“Except for a little trouble she and Nynaeve have with pots at the moment,” Sheriam began, but Siuan broke in harshly.

“Why are you all jabbering like brainless girls? It’s too late to be afraid of going on. It has begun; you began it. Either you finish, or Romanda will hang the lot of you in the sun to dry right alongside this girl, and Delana and Faiselle and the rest of the Hall will be there with her to stretch you out.”

Sheriam and Myrelle turned to face her almost together. All the Aes Sedai did, Morvrin and Carlinya twisting in their chairs. Cold Aes Sedai eyes stared from cold Aes Sedai faces.

At first Siuan met those stares with a challenging stare of her own, as Aes Sedai as they if seemingly much younger. Then her head fell a little, and spots of color entered her cheeks. She rose from her chair, eyes down. “I spoke in haste,” she muttered softly. Those eyes did not change—maybe the Aes Sedai failed to notice, but Egwene saw—yet that was still not like Siuan.

Egwene also saw that she did not know what was going on here at all. Not just Siuan Sanche meek as milk; if she was pushed to it, anyway. That least of all. What had they begun? Why would she be hung out to dry if they stopped?

The Aes Sedai exchanged looks as unreadable as Aes Sedai could make them. Morvrin was the first to nod.

“You have been summoned for a very special reason, Egwene,” Sheriam said solemnly.

Egwene’s heart began to beat faster. They did not know about her. They did not. But what?

“You,” Sheriam said, “are to be the next Amyrlin Seat.”

CHAPTER
35

In the Hall of the Sitters

Egwene stared at Sheriam, wondering whether she was supposed to laugh. Maybe in her time with the Aiel she had forgotten what passed for humor among Aes Sedai. Sheriam stared back with that ageless, imperturbable face, tilted green eyes not seeming to blink. Egwene looked at the others. Seven faces with no expression, just an air of waiting. Siuan might have been smiling faintly, but the “smile” could as easily have been the natural curve of her lips. Wavering lamplight made their features suddenly strange and inhuman.

Egwene’s head felt light, her knees weak. Without thinking she let herself thump down in the straight-backed chair. She stood right up again, too. That certainly cleared her mind; a little, anyway. “I am not even Aes Sedai,” she said breathlessly. That seemed noncommittal enough. It had to be some sort of joke, or . . . or . . . or something.

“That can be gotten around,” Sheriam said firmly, jerking the bow of her pale blue sash tighter for emphasis.