“No!” Liandrin’s short, honey-colored braids swung as her head snapped around. “Always you kill too quickly, and only the Great Lord can make use of the dead.” She smiled at the woman held to the chair by invisible bonds. “You saw the soldiers who came with us, old woman. You know who waits for us in the Stone. The High Lord Samon, he will not be pleased if you speak of what happened inside your house today. If you hold your tongue, you will live, perhaps to serve him again one day. If you speak, you will serve only the Great Lord of the Dark, from beyond the grave. Which do you choose?”

Suddenly Ailhuin could move her head. She shook her gray curls, working her mouth. “I. . . . I will hold my tongue,” she said dejectedly, then gave Nynaeve an embarrassed, shamed look. “If I speak, what good will it do? A High Lord could have my head by raising an eyebrow. What good can I do you, girl? What good?”

“It is all right,” Nynaeve said wearily. Who could she tell? All she could do is die. “I know you would help if you could.” Rianna threw back her head and laughed. Ailhuin slumped, released completely, but she only sat there, staring at her hands in her lap.

Between them, Liandrin and Rianna pulled Nynaeve to her feet and pushed her toward the front of the house. “You give us any trouble,” the black-haired woman said in a hard voice, “and I will make you peel off your own skin and dance in your bones.”

Nynaeve almost laughed. What trouble could I give? She was shielded from the True Source. Her bruises ached so much she could barely stand. Anything she might do, they could handle like a child’s tantrum. But my bruises will heal, burn you, and you’ll make a slip yet! And when you do. . . .

There were others in the front room of the house. Two big soldiers in rimmed, round helmets and shiny breastplates over those puffy-sleeved red coats. The two men had sweat on their faces, and their dark eyes rolled as if they were as afraid as she. Amico Nagoyin was there, slender and pretty with her long neck and pale skin, looking as innocent as a girl gathering flowers. Joiya Byir had a friendly face despite that smooth-cheeked calm of a woman who had worked long with the Power, almost a grandmother’s face in its welcoming appearance, though her age had put no touch of gray in her dark hair, any more than it had wrinkled her skin. Her gray eyes looked more like those of the stepmother in the stories, the one who murdered the children of her husband’s first wife. Both women shone with the Power.