For an instant, Cadsuane frowned at the other Green. Stronger? The young man’s shirt was beginning to cling damply to his back, while Lan appeared not to have broken his first sweat. Then she understood. Merise meant in the Power. Cadsuane only raised a questioning eyebrow, though. She could not recall the last time she had let shock reach her face. It might have been all those years ago, in the Black Hills, when she began earning the ornaments she now wore.

“At first, I thought the way these Asha’man train, the forcing, had pushed him to his full strength already,” Merise said, frowning down at the two men working their practice blades. No; it was at Jahar she was frowning. Just a faint crinkle of her eyes, but she reserved her frowns for those who could see and know her displeasure. “At Shadar Logoth, I thought I must be imagining it. Three or four days ago, I was half convinced I was mistaken. Now, I am sure I am correct. If men gain strength by fits and starts, there is no saying how strong he will become.”

She did not voice her obvious worry, of course: that he might grow stronger than she. Saying such a thing would have been unthinkable on many different levels, and while Merise had become somewhat accustomed to doing the unthinkable—most sisters would faint at the very idea of bonding a man who could channel—she was never comfortable giving them voice. Cadsuane was, yet she kept her voice neutral. Light, but she hated being delicate. Hated the necessity, anyway.

“He seems content, Merise.” Merise’s Warders always seemed content; she handled them well.

“He is in a fury of…” The other woman touched the side of her head as though fingering the bundle of sensations she felt through the bond. She really was upset! “Not rage. Frustration.” Reaching into her green worked-leather belt pouch, she took out a small enameled pin, a sinuous figure in red and gold, like a snake with legs and a lion’s mane. “I do not know where the al’Thor lad got this, but he gave it to Jahar. Apparently, for Asha’man, it is akin to attaining the shawl. I had to take it away, of course; Jahar, he is still at the stage where he has to learn to accept only what I say he can. But he is so agitated over the thing.… Should I give it back to him? In a way, it would come from my hand, then.”

Cadsuane’s eyebrows began to climb before she could control them. Merise was asking advice about one of her Warders? Of course, Cadsuane had suggested she sound the man out in the first place, but this degree of intimacy was … Unthinkable? Phaw! “I’m sure whatever you decide will be correct.”