Nyn's father used to scare her with tales of the Tower. Be good, he told her, or they will come get you. They would lock her up and she would never be seen, or see anyone, ever again. It was a place of nightmares and darkness. The last thing she expected to find there was kindness, but she had.
Life in the Tower wasn't all bad. She never went hungry, except for the few times her mouth got her into trouble. She always had a bed to sleep in, even if she had to share the chamber with more than a dozen other girls. It was never too cold in winter, or too hot in the summer, although she did miss seeing the seasons. But best of all, there was no more running, and no more hiding who, and what, she was. No more fear.
And she discovered she quite liked magic. She liked its grace and beauty. And its power. She would never be weak as her father was, she promised. She wouldn't hide who, and what, she was, she would use it and find her own freedom.
Nyn thought of her lost family constantly in her first months at the Tower. She missed them more than she would have ever imagined and she felt hollow without them, as though she were missing her heart. She dreamed of them morning and night and wondered what they were doing, if they were thinking of her as she was them.
She missed Min most of all. And she wondered about the twins she had never met. She wondered if they were mages too and she searched every new apprentice that came into the Tower for familiar signs, but she always left in disappointment.
As she grew older, she grew angry. They had left her. Her father had made his choice, and he had chosen his wife and younger daughter over her. Maybe it wasn't fair of her, but none of it was fair. And after awhile she thought of them less and less, and then hardly at all. And then she forgot them, her father's voice and her mother's laugh, except in dreams.
She never forgot Min though, and never stopped thinking about her. It was strange to think that she was no longer that toddler she had left behind, she would be older than Nyn had been when she saw her last; almost a teen now. They used to look so much alike, with their white-blonde hair, and she wondered if they still looked the same. She wondered if Min even remembered her. One day she would find her, when she got out of here.
And she would, for the Tower might have been a comfortable prison, but it was a prison just the same. And she yearned for freedom.
She would miss the library though. She had always had a love for books and of reading, although they were hard to get on the road. The Tower had more books than she could have ever imagined one building holding, more than she could read in a single lifetime, more than every mage in the Tower could read in their lifetimes, although she could try. They held a magic and freedom of their own. She learned that knowledge was more powerful than any single weapon, even magic.
And she loved teaching the youngsters as she was doing now. She honestly enjoyed being with the younger students and showed a patience with them and that was surprising to her other instructors; she had often been told she could be quite 'difficult', though, she never saw it herself. It was assumed that she would become an instructor herself, and maybe she thought she would.
The youngsters were practicing fire magic in the practice room. Each of them, boys and girls, humans and elves, together stood before rows of candles; as her father had taught her years before. Most remained unlit, but a few showed a weak pale flame.
Nyn's own magical power was something of a wonder to the other mages at the Tower, when she could control it, and more than a few had been jealous of her strength.
"I can't do it!" The girl stomped her foot. "I'll never do it." Nyn smiled to herself; no, the girl was not familiar, not at all.
"You will," she bent down to the young girl's level. "You're overthinking it. You need to feel it," she pointed to her heart, "here." Magic was like breathing to a mage; and trying not to be a mage was as easy as not breathing would have been. They all got it, eventually.
"Apprentice Nynaeve, you are to come with us."
The sound of a hollowed voice behind a helm still made her feel like that little girl hiding in her mother's arms. She turned, keeping herself in front of the student. "What is it?"
The Templars helms covered the whole face and only their eyes shined through. They were uniformed, though one learned how to tell them apart; you had to, to survive. And unfortunately Nyn had recognized the speaker. He was the worst of the worst: a zealot. He believed mages were a blight on the world, that they were all abominations on the Maker's natural order.
"You are not to question us, mage. I will not tell you again."
"I'm not leaving with anyone until I hear where you're taking me." She crossed her arms in defiance; she wasn't afraid, she told herself. But there were three of them and they could overpower her easily; as easily as when she was only nine.
"Nyn- Nynaeve," a shorter brother in the back stuttered, "First Enchanter Irving has requested your presence." Templar Cullen. Nyn breathed out. Cullen wouldn't hurt her, he wouldn't hurt anyone.
"Thank you," she nodded to him; let no one say she didn't know her manners. "I will go to him immediately."
Nyn walked in front of the Templars as though she led them and not them her. She would never show her fear again. And she entered Irving's office without knocking.
The grey beard old man chuckled quietly when he stood to greet her, slow moving because of his age.
Nyn felt safe in the small tightly crammed office and with the kind old man. He had been the one who had held her when she cried for her parents her first night in the Tower. He was like the grandfather she had never known.
Not that she never got into trouble. She had been sent here more than a few times because of her mouth and temper, though, she could not think of what she could have done this time.
"Nynaeve, you came to us ten years ago and have shown remarkable progress. You have mastered spells with a speed and power beyond your years." Irving held her shoulders. "The Circle believes you are ready. You are to be given the Harrowing."
"The Harrowing?" She repeated numbly. It wasn't supposed to be real, it was only a tale to tell younger mages to scare them, stories of mages who disappeared in the night never to be seen again.
"Yes child, it is true," he answered. "I will not lie to you, it is as dangerous as you have heard. And you can be lost or killed during the test." Lost? She wondered what that meant. "You have two chances to walk away. You may leave now until you feel you are ready. However, if you agree now and back out later, you get no more chances and you will be turned Tranquil, do not take this choice lightly."
"And if I pass?"
"If you pass, you would no longer be an apprentice mage. And, if you never take the test, you will remain an apprentice for life."
As a mage she would be given more freedom than as an apprentice. She would have access to more than the first level spells. She could finally get into the second floor library. And she might even be given missions off Tower grounds.
There was no choice to make.
"I will take the Harrowing now, First Enchanter."
