Egwene blinked, watching them drop to the ground. “How—”
Someone burst out of a room nearby, a tall, slender-necked woman with raven hair, wearing a sleek white dress. She smiled, raising her hands, and a light appeared before her.
Perrin didn’t need to know what she was doing. He was a wolf; he was the ruler of this place. Weaves were meaningless. He imagined the woman’s attack missing him; he knew it would be so.
A bar of white-hot light shot from the woman. Perrin raised a hand before himself and Egwene. The light vanished, as if stopped by his palm.
Egwene turned, and the wall above the woman burst, rock showering down. A chunk smashed the woman on the head brutally, knocking her to the ground. Light, she was probably dead, after a blow like that.
Egwene smelled amazed. She spun on him. “Balefire? You stopped balefire? Nothing should be able to do that.”
“It’s just a weave,” Perrin said, reaching out for Hopper. Where was Slayer?
“It’s not just a weave, Perrin, it’s—”
“I’m sorry, Egwene,” he said. “I will speak to you later. Be careful in this place. You probably already know that you need to be, but still. It’s more dangerous than you know.”
He turned and ran, leaving Egwene sputtering. It seemed she’d managed to become an Aes Sedai. That was good; she deserved it.
Hopper? he sent. Where are you?
His only reply was a sudden, terrifying, sending of pain.
Gawyn fought for his life against three living shadows of darkness and steel.
They pressed him to the utmost of his ability, leaving him bloodied half a dozen times over on arms and legs. He used The Cyclone Rages, and it defended his vitals. Barely.
Drops of his blood stained the gauze draping Egwene’s bed. If his opponents had already killed Egwene, then they made a good show of continuing to threaten her.
He was growing weak and tired. His boots left bloody prints when he stepped. He couldn’t feel the pain. His parries were becoming sluggish. They’d have him in another moment or two.
No help came, although his voice was hoarse from yelling. Fool! he thought. You need to spend more time thinking and less time running straight into danger! He should have alerted the entire Tower.
The only reason he was alive was because the three were being careful, wearing him down. Once he fell, that sul’dam had indicated they would go on a rampage through the White Tower. It would take the Aes Sedai completely by surprise. This night could be a disaster greater than the original Seanchan strike had been.
The three moved forward.
No! Gawyn thought as one of them tried The River Undercuts the Bank. He leaped forward, dodging between two blades, swinging his weapon. Amazingly, he actually struck, and a voice cried out in the room. Blood sprayed across the ground, one shadowy form falling.
The two others muttered curses, and all pretense of wearing him down vanished. They struck at him, weapons flashing amid dark mist. Exhausted, Gawyn took another hit on the shoulder, blood trickling down his arm beneath his coat.
Shadows. How could a man be expected to fight against shadows? It was impossible!
Where there is light, there must be shadow…
A last, desperate thought occurred to him. With a cry, he leaped to the side and yanked a pillow from Egwene’s bed. Blades cut the air around him as he spun and slammed the pillow on the lantern, smothering it.
Plunging the room into darkness. No light. No shadows.
Equality.
The darkness evened out everything, and in the night, you couldn’t see color. He couldn’t see the blood on his arms, couldn’t see the black shadows of his enemies or the whiteness of Egwene’s bed. But he could hear the men move.
He raised his blade for a desperate strike, using Hummingbird Kisses the Honeyrose, predicting where the Bloodknives would move. He was no longer distracted by their misted figures, and his strike hit true, sinking into flesh.
He twisted, yanking his blade free. The room fell silent save for the fall of the man he’d hit. Gawyn held his breath, heartbeat thumping in his ears. Where was the last assassin?
No light came in from the room next door; Celark had fallen beside the doorway, blocking the light underneath.
Gawyn was feeling shaky now. He’d lost too much blood. If he had something to throw to create a distraction…but no. Moving would rustle clothing, would give him away.
So, gritting his teeth, he tapped his foot and raised his blade to protect his neck, praying to the Light that the attack came low.
It did, cutting deeply into his side. He took it with a grunt, but immediately lashed out with all he had. His sword hissed, and with a brief tug it sliced true. A thump followed; a decapitated head bouncing off the wall, followed by the noise of a corpse hitting the ground.
Gawyn slumped against the bed, blood gushing from his side. He was blacking out, although it was hard to tell in the unlit room.
He reached for where he remembered Egwene’s hand being, but was too weak to find it.
He hit the floor a moment later. His last thought was that he still didn’t know whether or not she was dead.
“Great Mistress,” Katerine said, kneeling before Mesaana, “we cannot find the thing you describe. Half of our women search for it while the other half fight the worms who resist. But it is nowhere!”
Mesaana folded her arms beneath her br**sts as she considered the situation. With an offhanded thought, she strapped Katerine’s back with lines of Air. Failure needed always to be punished. Consistency was the key in all forms of training.
The White Tower rumbled above her, though she was safe here. She’d imposed her will on this area, creating a new room beneath the basements, carved as a pocket in the stone. The children who fought above obviously thought themselves practiced in this place, but children they were. She had been coming to Tel’aran’rhiod for a century before her imprisonment.
The Tower rumbled again. Carefully, she considered her situation. Somehow, the Aes Sedai had found a dreamspike. How had they located such a treasure? Mesaana was nearly as interested in gaining control of it as she was in dominating the child Amyrlin, Egwene al’Vere. The ability to forbid gateways into your places of refuge…Well, it was a vital tool, particularly when she decided to move against the other Chosen. It was more effective than wards, protecting one’s dreams from any intrusion, and it stopped all forms of Traveling in or out of the area except