“Are you finished sharing your wisdom, Jasin Natael?” Aviendha’s tone was chillier, if anything, and she did not wait for a reply before turning a gaze like blue-green ice back to Rand. The interruption, it seemed, was his fault. “A man may behave like a fool sometimes, and little is the worse for it, but a chief must be more than a man, and the chief of chiefs more still. You had no right to push yourself near to death. Egwene and I tried to make you come with us when we grew too tired to continue, but you would not listen. You may be as much stronger than we as Egwene claims, yet you are still flesh. You are the Car’a’carn, not a new Seia Doon seeking honor. You have toh, obligation, to the Aiel, Rand al’Thor, and you cannot fulfill it dead. You cannot do everything yourself.”

For a moment he could only gape at her. He had barely managed to do anything at all, had left the battle to others for all practical purposes while he stumbled about trying to be useful. He had not even been able to stop Sammael from striking where and as he chose. And she upbraided him for doing too much.

“I will try to remember,” he said finally. Even so, she looked ready to lecture more. “What news of the Miagoma and the other three clans?” he asked, as much to divert her as because he wanted to know. Women seldom seemed willing to stop until they had hammered you into the ground, unless you managed to distract them.

It worked. She was full of what she knew, of course, and as eager to instruct as to scold. Asmodean’s soft strumming—for once, something pleasant, even pastoral—made an odd background for her words.

The Miagoma, the Shiande, the Daryne and the Codarra were camped within sight of one another, a few miles to the east. A steady stream of men and Maidens moved between the camps, including Rand’s, but only among societies, and Indirian and the other chiefs were not stirring. There was no doubt now that they would come to Rand eventually, but not until the Wise Ones finished their talks.

“They are still talking?” Rand said. “What under the Light do they have to discuss that takes so long? The chiefs are coming to follow me, not them.”

She gave him a flat look that would have done credit to Moiraine. “The Wise Ones’ words are for Wise Ones, Rand al’Thor.” Hesitating, she added, as if making a concession, “Egwene may tell you something of it. When it is done.” Her tone implied that Egwene might not, too.