A Memory of Light

“What are you waiting for?” Moiraine asked.

Rand turned toward her. They stood in Lan’s command tent in Shienar. He could smel the smoke of burning fields, set aflame by Lan and Lord Agelmar s troops as they withdrew from the Gap.

They were burning the lands they would rather defend. A desperate tactic, but a good one.

It was the sort of al -in tactic that Lews Therin and his people in the Age of Legends had been hesitant to try, at least at first. It had cost them dearly then.

The Borderlanders showed no such timidity.

“Why are we here?” Moiraine pressed, stepping up to him. His Maidens guarded the tent from the inside; better to not let the enemy know Rand was here. “You should be at Shayol Ghul right now. That is your destiny, Rand al’Thor. Not these lesser fights.”

“My friends die here.”

“I thought you were beyond such weaknesses.”

“Compassion is not a weakness.”

“Is it not?” she said. “And if, in sparing your enemy because of compassion, you allow them to kil you? What then, Rand al’Thor?”

He had no answer.

“You cannot risk yourself,” Moiraine said. “And regardless of whether or not you agree that compassion itself can be a weakness, acting foolishly because of it certainly is.”

He had often thought about the moment when he had lost Moiraine. He had agonized over her death, and he still reveled in her return. At times, however, he had forgotten how . . .

insistent she could be.

“I will move against the Dark One when the time is right,” Rand said, “but not before. He must think I am with the armies, that I am waiting to seize more ground before striking at him. We must coax his commanders to commit their forces southward, lest we be overwhelmed at Shayol Ghul once I enter.”

“It will not matter,” Moiraine said. “You will face him, and that will be the time of determination. Al spins on that moment, Dragon Reborn. Al threads in the Pattern are woven around your meeting, and the turning of the Wheel pulls you toward it. Do not deny that you feel it.”

“I feel it.”

“Then go.”

“Not yet.”

She took a deep breath. “Stubborn as ever.”

“And a good thing,” Rand said. “Stubbornness is what brought me this far. Rand hesitated, then fished in his pocket. He came out with something bright and silvery—a Tar Valon mark.

“Here,” he said, holding it out to her. “I’ve been saving this.”

She pursed her lips. “It cannot be . . .”

“The same one? No. That is long lost, I fear. I’ve been carrying this one around as a token, almost without realizing what I’d been doing.”

She took the coin, turning it over in her fingers. She was stil inspecting it when the Maidens looked with alertness toward the tent flap. A second later, Lan lifted the flap and strode in, flanked by two Malkieri men. The three could have been brothers, with those grim expressions and hard faces.

Rand stepped up, resting his hand on Lan’s shoulder. The man did not look tired—a stone could not look tired—but he did look worn. Rand understood that feeling.

Lan nodded to him, then looked at Moiraine. “Have you two been arguing?”

Moiraine tucked the mark away, face becoming impassive. Rand didn’t know what to make of the interaction between the two of them since Moiraine’s return. They were civil, but there was a distance between them that he had not expected.

“You should listen to Moiraine,” Lan said, turning back to Rand. “She has prepared for these days longer than you have been alive. Let her guide you.”

“She wants me to leave this battlefield,” Rand said, “and strike immediately for Shayol Ghul instead of trying to fight those channelers for you so you can retake the Gap.”

Lan hesitated. “Then perhaps you should do as she—”

“No,” Rand said. “Your position here is dire, old friend. I can do something, and so I will. If we can’t stop those Dreadlords, they’ll have you retreating all the way back to Tar Valon.”

“I have heard what you did at Maradon,” Lan said. “I will not turn away a miracle here if one is determined to find us.”

“Maradon was a mistake,” Moiraine said tersely. “You cannot afford to expose yourself, Rand.”

“I cannot afford not to, either. I won’t just sit back and let people die! Not when I can protect them.”

“The Borderlanders do not need to be sheltered,” Lan said.

“No,” Rand replied, “but I’ve never known one who would refuse a sword when one was offered in a time of need.”

Lan met his eyes, then nodded. “Do what you can.”

Rand nodded to the two Maidens, who nodded back.

“Sheepherder,” Lan said.

Rand raised an eyebrow.

Lan saluted him, arm across his chest, bowing his head.

Rand nodded back. “There is something for you on the floor over there, Dai Shan.”

Lan frowned, then walked to a pile of blankets. There were no tables in this tent. Lan knelt, then raised a bright, silvery crown—thin, yet strong. “The crown of Malkier,” he whispered.