He sat on a great gilded throne that seemed made entirely of Dragons, in a red coat worked heavily with gold, holding some sort of green-and-white tasseled spearhead of all things. Another throne stood on a tall pedestal behind him, gilded also, but with a lion picked out in white gemstones against red. The Lion Throne, so the rumors said. At that moment, he could have been using it for a footstool for all she cared. He looked tired. He was so beautiful, her heart ached. Images danced around him continuously. With Aes Sedai and Warders, that deluge was something she tried to escape; she could not tell what they meant any more often than with anyone else, but they were always there. With Rand, she had to make herself see them, because otherwise she would just stare at his face. One of those images she had seen every time she saw him. Countless thousands of sparkling lights, like stars or fireflies, rushed into a great blackness, trying to fill it up, rushed in and were swallowed. There seemed to be more lights than she had ever seen before, but the darkness swallowed them at a greater rate, too. And there was something else, something new, an aura of yellow and brown and purple that made her stomach clench.

She tried viewing the nobles facing him—surely that was what they were, in all those fine embroidered coats and rich silk gowns—but there was nothing to see. That was true of most people most of the time, and when she did see something, most often she had no notion what it foretold. Even so, she narrowed her eyes, straining. If she could make out just one image, one aura, it might be a help to him. From the stories she had heard since entering Andor, he could use all the help he could find.

With a heavy sigh, she gave it up finally. Squinting and straining did no good unless there was something to see in the first place.

Suddenly she realized the nobles were withdrawing, Rand was on his feet, and Enaila was waving, motioning her to enter. Rand was smiling. Min thought her heart might burst out of her chest. So this was what it felt like for all those women she had laughed at, throwing themselves at a man’s feet. No. She was not a giddy girl; she was older than he, she had had her first kiss while he still thought getting out of tending sheep was the most fun in the world, she. . . . Light, please, don’t let my knees give way.