"Light curse the girl!" Cyndane strode into Graendal's sitting room, fuming.

Seven of the Chosen were in there, as well as Moridin. Aginor, Balthamel, and Be'lal were holding the shield on Lews Therin, and Mesaana and Moghedien maintained the weaves on Aviendha.

"Trouble with Lews Therin's wench?" Ishamael asked with an amused smile.

Cyndane shot a look of pure venom at him, but he remained unfazed. Light curse him, as well, while it's at it.

"Now, now, be nice, Cyndane," Moridin said lazily. He stroked her cour'sovra, and she shivered at the feeling. I hate the man!

She crossed the room and threw herself into a chair beside Rahvin, who was smoking his pipe. The other Chosen spared her a disinterested glance.

"Oh come on, all of you, lighten up!" Sammael said suddenly, leaning forward in his chair. He held a pipe, as well, smoking forgotten in his hand. "We have taken the Dragon Reborn, and thirteen Myrddraal are on their way to the Pit of Doom. Shaidar Haran is one of them." Everyone started looking uneasy. Nobody knew anything about the taller-than-average Myrddraal, only that he was of some special importance to the Great Lord and had unusual powers.

Cyndane suspected that Moridin knew more about Shaidar Haran than he let on.

Asmodean seemed lost in thought, lounging in his own deep red armchair. Cyndane wondered what he could be so engrossed in. "What are you thinking about, Joar?" she asked curiously. He started, looking up sharply. Cyndane waited. Then she realized that everyone else was looking at her as well. She sighed. She had just displayed knowledge that only one of the Chosen could have. If there had been any doubt before as to her being Lanfear reincarnated, it was gone now. "Yes, I am the Daughter of the Night," she announced irritably. "You all knew that."

"The Daughter, with a child's impulsive mind," Rahvin murmured softly, and held up his hands in defense as Cyndane snarled at him. "My apologies, Lanfear."

"I am still the strongest among you," she snapped. She just stopped herself from looking to Moridin to see if he was displeased. The man does not own me! Well, actually he did, but he did not need any more reminders. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him smile as if he knew what she was thinking. She barely stopped a scream of frustration.

"You are the next to strongest," Ishamael corrected her.

Cyndane gave the Betrayer of Hope a cold glance and he laughed softly, inhaling the smoke from his pipe in one deep breath.

"Really, why are you so - snappish?" Semirhage asked with false concern painted on her face. The woman had put her feet up and was the very picture of relaxation. Cyndane was not fooled; the glow of saidar surrounded Semirhage.

Cyndane forced herself to calm down. "The girl . . . Aviendha . . . is being stubborn."

"She will not renounce her claim on young al'Thor?" laughed Graendal. "I cannot say I blame her. He is a pretty one, Rand. So was Lews Therin."

"None of your business," Cyndane shot back. Meddling fools! I will watch all of them die, slowly and painfully, one day . . .

"Did you give her water?" Asmodean asked all of a sudden. To Cyndane's surprise, it appeared to matter to him if the girl was treated well.

"No," she said shortly. What is going on there?

Asmodean rose from his chair. "Where are you going?" asked Moridin, who was suddenly sitting up straight. "We will be leaving for the Pit of Doom momentarily."

"I will be back before then," Asmodean answered, almost as a child to his overbearing father. Moridin's expression was not a satisfied one, but Asmodean went out the door, anyway. Moridin settled back into his chair, mouth tight as if displeased.

Cyndane held herself in her chair for a few moments more, and then couldn't take it anymore. She bounded up, straightening her skirts, and ignoring the amused looks the others gave her. "I must go as well," she announced, and mentally kicked herself at the bluntness of the statement.

Moridin opened his mouth angrily, but she crossed quickly to the door, slipped out, and closed it firmly behind her.

The hall was dim, and the marble floor shone from the light of the sunset coming in the windows lining the walls. Silk and velvet hung from the light, cream colored walls, draped with care to look as if they had been draped without care.

Cyndane frowned. The hall was long, both ways, but Asmodean was nowhere in sight. He must have Traveled. No matter. She knew where he had gone.

She wove her own gateway there, stepped through, and let it collapse without looking back. There. She had been right. The door to Aviendha's cell stood open, and low voices floated out from within.

Suppressing a sigh at the confirmation of her suspicions, she came to the door and leaned against the cold stone. The dungeons Graendal had designed to be positively medieval: stone, metal bars and darkness. Cyndane lifted her skirts out of a puddle of water, disgusted. Who did she have in mind to keep in these cells? She grimaced, and turned her attention back to the pair before her. Neither of them had noticed her in the doorway.

"Take it," Asmodean was insisting, holding a waterskin practically under Aviendha's nose. She backed away. "Why?" she retorted. "Why would one of you suddenly care?"

The man made an exaspearated noise, leaned forward and whispered something in the Aiel woman's ear. Her eyes widened, and she stepped back again, staring uncertainly at her benefactor. A moment passed, Asmodean still holding out the skin, and then Aviendha reached forward and took it. She kept her eyes on him the entire time. If Cyndane hadn't been so angry that Asmodean was undoing her work, she would have been amused. She is many things, but she is not stupid. She trusts no one.

Cyndane shifted her feet on the damp floor, wondering. What did he say to her?

Aviendha lowered the waterskin and stared at Asmodean a minute more before coming forward and putting the now empty skin into his hands. "Thank you," she said suspiciously, and there was an unspoken But why? at the end.

Asmodean corked the water skin without bothering to answer the unasked question. He turned, seemed unsurprised to see Cyndane in the doorway - Aviendha did gave a start - and brushed past her into the hall.

Cyndane turned unhurriedly, kicking the Aiel prisoner's door closed with her foot. Then she faced Asmodean, who was waiting calmly.

"Explain this to me," she said with barely restrained fury. The man quirked an amused - amused! - eyebrow. "Al'Thor asked me to give water to the girl," he answered.

"And you obliged?!?" Cyndane said incredulously. She cast a look back at the door, where the girl could very well be listening to them, grabbed an unconcerned Asmodean's arm, and yanked him a few paces down the corridor. "You obliged?"

"I am more kindly disposed toward him than you at the moment, Lanfear!" the male Chosen spat in a sudden burst of temper. Cyndane stepped back in spite of herself and clutched her skirts, angry at showing weakness.

Asmodean did not seem to notice. "You wove that cursed shield, netted me without a qualm, and gave me to al'Thor as if I were a parcel for your lover!" He stepped towards her, eyes flashing. "I just barely escaped the cour'sovra because of you - I had to labor to convince the others I was not a traitor, and even then the Great Lord only kept me alive because he couldn't lose one of the Chosen!"

"It''s not about me," Cyndane said softly, realizing. "It's about him, isn't it. Lews Therin. If you cut him slack because he showed mercy toward you, you're wrong!" she hissed. "Lews Therin was always soft- hearted. But remember what mattered. Remember it was he who imprisoned us in Shayol Ghul!"

"Lews Therin put us in there, Mierin," he said. He seemed to be gaining more control over the situation with every word. "Not Rand al'Thor."

Cyndane was aware that her mouth was working soundlessly, but she couldn't do anything to stop it. Burn the man - can he actually be turned that easily?

Asmodean began the weave for a gateway, paused, and then turned back to Cyndane. "He doesn't love you," he said with quiet certainty. "He cannot be forced."

That did it. Cyndane lost control. She slashed with saidar, and the beginnings of Asmodean's gateway vanished. As quickly as she could, she wove a shield of Spirit to block him from the Source. "You condemn yourself, traitor," she snarled as she started to bring it down.

But the other Chosen was ready. He slashed her flows to snap into her, and she staggered. As she did, he pressed her with a shield of his own.

Cyndane just managed to hold the edge back from her connection to the Source. She pushed it back with all her strength, and made another Spirit shield. As she hurled it at Asmodean, the man shoved his own shield back at her.

Saidin met saidar exactly halfway between the two Chosen. Cyndane was stronger, and her shield began forcing Asmodean's weaves back towards him. And just when he least expected it, she lent a small amount of her strength to a new flow of Earth, channeling it into the floor beneath her adversary. The stone rippled, and Asmodean lost his balance, stumbling to catch himself against the wall. It gave Cyndane another edge; as the other Chosen was distracted, she slammed her shield forward as suddenly as she could, and he stopped it with a tremendous amount of effort inches from his connection to saidin.

Smiling now, she pushed her Spirit weaves closer and closer. Asmodean was sweating now, something she hadn't seen him do in a long time. "You can't do this to a Chosen," he panted. "The Great Lord will have your hide!" Cyndane laughed. The man was trying to distract her. She deigned to reply. "He will not mind if I dispose of a Chosen who has started to side with Lews Ther - "

Before she could even finish the name, Asmodean suddenly stopped trying to push her shield away and diverted his strength to a massive inferno of blazing fire that shot at her with blistering heat.

Taken by surprise, Cyndane let go of her blade of Spirit, which had just begun to sever Asmodean's suddenly unresisting connection to the Source. She channeled Water and Air to make a web and flung it over Asmodean's Fire just in time, dousing it seconds before it reached her.

There was no smoke, no steam. The floor and walls were unmarked from both water and fire.

Cyndane threw herself to the ground, and a bar of Spirit passed over her head. She felt her body tingle at the closeness of it. If that weave had hit her, she would be unconscious right now, asleep.

She leaped furiously to her feet, readying another attack - and found that Asmodean was gone. Looking both ways down the hall, she saw a gateway closing to her right.