“I think Min had a viewing,” Elayne went on. “About me, and about Rand. She always used to joke about having to share him, but I think it wasn’t a joke and she could not bring herself to say what it really was.”

“That is ridiculous.” It certainly was. Though in Tear, Aviendha had told her of a vile Aiel custom. . . . You share Lan with Moiraine, a small voice whispered. That isn’t the same thing at all! she told it briskly. “Are you certain Min had one of her visions?”

“Yes. I wasn’t at first, but the more I think on it, the more sure I become. She joked about it too often to mean anything else.”

Well, whatever Min had seen, Rand was no Aiel. Oh, his blood might be Aiel as the Wise Ones claimed, but he had grown up in the Two Rivers, and she would not stand by and let him take up wicked Aiel ways. She doubted very much that Elayne would, either. “Is that why you’ve been—” She would not say throwing yourself at “—teasing Thom?”

Elayne gave her a sidelong glance, the crimson back in her cheeks. “There are a thousand leagues between us, Nynaeve. Do you think Rand is refraining from looking at other women? ‘A man is a man, on a throne or in a pigsty.’ ” She had a stock of homely sayings from her childhood nurse, a clearheaded woman named Lini whom Nynaeve wished she would meet one day.

“Well, I don’t see why you have to flirt just because you think Rand might.” She refrained from bringing up Thom’s age again. Lan is old enough to be your father, that small voice murmured. I love Lan. If I can only reason out how to get him free of Moiraine. . . . That is not the matter at hand! “Thom is a man with secrets, Elayne. Remember that Moiraine sent him with us. Whatever he is, he is no simple country gleeman.”

“He was a great man,” Elayne said softly. “He could have been greater, except for love.”

With that, Nynaeve’s temper snapped. She rounded on the other woman, seizing her by the shoulders. “The man doesn’t know whether to turn you over his knee or . . . or . . . climb a tree!”

“I know.” Elayne gave a frustrated sigh. “But I do not know what else to do.”

Nynaeve ground her teeth in the effort not to shake her until her skull rattled. “If your mother heard of this, she’d send Lini to haul you back to the nursery!”

“I am not a child any longer, Nynaeve.” Elayne’s voice was strained, and now the flush in her cheeks was not embarrassment. “I am as much a woman as my mother is.”

Nynaeve stalked on toward Mardecin, gripping her braid so hard that her knuckles hurt.