Siuan gave a reluctant nod. Her mouth almost looked sullen. Egwene suspected she had been wise to add “notes” and “hints.” Leaving the onetime Amyrlin Seat looking like a sulky girl, she climbed smoothly into Bela’s saddle.

She had to walk the stout mare, at first, because of the frozen ruts in the camp’s streets. And because everyone would wonder if they saw Siuan riding Bela at anything faster than a walk. She tried to ride like Siuan, swaying uncertainly, clinging to the saddle’s tall pommel with one hand and sometimes both. It made her feel as if she were about to fall off, too. Bela twisted her head around to look at her. She knew who was on her back, and she knew Egwene rode better than this. Egwene continued to imitate Siuan and tried not to think about where the sun stood. All the way out of the camp, beyond the rows of wagons, until the first trees hid her from tents and wagons.

Then she bent over the pommel to press her face into Bela’s mane. “You carried me away from the Two Rivers,” she whispered. “Can you run as fast now?” Straightening, she dug in her heels.

Bela could not gallop like Daishar, but her sturdy legs churned through the snow. She had been a carthorse, once, not a racer or warhorse, but she gave what she had, stretching out her neck as bravely as Daishar ever could. Bela raced, and the sun slid lower as if the sky had suddenly become greased. Egwene lay low in the saddle and urged the mare on. A race with the sun that Egwene knew she could not win. But even if she could not beat the sun, there was still time. She thumped her heels in time with Bela’s hooves, and Bela ran.

Twilight rolled over them, and then darkness, before Egwene saw the moon glinting on the water of the Erinin. Still time. It was almost the spot where she had sat Daishar with Gareth, watching the riverships slide toward Tar Valon. Reining Bela in, she listened.

Stillness. And then a muffled curse. The quiet grunts and scrapes of men dragging a heavy burden across the snow and trying for silence. She turned Bela through the trees toward the sounds. Shadows stirred, and she heard the soft whisper of steel sliding from scabbards.

Then a man muttered, not far enough under his breath, “I know that pony. It’s one of the sisters. The one they say used to be Amyrlin. She doesn’t look it to me. No older’n the one they say’s Amyrlin now.”

“Bela is not a pony,” Egwene said crisply. “Take me to Bode Cauthon.”