Isle of Sky
i believe in anything that brings you back home to me
.
There was no reason to go into the far remnants of the Blight with Lan when he took his Malkieri men and the united Borderland armies to hunt down and expunge the Samma n'sei. She was eight months pregnant, there was yet work to be done (there was always work to be done) on the restoration of the Towers, and the force was to be nearly all men: Borderlanders and Asha'man, grooms to mind and tend the horses, messenger boys to relay news to the kingdoms.
"I'll stay at the camps with the boys and the grooms. I'll assist the cooks –"
Lan, tonelessly: "You. Cooking."
"—I'll provide defense in case of an attack! I'm a strong enough channeler that you wouldn't need to leave a single Asha'man behind."
He put his hands on her shoulders and stared plainly down at her. "You are pregnant," he said, "and I will not risk it. I will not risk any of it."
Lan forbade it, and they fought, and, as usually happened, Nynaeve won. She had her horse saddled and her supplies readied and when she rode up beside Lan as he made to march the procession out of the Seven Towers, nothing he said or commanded managed to alter anything.
They rode mostly in silence, Nynaeve wearing a satisfied smirk, her hair bound and braided for traveling. It was awkward to ride in her condition, she had to admit, but she was unwilling to let her pride get in the way of accompanying her husband.
It was difficult to admit in times of peace without earning scorn, but Nynaeve realized, as she directed the decorating of bedrooms and the laying of foundations, as she saw to her people and her kingdom's restoration, that she missed the frenetic adventures of the darkest time in the history of the world. Against Lan's wishes, she served as both Malkier's queen and its most prominent healer, but aside from administering to the ailing, she rarely found cause to embrace the Source and feel the Power flow through her. Certainly sitting a throne had its merits, but she longed for the days she spent with Elayne and Aviendha and Egwene running from Darkfriends, wandering Tel'aran'rhiod, facing off against the Forsaken.
Falling pregnant, while a long hoped-for blessing, had only cemented the belief that all was drawing to a close. Ageless as she was, her best years were behind her. She was Nynaeve Sedai in name only, a regent tied to a chair in a far northern kingdom. Accompanying the Borderlander mission to eradicate the last of the Samma n'sei had seemed to her like her last opportunity to feel needed, powerful, useful.
When they arrived at the site chosen for the base camp, Nynaeve did as she promised: she negotiated the unpacking and arrangement of tents, the designation of fire pits, and oversaw the preparation of the evening meal. The men would eat, bed down for the night, and then, at first light, rise to meet the red-veiled Aiel who still haunted the far northern rim of the once-Blighted land.
Lying together that night in their tent, Lan stroked his rough thumb down the line of her jaw and sighed. In the dim light, Nynaeve could see only the shine of his eyes. She wove a globe of light and hung it above them so that the confines of the small tent glowed.
"If anything happens," Lan said, "we need to have a plan."
"What do you think is going to happen?" she scoffed.
"Maybe there are more of them than we expect. Maybe they know we're coming, and will attack the camp. In war, you can prepare for everything and still be surprised." The gray at his temples was more pronounced now than it had been. Five years now of peacetime was wonderful, but, in its own way, it was more stressful than war. Rebuilding a kingdom was no easy task. "In any case," he continued, "we must be prepared."
She kissed his dry lips. "And how would you like to prepare?"
He was in no mood for frivolity or flirtation. "If something happens, let's decide on a place to meet, to Travel to. Somewhere safe."
"Seven Towers, then," she said.
He shook his head. "Somewhere farther, safer. If our force is destroyed, I want to know that you're protected."
"I do not fear –"
"Nynaeve," he said, and that was all he had to say.
She sighed impatiently. "Fine. Caemlyn. The Palace. Dear Elayne will welcome a visit."
"The Palace, then," he said. He tucked strands of her hair behind her ear and then drew her close to him, his lips pressed against her forehead. Her fingers tangled in the coarse hair on his chest, and then she twisted and turned painfully around.
"You know I cannot sleep that way anymore," she said. Dutifully, he pressed himself against her back instead, resting his hand on the taut swell of her stomach. The child was a lazy one, never particularly energetic regardless of day or time. Still, Nynaeve's stomach thrummed with activity that night.
"I wonder if he knows something I don't," she said to him, and then she slept.
The men rode off at daybreak. The Samma n'sei arrived at noon.
Nynaeve was wandering idly through the camp, making polite conversation with whomever she came across. There was the old woman tending to the vast cauldron that contained the night's stew; the young groom shoeing horses who had come unshod on the march up; and the various squires and pages and maids who had stayed behind.
A low howl seemed to slowly fill the air, so slowly that Nynaeve did not even realize such a sound was being made until the horses crashed through the tents and the red veils flew about faces with sharp, filed teeth.
She reacted without thought, capturing saidar and flinging weaves at random. It had been so long since she had been in comabt that she scarcely remembered her once well-used battle weaves. She threw fireballs at the vicious men; she tried to throw up barriers between the helpless staff and the warriors who had come out of nearly nowhere to bear down on them with spears and knives and teeth, teeth, teeth. She dove behind a tent and balled Fire between her hands, unleashed a torrent of hot flame; and yet the campsite was flooded, overwhelmed by the red-veiled enemy.
Her mind buzzed blank with panic. What had happened to Lan? The rest of the Malkieri and Borderlanders? Her bragging had been false and pathetic: she could not combat this force at all, not ever, truly, but certainly not now, eight months pregnant, breathing heavily, slow and out of practice. In the blink of an eye she remembered the days she spent running and throwing Balefire with abandon at Forsaken come to kill her. In those days, she had to be angry to grasp saidar. Bitterly she thought of how far she had come: instead of combat fueled by anger and hatred, now she cowered in fear, her skirts wet from the panic that had obviously caused her to lose control of even her bowels. All she could think to do was shower the Samma n'sei with fire and cast about for a free space to make a Gateway.
The weaves flew out of her without thinking; the bright slash of light appeared, opened, revealing the flagstones of the Palace in Caemlyn, the crimson wall hangings and four-poster bed of Elayne's bedchamber. Nynaeve threw herself through the Gateway before she could force herself to think about what she was doing: abandoning the helpless staff, the cook and her stew, the grooms and their horses. She dove through the Gateway with a cry and let it snap shut behind her, taking off the arm of a red-veiled Aiel as it closed.
Min was in Caemlyn because there was nowhere else for her to be. Aviendha was in the Waste with the Aiel, helping them forge ahead in a bid to subvert the terrible ruin she saw in her time in Rhuidean, but there was nowhere else for Min to be once Tarmon Gaidon had ended. All she had left was the secret she knew and the two sisters she had made. When one of those sisters chose to go to the Waste and bear her quadruplets among the waterless sand, Min chose to stay with the only one she had left.
She could have gone with the Seanchan – she was their Doomseer, after all. She gave Tuon all of the visions she wanted and she remained with the Seanchan a year to help see the execution of the Dragon's Peace before quietly slipping away and returning to Caemlyn, to her Elayne and her twins. There at least she was Aunt Min, a far more acceptable title, to her, than Doomseer.
She was escorting the Daughter and Son-heir back from their tutoring when she heard the sobbing. The children lived in an extension of Elayne's vast chambers, and Min, holding their hands, had been guiding them back to their nursery. The sounds she heard, however, were coming from Elayne's proper bedroom. The twins looked at her with identically cocked sun-gold heads, waiting for her to explain the source of the strange, phantom sobbing.
"Wait here," she instructed them, slipping a dagger from her sleeve without even realizing it. She approached Elayne's door and cracked it open. A woman was kneeling on the flagstones, her back to Min, great heaving sobs wracking her body. A severed arm lay some feet away from her.
Min turned to the children, snapping the door shut quickly behind her. She gave them awkward instructions to play in the nursery and not to come out until they were expressly told. They immediately set to their toys, effortlessly ignoring the audible weeping that could still be heard in the adjoining room. Min waited a moment to make sure they truly obeyed and then went through the door.
"Excuse me?" Min asked, fingering her dagger. "Miss –"
She circled around the woman, who sat up slightly, with difficulty. She turned, and Min exclaimed, "Nynaeve!"
Min wasn't sure of the last time she had seen the Queen of Malkier, but she was certain that the sight had been far different from what she was now faced with: her face red and swollen from crying, long hair wild and in disarray, one arm clutched around a hugely pregnant stomach.
"I need help," she gasped. "Min, I need help, Lan needs help –"
Min went to her and dropped to her knees beside her. "Slowly. Please. What's happened?"
Nynaeve drew in several shuddering breaths in an attempt to calm herself. Min felt shaken to her core; never in her life had she seen Nynaeve shed a tear, let alone dissolve into a sobbing mess on a flagstone floor.
Eventually, Nynaeve managed to say, "Lan organized an attack to rout the last of the Samma n'sei – the male Aiel channelers sent to the Blight. The Malkieri, the Sheinaran – all the Borderlands joined forces. I accompanied them to the encampment. Then, after the men were gone, the Samma n'sei attacked the camp. I don't know what's happened – if the men are dead, if they were circled around and ignored, what…"
She trailed off, fresh tears leaking down her cheeks. Min realized that, at some point, Nynaeve had seized her hand. Min offered a squeeze, the only thing she could really think to do.
Then Nynaeve squeezed back – too hard, too tight, too long. She moaned as she did so. The back of Min's neck prickled. She knew what that sounded like. She had been present for Elayne's labor and delivery of the twins.
"You need a midwife," Min told her.
"We've dispatched a unit of both Asha'man and soldiers to the coordinates you described. Lyrelle Sedai has gone with them and will send back with information as often as possible. The Wise Ones attended my own birth and saw to my midwifery, but Phyra, who has long been one of Caemlyn's most respected midwives, will certainly provide similar service for you."
Elayne, every inch the queen, stood at the foot of the bed Nynaeve had been brought to, her gloved hands clasped at her neat waist. Dazedly Nynaeve wondered how Elayne had gotten her figure back to such a trim size after carry not one, but two children – and at once! She was certain that a corset was doing the heavy lifting in Elayne's case. All that red and gold brocade could not cover it up. If she but came closer –
"Nynaeve?" Min asked gently. Nynaeve turned to her in time to endure another wave of pain as it coursed through her. Her fingernails dug into the hand Min had offered her. Some part of her quailed at having these women see her this way: fragile, vulnerable, exposed. Most parts, though, did not care. Every breath she drew while suffering a contraction felt like agony, and each second living in the dark about what had happened to her husband, her people, the people she had abandoned, ripped through her like a knife.
When the contraction subsided, Nyneave blinked the sweat out of her eyes and found that Elayne seemed to have melted some: her queenly demeanor was diminished, her eyes soft, her shoulders relaxed. "I know a weave that relieves the pain, if you'd like," she said. "The Wise Ones showed me. Only after I had labored twelve hours without it, of course. They said it builds character." She huffed at that, and for a second she was the foolish teenage girl running through the streets of Tarabon with Nynaeve once more.
Nynaeve had not been suffering nearly so long; it had been only an hour since Min had found her. The pain had escalated quickly, however, with Phyra theorizing that the stress of the situation had caused Nynaeve's labor to begin. Rather than wetting herself at the campgrounds, Phyra observed that Nynaeve's birth waters had broken.
Nonetheless, she shook her head, refusing to accept Elayne's weave. She had told Lan she would protect those people, and she had abandoned them. She had barely put up a fight before she had run for cover, thought only of herself. She couldn't bear to dwell on it; the pain kept her mind occupied.
Elayne offered her a sad smile. "I'll be return," she said. "I need to take care of the rest of my day's business, and then I will be here with you."
The hours passed in fits and starts; sometimes Nynaeve felt as if the hands of the room's clock were spinning, while other times it felt as if one minute had lasted for twenty. She got up and strode the room with Min's help. She braced herself against the posts of the bed. She moaned and shouted and sobbed, and she waited: waited for news of Lan, of her people, waited for the child to make its appearance. She grew tired and weak, but when she tried to sleep, she saw only the filed points of teeth and red veils flying.
The day deepened into night. Without her realizing, Elayne replaced Min, clasping Nynaeve's hand, her red-gold curls loosened from their queenly pinnings and resting on her shoulders. She told Nynaeve tales of her own birth, of her time with her twins, and Nynaeve nodded but did not understand a word.
"Any news?" she asked, her mouth dry. "Any news?"
Elayne shook her head.
"You saw my son," she said to Min, when Elayne had left to put her children to sleep.
Min watched her warily. "How do you mean?"
"Your viewing of Lan. Seven towers around his head, and a babe in a cradle with a sword."
"When did I tell you this?"
Nynaeve ignored the question. She had no concept of time – not now. "You only see the future," she said. "So you must have seen our son. A boy with a sword. Can you see anything now? Can you see when he will come?"
Min shrugged uncomfortably. "It doesn't show the only possible future. It shows variations."
"Please," Nynaeve said.
Min shifted in her seat beside the bed. She hoped Nynaeve would nod off again, as she periodically did, but her attention now was rapt. Finally she said, "I see a flame."
"A flame?" Nynaeve considered the word. "How do you mean?"
"I see a flame," Min repeated. She hesitated, but then added: "It's like the one I saw above Egwene. The Flame of Tar Valon. In the midst of a clearless sky."
Min could almost visibly see Nynaeve working through the clues, could nearly hear the churning gears of her mind. "A daughter?" she asked at last. "An Amyrlin?"
Luckily a contraction gripped her then, and she swore and she cried, and after that she slept some, which was a relief to everyone.
Nynaeve labored all through the night and into the next morning. Elayne had word that the remnants of the camp had been found in tatters, but that Lan and his forces – alive or dead – had not yet been located. She neglected to inform Nynaeve of what she knew. She remembered only too well her own delivery of the twins, which had been bitter and painful and lonely, so lonely, without even the faint hope of Rand attending. He was free; he was riding the winds of Time. At least Nynaeve could dream Lan might come.
Elayne dispensed her royal duties for the following day so she could sit on Nynaeve's other side and grasp her hand as she attempted to birth her child. Phyra had silvery braids and a cheerful disposition, but became downright militant when delivery was upon them. She did not encourage Nynaeve's actions; she demanded them. Nynaeve, fatigued from battle and fear and guilt and, then, labor, barely responded. Elayne subtly wove a thin thread of Healing to aid Nynaeve along. She shuddered a little as it settled over her, but was too distracted otherwise to have noticed the weavings or Elayne seizing the Power. It did seem to help, though: she dove in with a fierceness that Elayne had not seen on her in the entirety of her time at the Royal Palace so far, and, within minutes, delivered her child.
"A daughter," Phyra announced. Elayne dropped Nynaeve's hand so she could take up the messy, infant from the midwife and pass her to her mother.
Nynaeve, all in disarray, could barely comprehend the squalling bundle Elayne was attempting to hand her. She peered into the girl's wrinkled face with fuzzy eyes and curled her hands protectively around the scrap of blanket in which Phyra had wrapped her. Then, without warning, she was asleep.
"What -?" Min looked up at Elayne, who only shrugged.
Nynaeve opened her eyes and jolted in shock when she realized she was no longer holding her daughter. She swore she had only slept a moment or so, but now the light in the room was different and the girl was gone. She turned to her right, expecting to see Min, who had occupied that post for over twelve hours. Instead, she found Lan sitting in her seat.
He offered her a weary smile as she assessed him, dry-mouthed, her heart thudding in her chest. He had a cut high on his cheek and his cloak bore a fresh bloodstain. His temples glowed silver-grey in the light of the lamps lit around the room. He wore his hadori, of course.
"I am told that we're parents now," he said to her, and when she looked down, she saw that he was holding her hand.
"What happened?" she asked him when she finally recovered her words.
He told her about how, when their force arrived, they were able to quickly scatter the Samma n'sei. In fact, the rout was so swift and easy that the men grew suspicious, certain that what they had found was a fringe force. They went hunting for a nest of them, hoping to uncover a stronghold which they could burn to the ground. While they embarked on this fruitless hunt, the red veils who had slipped through the battle decided to exact revenge. They were quickly able to find the campsite, which they decimated. Lan, never one to mince words, told Nynaeve she was one of only a handful to escape the carnage.
The force Elayne sent arrived not long after to the ravaged campsite. The battalion made quick work of the remaining Samma n'sei, and, after picking through the wreckage of the camp and administering aid to the few who were not beyond help, realized Lan's army was not part of the destruction. They left to hunt for them, which proved difficult, as the column had wandered far from their original target location. Eventually they were found, and Lyrelle Sedai brought him back to the Royal Palace.
"I'm sorry" was the first thing Nynaeve said after he finished the telling of his tale.
He did not patronize her by asking what for. Instead, he said, "There's little to be sorry for. The result likely would have been the same regardless of whether or not you came. And, in fact, if you hadn't come, the Andoran military would not have followed us, and we would have had to contend with the Samma n'sei a second time."
"How did any escape you to begin with?"
"They are expert soldiers who can wield the Power. It's not a fair question."
Nynaeve did not press him further. She lay still, absorbing what he had said, thinking about how she needed to reach out to the families of the deceased and offer her sincere condolences. Flowers on all the graves, she thought to herself.
"Have you seen our daughter?" she eventually thought to ask him.
He laughed lightly. "I heard you barely saw her."
A blush colored her crimson. "I'm not even sure how long I slept. It felt like it had been just a moment."
"Most of a day, it would seem," Lan said. "They had to find a wet nurse in the Inner City because you simply could not be roused, no matter how hard the girl cried."
Nynaeve pulled a face. "'The girl.' What a horrible way to refer to her."
"Then perhaps she should be fetched so that she may be named."
"'Fetched.' She's no hound!"
Lan continued to laugh at her until he had found someone who would bring the baby to them, and leave her, and leave them. The three of them alone in the vast four-poster bed in Caemlyn was nothing like what Nynaeve had pictured for their first night as a true family, nor was the month-early arrival, or the severed arm that preceded the birth.
Nynaeve touched the soft velvety skin of her child and thought about Min's viewing. It seemed all a haze now, the entire experience, but she did remember what Min had seen: the Flame of Tar Valon, like Egwene, in a blue, blue sky.
She wondered when would be appropriate to tell her husband that their infant daughter would one day be not only a channeler, not only Aes Sedai, but the Amyrlin Seat. She knew it was probably not this day, their very first together.
Instead, she said, "What do you think about Ione?"
And Lan said he liked it quite a bit.