“If the two of you feel you are first-sisters,” Chiad said, “you should go to your Wise Ones and speak the words. But you are Wise Ones, though young. I do not know how it would be done in that case.”

Egwene did not know whether to laugh or blush. She kept having an image of her and Elayne sharing the same man. No, that is only for first-sisters who are Maidens of the Spear. Isn’t it? Elayne did have spots of color in her cheeks, and Egwene was sure she was thinking of Rand. But we do not share him, Elayne. We can neither of us have him.

Elayne cleared her throat. “I do not think there is a need for that, Chiad. Egwene and I already guard each other’s backs.”

“How can that be?” Chiad asked slowly. “You are not wedded to the spear. And you are Wise Ones. Who would lift a hand against a Wise One? This confuses me. What need have you for guarding of backs?”

Egwene was spared having to come up with an answer by their arrival at the copse. There were two more Aiel under the trees, deep into the thicket, but next to the river. Jolien, of the Salt Flat sept of the Nakai Aiel, a blue-eyed woman with red-gold hair nearly the color of Elayne’s, was watching over Dailin, of Aviendha’s sept and clan. Sweat matted Dailin’s hair, making it a darker red, and she only opened her gray eyes once, when they first came near, then closed them again. Her coat and shirt lay beside her, and red stained the bandages wrapped around her middle.

“She took a sword,” Aviendha said. “Some of those fools that the oath-breaking treekillers call soldiers thought we were another handful of the bandits who infest this land. We had to kill them to convince them otherwise, but Dailin. . . . Can you heal her, Aes Sedai?”

Nynaeve went to her knees beside the injured woman and lifted the bandages enough to peer under them. She winced at what she saw. “Have you moved her since she was hurt? There is scabbing, but it has been broken.”

“She wanted to die near water,” Aviendha said. She glanced once at the river, then quickly away again. Egwene thought she might have shivered, too.

“Fools!” Nynaeve began rummaging in her pouch of herbs. “You could have killed her moving her with an injury like that. She wanted to die near water!” she said disgustedly. “Just because you carry weapons like men doesn’t mean you have to think like them.” She pulled a deep wooden cup out of the bag and pushed it at Chiad. “Fill that. I need water to mix these so she can drink them.”

Chiad and Bain stepped to the river’s edge and returned together. Their faces never changed, but Egwene thought they had almost expected the river to reach up and grab them.