An Aes Sedai is calmness, an Aes Sedai is control, regardless of the situation. Egwene lowered her hands from the collar. She had not gone through the testing, and she had not planned to. But if she had, what if she had been forced to face a situation like this? Would she have broken? Proven herself unworthy of the mantle she claimed to carry?
“Not speaking, I see,” Mesaana said. “Well, that can be changed. These a’dam. Such lovely devices. Semirhage was so delightfully wonderful in bringing them to my attention, even if she did so accidentally. Pity she died before I could place one on her neck.”
Pain shot through Egwene’s body, like fire beneath her skin. Her eyes watered from it.
But she had suffered pain before, and laughed while being beaten. She had been captive before, in the White Tower itself, and captivity had not stopped her.
But this is different! The larger part of her was terrified. This is the a’dam! I cannot withstand it!
An Aes Sedai must, the quiet piece of her replied. An Aes Sedai can suffer all things, for only then can she be truly a servant of all.
“Now,” Mesaana said. “Tell me where you have hidden the device.”
Egwene controlled her fear. It was not easy. Light, but it was hard! But she did it. Her face became calm. She defied the a’dam by not giving it power over her.
Mesaana hesitated, frowning. She shook the leash, and more pain flooded Egwene.
She made it vanish. “It occurs to me, Mesaana,” Egwene said calmly, “that Moghedien made a mistake. She accepted the a’dam.”
“What are you—”
“In this place, an a’dam is as meaningless as the weaves it prevents,” Egwene said. “It is only a piece of metal. And it only will stop you if you accept that it will.” The a’dam unlocked and fell free of her neck.
Mesaana glanced at it as it dropped to the ground with a metallic ring. Her face grew still, then cold as she looked up at Egwene. Impressively, she did not panic. She folded her arms, eyes impassive. “So, you have practiced here.”
Egwene met her gaze.
“You are still a child,” Mesaana said. “You think that you can best me? I have walked in Tel’aran’rhiod longer than you can imagine. You are what, twenty years old?”
“I am the Amyrlin,” Egwene said.
“An Amyrlin to children.”
“An Amyrlin to a Tower that has stood for thousands of years,” Egwene said. “Thousands of years of trouble and chaos. Yet most of your life, you lived in a time of peace, not strife. Curious, that you should think yourself so strong when much of your life was so easy.”
“Easy?” Mesaana said. “You know nothing.”
Neither broke her gaze. Egwene felt something press against her, as it had before. Mesaana’s will, demanding her subservience, her supplication. An attempt to use Tel’aran’rhiod to change the very way that Egwene thought.
Mesaana was strong. But strength in this place was a matter of perspective. Mesaana’s will pressed against her. But Egwene had defeated the a’dam. She could resist this.
“You will bend,” Mesaana said quietly.
“You are mistaken,” Egwene replied, voice tense. “This is not about me. Egwene al’Vere is a child. But the Amyrlin is not. I may be young, but the Seat is ancient.”
Neither woman looked away. Egwene began to push back, to demand that Mesaana bow before her, before the Amyrlin. The air began to feel heavy around them, and when Egwene breathed it in, it seemed thick somehow.
“Age is irrelevant,” Egwene said. “To an extent, even experience is irrelevant. This place is about what a person is. The Amyrlin is the White Tower, and the White Tower will not bend. It defies you, Mesaana, and your lies.”
Two women. Gazes matched. Egwene stopped breathing. She did not need to breathe. All was focused on Mesaana. Sweat trickled down Egwene’s temples, every muscle in her body tense as she pushed back against Mesaana’s will.
And Egwene knew that this woman, this creature, was an insignificant insect shoving against an enormous mountain. That mountain would not move. Indeed, shove against it too hard, and…
Something snapped, softly, in the room.
Egwene breathed in with a gasp as the air returned to normal. Mesaana dropped like a doll made of strips of cloth. She hit the ground with her eyes still open, and a little bit of spittle dribbled from the corner of her mouth.
Egwene sat down, dazed, breathing in and out in gasps. She looked to the side, where the a’dam lay discarded. It vanished. Then she looked back at Mesaana, who lay in a heap. Her chest was still rising and lowering, but she stared with sightless eyes.
Egwene lay for a long moment recovering before standing and embracing the Source. She wove lines of Air to lift the unresponsive Forsaken, then shifted both herself and the woman back to the upper floors of the Tower.
Women turned toward her with a start. The hallway here was strewn with rubble, but everyone Egwene saw was one of hers. The Wise Ones, spinning on her. Nynaeve picking through some rubble. Siuan and Leane, the latter bearing several blackened cuts on her face, but looking strong.
“Mother,” Siuan said with relief. “We had feared…”
“Who is that?” Melaine asked, walking up to Mesaana, hanging limply in the weaves of Air and staring at the ground. The woman cooed suddenly, like a child, eyes watching a bit of burning fire on the remnants of a tapestry.
“It is her,” Egwene said, tired. “Mesaana.”
Melaine turned to Egwene, eyes wide with surprise.
“Light!” Leane exclaimed. “What have you done?”
“I have seen this before,” Bair said, inspecting the woman. “Sammana, a Wise One Dreamer from my youth. She encountered something in the dream that broke her mind.” She hesitated. “She spent the rest of her days in the waking world drooling, and needing her linen changed. She never spoke again, at least nothing more than the words of a babe who can barely walk.”
“Perhaps it is time to stop thinking of you as an apprentice, Egwene al’Vere,” Amys said.
Nynaeve stood with hands on hips, looking impressed but still clinging to the Source. Her braid was full length again in the dream. “The others have gone,” she said.
“Mesaana ordered them to flee,” Egwene said.
“They couldn’t have gone far,” Siuan said. “That do
