Chapter Text
I opened my eyes to a familiar sensation: Tel’aran’rhiod, the world of dreams.
Only… it felt different.
The World of Dreams was always strange, always half-aware of itself, but this was more than that. The space responded to me with an immediacy I had never felt before—like the very air waited for my will. The sky above held no stars until I thought of them, and then they shimmered into place, constellations blooming like ink on water. It wasn’t just that I was in the dream. It was as though I had created it.
And standing at the centre of this empty, star-pinned plain—his coat rumpled, expression tight—was Rand.
Not Mierin, not a Forsaken with veiled eyes and honeyed threats. Just Rand al’Thor, the Dragon Reborn, and perhaps one of the few men who would understand what it was I was going through. Somehow, impossibly, I had summoned him here.
Rand looked around slowly, brow furrowing as he stepped forward. “This… isn’t what I am used to from this type scenario,” he said cautiously. “Typically there is much more foreboding and at least a few Forsaken, not just a friend of mine showing up after pulling me into a dream shard.”
I snorted. “Believe me, I didn’t plan it. I only just woke up from falling asleep out in the real world, and now I’m pulling tavern into dream shards like it’s something I meant to do. Or even something I knew how to do.”
Rand’s gaze sharpened. “So it was you.”
“I think so,” I said, frowning as I looked around. “The space… answers to me so far at least. I think this came from the Flame, or maybe the Vault. Light, I don’t know, I didn’t weave anything, I fell asleep with Moiraine, Elayne and Egwene and next thing I know I;’m waking up here, with you already walking toward me.”
Rand looked at me for a long moment, his face spelled with shock while his eyes attempted to remain cool and unreadable. The dream wind didn’t touch him—he seemed to refuse it, in that strange way of his. “What do you mean, you fell asleep with Moiraine? Light, Alex, I knew you had bonded Elayne and Egwene, but you have three women bound to you now? Properly bound? I think… I think we have a lot to catch up on. It wasn’t that long ago that I left Tar Valon with the group heading to Tear, and meanwhile you bond a third woman, Moiraine Damodred, and you go into some Vault?”
I looked around briefly then back to Rand. “Light, you’re right… perhaps some seating would be best for catching up on---well, everything that has happened.” I pictured my room in the Tower, but instead of the bed I was currently sleeping in, I replaced it with a sofa and an armchair, as well as a centre table between them. I moved towards the arm chair, allowing Rand the sofa.
Rand raised an eyebrow as the furnishings shimmered into existence—solid, comfortable, and somewhat unnerving, as we went from standing in a black void with stars to a stone room in Tar Valon. “You’re getting very good at this, very quickly,” he muttered, walking over and dropping onto the sofa with a tired exhale. “This level of control…it’s not something that comes naturally to most.”
“I’m not sure it’s control,” I said as I sank into the chair. “It’s more like the space listens to me, to my thoughts that is. All I did to make this space was think of it. It’s strange, like the space is just an extension of me.” I leaned back trying to suppress the weight behind those words. “Ever since the Vault, the Flame feels…closer to me in a way. And I feel stronger, I have these weaves in my head, and memories that I should have no way of seeing.”
Rand nodded slowly, his fingers steepled under his chin. “Right… and you think that, whatever happened in the Vault, triggered all that?”
“It didn’t just trigger something Rand. It remembered. Or maybe I did. The sphere wasn’t just an artifact—it was a door. A memory. It showed weaves, and people using strange power like I have never seen it before. It was all so… so real. There was this strange language they spoke, a strange language that somehow… made sense to me.”
Rand’s brow furrowed, and he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “You’re tell me you understood a language you’ve never heard before? And that the sphere gave you… what, visions? Memories?”
“Not visions,” I said, shaking your head. “Not exactly. They weren’t shown to me like a viewing. They felt… embedded. Woven into the Pattern through me. The weaves I saw—some of them I didn’t even know I was recreating until my hand were moving as if I already knew the steps. It wasn’t learning… not really… it was remembering. Or being remembered. I don’t know how many of them I absorbed, I likely won’t until I actually test them out. Moiraine and the Tower have already made plans to bring me somewhere that I can test these things safely… at least more safely than if I was to test them here.”
Rand finally spoke again, his voice low. “And they’re just… letting you do this? You touch some ancient sphere and come out with a notebook full of a dead language and lost weaves, with powers no one remembers, and the Tower’s just letting you walk around?”
I gave a tired smile. “They’re watching, make no mistake. But they’re not panicking. Not yet at least. Maybe because I’m still me, or maybe because they think I’m a piece on their board. But Siuan knows better, and the Browns, at least the one who was present in the vault, is more interested in learning and documenting what she and they all can document from a man who can channel without going mad, who burns away the taint on saidin, learns faster than he has any right to, and moves with a power and authority like he is already a king, because those around him treat him like he must become one.”
Rand’s mouth twisted, not quite a frown, not quite a smirk. “Light,” he muttered. “And here I thought I would be the hardest one for the Tower to figure out what to do with.”
I gave a short laugh. “Maybe we should start a club.”
Rand didn’t laugh. He looked at me, really looked, as though trying to see something beneath the surface. “You always had a spark in you Alex. Even back when I found you in the cell in Falme. Sometimes I thought it was just strength, other times stubbornness—but now…” He trailed off, his eyes narrowing slightly. “Now I wonder if you were always meant to wake these things.”
“I don’t know if I was meant to,” I said. “But it’s awake now. And it’s not something I can ignore. The Flame has always been there in my chest, it’s always been a part of me. But what happened in the Vault… it’s like it opened up another part of me. I didn’t need the Vault to cleanse Mierin and separate her from the Shadow, it doesn’t feel like it has changed the Flame… just that it changed something else in me. I feel stronger, and with so much more knowledge than I had before, but its all just, printed on my brain… I can’t recall them all perfectly, but yet I know that they are there when needed.”
Rand leaned back slowly on the sofa, a look of shock crossing his features again as he let the weight of what all I had already revealed settle into him. “Sorry, you managed to free a Forsaken of the Shadow? Not kill them like we did Ishamael atop the tower in Falme, not destroy them like you did the Myrddraal. But freed?”
I met his eyes, not flinching. “Yes. I did. She had been battling against the Shadow for some time now, and she decided to try and flee on her own. They punished her, though, Rand. Seeing her after that… it was scary. So I offered her the Flame, to held sever her final bindings, to free her from the Shadow, and she accepted. It burned her, but the burning healed her soul from what had been done to it. Everything that didn’t belong was burned away. The corruption, the Shadow, the marks on her soul. And what was left—what remained, or perhaps emerged—was someone human. Someone I think was looking for a way out for longer than either of us could possibly fathom.”
Rand was silent for a long while.
His eyes were locked on mine, unreadable—storm-grey glass reflecting starlight. Then slowly, he exhaled, the sound low and never, like the wind shifting across dead grass. “I don’t know whether to call you mad,” he said quietly, “or a bloody miracle.”
I gave him a weary half-smile. “I’ve been called both, even by my betrothed. So you certainly wouldn’t be the first.”
He didn’t return the smile. “You do realize what this means, don’t you? If what you’re saying is true… if Mierin—Lanfear—was truly freed, then… nothing we were told is fixed. You’ve already proven that the madness can be healed, if only by you. Not the taint, which you burn at every turn. And Not even the Forsaken.” He shook his head slowly. “Light, we were taught they chose it. That they wanted to serve the Shadow.”
“Some did, and still do,” I said. “I don’t think that I would be able to do it to a Forsaken if they did not truly choose it. That is why it didn’t turn Mierin to ash like it did the Myrddraal, because she had truly chosen to turn away from the Shadow. But I do not know, and if it is possible, I will try to offer it to the other Forsaken, if they can be redeemed. If they can choose to change.”
Rand gave me a sidelong look, bitter and sharp. “You think they deserve saving?”
“No,” I said softly. “But I think they deserve the chance to be saved. If there’s anything left in them that can be. It is not mine to judge what mistakes a person has made in the past, but I can help them see the error of their ways, and maybe help to make the world better for it.”
He leaned back, folding his arms. “And what if you’re wrong? What if one of them takes that chance and turns it back on you? What if it’s all a game?”
“Then the Flame will burn them,” I said simply. “The Flame doesn’t ask questions, Rand. It reveals what’s there. If what’s underneath is rot, or Shadow, or dark, it won’t survive. If there’s something worth saving… something that chooses to change… then the Pattern gets a second thread where there might only have been ash. As well, it’s not exactly like I am defenceless. Between the skill I have with the sword, and my use of saidin, I would make a fierce opponent to any who would wish to do me, or those I care about, any harm.”
Rand was quiet again. His fingers tapped once against his arm, then stilled. “You sound like an Aes Sedai, or perhaps a king,” he said at last—though not accusingly. More… tiredly. “But one who believes the stories from the Age of Legends. Mercy and fire, all wrapped up in one.”
I shrugged. “Maybe I do, but I think we’ve both seen what happens when the world forgets mercy. And I think we’ve both seen at least some amount of what I am capable of.”
He looked down, then nodded, almost to himself. “Yes.”
The stars outside the window shifted subtly—constellations I didn’t recognize drifting slowly across the sky, though I hadn’t thought for them to change. The Dream responded to us both now, I realized. Not just me.
“Did you say betrothed earlier, by the way?” Rand asked, his grin shifting to mischief as though he was ready and wanting to talk about lighter things
I raised an eyebrow, caught slightly off guard by the shift. “Of everything I just told you, that’s what you’re circling back to?”
Rand leaned forward, propping an elbow on his knee and grinning wider now, real amusement warming his face for the first time since I’d pulled him into the Dream. “Light, Alex, you just said you’re betrothed. As in, formal. Not just bonded. That’s the sort of thing a man tells his friends over a drink, not buried beneath Forsaken redemption arc and ancient power revelations.”
I couldn’t help it—I laughed, long and loud. “You’re not wrong about that.”
“So?” He prompted, eyes dancing with curiosity. “You proposed to all three of them?”
“Technically,” I said, scratching the back of my neck, “I floated the idea to Moiraine, given that she wants me to take the Sun Throne, so it would be advantageous to have the Damodred’s formally tied to me, though, it does help that I love her. Then Elayne and Egwene entered and… I proposed to the room. I told them I didn’t think I had it in me to do it three times separately without the Flame reacting and turning half the Tower either to a pure state with intentions only for the Light, or to ash if they currently served the dark.”
Rand blinked. “Light, you really did it. And to think I was just hardly getting ready to ask you to show me the bonding weave use on Min. What did they say?”
“Elayne said yes,” I answered honestly. “Moiraine also agreed, though she said it was not necessarily the right time for ceremony. And Egwene…” I paused, smiling faintly, “she said she wasn’t ready. But that she loves me, and she’s not ruling it out. She wants me to meet her parents first, and get their approval, in the proper Two Rivers fashion.”
Rand gave a soft whistle. “You’ve gone and made yourself a legend in this world in so many ways already. Flameforged, taint-cleansing miracle worker, redeemer of Forsaken, powerful male channeller, sword-master, soon to be King of Cairhien… and now betrothed to two of the Tower’s finest and the Daughter-Heir of Andor.”
“And don’t forget, friends with the bloody Dragon Reborn, a wolf-brother, and the man who blew the Horn of Valere.”
He grinned. “True. And Light help me, I may be a touch jealous.”
I chuckled. “Don’t think I didn’t hear you say that you are feeling ready to bond Min, has the trip to Tear done that much for the two of you?”
Rand’s grin faltered for just a second, but then he leaned back and let out a soft breath that might’ve been a laugh—or a sigh. “It’s not the road to Tear that has made it easier,” he said. “It’s her. Min sees me more clearly than I see myself some days. She’s not afraid of who I am, or what I might become. She doesn’t flinch when the Power stirs in me, she knows that any of the taint within me will be purged when next I see you, which… does this count?” I gave him a nod and then motioned for him to continue. “Right… Min just… looks. And she knows. Light, sometimes it’s like she was born to anchor me. And I can’t help from wanting to be closer to her.”
Rand’s voice softened near the end, something raw and honest cutting through the usual tension he carried like a cloak. He wasn’t posturing now. Wasn’t the Dragon Reborn or a prince of prophecy. Just Rand al’Thor, a man who was falling n love with a woman who saw him.
I nodded slowly. “Then you should bond her. It certainly brings you closer, being able to see how they are feeling in your mind. Them being able to hear your thoughts if they are strong enough and directed towards them.”
He looked at me sharply. “You say that like it’s simple.”
“It isn’t,” I proclaimed. “It should not be done lightly, as I do not know if it can be undone. But that doesn’t mean it’s wrong. The bond will not solve everything—it does not erase fear, or prophecy, or pain—but it gives you something to stand on. A foundation, and someone to share in your burden, as well as to share the burdens of. And if she is willing to offer that, to accept a bond that you weave, you should take it. Especially now.”
Rand leaned forward again, elbows on knees, his expression distant. “It’s more than just the bond, though. I want her near. Always. But there’s so much I haven’t told her yet. So much I can’t bring myself to tell her. Not until I understand it myself. She deserves more than just the Dragon Reborn with half a storm still brewing in his chest.”
I nodded. “Yes, she deserves the truth,” I said. “And she deserves to make that choice herself. Don’t let fear steal that from her, and do not let your fears steal the opportunity for something more with her. The bond is not something to be entered into lightly, but it is also something that you must enter openly. The weave holds no compulsion, it makes the two of you equals, and as much as you can see her feelings and feel her close to you, she can do the same to you.”
He ran a hand through his hair and gave a rueful laugh. “You really are sounding like a king.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You say that like it’s a bad thing. We will both need to act like kings soon enough, you upon claiming Callandor, and me upon however Moiraine plans to see me named to the Sun Throne… which reminds me… could you please see to it when you wake the Thom be sent back towards us… his presence will help immensely with the plans for Cairhien… I am utterly hopeless at Daes Dae’mar.”
Rand snorted softly, rubbing hand across his mouth to hide the beginning of a grin. “Light, I’ll give you that. Thom’s about as good a player of the Game as I’ve ever met. If he can’t help you in Cairhien, no one can.”
“Exactly,” I said, relaxing back into my chair. “He sees the strings before they’re even pulled. And unlike most nobles, he actually cares about the people holding the other end. Plus… I need to stop in Camelyn before we go to Cairhien. If I am to marry Elayne, I will need her mother’s blessing which means I will need to bow to the mercy of the Lion Throne.”
Rand gave a low, sympathetic whistle. “Elayne’s mother… Morgase Trakand. Light, I don’t envy you that meeting. I have met her only once, and even flanked by it was like my soul was freezing under her glare.”
I chuckled, though there wasn’t much humour in it. “That sounds about right. Elayne says she can be warm, but only when she chooses to be. And she’ll be less than pleased that her daughter bonded to me already, and is now my betrothed all without a formal proposal in front of the halls of Andor—never mind that I’m already also tied to two other women the Tower considers critical to the White Tower’s future, and add on top of all of that, I did not deem it right to introduce myself to her before proposing to her daughter… yes, I can’t see that going poorly at all.”
Rand gave a bark of laughter—sharp and amused. “Light, Alex, when you do something, you really do it all the way.”
“I have a knack for stepping directly into storms and calling it strategy,” I said dryly.
“That’s not strategy,” Rand replied with a crooked grin, “that’s madness dressed in royal colours.”
“Then it’s a good thing I’ve got the Flame to keep me—us—from going mad,” I said with a smirk. “Assuming Morgues doesn’t have me captured and beheaded first.”
Rand shook his head, still chuckling. “You’ll survive it. Barely, perhaps, but if Elayne’s half as determined about you as she is about everything else, her mother will have no choice but to come around.”
I nodded, though a thread of tension stayed wound in my chest. “That’s what I’m counting on. I’ll face Myddraal, Forsaken, the White Tower, even the Pattern itself if I must—but Light help me, I’m not sure anything terrifies me more than meeting my future mother-in-law.”
Rand leaned back again, looking skyward toward the shifting stars of the Dream. “We should write a book. Ta’veren and the Terrifying Mothers.”
I laughed. “Chapter One: Bowing to the Lion. Chapter Two: Holding the Flame in Meeting.”
“And Chapter Three,” Rand said, grinning, “Don’t Channel at the Dinner Table.”
“That might need to be Chapter One, it may be the most important one yet. But, I digress. We only have a limited time here if either of us wants to wake up actually rested, and I do not know how fast you can learn weaves as of yet. If you wish to bond Min at any point before we next see each other, now is the only time we are guaranteed that I will be able to work with you on the weave. If you still wish it?”
Rand’s grin faded, though the warmth in his eyes lingered for a moment longer before giving way to a more thoughtful expression. He straightened, his fingers lacing together in front of him. “Yes,” he said finally. “I do.” There was no hesitation in his voice, but something quieter settled behind it. Not doubt, exactly—more like reverence. Or the weight of a decision long-considered. “I want to be bound to her,” he said. “Not just for what she sees in me. Not for what she might one day know. I want her to feel that I’m with her, even when I am not able to be. Especially when I am not able to be. She deserves that much.”
I nodded once, not speaking for a moment. I stood and the armchair behind me disappeared. The Dream responded to intent more than words, and as I reached for saidin within the dream, the weave came to me like a memory worn into the Pattern, though this was natural given how many times I had used it, and how many women I had bonded to me. The structure of Spirit, woven slowly so Rand could see it in detail, Air and Water surrounding it—complex yet elegant——braided together in equal measure, not to dominate but to connect, to share. Then a single thread of Fire, pulled taught through the centre, before a final open thread of Spirit was made to be connected to the bond receivers heart.
I allowed the weave to hover in the air, and motioned for Rand to stand and inspect it. “This is the structure of the weave,” I said. “We can go through it again until you have it memorized, but you must build it yourself. You must shape it by your intent, your feelings. If you force it—if you don’t mean it—she will know. The weave is silent, but the bond is not.”
Rand stood and the sofa he had been seated on disappeared in turn, the room we had been in expanded, creating more room for him to practice the weave without distraction, allowing for both of our weaves to exist at the same time while still being able to see one another. It also would allow me room to shield Rand should he make a mistake that would turn what he was weaving into something dangerous. Harm done here in the Dream could still have lasting effects in the waking world.
Rand’s eyes scanned each thread of the weave like a man memorizing a map to something sacred. He didn’t speak at first—he just studied it, his expression carved with focus, his brow furrowed in concentration. After a long moment, he raised his hand and embraced saidin. The air thickened, not with weight, but with pressure. I could feel it in the Dream: the storm he always held at bay pressed just beneath the surface. But Rand held it with an iron grip. His threads emerged—rougher than mine, but steady—and he began to mirror the weave I had formed, strand by strand. Spirit came first, strong and unwavering, but hesitant in its motion. He wove slowly, watching the interplay of Air and Water, the restraint in how they enfolded spirit rather than smothered it. His Fire thread flared too brightly at first—a quick surge of heat—but he caught himself, reining it in, weaving it gently through the centre like I had shown him. Not to consume, but to illuminate.
Then came the final thread: the open line of Spirit, the one meant to touch Min’s heart. Rand hesitated here. His breath caught, and his hands trembled—not from a lack of control, but from everything that thread meant. He turned his eyes to me. “And this… will let her feel me?”
I nodded. “If she accepts it, yes. She’ll know when you’re near, and be able to feel how far you are, as well as the general direction you are in. She’ll feel your emotions, and be able to tell if something is wrong. And you will feel hers as well. If it’s too much, it can be masked, by either you or her… with practice. I still have not gotten good at that part yet. She will feel it if you try to shut her from the bond, so be sure to explain to her why you have done it, or she will question whether you regret the bond. That is what Lan warned me of.”
He looked back to the weave, then exhaled softly and let it dissipate, not out of failure, but because he knew he would need to practice it again. But he looked to me for feedback.
“You wove it well, but remember to keep the weave tight, it should feel like one fluid shape. Your hands shook as well, you need to be sure of the weave, and it needs to be a firm and sure in what you are doing. As well, I noticed your thread of Fire blazing harsh, this weave goes against almost every instinct of saidin, the threads are fine, and gentle, where saidin wants to be rough and wild.”
Rand nodded slowly, his expression sober as he listened to my feedback. He didn’t bristle at the critique, didn’t offer excuses—he simply absorbed it, the way a soldier does a lesson learned from a blade too near the ribs. “You’re right,” he said after a moment. “It’s like trying to thread a needle during a thunderstorm.” His hands flexed slightly, remembering the feel of the weave in the air. “Saidin wants to roar, not whisper. It took everything in me not to just… force it into place.”
“That’s the challenge,” I said. “This weave is trust made flesh. You can’t force it into place, because what you’re shaping isn’t power, it’s intention. Bonding someone like Min, someone who already sees too much, can’t be done half-heartedly. She’ll feel every flinch. And she will notice if you are not sure of yourself. So you must be sure. Of your every move, of every bend of a thread. We can stay here and practice until you are sure of it.”
Rand gave a tired chuckle, shaking his head. “Min sees more than I think I’ll ever be ready for. Maybe that’s why I want to do this right. Not just… not just to have her near. But to honour what she already gives me.”
I smelled at that. “Then you’ll do fine. You’re learning. And the first time you weave it for her, when she’s in front of you and looking back at you with nothing but that quiet certainty she always has… it’ll come to you. No amount of practice teaches you that, and it is not something I learned from the Flame, but from the women who have accepted me, and you will from the woman who accepts you.”
Rand glanced at me, and for the first time in a while, there was something close to peace in his expression. “Thank you, Alex.”
“Not thanks needed,” I said. “We’re in this together. And if we’re going to carry the weight we’ve been handed, we might as well make sure each other stands straight under it.”
The Dream stirred faintly around us again—the slow reminder of waking drawing near. Stars drifted above like scattered embers, and I knew this moment was almost over.
“I’ll see to ti that Thom is sent your way,” Rand said, his voice already sounding more distant. “And I’ll be in Tear soon. Light willing, we’ll both still be standing when next we meet.”
I gave a nod, not of farewell, but of understanding. “We will be. And when that day comes, the world will have no idea what’s coming for it.”
Rand’s form shimmered, threads of the Dream unraveling gently around him—until, with a final glimmer, he was gone.
—————————————————————
The warmth of the covers was the first thing I registered, followed by the steady rhythm of another’s breath beside me.
Not Elayne.
The thought came gently, not as a surprise, but recognition. Much like yesterday, it would still be rather odd for a Novice of the White Tower to be sleeping in the room of a man, even if he was technically meant to become her husband in the near future. And so I woke next to Moiraine, the other woman that I would be married to soon.
She lay facing me, hair tousled and half-veiled by the silk of her pillow. Even in her sleep, her presence was composed—still, with a kind of tension resting just beneath the surface, like the pause before a harp string is plucked. But her brow was smooth, untroubled for once. No lines of worry or weight of duty. Her beauty shone through in a different light from this position, the peace that she was experiencing something so foreign and yet it seemed like it was right, how she was meant to be. Her hand rested upon my chest, touching me softly, allowing me to feel the warmth radiating from her. The bond hummed softly—steady and cool, like mountain spring water. I reached for it lightly with my thoughts, not to intrude, but to try to listen. I gathered that she was dreaming of home, or at least, something like it. Something far way, and yet wrapped in the same calm that filled the room.
I didn’t dare to move. The silence was so peaceful, the moment too rare. I let it wash over me as I relaxed next to my betrothed, and I let out a slow breath. The Dream with Rand had been heavy, but this… this was a world worth waking for. Not thrones or prophecies or the weight of impossible power. Just this: a quiet morning, and the woman beside me who had seen my worst and still chosen to stay, and not just that, but to share the burdens of my life such that they might not be so heavy on me anymore.
I turned my head slightly and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. She didn’t stir, but her fingers curled faintly against my chest, as though some part of her felt it even in sleep. I stayed like that a while longer, letting my thoughts drift—through the Vault and all that it had implied, through Cairhien and Camelyn and all the places duty would soon pull me—but always, inevitable, back to her. Back to this.
Eventually, I eased myself from beneath the covers with practice care, making sure not to wake Moiraine. The morning light was just beginning to spread through the window, a pale sliver of gold breaking against the cold stone walls of the Tower. I moved quietly, wrapping myself in the nearest robe, though I did not remember having one before, and then paused as something caught my eye.
A note.
It rested neatly on the polished writing desk by the door, folded once with precision and sealed in a rose-colored wax. Pressed with Elayne’s seal. The sight of it brought an involuntary smile to my lips.
I stepped over, broke the seal, and read:
My heart,
I’m sorry I couldn’t stay the night. I wanted to, more than I can say. But Novices disappearing
to someone else’s chambers for a night would raise questions, and I would rather the Tower not start
watching our moves even more closely than they already are. They already watch in awe of you enough,
and I fear that if they were to focus anymore, it may start to burn.
Know that I didn’t leave for a lack of want. I left because I love you—and because I look forward to the
day when I don’t have to leave again.
I’ll find you as soon as I am able. Save a moment for me.
Yours, always,
——Elayne
I folded the note and held it for a moment longer, feeling the weight of the words even after they’d stopped echoing in my head. I set it down beside the bed, within easy reach for when Moiraine stirred. She would want to read it, and Elayne had likely already known that too. Then I turned, looking once more at the woman still sleeping in my bed. Two of the bonds I shared, two of the promises I intended to keep. I could feel Egwene and Elayne already awake and moving, Egwene a few levels above where I sat, and Elayne below, likely tending to a garden. The Dream had been an interesting exchange of information, but it could wait to be told to those I was bonded to. For now, this was enough.