“Burn her!” Nynaeve growled, channeling fiercely. “Burn her forever for doing this!” Elayne recognized the flows being woven for Healing, but recognition was as far as she could go. “I will find her, Birgitte,” Nynaeve muttered. Strands of Spirit predominated, but Water and Air were in there, and even Earth and Fire. It looked as complicated as embroidering one dress with either hand, and two more with your feet. Blindfolded. “I will make her pay.” The glow shining about Nynaeve grew and grew, until it overwhelmed the lamps, until it hurt to look at her except through slitted eyes. “I swear it! By the Light and my hope of salvation and rebirth, I will!” The anger in her voice changed, becoming deeper if anything. “It isn’t working. There is nothing wrong with her to Heal. She is as perfect as anyone can be. But she is dying. Oh, Light, I can feel her slipping away. Burn Moghedien! Burn her! And burn me along with her!” She was not giving up, though. The weaving continued, complex flows weaving into Birgitte. And the woman lay there, golden braid flung over the side of the bed, the rise and fall of her chest slowing.

“I can do something that might help,” Elayne said slowly. You were supposed to have permission, but it had not always been so. Once it had been done almost as often without as with. There was no reason it should not work on a woman. Except that she had never heard of it being done to any but men.

“Linking?” Nynaeve did not look away from the woman on the bed, or stop her efforts with the Power. “Yes. You will have to do it—I don’t know how—but let me guide. I do not know half what I am doing right this minute, but I know that I can do it. You could not Heal a bruise.”

Elayne’s mouth tightened, but she let the remark lie. “Not linking.” The amount of saidar that Nynaeve had drawn into herself was amazing. If she could not Heal Birgitte with that, what Elayne could add would not make a difference. Together, they would be stronger than either apart, but not as strong as if their two strengths were simply added. Besides, she was not certain that she could link. She had only been linked once, and an Aes Sedai had done it, to show her what it was like more than how. “Stop, Nynaeve. You said yourself it is not working. Stop and let me try. If it doesn’t work, you can . . .” She could what? If Healing worked, it worked; if it did not . . . There was no point in trying again if it failed.

“Try what?” Nynaeve snapped, yet she moved away awkwardly, letting Elayne come close. The weave of Healing faded, but not the shining nimbus.