Malkieri. I am Malkieri.
It's been an odd few...decades, now...for our people. I moved to Shienar when my homeland fell, one of the last to leave. I hate to bring up that point because it makes me look brave. Trust me, I'm anything but—I just hated the idea of leaving home. Even from an early age, I never was adventurous. I stayed put as often as I could, and even facing the Shadow, I was slow to move.
Once I got to Shienar, though, I planned on staying there. I was a farmer—not rich by any means, but I made enough to get by. There was talk, among some, of reclaiming our kingdom someday, but I always shrugged it off. Easier not to think of the concept of moving again. One by one, people I'd known from Malkier—friends, family even—decided to try their luck farther away. But Shienar's frigid soil was enough for me.
Stories trickled back. Sensible enough ones at first, but as the years passed they grew wilder or I grew less patient with them. Stories have a way of twisting the truth.
But then the world shook, and no one could ignore it. Oh, I stayed put—you've heard of the great army that rode for Tarwin's Gap, I was nowhere near that. There's another story, how all the ancient Malkieri rallied around their lost king. Well, it wasn't what happened—I and surely others like me stayed where we were. Shienar was our home, even if the hadori still shadowed my face.
Now, though, they need people like me. People who weren't fool enough to get killed early on, who want to help decide what this Malkier should be. I'm not blind to the truth—I know I won't live many more years, won't see what Malkier becomes. But I figure it's worth giving my voice, just today. Once a kingdom, then a people with no king, then a king with no land—someone has to make sense of it all.
There are a few of us left, gathering in this hall, but many foreigners as well. El'Nynaeve, of course, was Two Rivers born. Strange place in its own right, I suppose—a newborn nation from ancient roots. And that man in the back is from the Two Rivers—oh burn me for a fool, it's only Matrim Cauthon, Prince of the Ravens or whatever he styles himself. They said he had the Dark One's own luck, although today I suppose you'd say the Dark One had Cauthon's luck—until it ran out.
What does he want calling my name?
"Your...Highness?" I guess.
Cauthon blinks, unsettled. "Excuse me, sir. Thought you were someone I knew."
He tries to push his way through the crowd, towards the door, but "thought"? "Have we met?"
He sighs. "Who are you?"
"Noal Charin, of course. Who else would I be?"
Honestly. Children this Age.