Elayne blinked, then laughed again, and after a startled glance, Aviendha joined in. It was not that funny, except maybe to an Aiel—Aviendha’s sense of humor was very odd—but Elayne could not stop laughing, and Aviendha seemed as helpless. Shaking with mirth, they hugged one another and hung on. Life was very strange. Had anyone told her a few years ago that she would share a man with another woman—with two other women!—she would have called them mad. The very idea would have been indecent. But she loved Aviendha every bit as much as she did Rand, only in a different way, and Aviendha loved Rand as much as she did. Denying that meant denying Aviendha, and she could as easily step out of her skin. Aiel women, sisters or close friends, often married the same man, and seldom gave him any say in the matter. She was going to marry Rand, and so was Aviendha, and so was Min. Whatever anyone said or thought, that was all there was to it. If he lived long enough.

Suddenly she became afraid that her laughter was edging toward tears. Please, Light, let her not be one of those women who became weepy when they were with child. It was bad enough not knowing whether she was going to be melancholy or furious from one minute to the next. Hours might pass when she felt perfectly normal, but then there were hours when she felt like a child’s ball bouncing down an endless flight of stairs. This morning, she seemed to be on the stairs.

“He is well, and he will be well,” Aviendha whispered fiercely, as if she intended to assure his survival by killing anything that threatened him.

With the tips of her fingers, Elayne brushed a tear from her sister’s cheek. “He is well, and he will be well,” she agreed softly. But they could not kill saidin, and the taint on the male half of the Power was what was going to kill him.