere safe. In any case, the question suddenly seemed unimportant.
Umm . . . Wasn't Jain part of Ishamael's litany of "heroes" he'd led astray . . .?
“I could hardly tell the showfolk I’d kidnapped the Daughter of the Nine Moons,” he said in exasperation. “The High Lady Tuon, peasant!”
Hahahaha.
“You fought well against me today, Culain, and many days past,” that memorable voice said. “Will you live with me in peace?” With his last breath, he laughed in Artur Hawkwing’s face.
Selucia watched him slip the knives back up his sleeves with considerable interest. He would not have thought she was the sort to like dangerous men. That kind of woman was worth avoiding; they tended to find ways to make a man need to be dangerous.
Hahahaha.
“She was found in her bedchamber the morning after we left, Mat, still bound hand and foot. Her head . . . Her head had been torn off.”
😭😩
Ajimbura would eat anything except for lizards, which were forbidden to his tribe for some reason he would never make clear.
B/c dragon?
“Wait outside,” Karede commanded sharply, and Ajimbura rose with alacrity, murmuring, “I hear and obey, high one.” He studied the Seeker openly, though, as if to make sure the Seeker knew he had marked his face, before leaving the room.
*snorts*
Men who tried to stand on their forebears’ shoulders rather than their own feet often found themselves shorter by a head.
PREACH. #merica
He remembered the face of the small girl who had laid that doll on his litter. He could hear her still. You have protected my life, so you must take Emela to watch over you in turn, she said. She can’t really protect you, of course; she’s only a doll. But keep her to remind you that I will always hear if you speak my name. If I’m still alive, of course.
*rubs fist over heart*
The Guards were not supposed to form attachments to those they were sent to guard. The Deathwatch Guard served only the Crystal Throne, served whoever succeeded to the throne, with a whole heart and a whole faith. But he remembered that serious child’s face, already aware she might not live to do her duty yet trying to do it anyway, and he had kept the doll.
❤️
If the White Tower had certain plans in Ebou Dar, they might send such a man to carry them out.”
HA. This guy . . . He should've been a gleeman.
but we have identified the sul’dam she used, and two have close connections with Suroth. Who herself has many connections to Aes Sedai.”
How could they know that and not know that those ties were to BLACK Sisters?
Besides, Aram was always there when Perrin woke, waiting.
Ugh, go away, Aram. 😒
He did not want company for this, even Aram’s. Just because people sometimes noted his sharp eyesight was no reason to flaunt it, or his sense of smell. There were already reasons enough to shun him without adding more.
QUIT YER BITCHIN'. 😑
“They were wolves, once. The souls of wolves, anyway, caught and twisted by the Shadow. That was the core used to make Darkhounds, the Shadowbrothers. I think that’s why the wolves have to be at the Last Battle. Or maybe Darkhounds were made because wolves will be there, to fight them. The Pattern makes Sovarra lace look like a piece of string, sometimes. Anyway, it was a long time ago, during the Trolloc Wars as near as I can make out, and the War of the Shadow before that. Wolves have long memories. What a wolf knows is never really forgotten while other wolves remain alive. They avoid
...more
Some nights, the fear that Gaidal would fade from her memory, too, that she would lose any remembrance of actually having known and loved him, left her unable to sleep until she drank as much brandy as she could hold.
Not sure I believe this. Birgitte is too awesome to turn into a drunk . . . 😑
“Even if he did wrong,” Sareitha said carefully, “and I am not convinced that he did, Captain Mellar saved your life at risk to his own,
I bet you cash money that Sareitha is the Black Sister.
Galad fancied Nynaeve, or had for a time—
I remember that differently . . . o.O
For some reason she imagined little groups of Aes Sedai scattered from the Blight to the Sea of Storms, and constant streams of sisters flowing between, gathering information, sharing information. A peculiar thought. Sisters used eyes-and-ears to watch the world, and rarely shared what they learned unless it was a threat to the Tower itself.
I don't think it's the Black Ajah manipulating the Hall of the Tower, I think it's something like this--a handful of experienced Sisters, maybe the heads of the Ajahs, quietly taking measures to preserve the Tower so that whatever disaster Elaida inevitably leads them to, they can recover.
I have no idea what those measures are, but everything in me recoils at the idea of the Black having such a firm hand in things. Maybe I'm as bad as the Aes Sedai for refusing to see it, but the Black seem too isolated and furtive to be responsible for a plot big enough to include both factions of Sisters.
When Reene and Norry left the room, him holding the door for her and making a bow that was a hair more graceful than usual and her giving him a slight bow of her head as she glided past him into the corridor, Aviendha did not release the ward she was holding.
I ship it. :D
“And I have come to see what she does,” Sumeko added, following the Wise One into the room.
I can't wait for Sumeko and Samitsu to meet.
“Shiaine had two visitors yesterday, however, more careless than this fellow,” she went on. “One, in the morning, had the Golden Boars of Sarand on the cuff of his gauntlets.
The fellow in the afternoon was short and dark, with a sharp nose and wary eyes, and no scars or marks I could see, though he wore a ring with a square garnet on his left hand. He was sparing with words, very mindful to give away nothing in the little I heard, but he carried a dagger with the Four Moons of House Marne on the pommel.”
True, from where she sat her horse, she could have set fire to every one of those ships, or simply cut holes through their hulls and let them sink. The work of moments. Yet doing so surely meant some of those aboard would drown. The currents were strong, the water like ice, and the swim to shore long, for those who actually could swim. Even one death would make what she did using the Power as a weapon. She was trying to live as though already bound by the Three Oaths, and the Oaths protected those vessels from her or any other sister. A sister who had sworn on the Oath Rod would not be able to
...more
She thought about weaving a flare, a starburst of light, perhaps with a loud bang, just above each of the vessels. That would certainly let anyone aboard with brains realize that neither speed nor distance kept them safe here, only a forbearance born of the Three Oaths.
HA.
“Why do men always rush so hard to kill or be killed?”
“Because the subject has come up in the Hall in the last few days. Not as a proposal, but it has been mentioned, very quietly, by Varilin, and by Takima, and also by Magla. And Faiselle and Saroiya have appeared interested in what they have had to say.”
Are those among the new suspect Sitters? The ones who appear to be part of some plot?
No one objected to his placements, of course, not in general anyway.
HA. B/c GENERAL. 😬
Every barrel of meat, every sack of grain or flour or meal, had been surrounded by a Keeping as soon as bought, and whatever was woven into a Keeping could not change until the weave was removed. But still the meat rotted and the insects multiplied. It was as though saidar itself was failing.
What the Ajahs decided to pass along to the Amyrlin Seat made for fascinating reading when compared to what Siuan and Leane gave her from their agents. It was not so much that there were contradictions, yet what the Ajahs chose to keep to themselves could draw interesting pictures.
Raised in Salidar, Salita was part of a disturbing pattern: too many Sitters who were too young for the position. Salita had only been Aes Sedai for thirty-five years, and rarely was a woman given a chair before wearing the shawl for a hundred or more.
“I will never get over this, Mother. It’s simply amazing. I know we shouldn’t be surprised any longer when you come up with something no one else has thought of—sometimes I think we’ve gotten too set in our ways, too sure what can and cannot be done—but to puzzle out how to make cuendillar . . . !”
“Ever since we found out she has the Foretelling, she’s been Foretelling two or three times a day, to hear her tell it. Or rather, to hear Areina tell it. Nicola is smart enough to know everyone is aware she can’t remember what she says when she Foretells, but Areina always seems to be there to hear and remember, and help her interpret. Some are the sort of thing anyone in the camp with half a brain and a credulous nature might think of—battles with the Seanchan or the Asha’man, an Amyrlin imprisoned, the Dragon Reborn doing nine impossible things, visions that might be Tarmon Gai’don or a
...more
It would have to be Kairen and Leane, but even Leane was barely fast enough. Kairen needed time to improve. Days? Weeks? Whatever was necessary, because anything less meant disaster, for the women involved and for the men who would die fighting in the streets of Tar Valon and maybe for the Tower. Suddenly Egwene was glad she had approved Beonin’s suggestion. Telling Kairen why she needed to try harder might have spurred her efforts, but this was another secret that had to be kept until the time came to unveil it to the world.
It was a good thing that Egwene’s cowl hid her face. By the tenth time a novice family leaped out of her way like frightened hares, she was gritting her teeth so hard that seeing her face would have cemented her reputation for chewing iron and spitting nails. She had the horrible feeling that in a few hundred years, Accepted would be using her name to frighten novices the way they used Sereille’s now.
HA.
“I wish Varilin and that lot surprised me, Mother. Discounting the Blue, six Sitters from five Ajahs fled the Tower after Elaida carried out her coup,” her mouth twisted slightly on the word, “and here we have one from each of those five.
“Andaya Forae was raised for the Gray, Rina Hafden for the Green, and Juilaine Madome for the Brown. None has worn the shawl more than seventy years at most. Elaida has the same problem we do, Mother.”
“One or two raised before time would be unusual enough—it happens, but not often—but this makes eleven—maybe twelve, but eleven for sure—between us and the Tower. I don’t believe in coincidences that big.
Clearly, something odd was happening, but what did it mean? And who could influence the choice of Sitters in every Ajah?
The Black might be behind it, but what could they gain, unless all of those too-young Sitters were Black? That seemed impossible in any case; if the Black Ajah had had that much influence, the Hall would have been all Darkfriends long ago.
EXACTLY. The Black aren't responsible for this.
