“Rand?” The other man walked on with his encircling escort. “Rand?” Rand was not even ten paces away, but he did not waver. Some of the Maidens looked back, but not Rand. Mat felt cold suddenly, and it had nothing to do with the onset of night. He wet his lips and spoke again, not a shout. “Lews Therin.” And Rand turned around. Mat almost wished he had not.

For a time they only looked at one another in the twilight. Mat hesitated about going closer. He tried telling himself it was because of the Maidens. Adelin had been one of those who taught him a so-called game, Maidens’ Kiss, that he was never likely to forget; or play again, if he had any say in it. And he could feel Enaila’s gaze like an auger boring into his skull. Who would have expected a woman to go up like oil thrown on a fire just because you told her she was the prettiest little flower you had ever seen?

Rand, now. He and Rand had grown up together. They and Perrin, the blacksmith’s apprentice back in Emond’s Field, had hunted together, fished together, tramped through the Sand Hills to the edge of the Mountains of Mist, camped under the stars. Rand was his friend. Only now he was the kind of friend who might bash your head in without meaning to. Perrin could be dead, because of Rand.

He made himself walk to arm’s reach of the other man. Rand was nearly a head taller, and in the early-evening gloom he seemed taller yet. Colder than he had been. “I’ve been thinking, Rand.” Mat wished he did not sound hoarse. He hoped Rand would answer to his right name this time. “I’ve been away from home a long time.”

“We both have,” Rand said softly. “A long time.” Suddenly he gave a laugh, not loud, but almost like the old Rand. “Are you beginning to miss milking your father’s cows?”

Mat scratched his ear, grinning a bit. “Not that, exactly.” If he never saw the inside of another barn it would be too soon. “But I was thinking that when Kadere’s wagons go, I might go with them.”

Rand was silent. When he spoke again, the brief flash of mirth was gone. “All the way to Tar Valon?”

It was Mat’s turn to hesitate. He wouldn’t give me away to Moiraine. Would he? “Maybe,” he said casually. “I don’t know. That’s where Moiraine will want me. Maybe I’ll find a chance to get back to the Two Rivers. See if everything’s all right at home.” See if Perrin’s alive. See if my sisters are, and Mother and Da.

“We all have to do what we must, Mat. Not what we want to, very often. What we must.”