Prologue

The Selkie Woman

A/N: Slightly edited from its original version. And if you ever get the chance to check out tarvalon. net, I highly recommend it!

Her name, in the Old Tongue, meant "Eaglewings." Her name, in the Old Tongue, was merely Kiji.

Kiji stood high upon the tallest hill in the Seanchan village of Fylgari—it was little more than a knoll, really—watching the harbour as it bustled about, preparing for the voyage Tuon, Daughter of the Nine Moons, had ordered years ago upon all shipwrights. The fool girl believed she could just up and claim the lands across the Aryth Ocean as being hers by guardianship passed to her from Artur Hawkwing, of all people! But there were worse fools in the world, Kiji supposed. Like the women calling themselves Aes Sedai.

Her damane, Nula, was sitting under a large narrowleaf tree, waiting patiently for her…well, it could be called patiently, for Nula. Nula had been one of those Aes Sedai, newly leashed the past spring. Kiji wondered if the rumours brought back when Tuon had sailed across the Aryth Ocean, brought back by the waves of ships return from Falme, were true, that the new damane native to that region had indeed turned against their sul'dam, that the Dragon Reborn had indeed appeared in the sky above Falme, battling the Dark Lord. The rumours seemed to fit the Prophecies, but what of them? Were they spread merely by shipwrights too long at sea?

Kiji shook herself free of the thought and turned to Nula. "Come, Nula," she said. Like the girl was a dog. "We're going back, now."

The girl cringed, but stood up. Good; she was learning quickly.

Keeping her eyes cast down, like a good damane, Nula walked beside Kiji back to the kennels. Like a dog. A well-trained dog. But even a well-trained dog that had strayed to you could turn on you in an instant.

There was an old legend where Kiji had grown up, of a fisherman who had watched a seal breach onto a rocky island. The sealskin had fallen away to reveal the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her tongue was the Old Tongue, more ancient than any he'd ever heard; and she called herself Nula when he captured her sealskin. Nula lived with him for several years, bearing many children, but she discovered the sealskin; she claimed it back and went back to the ocean.

Creatures like that Nula were called Selkies by the fisherfolk, and if you could capture a Selkie, you could control it. In a way, Kiji's Nula was like a Selkie—she came from a far-off land and spoke a tongue Kiji could barely understand—and Nula's skin, her ability to channel, had been captured, like the sealskin. But Kiji knew that if Nula could ever regain that loss, and escape her leash, she would go back to her old home. Kiji hoped to prevent that, hoped to show Nula that his was her home, now, that she could never go back and that she would serve the Empress until she died. Even the tamest horse spooked sometime.

So Kiji had approached the Empress herself, telling her that, given a chance, Nula would escape. Don't let her off the leash, the Empress had told her. She will learn to be a good damane, and when she is a good damane, and grey-haired, then we will take her back. By then she will have forgotten she was ever an Aes Sedai.

Yes, Kiji thought as she led Nula up the Palace staircase to the very top, where the royal damane were kept, pamper her and she will forget. Reward her, and she will be good. Don't let her have her sealskin, and she will obey us, always.

Still in her lightning-panelled dress of the sul'dam, Kiji knelt before the Empress. "The new damane, Nula, is improving," she said, choosing her words carefully. "But she still remembers she was not always a damane."

The Empress frowned, tapping her lacquered talons on the edge of her chair. "Put her in with one of the older damane," she said after a time. "Then she will forget."

"Empress," Kiji said, "where I come from, we have many legends. The fisherfolk always do. But this is one everyone learns, in the islands.

"A young fisherman, Mycal, was out setting his traps when he saw a seal lumber up to a ledge on a nearby outcrop. Remembering that seals were prized for their fat and their tough hides, he quietly anchored his boat and swam to a place on the outcrop where he was hidden but could clearly see the seal.

"Something was happening to that seal. I was becoming flatter, and Mycal could see a mass of dark emerging from the head. Slowly the sealskin fell away, revealing a woman. Mycal knew at once that this was one of the legendary Selkies, a being akin to the Forsaken, but yet not nearly so. But he also knew that if you could steal a Selkie's skin, you could control her.

"He took the Selkie woman, who called herself Nula, home and married her. Mycal knew that if Nula ever found her skin, she would leave him and go back to the ocean, where she belonged. So he hid the sealskin from her, tucked up in the same spot where he hung the day's catch.

"The fisherman and his Selkie wife had many children, but he knew she would not stay with him; she was always gazing out toward the cliff where he had captured her. And one day, she found her sealskin and followed him out to the cliff in the form of a seal. He never saw her again."

Kiji paused. "So you see, the damane Nula is like the Selkie Woman. If you let her escape, she will not come back."

"Put her with Gara," the Empress said, as if she had not heard a single word. "Gara is an old damane, and has served the Empire well for three hundred years. She will help your Nula learn she will always be a damane."

Was the Empress intentionally inviting disaster? For Gara had been Aes Sedai once, too.

The damane called Nula sat on her miserable excuse for a bed. The damane kennels were, if possible, worse than the Accepted quarters in the White Tower! Nula tugged at her braid, stubbornly. Bloody ashes, she could not forget she was Nynaeve al'Meara of the Yellow Ajah, not Nula, a good damane!

She could not feel Lan Mandragoran at all, not at this distance. At least he was still alive. That much she was sure of.

Nula was angry enough, she felt, to channel enough balefire to destroy the entire palace. She knew now how Egwene had felt when she was damane, the sense of complete helplessness accented by hatred for anyone not in a lightning-panelled dress.

Her sul'dam was back, this time with a grey-haired damane. "Nula, I've brought you a companion," Kiji said. "Her name is Gara." She unfastened the bracelet from her wrist and hung it upon the hook that held Nula's. "Gara, you know what to expect," Kiji said before she left.

"My name is not Nula!" she cried furiously as soon as the door closed behind Kiji. Well, a few moments after the door closed behind Kiji. "It is Nynaeve al'Maera. I am an Aes Sedai of the Yellow Ajah!"

Gara simply stood there, her hands neatly folded, her eyes cast downwards. Like a good damane. Like a dog. Blood and bloody ashes, they were not bloody dogs!

The older woman crossed over to the bed, sinking down next to Nula. "Be quiet, Aes Sedai," she said, "or they will keep you quiet. They have ways."

Nula looked at her, realising suddenly that she had an Aes Sedai's ageless look about her. Most of the other damane who had been Aes Sedai had that look as well, but she'd been around enough Kinswomen and Sea Folk and Wise Ones and other damane to recognise the look of those who were not Aes Sedai. "How long ago were you leashed?" she asked.

"Nearly three hundred years ago," Gara replied. "On a fishing boat far to the west of Falme. I was Zyida Albenorn then, of the Brown Ajah."

"Have you ever attempted to escape from them?"

Gara nodded. "Three times. I make a point of at least attempting every hundred years. Long enough to let them forget I try, enough so that I can wait and plan it better, enough so that the sul'dam who remember are no longer alive. I plan to attempt it again, soon."

Nula knew that she could trust this woman. Bloody ashes, she had to.

Darkness had fallen some time ago, but Egwene al'Vere was still awake, restlessly pacing the deck of the ship known as the Blackbird.

Had it been too much to allow the Seanchan to capture Nynaeve? Nynaeve had suggested it, full well knowing the risks, but also knowing that it was just one way among many that would help them claim back all the Aes Sedai who had been made damane during the Seanchan invasion of Tarabon. But it seemed the easiest way.

"Mother, come to bed," her maid, Chesa, begged, appearing beside her. "You cannot do a thing for this invasion if you do not rest properly."

Egwene shook Chesa's fussing hands away. "I wish there was some way of contacting Nynaeve," she muttered, almost to herself; "but she's not a Dreamwalker. Was this plan in vain? In a hundred years, will I be known as the Amyrlin who sold Aes Sedai to the Seanchan? It's been a year, Chesa, and we aren't any closer to freeing those sisters than we were when Nynaeve suggested this fool idea!"

"You've already become well-known for your determination, Mother," Chesa fussed. "You showed that in the war against Elaida. You will show it again in this war."

"Chesa," Egwene said, staring at Fylgari Harbour, "I will come to bed shortly. I need to think."

"Do not be much later," Chesa replied, like a mother anxiously watching over her children.

Those fool Seanchan believed they could reclaim the lands that Artur Paendrag had lorded over during the Age of Legends, and had very nearly succeeded. Now Egwene was determined to weed them out. She'd already won against Elaida, hadn't she? Wasn't she the youngest Amyrlin anyone could remember, and at that one who had not even gained the shawl before being raised? She was too confident, determined that because she'd already accomplished so much, events should bend for her when she was merely present at them. That had been Elaida's mistake, why she hadn't lasted as Amyrlin. Egwene was determined not to copy Elaida. But hadn't Elaida, from rumours she'd heard, been determined not to copy the mistakes the last Red sister who'd been Amyrlin had made?

Yet it wasn't so much that—well, it was, because Egwene was the only Amyrlin not to have been raised from the shawl—as being fair and learning from history. The weight of this invasion was squarely upon her shoulders, for even now there were songs about her, and gleemen were telling histories about her that were well out of proportion. Any leader had to deal with the gleemen, but the Amyrlin Seat most of all. She felt as though she should be staggering under the weight of all she was trying to do. Not only did she have to live up to the mere fact that she was the Amyrlin Seat, she had the whole history of the White Tower behind her. And here she was, trying to free a few hundred sisters from the Seanchan. Light, she was out of her mind, if not out of her head.