A Memory of Light

“I fear for our army, Elayne.” Birgitte said. “I fear that the day is lost.”


“The day cannot be lost,” Elayne said, “because if it is, we all are lost. I refuse to accept defeat. You and I wil return. Let Demandred try to strike us down. Perhaps seeing me will revitalize the soldiers, make them—”

A group of Caemlyn refugees nearby attacked her Guardsmen and Guards-women.

Elayne cursed, turning Moonshadow and embracing the One Power. The group she had, at first, taken for refugees in dirty, soot-stained clothing wore mail beneath. They fought her Guards, killing with sword and axe. Not refugees at all, mercenaries.

“Betrayal!” Birgitte called, lifting her bow and shooting a mercenary through the throat. “To arms!”

“It’s not a betrayal,” Elayne said. She wove Fire and struck down a group of three. “Those aren’t ours! Watch for thieves in the clothing of beggars!”

She turned as another group of “refugees” lunged at the weakened lines of Guards. They were all around! They had crept up while attention had been focused on the distant battlefield.

As a group of mercenaries broke through, she wove saidar to show them the fol y of attacking an Aes Sedai. She released a powerful weave of Air.

As it hit one of the men charging her, the weave fell apart, unraveling. Elayne cursed, turning her horse to flee, but one of the attackers lunged forward and drove his sword into Moonshadow’s neck. The horse reared, squealing in agony, and Elayne caught a brief glimpse of Guards fighting al around as she fel to the ground, panicked for the safety of her babes. Rough hands grabbed her by the shoulders and held her against the ground.

She saw something silver glisten in the night. A foxhead medal ion. Another pair of hands pressed it to her skin just above her breasts. The metal was sharply cold.

“Hello, my Queen,” Mellar said, squatting beside her. The former Guardsman—the one many people stil assumed had fathered her children— leered down at her. “You’ve been very hard to track down.”

Elayne spat at him, but he anticipated her, raising his hand to catch the spittle. He smiled, then stood up, leaving her held by two mercenaries. Though some of her Guards stil fought, most had been pushed back or kil ed.

Mellar turned as two men dragged Birgitte over. She thrashed in their grip, and a third man came over to help hold her. Mellar took out his sword, regarded its blade for a moment, as if inspecting himself in its reflective gleam. Then he rammed it into Birgitte’s stomach.

Birgitte gasped, fal ing to her knees. Mel ar beheaded her with a vicious backhand blow.

Elayne found herself sitting very still, unable to think or react as Birgitte’s corpse flopped forward, spilling lifeblood from the neck. The bond winked away, and with it came . . . pain.

Terrible pain.

“I’ve been waiting to do that for a long time,” Mel ar said. Blood and bloody ashes, but it felt good.”

Birgitte. . . Her Warder was dead. Her Warder had been kil ed. That tough yet generous heart, that tremendous loyalty—destroyed. The loss made it . . . made it hard to think.

Mellar kicked at Birgitte’s corpse as a man rode up with a body draped across the back of his saddle. The man wore an Andoran uniform, and the facedown corpse dangled golden hair.

Whoever the poor woman was, she wore a dress exactly like Elayne’s.

Oh no.. .

“Go,” Mellar said. The man rode off, a few others forming around him, fake Guardsmen.

They carried Elayne’s banner, and one started shouting, “The Queen is dead! The Queen has fallen!”

Mellar turned to Elayne. “Your people stil fight. Wel , that ought to disrupt their ranks. As for you . . . well, apparently, the Great Lord has a use for those children of yours. I’ve been ordered to bring them to Shayol Ghul. It occurs to me that you needn’t be with them at the time.” He looked at one of his companions. “Can you make it work?”

The other man knelt beside Elayne, then pressed his hands against her bel y. A jolt of sudden fright pushed through her numbness and her shock. Her babes!

“She’s far enough along,” the man said. “I can probably keep the children alive with a weave, if you cut them out. It wil be difficult to do right. They are young yet. Six months along. But with the weaves I was shown by the Chosen . . . yes, I think I can keep them living for an hour. But you will have to take them to M’Hael to get them to Shayol Ghul. Traveling with a regular gateway won’t work there any longer.”

Mel ar sheathed his sword and pulled a hunting knife from his belt. “Good enough for me.

We’ll send the children on, as the Great Lord asks. But you, my Queen . . . you are mine.”

Elayne flailed, but the men’s grip was tight. She clawed at saidar again and again, but the medallion worked like forkroot. She might as well have been trying to embrace saidin as reach saidar

“No!” she screamed as Mellar knelt beside her. “NO!”

“Good,” he said. “I was hoping you’d get around to screaming.”