“Yesterday went very well,” he told Sulin firmly. “From now on, I think two guards will be more than sufficient.” Her eyes almost bulged; she could not seem to find breath to speak. Now that he had taken away, it was time to give back, before she exploded like an Illuminator’s fireworks. “It’s different when I go outside the Palace, of course. The guard you have been giving me will do then, but here, or in the Sun Palace or the Stone of Tear, two are enough.” He turned away while her mouth still worked silently.
Aviendha fell in beside him as he walked around the dais holding the thrones to the small doors behind. He had come here instead of straight to his own rooms in hope that he could lose her. Even without saidin he could smell her, or maybe it was the memory. Either way, he wished his head were clogged with a cold; he liked the smell too much.
Shawl wrapped around her tightly, Aviendha stared straight ahead of her as if troubled, not noticing when he held the door into one of the lion-paneled dressing rooms for her, something that usually aroused at least a little ire, perhaps a tart question as to which of her arms was broken. When he asked what was the matter, she gave a start. “Nothing. Sulin was right. But. . . .” Suddenly she gave a reluctant grin. “Did you see her face? No one has set her down like that since . . . since never, I think. Not even Rhuarc.”
“I’m a little surprised to find you on my side.”
She stared at him with those big eyes. He could spend all day just trying to decide whether they were blue or green. No. He had no right to think about her eyes. What had happened after she made that doorway—to run from him—made no difference. He especially had no right to think about that.
“You trouble me so, Rand al’Thor,” she said without a bit of heat. “Light, sometimes I think the Creator made you just to trouble me.”
He wanted to tell her it was her own fault—more than once he had offered to send her back to the Wise Ones, though it would just mean them putting someone else in her place—but before he could open his mouth, Jalani and Liah caught up, followed almost immediately by two Red Shields, one a graying fellow with three times the scars Liah had on her face. Rand directed Jalani and the scarred man back to the throne room, which nearly precipitated an argument. Not from the Red Shield, who merely glanced at his fellow, shrugged and went, but Jalani drew herself up.
Rand pointed to the door leading to the Grand Hall. “The Car’a’carn expects Far Dareis Mai to go where he commands.”
“You may be a king to the wetlanders, Rand al’Thor, but not to Aiel.” A tough sullenness marred Jalani’s dignity, reminding him how young she was. “The Maidens will never fail you in the dance of spears, but this is not the dance.” Still, she went, after a rapid exchange of handtalk with Liah.
With Liah and the lean Red Shield, a yellow-haired man named Cassin who stood a good inch taller than Rand, Rand strode quickly through the palace to his rooms. And with Aviendha, of course. If he had thought those bulky skirts might make her fall behind, he was mistaken. Liah and Cassin remained in the hallway outside his sitting room, a large chamber with a marble frieze of lions below the high ceiling and tapestries of hunting scenes and misty mountains, but Aviendha followed him inside.
“Shouldn’t you be with Melaine?” he demanded. “Business of the Wise Ones and all that?”
“No,” she said curtly. “Melaine would not be pleased if I interfered right now.”
Light, but he should not be pleased that she was not going. Tossing the Dragon Scepter atop a table with gilded vine-carved legs, he undid his sword belt and added that. “Did Amys and the others tell you where Elayne is?”
For a long moment Aviendha stood in the middle of the blue-tiled floor looking at him, her expression unreadable. “They do not know,” she said finally. “I asked.” He had expected she would. She had not done it in months, but before coming to Caemlyn the first time with him, every second word out of her mouth had been a reminder that he belonged to Elayne. In her view he did, and what had happened between them beyond that gateway she had made clearly did not alter the fact, and would not happen again, something else she had made quite clear. Exactly as he wanted it; he was worse than a pig to feel regret. Ignoring all the fine gilded chairs, she settled cross-legged on the floor, arranging her skirts gracefully. “They did speak of you, though.”
“Why does that not surprise me?” he said dryly, and to his surprise her cheeks reddened. Aviendha was not a woman for blushes, and this made twice in one day.
“They have shared dreams, some of which concern you.” She sounded slightly strangled until she paused to clear her throat, then fixed him with a steady, determined gaze. “Melaine and Bair dreamed of you on a boat,” she said, the word still awkward after all these months in the wetlands, “with three women whose faces they could not see, and a scale tilting first one way then the other. Melaine and Amys dreamed of a man standing by your side with a dagger to your throat, but you did not see him. Bair and Amys dreamed of you cutting the wetlands in two with a sword.” For an instant her eyes darted contemptuously to the scabbarded blade lying atop the Dragon Scepter. Contemptuously, and a bit guiltily. She had given him that, once the property of King Laman, carefully wrapped in a blanket so she could not be said to have actually touched it. “They cannot interpret the dreams, but they thought you should know.”
The first was as opaque to him as to the Wise Ones, but the second seemed obvious. A man he could not see with a dagger had to be a Gray Man; their souls given up to the Shadow—not merely pledged, but given away—they could slip past notice even when you looked right at them, and their only real purpose was assassination. Why had the Wise Ones not understood something so plain? As for the last, he feared that was plain as well. He already was cutting lands apart. Tarabon and Arad Doman were ruins, the rebellions in Tear and Cairhien could become more than skulking talk at any time, and Illian would certainly feel the weight of his sword. And that was aside from the Prophet, and the Dragonsworn down in Altara and Murandy.
“I don’t see any mystery in two of those, Aviendha.” But when he explained, she gave him a doubtful look. Of course. If Wise One dreamwalkers could not interpret a dream, certainly no one else could. He grunted sourly and flung himself into a chair facing her. “What e
