"I do hope", Rand said. "I hope for the world, for you, for everyone who must fight. That does not change the fact that I have accepted my own death".
"Enough", she said. "No more talk of this. Tonight, I will have a quiet dinner with the man I love".
Rand sighed, but rose, seating himself in the chair beside hers as she called to the guards at the tent flap for their meal.
"Can we at least discuss tactics?" Rand asked. "I am truly impressed by what you’ve done here. I don’t think I could have done a better job".
"The great captains did most of it".
"I saw your annotations", Rand said. "Bashere and the others are wonderful generals, geniuses even, but they think only of their specific battles. Someone needs to coordinate them, and you are doing that marvelously. You have a head for this".
"No, I don’t", Elayne said. "What I do have is a lifetime spent as the Daughter-Heir of Andor, being trained for wars that might come. Thank General Bryne and my mother for what you see in me. Did you find anything in my notes that you would change?"
"There is more than a hundred and fifty miles between Caemlyn and Braem Wood, where you plan to ambush the Shadow", Rand noted. "That’s risky. What if your forces get overrun before they reach the Wood?"
"Everything depends on them beating the Trollocs to the Wood. Our harrying forces will be using the strongest, fastest mounts available. It will be a grueling race, there’s no question, and the horses will be near death by the time they reach the Wood. But we are hoping that the Trollocs will be the worse for wear by then as well, which should make our job easier".
They talked tactics, and evening became night. Servants arrived with dinner, broth and wild boar. Rand had wished to keep his presence in the camp quiet, but there was nothing for that now that the servants knew.
He settled himself to dine, and let himself flow into the conversation with Elayne. Which battlefield was in the most danger? Which of the great captains should she champion when they disagreed, which they often did? How would this all work with Rand’s army, which still waited for the right time to attack Shayol Ghul?
The conversation reminded him of their time in Tear, stealing hidden kisses in the Stone between sessions of political training. Rand had fallen in love with her during those days. Real love. Not the admiration of a boy falling off a wall, looking at a princess—back then, he hadn’t understood love any more than a farmboy swinging a sword understood war.
Their love was born of the things they shared. With Elayne, he could speak of politics and the burden of rule. She understood. She truly did, better than anyone he knew. She knew what it was to make decisions that changed the lives of thousands. She understood what it was to be owned by the people of a nation. Rand found it remarkable that, though they had often been apart, their connection held. In fact, it felt even stronger. Now that Elayne was queen, now that they shared the children growing within her. "You wince", Elayne said.
Rand looked up from his broth. Elayne’s dinner was half-finished—he had been making her speak a great deal. She seemed through anyway, and held a warm cup of tea.
"I what?" Rand asked.
"You wince. When I mentioned the contingents fighting for Andor, you flinched, just a little".
It was not surprising she had noticed—Elayne had been the one to teach him to watch for minor tells in the expressions of those with whom he spoke.
"All of these people fight under my name", Rand said. "So many people I do not even know will die for me".
"That has ever been the burden of a ruler at war".
"I should be able to protect them", Rand said.
"If you think you can protect everyone, Rand al’Thor, you are far less wise than you pretend".
He looked at her, meeting her eyes. "I don’t believe I can, but their deaths weigh on me. I feel as if I should be able to do more, now that I remember. He tried to break me, and he failed".
"Is that what happened that day atop Dragonmount?"
He hadn’t spoken of it to anyone. He pulled his seat closer to hers. "Up there, I realized that I had been thinking too much on strength. I wanted to be hard, so hard. In driving myself so, I risked losing the ability to care. That was wrong. For me to win, I must care. That, unfortunately, means I must allow myself pain at their deaths".
"And you remember Lews Therin now?" she whispered. "Everything he knew? That is not just an air you put on?"
"I am him. I always was. I remember it now".
Elayne breathed out, eyes widening. "What an advantage". Of all the people he had told that to, only she had responded in such a way. What a wonderful woman.
"I have all of this knowledge, yet it doesn’t tell me what to do". He stood up, pacing. "I should be able to fix it, Elayne. No more should need to die for me. This is my fight. Why must everyone else go through such suffering?"
"You deny us the right to fight?" she said, sitting up straight.
"No, of course not", Rand said. "I could deny you nothing. I just wish that somehow . . . somehow I could make this all stop. Shouldn’t my sacrifice be enough?"