Red flooded Aviendha’s cheeks, but Elayne was having to listen to Viendre. And fight blushes of her own. “There is violence in you. Deny it, and deny yourself. Have you never raged and struck out? Have you never drawn blood? Have you never wished to? Without any thought at all? While you breathe, that will be part of you.” Elayne though of Taim, and other times, and her face felt like a furnace.

This time, there was more than one response.

“Your arms will grow weak,” Tamela was telling Aviendha. “Your legs will lose their swiftness. A youth will be able to take the knife from your hand. How will skill or ferocity avail you then? Heart and mind are the true weapons. But did you learn to use the spear in a day, when you were a Maiden? If you do not hone mind and heart now, you will grow old and children will befuddle your wits. Clan chiefs will sit you in a corner to play cat’s cradle, and when you speak, all will hear only the wind. Take heed while you can.”

“Beauty flees,” Viendre went on, to Elayne. “Years will make your breasts sag, your flesh grow slack, your skin grow leathery. Men who smiled to see your face will speak to you as if you were just another man. Your husband may see you always as the first time his eyes caught you, but no other man will dream of you. Will you no longer be you? Your body is only clothing. Your flesh will wither, but you are your heart and mind, and they do not change except to grow stronger.”

Elayne shook her head. Not in denial. Not really. She had never thought on aging, though. Especially not since going to the Tower. The years lay lightly even on very old Aes Sedai. But what if she lived as long as the Kinswomen? That would mean giving up being Aes Sedai, of course, but what if she did? The Kin took a very long time to grow wrinkles, but grow them they did. What was Aviendha thinking? She knelt there looking…sullen.

“What is the most childish thing you know of the woman you want for a first-sister?” Monaelle said.

This was easier, not so fraught. Elayne even smiled as she spoke. Aviendha grinned back, sullenness gone. Again the weaves took their words and released them together, voices with laughter in them.

“Aviendha won’t let me teacher her to swim. I’ve tried. She isn’t afraid of anything, except getting into more water than a bathtub.”

“Elayne gobbles sweets with both hands like a child who’s escaped her mother’s eye. If she keeps on, she will be fat as a pig before she grows old.”

Elayne jerked. Gobbles? Gobbles? A taste, now and then, was all she took. Just now and then. Fat ? Why was Aviendha glaring at her ? Refusing to step into water more than knee-deep was childish.

Monaelle covered a slight cough with one hand, but Elayne thought she was hiding a smile. Some of the standing Wise Ones laughed outright. At Aviendha’s silliness? Or her…gobbling ?

Monaelle resumed dignity, adjusting her skirts spread out of the floor, but there was still a touch of mirth in her voice. “What is your greatest jealousy of the woman you want for a first-sister?”

Perhaps Elayne would have hedged her answer despite the requirement for truth. Truth had jumped up as soon as she was told to think on this, but she had found something smaller, less embarrassing for them both, that would have passed muster. Perhaps. But there was that about her smiling at me and exposing her bosom. Maybe she did smile, but Aviendha walked in front of red-faced serving men without a stitch on and seemed not even to see them! So she gobbled candy, did she? She was going to get fat? She spoke the bitter truth while the weaves took her words and Aviendha’s mouth moved in grim silence, until at last, what they had said was loosed.

“Aviendha has lain in the arms of the man I love. I never have; I may never, and I could weep over it!”

“Elayne has the love of Rand al’Th…of Rand. My heart is dust for wanting him to love me, but I do not know if he ever will.”

Elayne peered into Aviendha’s unreadable face. She was jealous of her over Rand ? When the man avoided Elayne Trakand as if she had scabies? She had no time for more though.

“Strike her as hard as you can with your open hand,” Tamela told Aviendha, removing her own hands from Aviendha’s shoulders.

Viendre squeezed Elayne’s lightly. “Do not defend yourself.” They had not been told anything of this! Surely, Aviendha would not—

Blinking, Elayne pushed herself up from the icy floor tiles. Gingerly she felt her cheek, and winced. She was going to wear a palm print the rest of the day. The woman did not have to hit her that hard.

Everyone waited until she was kneeling again, and then Viendre leaned closer. “Strike her as hard as you can with your open hand.”

Well she was not going to knock Aviendha on her ear. She was not going to—Her full-armed slap sent Aviendha sprawling, sliding on her chest across the tiles almost to Monaelle. Elayne’s palm stung almost as much as her cheek.

Aviendha half pushed herself up, gave her head a shake, then scrambled back to her position. And Tamela said, “Strike her with the other hand.”

This time, Elayne slid all the way to Amys’s knees on the frozen tiles, her head ringing, both cheeks burning. And when she regained her own knees in front of Aviendha, when Viendre told her to strike, she put her whole body into the slap, so much that she nearly fell over atop Aviendha as the other woman went down.

“You may go now,” Monaelle said.

Elayne’s eyes jerked toward the Wise One. Aviendha, halfway back to her knees, went stiff as a stone.

“If you wish to,” Monaelle continued. “Men usually do, at this point if not sooner. Many women do, too. But if you still love one another enough to go on, then embrace.”

Elayne flung herself at Aviendha, and was met wit ha rush that nearly knocked her over backwards. They clung together. Elayne felt tears trickling from her eyes, and realized Aviendha was crying as well. “I’m sorry,” Elayne whispered fervently. “I’m sorry, Aviendha.”

“Forgive me,” Aviendha whispered back. “Forgive me.”

Monaelle was standing over them, now. “You will know anger at one another again, you will speak harsh words, but you will always remember that you have already struck her. And for no better reason than you were told to. Let those blows pass for all you might wish to give. You have toh toward one another, toh you cannot repay and will not try to, for every woman is always in her first-sister’s debt. You will be born again.”

The feel of saidar in the room was changing, but Elayne had no chance to see how even had she thought of it. The light dwindled as if the lamps were being put out. The feel of Aviendha’s hug dwindled. Sound dwindled. The last thing she heard was Monaelle’s voice. “You will be born again.” Everything faded. She faded. She ceased to exist.

Awareness, of a sort. She did not think of herself as she, she did not think at all, but she was aware. Of sound. A liquid swishing around. Muted gurgles and rumbles. And a rhythmic thudding. That above all. Thu-thud. Thu-thud . She did not know contentment, but she was content. Thu-thud .

Time. She did not know time, yet Ages passed. There was a sound within her, a sound that was her. Thu-thud . The same sound, the same rhythm as the other. Thu-thud . And from another place, nearer. Thu-thud . Another. Thu-thud . The same sound, the same beat, as her own. Not another. They were the same; they were one. Thu-thud .

Forever went by to that pulse, all the time that had ever been. She touched the other that was herself. She could feel. Thu-thud . She moved, she and the other that was herself, writhing against one another, limbs entangling, rolling away but always coming back to each other. Thu-thud . There was light sometimes, in the darkness; dim beyond seeing, but bright to one who had never known anything but darkness. Thu-thud . She opened her eyes, stared into the eyes of the other that was herself, and closed hers again, content. Thu-thud .