"I love you" was all she said. Through his shirt she could feel the round, half-healed scar on his left side. She could recall when he got it as if it were yesterday. That had been the first time she ever held him in her arms, while he lay unconscious and near death.

His hands pressed against her back, squeezing her tight, squeezing the breath out of her, but then, disappointingly, they fell away. She thought he muttered something about "not fair" under his breath. Was he thinking about the Sea Folk while she hugged him? He should be, really. Merana was a Gray, yet it was said the Sea Folk could make a Domani sweat. He should be, but... She thought about kicking his ankle. Gently he moved her away and began pulling on the coat.

"Rand," she said firmly, "you can’t be sure it will have any effect, just because it did on Harine. If you being ta’verenalways affected everything, you’d have every ruler kneeling at your feet by now, and the Whitecloaks, too."

"I’m the Dragon Reborn," he replied haughtily, "and today I can do anything." Scooping up his sword belt, he fastened it around his waist. It bore a plain brass buckle, now. The gilded Dragon lay atop the coverlet on the bed. Gloves of thin black leather went on to cover the golden-maned heads on the backs of his hands and the herons branded on his palms. "But I don’t look like him, do I?" He spread his arms, smiling. "They won’t know until it’s too late."

She almost threw up her hands. "You don’t look much like a fool, either." And let him take that how he would. The idiot eyed her askance, as if he was not sure. "Rand, as soon as they see the Aiel, they will either run or start fighting. If you won’t take any of the Aes Sedai, at least take those Asha’man. One arrow, and you’re dead, whether you’re the Dragon Reborn or a goatherd!"

"But I amthe Dragon Reborn, Min," he said seriously. "And ta’veren. We are going alone; just you and me. That is, if you still want to come."

"You’re not going anywhere without me, Rand al’Thor." She stopped herself from saying he would trip over his own feet if he did. This euphoria was almost as bad as the dark bleakness. "Nandera won’t like this." She did not know exactly what went on between him and the Maidens — something very peculiar indeed, by the things she had seen — but any hope that that might stop him guttered out when he grinned like a small boy evading his mother.

"She won’t know, Min." He even had a twinkle in his eye! "I do this all the time, and they never know." He held out a gloved hand, expecting her to jump when he called.

There really was nothing to do but straighten her green coat, glance into the stand-mirror to make sure of her hair — and take his hand. The trouble was, she wasready to leap if he crooked a finger; she just wanted to make sure he never found out.

In the anteroom, he made a gateway atop the golden Rising Sun set in the floor, and she let him lead her through onto a hilly forest floor carpeted with dead leaves. A bird flashed away, flaring red wings. A squirrel appeared on a branch and chittered at them, lashing a furry white-tipped tail.

It was hardly the sort of woods she remembered from near Baerlon; there were not many real forests anywhere close to the city of Cairhien. Most of the trees stood four or five or even ten paces apart, tall leatherleafs and pines, taller oaks and trees she did not know, running across the flat she and Rand stood on and up a slope that began only a few spans off. Even the undergrowth seemed thinner than back home, the bushes and vines and briars spread out in patches, though some of those were not small. Everything was brown and dry. She plucked a lace-edged handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at the sweat that suddenly seemed to pop out on her face.

"Which way do we go?" she asked. By the sun, north lay over the slope, the direction she would choose. The city should lie about seven or eight miles in that direction. With luck, they could walk all the way back without encountering anyone. Or better, given her heeled boots and the terrain, not to mention the heat, Rand could decide to give up and make another gateway back to the Sun Palace. The palace rooms were cool compared to this.

Before he could answer, crackling brush and leaves announced someone coming. The rider who appeared on a long-legged gray gelding with bright-fringed bridle and reins was a Cairhienin woman, short and slender in a dark blue, nearly black, silk riding dress, horizontal slashes of red and green and white running from her neck to below her knees. The sweat on her face could not diminish her pale beauty, or make her eyes less than large dark pools. A small clear green stone hung on her forehead from a fine golden chain fastened in black hair that fell in waves to her shoulders.

Min gasped, and not for the hunting crossbow the woman carried casually raised in one green-gloved hand. For a moment, she was sure it was Moiraine. But...

"I do not recall seeing either of you in the camp," the woman said in a throaty, almost sultry, voice. Moiraine’s voice had been crystal. The crossbow lowered, still quite casually, until it pointed rock-steady at Rand’s chest.

He ignored it. "I thought I might like to take a look at your camp," he said with a slight bow. "I believe you are the Lady Caraline Damodred?" The slender woman inclined her head, acknowledging the name.

Min sighed regretfully, but it was not as if she had really expected Moiraine to turn up alive. Moiraine was the only viewing of hers that had ever failed. But Caraline Damodred herself, one of the leaders of the rebellion against Rand here in Cairhien, and a claimant to the Sun Throne... He really was pulling all the threads of the Pattern around him, to have her appear.

Lady Caraline slowly raised the crossbow to one side; the cord made a loud snap, launching the broadhead bolt into the air.

"I doubt one would do any good against you," she said, walking her gelding slowly toward them, "and I would not like you to think I was threatening you." She looked once at Min — just a glance that ran head to toe, though Min was sure everything about her was filed away — but aside from that, Lady Caraline kept her eyes on Rand. She drew rein three paces away, just far enough so he could not reach her afoot before she could dig in her heels. "I can only think of one gray-eyed man with your height who might suddenly appear out of nowhere, unless perhaps you are an Aiel in disguise, but perhaps you will be so kind as to supply a name?"

"I am the Dragon Reborn," Rand said, every bit as arrogant as he had been with the Sea Folk, yet if any ta’verenswirling of the Pattern was at work, the woman on the horse gave no evidence.

Rather than leaping down to fall to her knees, she merely nodded, pursing her lips. "I have heard so very much about you. I have heard you went to the Tower to submit to the Amyrlin Seat. I have heard you mean to give the Sun Throne to Elayne Trakand. I have also heard that you killed Elayne, and her mother."

"I submit to no one," Rand replied sharply. He stared up at her with eyes fierce enough to snatch her out of the saddle by themselves. "Elayne is on her way to Caemlyn as we speak, to take the throne of Andor. After which, she will have the throne of Cairhien as well." Min winced. Did he have to sound like a pillow stuffed full of haughty? She had hoped he had calmed down a bit after the Sea Folk.

Lady Caraline laid her crossbow across the saddle in front of her, running a gloved hand along it. Perhaps regretting that loosed bolt? "I could accept my young cousin on the throne — better she than some, at least — but... " Those big dark eyes that had seemed so liquid suddenly became stone. "But I am not sure I can accept you in Cairhien, and I do not mean only your changes to laws and customs. You... change fate by your very presence. Every day since you came, people die in accidents so bizarre no one can believe them. So many husbands abandon their wives, and wives their husbands, that no one even comments upon it now. You will tear Cairhien apart just by remaining here."