"The Hall has requested my presence," Moiraine says. She does not smooth the letter: she is too much an Aes Sedai for that, even if the only one here to see is Nynaeve.
"Bother the Hall," Nynaeve retorts, yanking too hard on an embroidery thread. There is something soothing about Nynaeve embroidering. She is a deft hand at businesslike hemming and her seams are pin-straight, but embroidery, she has told Moiraine several times, has never numbered among her gifts.
She adds quickly every time, "I'm sure it could have been, if I had been less busy."
Nynaeve has changed, but not that much, and that is what is soothing: she grumbles under her breath every time she notices a flower gone off-kilter.
"The Hall seems bothered enough already," Moiraine says mildly.
"They want to drag you into some ridiculous Sitter position or bully you into being Amyrlin," Nynaeve says. "I think you have given quite enough to the White Tower for now. Haven't we both?"
I want to learn, Egwene had said, steel in her sweet face, and Rand, who had only wanted to keep people safe, and Siuan. Moiraine does not regret taking them all from the Two Rivers, and she does not regret doing her duty, but that does not mean she does not sometimes weep into her pillow late at night when even Thom is asleep.
"Lan worries about you," Nynaeve says after they have both considered their dead. I worry about you is left unsaid, but Moiraine sees it in the suddenly gentler use of the needle, the way Nynaeve's head is suddenly too still.
Nynaeve will never have the full calm of an Aes Sedai, not entirely, but Moiraine cannot bring herself to regret that either.
"Lan does not need to worry about me," she says instead of I know, I am sorry, he is yours but he is mine too still.
"He worries you'll leave," Nynaeve clarifies. "I told him it was ridiculous. Your place is here, with us. Malkier needs an Aes Sedai advisor we can trust."
"There is always Malkier's queen," Moiraine points out, but she does not do it dryly. She did not miss the use of us, and she did not think it was the royal plural.
Nynaeve snorts. "Malkier's queen is a country Wisdom whose personal acquaintance with several rulers allows her to make more mistakes than others might. We want you here, if you want to be. What happens when Elayne's Cairhienin decide to ply their game elsewhere?"
"I am Cairhienin," Moiraine says, this time as dryly as possible.
"Yes," Nynaeve says. "So, who better to be here when they slip in and try to trip me over my own words?"
Moiraine looks out the window, letter in hand.
"If you want to go, go," Nynaeve snaps.
Moiraine shakes her head and refrains from pursing her lips. The Tower has taken and taken and taken, and she knows it is most often for the greater good, but sometimes…
She does not wish she was not Aes Sedai. She does not even wish she had not heard the Foretelling or fought Merean. She would not have met everyone she has, or accomplished what she has, or stared the dark one in the face, if none of those things had happened.
It is only that she wishes she had saved more people, maybe. The Tower might have helped with that, if she could have trusted it. The only people she knows for sure she can trust… she supposes she can trust Leane. None of the others reside in The Tower. Most of them are here in Malkier, and they are slowly carving the land back, and they might need her.
"If you want to go, go," Nynaeve says again. "But if they try to take you, I will burn them down to the ground, Dragon's Peace or no."
Moiraine, despite herself, smiles when she glances sidelong at the other woman. "I did not realize we were friends, Nynaeve."
Nynaeve glares mightily at her. "You're supposed to be clever, Moiraine."
She laughs, surprising even herself, and crumbles the letter in her fist.