The Gathering Storm - By Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson Page 0,56

rooms the size that novices used.

That would leave the Browns divided, half in the wing, half in their old location—with a clump of novices in the middle of them. A division aptly representative of the less-visible divisions the Ajahs were suffering.

Eventually, exhausted, Egwene and the others were sent off to sleep—though now she had to trudge up many flights of stairs before reaching her bed.

CHAPTER 7

The Plan for Arad Doman

“A storm is coming,” Nynaeve said, looking out the window of the manor.

“Yes,” replied Daigian from her chair by the hearth without bothering to glance at the window. “I think you might be right, dear. I swear, it seems as if it has been overcast for weeks!”

“It has been a single week,” Nynaeve said, holding her long, dark braid in one hand. She glanced at the other woman. “I haven’t seen a patch of clear sky in over ten days.”

Daigian frowned. Of the White Ajah, she was plump and curvaceous. She wore a small stone on her forehead as Moiraine had so long ago, though Daigian’s was an appropriately white moonstone. The tradition apparently had something to do with being a Cairhien noblewoman, as did the four colored slashes the woman wore on her dress.

“Ten days, you say?” Daigian said. “Are you certain?”

Nynaeve was. She paid attention to the weather; that was one of the duties of a village Wisdom. She was Aes Sedai now, but that didn’t mean she stopped being who she was. The weather was always there, in the back of her mind. She could sense the rain, sun, or snow in the wind’s whispers.

Lately, however, the sensations hadn’t been like whispers at all. More like distant shouts, growing louder. Or like waves crashing against one another, still far to the north, yet harder and harder to ignore.

“Well,” Daigian said, “I’m certain this isn’t the only time in history that it has been cloudy for ten days!”

Nynaeve shook her head, tugging on her braid. “It’s not normal,” she said. “And those overcast skies aren’t the storm I’m talking about. It’s still distant, but it’s coming. And it is going to be terrible. Worse than any I’ve ever seen. Far worse.”

“Well, then,” Daigian said, sounding slightly uncomfortable, “we will deal with it when it arrives. Are you going to sit down so that we can continue?”

Nynaeve glanced at the plump Aes Sedai. Daigian was extremely weak in the Power. The White might just be the weakest Aes Sedai that Nynaeve had ever met. By traditional—yet unspoken—rules, that meant that Nynaeve should be allowed to take the lead.

Unfortunately, Nynaeve’s position was still questionable. Egwene had raised her to the shawl by decree, just as she’d raised Elayne: there had been no testing, nor had Nynaeve sworn on the Oath Rod. To most—even those who accepted Egwene’s place as the true Amyrlin—those omissions made Nynaeve something less than Aes Sedai. Not an Accepted, but hardly equal to a sister.

The sisters with Cadsuane were particularly bad, as they hadn’t declared for either the White Tower or the rebels. And the sisters sworn to Rand were worse; most were still loyal to the White Tower, not seeing a problem with supporting both Elaida and Rand. Nynaeve still wondered what Rand had been thinking, allowing sisters to swear fealty to him. She’d explained his mistake to him on several occasions—quite rationally—but talking to Rand these days was like talking to a stone. Only less effective and infinitely more infuriating.

Daigian was still waiting for her to sit. Rather than provoke a contest of wills, Nynaeve did so. Daigian was still suffering from having lost her Warder—Eben, an Asha’man—during the fight with the Forsaken. Nynaeve had spent that fight completely absorbed by providing Rand with immense amounts of saidar to weave.

Nynaeve could still remember the sheer joy—the awesome euphoria, strength, and sheer feel of life—that had come from drawing that much power. It frightened her. She was glad the ter’angreal she’d used to touch that power had been destroyed.

But the male ter’angreal was still intact: an access key to a powerful sa’angreal. As far as Nynaeve knew, Rand had not been able to persuade Cadsuane to return it to him. As well she shouldn’t. No human being, not even the Dragon Reborn, should channel that much of the One Power. The things one could be tempted to do. . . .

She’d told Rand that he needed to forget about the access key. Like talking to a stone. A big, red-haired, iron-faced idiot of a stone. Nynaeve