Neya stood on the balcony, arms crossed on the guardrail. The night was hot and stuffy, but the sky was cloudless, which gave her a great view on the myriad stars burning bright above. For most of her life, she'd had no idea what stars were. She'd always pictured them as blazing torches planted at irregular intervals in the celestial vault. Bao had corrected her with what she suspected would have turned into an amused smile, if he hadn't held it back at the last moment.

Well, whatever they were, the sight was so entrancing that Neya didn't hear Bao when he joined her on the balcony. She jumped a little when he leaned against the guardrail beside her and reflexively put a hand on her abdomen.

"Is something wrong?" Bao asked with a trace of worry at the gesture.

Instead of replying, Neya took his hand and placed it on her belly. The bump was not showing as much as she'd anticipated, after five months. The midwife claimed it was different for every woman; there were no norms where pregnancy was concerned.

Barely a second went by before the baby kicked again. Bao's eyes widened. She couldn't remember ever seeing him so plainly startled. "It's been acting up for over an hour," Neya explained. Nyamukuta had warned her that it might start moving soon, but Neya hadn't known what to expect. She'd awakened with a start, certain that she was having contractions – she'd never experienced those, either. Then she'd laughed when she realised what was happening; she'd been on the verge of sounding the alarm and rousing the entire palace.

"Does it hurt?" He often asked that, regarding pretty much anything. It was as though he couldn't decide what was supposed to hurt and what wasn't. To Bao, mere mortals had a seriously low threshold for pain.

"No, it doesn't. It's just…strange." It was stunning and wonderful, but she felt silly thinking that. All babies kicked; it wasn't anything out of the ordinary. But to actually feel her baby moving, to know that there was a living human being growing inside her… She hadn't fully realised that until now. She couldn't help but imagine how Mazrim would react, if he were the one with his hand on her belly at this very moment.

Neya hastily dismissed him from her mind. She couldn't dwell on him, on what could have been. That ship had sailed, as the saying went. She was with Bao now, for better and for worse – and she had a bad feeling that the worse awaited them.

"You should rest," Bao murmured.

"I can't sleep," she replied. "I feel as restless as the baby."

Bao considered for a moment. "Would you care to take a walk with me?"

Neya blinked in surprise – that was not how they usually dealt with sleeplessness – but she agreed. She expected a stroll through the gardens, but Bao opened a gateway instead. On the other side lay massive ruins, situated on a mountain ridge. Bao stepped through and offered her a hand, which she accepted. She hadn't gained much weight – not yet – but she was feeling ungainly all the same, especially with the baby kicking and moving around.

The ruins were really just that, ruins; a heap of dry-stone walls scattered across a rather large area. She could barely distinguish the outline. "Is this a relic of your Age?" Neya wondered as Bao let the gateway close behind them.

"Of the First Age," he corrected her.

Neya stared at it all with renewed interest and fascination. How could anything have lasted throughout not only one, but two Ages? It wasn't in good condition, but it was there nonetheless. It must have been a large building of sorts, or a cluster of smaller ones. "What was it?"

"No one really knows, though many a scholar attempted to determine its purpose. It used to be a famous tourist site, in our days. It is apparently one of the few things that were not displaced or destroyed during the Breaking."

"Are there other remnants from the First Age? Or from the Age of-" She cut off. He didn't like to call it that. "From the Second Age," she amended.

"Very few. The Portal Stones are the only functioning artefacts from the First Age, but various objects have made it through the Breaking."

"Like the glowbulbs."

Bao nodded. "Yes, we recovered several of those in stasis boxes across the world." Thanks to Elan, Neya already knew what a stasis box was, though she'd never seen one. "The Citadel, in Kigali, is also a vestige of our Age, though it has suffered many alterations, and has been rebuilt several times so that it looks very little like the original building," Bao continued. "It used to be the Conservatory of Mar Ruois."

Elan and Jasin had both mentioned the Conservatory, which had been a school where one could learn the musical arts. Jasin had studied there, and Elan had taught the piano for a few years, sometime between his retirement as a professor at the University of V'saine and his infamous betrayal in the Hall of Servants. Neya turned to Bao, whose green eyes had taken a faraway look. "Do you miss any of it?" she asked him quietly.

"Not at all," he replied without skipping a beat. "Despite what you may have been led to believe, it was hardly the utopic world your scholars picture. We had superior technology and commodities, certainly, but society was as flawed then as it is now."

"But there were no wars," Neya pointed out. "Not before the Collapse."

Bao snorted with contempt. "Of course there were wars. Not in V'saine or Mar Ruois, but in the less advanced parts of the world, there was always strife and violence. We who lived in the Western and Eastern Territories were more than happy to overlook this, because it was happening so far away. It was not our concern. We considered ourselves superior to the primitive barbarians who inhabited the Northern Lands."

Neya remembered what Elan had told her, that Barid Bel had travelled much in his youth. He must have witnessed this in person. "What about the south? Did people live there?"

"It was inhospitable in our days. Nothing like the Blight – it was a frozen wasteland. Nothing could ever grow there, and few species could survive the cold. But that was very far south. The Western and Eastern Territories took up most of the world map."

They were silent for a while as they strolled amongst the ancient stones. The air was pleasantly cool, thanks to the altitude. The wind blew hard around them, but Bao had apparently created a saidin-woven buffer to shield them from the worst of it. "It couldn't be that bad, though," Neya said after a while. "There were no Darkfriends. And many people were famous intellectuals. Or artists. Or Aes Sedai."

"Being renowned does not make one a good person," Bao pointed out.

Neya waited for it.

"Lews Therin was not as perfect as the stories would have you believe," he added with unconcealed scorn.

There it is, she thought wryly. She'd never really believed that, in truth. Elan had made it quite clear that the Dragon's reputation had been far from immaculate, though most people readily overlooked and forgave his…eccentricities, in view of Lews Therin's contributions to the world at large. But it was better to move on before Bao started ranting again. Neya said the first thing that crossed her mind to distract him – a bad habit she really ought to lose. "Bao, I know you were never married before, but…" Blood and ashes! This was hardly a better topic of conversation, but she had been avoiding it for too long. "Did you…um…that is, has there ever been an important woman in your life?"

He glanced at her sideways. "Of course. Several." Neya felt a twinge of jealousy. Yes, well. She had walked right into that, hadn't she? What had she expected? That he'd been chaste for four hundred years? He had been famous, and he was handsome. There must have been throngs of women willing to-

"But you are not like any other woman I have ever known," he continued.

Neya frowned. "I'm not sure how I'm supposed to take that," she remarked.

Bao indicated a portion of the stone wall where they could sit. Neya noticed that the baby was not kicking anymore. Perhaps it had finally gone to sleep. Come to think of that, did unborn babies sleep? She shook her head, dispelling the completely irrelevant question. She was trying to evade the present conversation – which she had started herself, burn her for a fool. Bao was gazing at her with his customary intensity. "I've courted astronomers, theologians, philosophers, Aes Sedai…" he began. Neya suppressed a grimace. Now he was just being mean. "People whom I considered my equals." He paused. "We were all quite arrogant. So full of ourselves. But I never realised the full extent of it until I travelled up north. That journey altered my perception of the world I lived in. I was not the same man when I returned." He wasn't really addressing her remark, Neya noted. "But in all my travels, I've never met anyone quite like you."

"What does that make me, then?"

"You are genuine. You are…you. You refuse to be defined by people's expectations of who you should be. You are not a people-pleaser, despite everything you have been through – and you have survived ordeals I never could have imagined one of this Age to overcome."

Neya chuckled. He did realise that he had begun as one of those ordeals, yes? "I'll take that as a compliment."

"It was meant to be one."

Light, but she hated it when he was so impossibly adorable. Well, she loved it, but it made her so bloody conflicted. She'd been here for months, and they were married, but he still surprised her more often than she cared to admit. He was a man of many hidden depths. "Bao…" She hesitated. This was a beautiful night, without doubt one of their last together. Did she really want to ruin it?

She didn't want to. But she had to. The end was nigh, as Bao put it. She wouldn't get many more opportunities. "You want to become Nae'blis, correct?" Bao nodded slowly; at first he seemed perplexed by the sudden transition, but perplexity quickly gave way to resignation. He knew what was coming: yet another attempt at changing his mind. "Then the Dark One will always be your master, and you its servant." Now he was scowling. "Doesn't that bother you? Honestly, try as I might, I can't picture you bowing and scraping to anyone, even the Dark One." Neya already knew that she couldn't convince him that the world would end, if the Dark One was victorious. She'd tried that argument before, several variations of it, in vain. This was her latest angle of approach – and possibly her last. She was running out of ideas.

Bao was silent for a long moment. Neya wondered if she'd angered him; his face was a mask. He usually displayed legendary amounts of patience whenever she tried to divert him from his ultimate objective, but perhaps he'd finally run out.

"I have not yet decided…" he began to say, then closed his mouth, his teeth clicking audibly. "Slaying Lews Therin is merely the first step," he stated eventually. "Once I become Nae'blis… I suppose I may have to destroy the Great Lord myself, if I want the world to be truly mine, and to rid it of His nefarious influence."

Neya stared at him in stupefaction. He wanted to destroy the Dark One? That was new. He'd never mentioned this before – or anything even remotely resembling it. Light, what had happened the previous day? Bao had returned from his secret mission late last evening, and he had not been in a good mood, to say the least. He'd refused to say anything about it, however. "But… If you're going to end up killing the Dark One anyway, why fight for the Shadow at all? Shouldn't you-"

"Lews Therin must die." His voice was hard, unyielding.

She almost cursed aloud, but refrained at the last moment. Bloody Lews Therin again! Was it possible to feel jealous of a kinslaying madman? Sometimes, Neya wished the man was dead, too, just so Bao would stop bringing him up all the flaming time. But Lews Therin is dead, you ninny, a little voice reminded her sternly. He means Rand. You know that. "No," Neya corrected him eventually. "You want him to die. He doesn't have to. Bao, if you killed the Dark One before the Last Battle… If you assisted Rand in doing so…" She trailed off, knowing she'd gone too far.

As expected, Bao stared at her as though she were mad. "Assist him? He would only do as he has always done: let me handle the hard work, and take credit for the deed. I would never allow such a thing." His voice was cold steel, filled with contempt and bitterness. His eyes glowed with loathing. "You truly have a way of turning matters on their head." Neya understood right away that he was deflecting the conversation.

Blood and ashes, nothing would make him change course. Even though Bao seemed to agree that the Dark One had to be eradicated eventually, Lews Therin stood in the way – and always would, until Bao was satisfied that the man was dead, preferably by his own hand. But Neya couldn't possibly wish for Rand's death and risk dooming the world.

It was a lost cause.

And yet she had no other option but to keep on trying. She would not give up. She was far too stubborn for that.

Bao brushed aside a stray lock of hair from Neya's face. She was soundly asleep and snoring softly, an arm draped across his chest. He could feel the baby kicking gently against the bare, slightly-stretched skin of her belly. What a bizarre sensation. He had never been so aware that a living being was growing inside her.

If he decided to obey the Great Lord's command, and to do it before the Last Battle began, he might not get another opportunity. Tarmon Gai'don was upon them.

If he decided to obey? A risky choice of words. Failure to comply would undo everything he had worked so hard to achieve over the past two years – and in his time as a Chosen during the War of Power. It might also mean his death. The Great Lord was neither merciful nor forgiving, and He didn't abide disobedience.

Killing Neya would mean ending two lives at once. Could Bao really murder a pregnant woman in cold blood? He had never balked at murdering innocents before, whenever necessary, but…his pregnant wife? The woman he-

Loved. The woman he loved. He was still struggling with the realisation. He had never intended to actually fall in love with Neya – she had been a means to an end, nothing more. And now he had sworn an oath to her, in front of thousands of witnesses. I shall ever protect and shield you from harm. I shall care for you and our children. Bao was no oath breaker, but what was he to do, when his oath to Neya contradicted the one he had sworn to the Great Lord? The latter ought to prevail, he knew.

Darkness within! He had already sacrificed everything to get his revenge on Lews Therin. His soul, his reputation, his friends and family. And still the Great Lord demanded more from him? Neya was not even a threat! She loved him. She would never betray him.

Did he truly mean what he had told her earlier? The idea of defeating the Great Lord had often crossed his mind, even after he joined the Shadow, and was presently stuck in his head, since his visit to Shayol Ghul the previous day. Bowing and scraping, as Neya put it, was indeed not Bao's strong point, even if one could hardly do anything else when in the glorious presence of the Great Lord of the Dark.

Could it even be done? Could He be killed? Bao doubted it.

But surely, once the battle was over, the Great Lord would have no reason to interfere in the affairs of the world, not when his greatest enemy, the champion of the Light, the only possible threat to his eternal reign, was annihilated.

But did Bao really believe that? He was not so certain anymore. Neya's continued efforts to throw him off course were starting to affect him.

He let out a faint groan of frustration. Neya snored louder in reply. He watched her sleep. She looked so innocent, so vulnerable. She was utterly oblivious of her own part in all this. Dare he allow her to live, and hope that the Great Lord would absolve him when he slayed Lews Therin and claimed the title of Nae'blis?

Dare he take that risk, knowing that Moridin may have been correct about her, after all? She really was messing with his head.

What Bao knew for certain was that he would never aid Lews Therin. The very idea was preposterous. The man had to die, and that meant that everything had to go on as planned, at least for the time being. And after the battle… There would be plenty of time to reassess the situation then.

Bao had come this far; there could be no turning back now. He would have it all: Neya, the world, and Lews Therin's head on a spike. He would settle for nothing less. The Great Lord owed him that much.

Therefore Neya would live, and no harm would come to her or their child, not while Bao lived.

He was a gambler at heart, and it was a risk he was willing to take.

M'Hael remembered very little of his Ascension to the rank of Chosen. An ethereal voice, then an indescribable sensation followed by raw terror, mind-blowing awe, seething rage. Followed by numb nothingness.

The bond he shared with Neya had been altered in the process. It was still there, buried deep under layers of darkness and corruption resulting from the Dark One's touch, but…faded. Eclipsed by everything else, easy to overlook unless he concentrated. He could discern her existence, barely, but not her emotions, no sense of what she was feeling at all.

He wondered if she could still feel him at all, or if she assumed he'd died. It would certainly be preferable for her to believe that.

Demandred had made no comment as M'Hael – his official name now – rose gracefully to his feet, all trace of his previous torment vanished. He was tingling with renewed energy; his senses were heightened, as though he were holding saidin. He'd never felt better.

The euphoria was short-lived, however. Moridin materialised in M'Hael's new, makeshift study mere hours after his Ascension.

The Last Battle had begun.