In Darkness
forgive us now for what we've done
.
The Palace was dark and cold and felt almost abandoned in the late hour. Rand knew he was not the only one up and wandering its halls, knew there were servants and Asha'man and any number of others strolling or slinking about, but it always felt to him that he was alone. In every way, he was by himself. That thought had hardened him almost to the point of breaking; he'd managed to pull back at the very last second, skidding back from the edge of the precipice. A dangerous place to be indeed.
He found his way into a study and lit the lamps inside with the Power. No sooner had they flared to life than they illuminated Nynaeve, curled up asleep on a chaise in the middle of the room, her dress twisted and snared about her and her braid coming loose from its bonds. Her face in sleep was serene, but judging by the way she was contorted, Rand doubted her dreams were peaceful. He released the weaves of Fire in the lamps and almost had left the room, and she to herself, before he stopped. He was not harder than steel anymore, or at least he did not want to think he was.
In the darkness Rand strode to the chaise where she slept and knelt slightly so that he could gather her in his arms. She weighed almost nothing to him, strong and broad as he was. She stirred a bit, and he froze, not willing to risk whatever wrath she would bring down upon him for treating her like a child fallen asleep in their parents' bed; however, she did not wake, but merely nestled her head against his shoulder. He lifted with his knees and carried her out of the empty room.
Down the cavernous halls he took her, not knowing where everyone else was. Aviendha was with Elayne; Min was somewhere else, somewhere he was not sure of. He was not sure of much anymore. Cadsuane was lurking about, undoubtedly following him with her eyes-and-ears in some way. There would always be people looking for him, following him. His Maidens crept around every corner after him, the distance he occasionally forced between them jarring and hurtful to them. Sometimes, though, he wanted space. Sometimes he only longed for a few glorious moments alone, just like when he'd sat upon Dragonmount bathed in light.
He brought Nynaeve into her room, channeled tiny flickers of flame into her lamps by which to see, and carried her to her vast four-poster bed. Their entire journey through the quiet halls of the Palace she had remained limp and quiet in his arms, her breath coming methodically as in sleep, but as he went to lay her down upon the mattress her fingers unexpectedly knotted in the loose linen shirt he wore. He glanced down at her, surprised, and found her looking back up at him. Instead of the anger or annoyance he expected to see coloring her features, tears gleamed mutedly in her eyes, barely visible for the very low light suffusing the room.
Rand couldn't think of what to say, or if he should explain. "I thought you would prefer to wake in your own bed," he said softly, so as not to disturb the softness of the silent room.
Nynaeve's eyes slid away from his and focused on his chest, where her hand had twisted into his shirt, dragging the laces that tied it together over his breastbone slightly apart and revealing his tanned, scarred skin. Her voice was thick and nearly inaudible when she finally spoke. "He's not coming back, Rand," she said. She blinked, and a tear, the first he had probably ever seen her shed, slipped sideways across her temples. "I'm never going to see him again."
Rand was aware that their positioning was strange. He held her yet, suspended above the bed, for she had awoken before he'd set her down. He still had not released her. He felt the warmth of the backs of her knees against his wrist through the thin silk dress she wore, and the laces lancing up her back that held it fast to her. He had no hand beneath her legs, only the stump his ruined wrist ended in, but his fingers caressed the skin of her bare spine through the laces of the dress.
"You can't know that," Rand tried to say. Nyaneve shut her eyes and he knew he was only helping to break her heart, to shatter it further, with whatever words he could possibly say. "There is always a chance."
Her hand released the fabric of his shirt. Her fingers were cold as they curled around the back of his neck, and every rational part of himself, all of them that were left, screamed in protest as he lowered her fully to the bed and allowed her hand to guide his head, allowed his lips to find hers. He closed his eyes as he kissed her, and that close to her he smelled the gentle perfume she applied each morning. With his mouth on hers and his tongue twined with hers, he tasted the salt of her tears.
He could hear them in his head, all of them screaming at him not to do what he was about to. Elayne, carrying his child, was crying; Aviendha, staring sternly and brokenly back at him; Min, disavowal in her eyes, complete resistance to the fact in her stance. He blocked them all out, the little reminders of them that were permanently lodged in his mind. He shut them out with a wall of steel and with his one good hand he pried apart the laces of Nynaeve's dress, loosening them enough that the bodice came away from her and her skirt lifted easily above her knees. Her own hands, small and delicate, tugged at his belt and his breeches, at his hard cock, as she lifted one leg and wrapped it around his waist.
It was an awkward position to be in, her lying on the edge of the bed and he standing beside it. He had to prop a knee on the mattress and use his right leg on the floor as leverage as he pulled her close, first nudging his fingers experimentally inside of her, swallowing the sounds she made as he continued to kiss her, to kiss Nynaeve, to kiss the Wisdom that had chased him round Emond's Field and served as his advisor and his tool and his older sister for all these long years of his time as the Dragon Reborn. He was feeling her from the inside, rubbing his thumb all round her and drinking down the cries that she was emitting that told him he was right, he was right where he should be.
The cries in his head were the ones he tried to shut out, to block away. Elayne and Min and Aviendha, and also Cadsuane, her look of disbelief, probably a stern reprimand something along the lines of You have three of them already, did you have to take a fourth? That girl is married will soon be a widower, she is confused, she does not know up from down, it is your duty to think for yourself and not take advantage of these situations Rand al'Thor you fool you ridiculous you
One of Nynaeve's hands was tangled in the hair at the nape of his neck and her mouth broke from his, his lips sliding away, down under her chin and sucking on her neck. Soft little sounds poured out of her, desperate, breathless, and his hand lifted from beneath her skirt to caress her shoulder. As he did his thumb brushed over the necklaces she wore, the one with Lan's ring that always hung between her breasts, the breasts his one good hand was covering through the tangled silk of her dress.
He realized she was saying words now, whispering words. "Now," she was saying, he realized. "Now, now, Rand."
Lan was his friend. Lan trained him in the sword forms and stood by him and was loyal, used to be Moiraine's Warder, was Nynaeve's husband. What would he say? Probably not much of anything. He would look at Rand and shake his head and maybe mutter something like Sheepherder, I expected more from you. Likely he would never know of this; likely he would die before Nynaeve would ever have to confess it to him. That was why they were doing this, wasn't it? Because he was never coming back, and because Nynaeve was living in perpetual despair over it, falling asleep in strange rooms at night, trailing Rand like an obedient pup as he tore all about the world. That was why he was thrusting his cock into her, his hips snapping up and up, her leg clamped tightly round his waist and their mouths on one another, his hand on her, his one hand all over her.
That was why she was crying as they had sex, why his tongue could taste the tears in the back of her throat. Because it was not Rand she loved, not as one was meant to love those with whom they slept. Rand was her dear friend, the boy she'd whipped into manhood, the boy she'd sworn fealty to and followed the world over. Lan was her husband, the only man who should have been inside of her the way Rand was, the only man who had ever been inside of her the way Rand was. He was ruining that, now, ruining the sanctity of that marriage. Nynaeve was letting him, he tried to tell himself, but he knew that was wrong. It was his responsibility. She was going to be a widow, and he had three wives, he had children yet to be born, one only months away from being born. He should have said no. He should have left her on the bed and walked away, or, better yet, left on the chaise and drew out of the study. He should not have been thrusting erratically within her, should have been gasping out, his mouth breaking from hers, as he came inside of her, pumping as long as he could, groaning over her shoulder and panting into her dark tangled hair, come loose out of its ever-present braid.
Nynaeve was sobbing into his chest when his climax subsided, her hand curled up over his heart and her tears wet on his skin. Rand didn't know what to do, how to make better what he had just undoubtedly made worse. He curled one arm around her and held her close, the silk of her dress still between them even though she was spilling out of it and it had ripped in four different ways. Rand twisted and slid fully onto the bed beside her, and he gathered her close to him, tucking her into the crook of his arm.
He kissed her temple, breathing in the sweat in her hair, but she did not seem to want that now. She buried her face in the hollow of his neck and cried, and all Rand could really do was hold her. All Rand could really do was leave her, too, but that was not an option he entertained. He could only hold her. He could only try and lend whatever strength he retained to her. He had already expended it in much worse ways.