Perrin stood in the large stone
house, and looked out the window for the last time. He turned to look at his sleeping wife, and knew that it would
break his heart to leave her, and that she would hate him for breaking his
promise, but there was no way that he would risk her life to appease his damn
curse.
Slowly
creeping across the room to the door, he felt his resolve weakening. What difference would it make if he left
tomorrow instead of today? Yet he knew that is he stayed, he would keep
inventing reasons not to go, until either something bad would happen to him or
Faile, or Creator forbid, Rand. He
opened the door slowly so that it would not creak.
As
he entered out into the night, he looked up at the pale moon and searched for
the wolves. As he suspected, they still
had not returned. The threat of Slayer
was still too fresh in their minds. He
silently made his way to the stables, and saddled his horse. He did all of this in the dark, more because
he didn't need the light then because of the fear that people might see
him. No one would question the doings
of their precious Lord Perrin Goldeneyes.
If he wanted to go for a ride in the middle of the night, he bloody well
could.
Upon
exiting the stables, he was shocked.
Standing outside the stable was Faile, and behind her was a mob of Two
River's youth. The very ones he had
ridden with when they had hunted the Trollocs, and who had stood by he when
they had attacked Emonds Field with the Fades.
"If
you think you can go riding off by yourself, you are mistaken!" Faile stated
calmly, but she poked him in the chest for emphasis. She reeked of anger, annoyance and strangely, hurt. She was hurt that he had considered going
off without her. "You're not going to
break your promise and leave me here.
One
of the young men looked up at Faile, and though he looked up at her with
adoration, he spoke contemptuously.
"You said you didn't know where he was going."
"I
lied," she retorted. She then turned
back to Perrin. "I'm not going to let
you go off to Light knows where to help the Bloody Dragon Reborn!"
A
silent hush fell over the entire crowd before one of the younger boys piped
up. "You're going to help the Dragon
Reborn?" The boys began to murmur. Help a man doomed to go mad? That would be crazy.
"No!"
Perrin shouted above the cacophony. "I'm
going to help Rand." The boys quieted
at the sound of a Two Rivers boy's name.
At least I hope it's Rand I'm helping, Perrin thought to
himself. At Tear, he walked around
with his nose in the air like he ran the place. How much power has he gained since then, and how much of it has
gone to his head?
