laughing and dancing.
Gawyn was in the Aes Sedai camp. She said that she'd chosen the Green for its aggressive determination—it was the Battle Ajah. But a more secret, more honest, part of herself admitted that Gawyn was a motivation for her decision as well. Among the Green Ajah, marrying one's Warder was common. Egwene would have Gawyn for her Warder. And her husband.
She loved him. She would bond him. Those desires of her heart were less important than the fate of the world, true, but they were still important.
Egwene rose from the steps as her dress transformed back into the white and silver gown of the Amyrlin. She took a step forward and let the world shift.
She stood before the White Tower. She turned her eyes high, running them along the length of the delicate—yet still powerful—white spire. Though the sky bubbled in black turmoil, something cast a shadow from the Tower, and it fell directly on Egwene. Was this a vision of some sort? The Tower dwarfed her, and she felt its weight, as if she were holding it up herself. Pushing on those walls, keeping them from cracking and tumbling.
She stood for a long while there, sky boiling, the Tower's perfect spire throwing its shadow down on Egwene. She stared up at its peak, trying to decide if it was time to just let it fall.
No, she thought again. No, not quite yet. A few more days.
She closed her eyes, then opened them to blackness. Her body suddenly exploded with pain, her backside pounded raw from the strap, her arms and legs cramped from being forced to lie curled in the small room. It smelled of old straw and mold, and she knew that if her nose hadn't been used to it, she would have smelled the stench of her own unwashed body as well. She stifled a groan—there were women outside, guarding her and maintaining her shield. She wouldn't let them hear her offer complaint, not even in the form of a groan.
She sat up, wearing the same novice dress that she'd worn to Elaida's dinner party. The sleeves of the dress were stiff with dried blood, and this cracked as she moved, scraping against her skin. She was parched; they never gave her enough water. But she did not complain. No yells, no cries, no begging. She forced herself to sit up despite the pain, smiling to herself at how it felt. She crossed her legs, then leaned back and—one by one—stretched the muscles in her arms. Then she stood and stooped over, stretching her back and shoulders. Finally, she lay down on her back and stretched her legs up into the air, cringing as they complained. She needed to remain limber. Pain was nothing. Nothing at all compared with the danger the White Tower was in.
She sat back down, cross-legged, and took deep breaths, repeating to herself that she wanted to be locked in this room. She could escape if she wished, but she remained. By remaining she undermined Elaida. By remaining she proved that some would not bow and quietly accept the fall of the White Tower. This imprisonment meant something.
The words, repeated in her head, helped stave off the panic at considering yet another day within this cell. What would she have done without the nightly dreams to keep her sane? Again, she thought of poor Rand, locked away. She and he shared something now. A kinship beyond a common childhood in the Two Rivers. They had both suffered Elaida's punishments. And it hadn't broken either of them.
There was nothing to do but wait. Around noon, they would open the doors and drag her out to be beaten. It wouldn't be Silviana who did the punishing. Giving the beatings was seen as a reward, compensation to the Red sisters for having to spend all day sitting in the dungeons guarding her.
After the beating, Egwene would go back in the cell and be given a bowl of tasteless gruel. Day after day it was the same. But she would not break, particularly not while she could spend the nights in Tel'aran'rhiod. In fact, in many ways, those were her days—spent free and active—while these were her nights, in inactive darkness. She told herself that.
The morning passed slowly. Eventually, iron keys clanked as one turned in the ancient lock. The door opened, and a pair of slender Red sisters stood outside, barely silhouettes, the light so unfamiliar to Egwene that she couldn't make out their