The Fires of Heaven (The Wheel of Time #5)

“Even a queen stubs her toe, but a wise woman watches the path,” she quoted softly. Lini was a wise woman. Elayne did not think she would make that particular mistake again. She knew she made many, but seldom the same twice. One day, perhaps, she would make few enough to be worthy to follow her mother on the throne.

Suddenly she sat up. Tears were leaking from Nynaeve's closed eyes, trickling down the sides of her face; what Elayne had taken for a faint snore — Nynaeve did snore, whatever she said — was a tiny, whimpering sob deep in her throat. That should not be. If she had been injured, the hurt would have appeared, although she would not feel it here until she woke.

Perhaps I should wake her. But she hesitated, even as her hand stretched toward the other woman. Waking someone out of Tel'aran'rhiod was far from easy — shaking, even icy water in the face would not always do — and Nynaeve would not appreciate being pummeled awake after the bruising Cerandin had given her. I wonder what really happened. I will have to ask Cerandin. Whatever was going on, Nynaeve should be able to step out of the dream whenever she wished. Unless... Egwene said that the Wise Ones could hold someone in Tel'aran'rhiod against their will, though if they had taught her the trick, she had not passed it on to Elayne or Nynaeve. If someone was holding Nynaeve now, hurting her, it could not be Birgitte, or the Wise Ones. Well, the Wise Ones might, if they caught her wandering where they thought she should not. But if not them, that left only...

She took hold of Nynaeve's shoulders to shake her — if that did not work, she would freeze the pitcher of water on the table, or slap her face silly — and Nynaeve's eyes popped open.

Immediately Nynaeve began to weep aloud, the most despairing sound Elayne had ever heard. “I killed her. Oh, Elayne, I killed her with my foolish pride, thinking I could...” The words trailed off in openmouthed sobs.

“You killed who?” It could not be Moghedien; that woman's death would surely not bring this grief. She was about to take Nynaeve in her arms to comfort her, when, a pounding came at the door.

“Send them away,” Nynaeve mumbled, curbing herself into a trembling ball in the middle of the bed.

Sighing, Elayne made her way to the door and pulled it open, but before she could say a word, Thom pushed past her out of the night, rumpled shirt bagging out of his breeches, carrying someone shrouded in his cloak in his arms. Only a woman's bare feet showed.

“She was just there,” Juilin said behind him, as if he did not believe the words coming out of his own mouth. Both men were barefoot, and Juilin was stripped to the waist, lean and hairlesschested. “I woke for a moment, and suddenly she was standing there, naked as the day she was born, collapsing like a cut net.”

“She's alive,” Thom said, laying the cloakwrapped figure on Elayne's bed, “but only barely. I could hardly hear her heart.”

Frowning, Elayne pulled aside the cloak's hood — and found herself staring at Birgitte's face, pale and wan.

Nynaeve scrambled stiffly from the other bed to kneel beside the unconscious woman. Her face glistened with tears, but her weeping had stopped. “She is alive,” she breathed. “She is alive.” Abruptly she seemed to realize that she was in her shift in front of the men, but she barely spared them a glance, and all she said was “Get them out of here, Elayne. I can do nothing with them gawking like sheep.”

Thom and Juilin rolled their eyes toward each other when Elayne made a herding motion at them, and shook their heads slightly, but they backed toward the door without complaint. “She is... a friend,” Elayne told them. She felt as if she were moving in a dream, floating, without feeling. How could this be? “We will take care of her.” How could it possibly have happened? “Now, don't say a word to anyone.” The looks they gave her as she closed the door nearly made her blush. Of course they knew better than to talk. But men did have to be reminded of the simplest things sometimes, even Thom. “Nynaeve, how under the Light,” she began, turning, and cut off as the glow of saidar surrounded the kneeling woman.

“Burn her!” Nynaeve growled, channeling fiercely. “Burn her forever for doing this!” Elayne recognized the flows being woven for Healing, but recognition was as far as she could go. “I will find her, Birgitte,” Nynaeve muttered. Strands of Spirit predominated, but Water and Air were in there, and even Earth and Fire. It looked as complicated as embroidering one dress with either hand, and two more with your feet. Blindfolded. “I will make her pay.” The glow shining about Nynaeve grew and grew, until it overwhelmed the lamps, until it hurt to book at her except through slitted eyes. “I swear it! By the Light and my hope of salvation and rebirth, I will!” The anger in her voice changed, becoming deeper if anything. “It isn't working. There is nothing wrong with her to Heal. She is as perfect as anyone can be. But she is dying. Oh, Light, I can feel her slipping away. Burn Moghedien! Burn her! And burn me along with her!” She was not giving up, though. The weaving continued, complex flows weaving into Birgitte. And the woman lay there, golden braid flung over the side of the bed, the rise and fall of her chest slowing.

“I can do something that might help,” Elayne said slowly. You were supposed to have permission, but it had not always been so. Once it had been done almost as often without as with. There was no reason it should not work on a woman. Except that she had never heard of it being done to any but men.

“Linking?” Nynaeve did not look away from the woman on the bed, or stop her efforts with the Power. “Yes. You will have to do it — I don't know how — but let me guide. I do not know half what I am doing right this minute, but I know that I can do it. You could not Heal a bruise.”

Elayne's mouth tightened, but she let the remark lie. “Not linking.” The amount of saidar that Nynaeve had drawn into herself was amazing. If she could not Heal Birgitte with that, what Elayne could add would not make a difference. Together, they would be stronger than either apart, but not as strong as if their two strengths were simply added. Besides, she was not certain that she could link. She had only been linked once, and an Aes Sedai had done it, to show her what it was like more than how. “Stop, Nynaeve. You said yourself it is not working. Stop and let me try. If it doesn't work, you can...” She could what? If Healing worked, it worked; if it did not... There was no point in