Morgase realized that she had not considered that. Light, Gaebril can’t still be fogging my mind. She still felt that urge to return to her sitting room, though. It was not he. She had had to concentrate on getting out of the Palace and reaching here. Once she would have gone to Ellorien first, but Pelivar or Arathelle would do. Once she had reasoned out how to explain away their exiles.

Before she could open her mouth, Tallanvor said, “It must be to Gareth Bryne. There is hard feeling against you among the great Houses, my Queen, but with Bryne following you, they will reswear allegiance, if only because they know he will win every battle.”

She clamped her teeth shut to hold back instant refusal. Bryne was a traitor. But he was also one of the finest generals alive. His presence would be a convincing argument when she had to make Pelivar and the rest forget that she had exiled them. Very well. No doubt he would leap at the chance to be Captain-General of the Queen’s Guards once more. And if not, she would manage well enough without him.

When the sun touched the horizon, they were five miles out of Caemlyn and riding hard for Kore Springs.

Night was when Padan Fain felt most comfortable. As he padded through the tapestry-bedecked corridors of the White Tower, it seemed as though the darkness outside made a cloak to hide him from his enemies, despite the stand-lamps, gilded and mirrored, burning along his way. A false feeling, he knew; his enemies were many and everywhere. Right that moment, as in every waking hour, he could feel Rand al’Thor. Not where he was, but that he was still alive, somewhere. Still alive. It was a gift received at Shayol Ghul, in the Pit of Doom, that awareness of al’Thor.

His mind skittered away from memories of what had been done to him in the Pit. He had been distilled there, remade. But later, in Aridhol, he had been reborn. Reborn to smite old enemies and new.

He could feel something else as he stalked the empty night hallways of the Tower, a thing that was his, stolen from him. A sharper desire drew him at this moment than his longing for al’Thor’s death, or the Tower’s destruction, or even revenge against his ancient foe. A hunger to be whole.

The heavy paneled door had thick hinges and iron straps, and a black iron lock set in it as big as his head. Few doors in the Tower were ever locked—who would dare steal in the midst of Aes Sedai?—yet some things the Tower accounted too dangerous to be easily accessible. The most dangerous of all they kept behind this door, guarded by a stout lock.