“A proposal has been laid before the Hall,” Egwene repeated into the silence. After that Power-magnified blare, her voice rang in her own ears. Perhaps it had been louder than she thought. That weave had never been intended for use inside walls, even patched canvas walls. “How speak you in support of an alliance with the Black Tower, Moria?” She sat down as soon as she finished. How did she stand on this? What difficulties would it present her? How could it be used to advantage? The Light help her, indeed. Those were the first two things to come to mind. She wished Sheriam would dry her eyes and straighten her backbone. She was the Amyrlin Seat, and she needed a Keeper, not a milksop.

It took a few minutes for order to restore itself, Sitters straightening clothes and smoothing skirts unnecessarily, avoiding each other’s eyes and especially not looking at the watching sisters crowded behind the benches. Some Sitters’ faces became stained with red that had nothing to do with anger. Sitters did not shriek at one another like farmhands at shearing. Most especially not in front of other sisters.

“We do be faced with two seemingly insurmountable difficulties,” Moria said finally. Her voice was composed and cool once more, but a hint of flush still hung in her cheeks. “The Forsaken have discovered a weapon—discovered or uncovered; they surely would have used it before now, had they possessed it—a weapon we can no counter. A weapon we can no match, though the Light do know why we would wish to, but most importantly, a weapon we can neither survive nor stop. At the same time, the … Asha’man … have grown like weeds. Reliable reports do put their numbers at nearly equal to all the Aes Sedai living. Even if that number do be inflated, we can no afford to believe it exaggerated far. And more men come every day. The eyes-and-ears do be too consistent to believe anything else. We should take these men and gentle them, of course, but we have ignored them because of the Dragon Reborn. We have put them off, to be dealt with later. The bitter truth do be that it be too late to try taking them. They do be too many. Maybe it did be too late when we did first learned what they were doing.