Faile slept beside Perrin, peaceful. Outside, one of his men tapped a post to count off the hour. Three taps. Still hours until dawn.

Perrin’s heart pounded softly, and he raised a hand to his bare chest. He half-expected an army of tiny metal hands to crawl out from beneath his bedroll.

Eventually, he forced his eyes closed and tried to relax. This time, sleep was very elusive.

Graendal sipped at her wine, which glistened in a goblet trimmed with a web of silver around the sides. The goblet had been crafted with drops of blood caught in a ring pattern within the crystal. Frozen forever, tiny bubbles of brilliant red.

“We should be doing something,” Aran’gar said, lounging on the chaise and eyeing one of Graendal’s pets with a predatory hunger as he passed. “I don’t know how you stand it, staying so far from important events, like some scholar holed up in a dusty corner.”

Graendal arched an eyebrow. A scholar? In some dusty corner? Natrin’s Barrow was modest compared to some palaces she had known, during the previous Age, but it was hardly a hovel. The furnishings were fine, the walls bearing an arching pattern of thick, dark hardwoods, the marble of the floor sparkling with inlaid chips of mother-of-pearl and gold.

Aran’gar was just trying to provoke her. Graendal put the irritation out of her mind. The fire burned low in the hearth, but the pair of doors—leading out onto a fortified walkway three stories in the air—was open, letting in a crisp mountain breeze. She rarely left a window or door open to the outside, but today she liked the contrast: warmth from one side, a cool breeze from the other.

Life was about feeling. Touches on your skin, both passionate and icy. Anything other than the normal, the average, the lukewarm.

“Are you listening to me?” Aran’gar asked.

“I always listen,” Graendal said, setting aside her goblet as she sat on her own chaise. She wore a golden, enveloping dress, sheer but buttoned to the neck. What marvelous fashions these Domani had, ideal for teasing while revealing.

“I loathe being so removed from things,” Aran’gar continued. “This Age is exciting. Primitive people can be so interesting.” The voluptuous, ivory-skinned woman arched her back, stretching arms toward the wall. “We’re missing all of the excitement.”

“Excitement is best viewed from a distance,” Graendal said. “I would think you’d understand that.”

Aran’gar fell silent. The Great Lord had not been pleased with her for losing control of Egwene al’Vere.

“Well,” Aran’gar said, standing. “If that is your thought on it, I will seek more interesting evening sport.”

Her voice was cool; perhaps their alliance was wearing thin. In that case, it was time for reinforcement. Graendal opened herself and accepted the Great Lord’s dominance of her, feeling the thrilling ecstasy of his power, his passion, his very substance. It was so much more intoxicating than the One Power, this raging torrent of fire.

It threatened to overwhelm and consume her, and despite being filled with the True Power, she could channel only a thin trickle of it. A gift to her from Moridin. No, from the Great Lord. Best not to begin associating those two in her mind. For now, Moridin was Nae’blis. For now only.