The Gathering Storm - Robert Jordan

"Hurt him?" Tuon said. "He kidnapped me"

"If he did so, then there was cause," Rand al'Thor said.

Such loyalty! Once again, she was forced to reassess her view of Matrim Cauthon.

"But this is irrelevant." al'Thor said, standing up suddenly. One of the Deathwatch Guards drew his sword. Al'Thor glared at the guard, and Karede quickly motioned at the man, who replaced his sword, ashamed, his eyes lowered.

Al'Thor placed his hand on the table, palm down. He leaned forward, trapping Tuon's eyes with his own. Who could look away from those intense gray eyes, like steel? "None of this matters. Mat doesn't matter. Our similarities and our differences do not matter. All that matters is need. And I need yon."

He leaned forward further, looming. His form didn't change, but he suddenly seemed a hundred feet tall. He spoke in that same calm, piercing voice, but there was a threat to it now. An edge.

"You must call off your attacks," he said, nearly a whisper. "You must sign a treaty with me. These are not requests. They are my will."

Tuon found herself longing, suddenly, to obey him. To please him. A treaty. A treaty would be excellent, it would give her a chance to stabilize her hold on the lands here. She could plan how to restore order back in Seanchan. She could recruit and train. So many possibilities opened to her, as if her mind were suddenly determined to see every advantage of the alliance and none of the flaws.

She reached for those flaws, scrambling to see the problems in uniting herself with this man. But they became liquid in her mind and slipped away. She couldn't snatch them up and form objections. The pavilion grew silent, the breeze falling still.

What was happening to her? She felt short of breath, as though a weight constricted her chest. She felt as if she couldn't help but bend before the will of this man!

His expression was grim. Despite the afternoon light, his face was shadowed, far more so than everything else beneath the pavilion. He held her eyes still, and her breaths came quick and short. In the corners of her vision, she thought she saw something around him. A dark haze, a halo of blackness, emanating from him. It warped the air like a great heat. Her throat constricted, and words were forming. Yes. Yes. I will do as you ask. Yes. I must. I must.

"No," she said, the word barely a whisper.

His expression grew darker, and she saw fury in the way he pressed his hand down, fingers trembling with the force. The way he clenched his jaw. The way his eyes opened wider. Such intensity.

"I need—" he began.

"No," she repeated, confidence growing. "You will bow before me, Rand al'Thor. It will not happen the other way around." Such darkness! How could one man contain it? He seemed to throw a shadow the size of a mountain.

She could not ally with this creature. That seething hatred, it terrified her, and terror was an emotion with which she was unfamiliar. This man could not be allowed freedom to do as he wished. He had to be contained.

He watched her for a moment longer. "Very well," he said. His voice was ice.

He spun, stalking away from the pavilion, not looking back. His entourage followed; they all, including the marath'damane with the braid, looked disturbed. As if they themselves weren't certain what—or who— they followed in this man.

Tuon watched him go, panting. She could not let the others see how rattled she was. They couldn't know that, in that last moment, she'd feared him. She watched until his mounted figure had passed beyond the hillsides. And still her hands shook. She did not trust herself to speak.

Nobody spoke in the time it took her to calm herself. Perhaps they were as shaken as she. Perhaps they sensed her worry. Finally, long after al'Thor had gone, Tuon stood. She turned and regarded the collected Blood, generals, soldiers and guards. "I am the Empress," she said in a soft voice.

As one, they fell to their knees, even the High Blood prostrating themselves.

That was the only ceremony needed. Oh, there would be a formal crowning back in Ebou Dar, with processions and parades and audiences. She would accept the personal oaths of allegiance from each member of the Blood, and would have the chance—by tradition—to execute any of them by her own hand, without reason, who she felt had opposed her ascent to the throne.

There would be all of that and more. But her declaration was the true coronation. Spoken by the Daughter of the Nine Moons after the period of mourning.

Festivities began the moment she bade them all rise. There would be a week of jubilation. A necessary distraction. The world needed her. It needed an empress. From this moment on, everything would change.

As the da'covale rose and began to sing the praises of her coronation, Tuon stepped up to General Galgan. "Pass the word to General Yulan," she said softly. "Tell him to prepare his attack against the marath'damane of Tar Valon. We must strike against the Dragon Reborn, and quickly. This man cannot be allowed to gain any more strength than he already has."

CHAPTER 36

The Death of Tuon

" "I began my journey in Tear," Verin said, sitting down on Mat's best I chair, made of dark walnut with a nice tan pillow. Tomas took up JL position behind her, hand on the pommel of his sword. "My goal was to make my way to Tar Valon."

"Then how did you end up here?" Mat asked, still suspicious as he seated himself on the pillowed bench. He hated the thing; it was completely impossible to sit on it in any way that was comfortable. Pillows didn't help. Somehow, they made the seat more awkward. Bloody thing must have been designed by insane, cross-eyed Trollocs and built from the bones of the damned. That was the only reasonable explanation.

He shifted on the bench, and nearly called for another chair, but Verin was continuing. Mandevwin and Talmanes were just inside the tent, the former standing with folded arms, the latter settling himself on the floor. Thom sat on the floor on the other side of the room, watching Verin with calculating eyes. They were all in Mat's smaller audience tent, which was intended only for short conferences between officers. Mat hadn't wanted to bring Verin to his actual sitting tent, as it was still spread out with his plans for raiding Trustair.

"I ask myself the same question, Master Cauthon," Verin said, smiling, her aging Warder standing behind her chair. "How did I end up here? It certainly wasn't my intention. And yet here I am."

"You say it almost as if it were an accident, Verin Sedai," Mandevwin said. "But we're speaking of a distance of several hundred leagues!"

"Plus," Mat added, "you can Travel. So if you intended to go to the White Tower, then why not just bloody Travel there and be done with it?"

"Good questions," Verin said. "Indeed. Might I have some tea?"

Mat sighed, shifting on the devil bench again, and waved for Tal-manes to give the order. Talmanes rose and ducked outside for a moment to pass the word, then returned and sat down again.

"Thank you," Verin said. "I find myself quite parched." She projected that familiar distracted air that was so common to sisters from the Brown Ajah. Because of the holes in his memory, Mat's first meeting with Verin was fuzzy to him. In fact, his memory of her at all was fuzzy. But he did seem to remember thinking she had the temperament of a scholar.

This time, studying her, her mannerisms seemed too exaggerated to him. As if she were leaning on the preconceptions about Browns, using them. Fooling people, like a street performer taking in country boys with a clever game of three-card shuffle.

She eyed him. That smile on the corner of her lips? That was the smile of a jackleg who didn't care that you were on to her con. Now that you understood, you could both enjoy the game, and perhaps together you could dupe someone else.

"Do you realize how strongly ta'veren you are, young man?" Verin asked.

Mat shrugged. "Rand's the one you want for that sort of thing. Honestly, I'm barely anything compared to him." Blasted colors!

"Oh, I wouldn't consider downplaying the Dragon's importance," Verin said, chuckling. "But you can't hide your light in his shadow, Matrim Cauthon. Not in the presence of any but the blind, at least. In any other time, you'd undoubtedly be the most powerfully ta'veren individual alive. Probably the most powerful to have lived in centuries."

Mat shifted on the bench. Bloody ashes, he hated the way that made him look as if he was squirming. Maybe he should just stand up. "What are you talking about, Verin?" he said instead. He folded his arms and tried to at least pretend that he was comfortable.

"I'm talking about how you yanked me halfway across the continent." Her smile widened as a soldier entered with a steaming cup of mint tea. She took it gratefully, and the soldier retreated.

"Yanked you?" Mat said. "You were looking for me."

"Only after I determined that the Pattern was tugging me somewhere." Verin blew on her tea. "That meant you or Perrin. It couldn't have been Rand's fault, since I'd been able to leave that one easily."

"Rand?" Mat asked, dismissing yet another flash of colors. "You were with him?"

Verin nodded.

"How . . . did he seem?" Mat said. "Is he ... you know. ..."

"Mad?" Verin asked.

Mat nodded.

"I'm afraid so," Verin said, lips downturning slightly. "I think he's still in control of himself, however."

"Bloody One Power," Mat said, reaching beneath his shirt to touch the comforting foxhead medallion.

Verin looked up. "Oh, I'm not convinced young al'Thor's problems are completely due to the Power, Matrim. Many would like to blame his temperament on saidin, but to do that is to ignore the incredible stresses that we've settled on that poor boy's shoulders."

Mat raised an eyebrow, glancing at Thorn.

"Either way," Verin sipped her tea, "one cannot blame too much on the taint, as it will no longer affect him."

"It won't?" Mat asked. "He's decided to stop channeling?"

She laughed. "A fish would sooner stop swimming. No, the taint will no longer affect him because the taint is no more. Al'Thor cleansed saidin."

"What?" Mat asked sharply, sitting up.

Verin sipped her tea.

"Are you serious?" Mat asked.

"Quite," she replied.

Mat glanced at Thorn again. Then he plucked at his coat and ran a hand through his hair.

"What are you doing?" Verin asked with amusement.

"I don't know," Mat said, feeling sheepish. "I guess I just think I should feel different, or something. The whole world up and changed on us, didn't it?"

"You could say that," Verin said, "though I would argue that the cleansing itself is more like a pebble thrown into a pond. The ripples will take some time to reach the shore."

"A pebble?" Mat asked. "Apebble?"

"Well, perhaps more of a boulder."

"A bloody mountain if you ask me," Mat muttered. He settled back on the awful bench.

Verin chuckled. Flaming Aes Sedai. Did they have to be like that? It was probably another oath they took and told nobody about, something to do with acting mysterious. He stared at her. "What was that chuckle for?" he finally demanded.