Catieri sat on the ground trembling, her legs tucked under her, her banded skirts dusty from the dry earth in the channeling yard. Zaephra Sedai was supposed to meet her there soon to…study her. Something strange - beyond strange - had happened during the ceremony that had raised her to Accepted. No one was quite sure what had happened; only that many of the Aes Sedai present had blacked out for a few moments, and all complained of horrible headaches afterward. Catieri herself barely remembered what had happened after exiting the Arches that last time, so traumatic had been the events inside. She just remembered being very, very frightened, and very, very angry. And saidar. She had been holding saidar, at last.
Absently braiding her long, dark hair, Catieri ran her tongue across her lips. Her mouth was as dry as the Waste. She had not realized how very nervous, even frightened, she was. What would Zaephra Sedai do to her? Probably shield her. Catieri did not know if she could suffer that again, to be cut off from the Source for any length of time, even if she could still feel it, as one supposedly could through a shield. She drew her knees up to her chest and rearranged her skirts around her, contemplating a thousand things the Indigo sister might do when she arrived. She was so lost in her thoughts that she did not notice Zaephra Sedai approaching.
"Catieri, Catieri...Why is that name familiar, Araida? I have to see the child in a tick mark, and I know I've heard her name. She was the stilled one, wasn't she? The skulking Novice...I'm sure that one was Catieri. They say she has a new Talent, that's why," Zaephra murmured, giving the half-deaf sister an irritated hitch of her shoulders. Araida had a habit of asking the question you had just answered, and if it was not the most annoying trait she knew...then she didn't want to know what could be more annoying. Begging off a later meeting with Catieri's talent as an excuse, she headed towards the Training Yard, intending to satisfy some of her curiosity about this Accepted. The walk was pleasant; the day before had brought rain, but today was sunny, and humid. Enjoying the fertile warmth of the blossoming world, Zaephra considered spending a few moments hanging over the fences of the Training Yard, but a quick glance upwards told her that Araida had eaten away most of her hour, and she was still so agitated! Perhaps walking quickly would release some of the stress; she simply didn't like repeating herself so often...Before she had done more than dent her temper, she was at the Channeling Yards, standing inside the gates, looking over the few white dresses and the multitude in banded white.
Catieri was easy to find; she was sitting by herself, a compact ball of a girl leaning against the far wall. Checking her notes on what had happened at the Raising ceremony, Zae frowned. The closest that she could even come to describing this manifested talent was simply "painful Compulsion of an heretofore unknown strength." And she, of all people, knew Compulsion...Compulsion was not what had caused the blinding headache that she was still suffering from the outer fringes of. "Catieri?" Zaephra questioned, sinking down across from the shivering girl. "I've come to have a look at your Talent...why don't we start with what you know about it? What triggered it, what you felt, how much you remember of what you did...Are you cold, child? Would you like to go inside, and have a cup of tea?"
"N...no, Aes Sedai," Catieri answered quickly. The woman's approach had gone unnoticed until she spoke, and the sound had made Cat jump. She struggled to her feet and made a hasty curtsy as she answered. "No, I am not cold. I would like to go inside, though, if you wish."
Catieri laid one arm across her stomach as if to quiet the butterflies that had suddenly appeared inside it. Her other hand found its way to her throat, feeling for the collar which was no longer there. With an effort, she pulled it down to her waist and clasped her hands, waiting for the Aes Sedai to speak again. She could feel the Source pulsing just beyond conscious thought and let herself sink ever so slightly into the stream of saidar. She drew on the Power minutely, so minutely, that she was barely aware that she drew on it at all, except for that telltale sharpening of her senses and the overwhelming sweetness of it. She tried not to dry wash her hands, knowing she should not be so nervous, but unable to help it. She was unsure as to whether she should start answering the barrage of questions about that day or wait until they had gone inside. She was still almost certain that the woman would shield her at the first available opportunity, and she clung to the Source like a lifeline. Catieri was unaware of the fine threads of saidar that plaited themselves around her.
"I don't remember, Aes Sedai. I suppose it was triggered by t...the...Arches," Catieri stumbled a bit over naming the giant silver ter'angreal that had caused her such pain. "Or rather, what was inside them...."
While she felt that she ought to shield a girl with such an uninvestigated talent, there was no way she could study it if it could not manifest. With interest, she gave the girl a few more leading questions, and then turned her attention to the tiny plaits and weaves of saidar that the girl was creating. She had never worked with that much Spirit, and she had never seen this particular weave before. Barely cognizant of Catieri's softly inflected words, Zae watched what she was doing with complete fascination.
"Catieri," she inquired, when her charge had stopped talking, and was sitting quietly, "what are you weaving?"
Catieri started in surprise, noticing the impossibly thin threads of Spirit for the first time. The threads formed a beautiful, intricate net around Catieri's head, like a piece of fine silk lace. It was comprised of a few graceful, sweeping curves and countless small spirals and twists. Tiny, sharp, angry-looking angles lent the whole thing a macabre, dark feeling. She stared at her work in horror, realizing that it was this weave she had thrown at the Aes Sedai in the Arches room the day before. Her fear was palpable, and she unconsciously began twisting the fibers of saidar toward Zaephra Sedai, though she fought not to. They moved so slowly, like pouring honey, and she stretched a hand out to touch them. With a sudden surge of will power, she tied off the dark weave and then picked the whole thing apart, watching the filaments dissipate into the warm autumn air.
"A storm," she whispered, looking at the Aes Sedai after a moment. She swallowed hard. "I was weaving a storm."
Catieri stared out the window into the grey predawn light. It was raining again. Still. It had been raining for a week, maybe a bit longer. Catieri did not know; she lost track of time now. Days and nights had run together into one unending, nightmarish blur. The Aes Sedai had moved her post-haste from her small room in the Accepted Halls, which she had occupied for only a single night, to an equally small room at one end of the infirmary. Catieri smiled a small, bitter half-smile. Oh yes, Zaephra Sedai had bundled her up quite swiftly, shielding her along the way. Her mind stretched out to caress that shield now, testing it, feeling saidar through it. It was like feeling something through a piece of silk, feelings its presence, its shape, but not its texture. She could tell it was there, waiting to envelope her, but she could not yet immerse herself in it. Time. She needed more time. She laughed at that, a chilling sound. Time was all she had.
They came to her room at all hours, a near-constant stream of Aes Sedai and Asham'man. They came to study, to observe, to "visit," but always to shield her. Some came more often than others; some only once or twice, some nearly every day. Rolanda came every day, and Liseitha, usually together. Aleatha came, too, and Zaephra. Ithan came less often than those four, but still she saw him often. Chialla Sedai had come once or twice, the Brown sister who had once been her teacher. She looked even more distracted than Catieri remembered, though, and infinitely sad. Catieri did not think she was the cause of the sadness, but no rumors touched her in her little cell in the infirmary. It was one of the mysteries that occupied her thoughts in idle hours.
Liseitha's and Rolanda's company was almost beyond bearing, but she was careful not to let them, or anyone else, know that. They would come to her smiling, and she would smile back, and then the pain would begin. The two Yellow sisters took joy in causing pain, and they did it well, even exquisitely. She got confused sometimes, forgetting that this Liseitha and this Rolanda did not know of the events in her Arches. Those Arches were Catieri's most closely guarded secret; indeed, her only secret, and the one all of her visitors wanted to pry from her.
It had been two months since her test to gain Acceptance. Her banded dress stayed remarkably clean since she was not allowed out of her room. Everything was brought to her; meals, water for bathing.... She wished they would bring a knife. A razor. Something sharp. But they did not. They brought only misery, and no relief.
The shield. Catieri studied the shield whenever she was awake and alone. They rarely left it tied off, so she had to be very careful about testing it. They mustn't know. She could feel where the focal points of the shield were, where the flows twisted in on themselves, the beginnings of the threads that wrapped around her. She had followed each thread around the shield time after time, feeling where it passed over or underneath another. If she could have seen the outside, she would have said she knew the shield inside and out. But she only knew the inside. She had never heard of anyone unraveling a shield from the inside, but she did not suppose anyone as weak as Catieri, and with a Talent for unweaving, had ever been continuously shielded for six months. The next time it was tied off, she would try it. If she failed, the shield would likely melt into oblivion, carrying her mind with it. Anything had to be better than this, though, and if she failed, she wouldn't have enough wits left to know about it.
Her chance came a few days after she made up her mind to try. It was early evening, and Liseitha and Rolanda had just left her. The young Sister assigned to maintain the shield had gone to supper, so Liseitha tied the shield off, believing Catieri too absorbed in her pain and too weak in the Power to escape. Catieri's mind had retreated to secret inner places to escape being clouded by the pain, and she struggled back to the surface now. There wasn't much time. Her awareness flew to the place on the shield where the most ends were knotted together, and she began tugging at one and pushing at another. Just a hair's breadth, just half a hair, and she would be able to grasp the threads and unravel it properly. And then…then she would taste saidar, for the first time in half a year. Taste life.
There. One end had loosened enough for Catieri to grasp it, and she was already sliding it out from between its mates. Within a minute, she had the thing undone and could feel the flows dissolving beneath her mental fingers. She was grasping saidar almost before the shield was gone, reveling in the feel of it. She felt alive again at last, and she lay still for a moment, just exploring how different it was to breathe now that she held saidar. She pushed herself off of her hard, narrow bed and straightened her skirts, relishing the sensation of the soft wool against her fingers. The residual pain from the Black sisters' visit was intensified, as well, but even that was a heightening to be cherished. She took a deep breath and opened the door.
She was met by a very startled looking Yellow sister whose mouth was full of roasted meat. Catieri smiled beatifically at her, weaving her own shield about the Aes Sedai. She glided through the outer door in a dreamlike haze, aware of everything and nothing all at once. None of the Novices scurrying around the hallways seemed to recognize her, and if they noted anything out of the ordinary, it was just the surreal smile on her face, nothing more. She left the Yellow Halls, but was unsure where she should go. And so she wandered, coming at last to the White Halls. She went up a flight of stairs and sat down on an elegant settee at the landing. Her body ached all over from Liseitha's attentions, and her mind was weary from its wanderings and from unraveling the shield. She regretfully let go of saidar and curled up on the settee. She was asleep within seconds.