Her sniff said volumes, but of course she did not leave it at that. “You know less than a boy of six. Why does a man listen to his second-mother before his own mother, and a woman to her second-father before her own? When can a woman marry a man without making a bridal wreath? When must a roofmistress obey a blacksmith? If you take a silversmith gai’shain, why must you let her work one day for herself for each she works for you? Why is the same not true of a weaver?” He floundered for answers short of admitting he did not know, but she suddenly fiddled with her shawl as if she had forgotten him. “Sometimes ji’e’toh makes for very great jokes. I would laugh my sides apart if I were not the butt of this one.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I will meet my toh.”

He thought she was talking to herself, but he answered. Carefully. “If you mean about Lanfear, it wasn’t me who saved you. Moiraine did. She died saving all of us.” Laman’s sword had rid her of her only other toh to him, though he had never been able to understand what that was. The only obligation she knew. He prayed she never learned of the other; she would see it as one, though he certainly did not.

Aviendha peered at him, head tilted and a slight smile flickering on her lips. She had regained a self-possession that would have done Sorilea proud. “Thank you, Rand al’Thor. Bair says it is well to be reminded now and then that a man does not know everything. Be sure to let me know when you mean to go to sleep. I would not come late and wake you.”

Rand sat there staring at the door after she had gone. A Cairhienin playing the Game of Houses was usually easier to understand than any woman making no effort to be enigmatic at all. He suspected that what he felt for Aviendha, whatever that was, tangled things up worse.

What I love, I destroy, Lews Therin laughed. What I destroy, I love.

Shut up! Rand thought furiously, and the thin-edged laughter vanished. He did not know who he loved, but he knew who he was going to save. From whatever he could, but from him most of all.