This is just a quick update to get me back on track.

Note: The character Dirk's real name is Kye. So either appellation refers to him.

Disclaimer: All profits to RJ

Chapter 18: A Harmful Hand

Kea knew something was different the moment he walked into her view. He seemed more boyish and carefree. He seemed less of a man to her. Mentally she shook herself this was foolish. She wondered what he had remembered since he had had several sessions with Revoir Sedai now. She was reputedly the best there was at healing damaged minds. Maybe that was what made Dirk suddenly look so innocent and carefree. 'Or maybe Kea, you are just imagining him as less because he is not how you knew him,' she scolded herself.

Fixing a smile on her face she moved closer to the once Warder as he went through his sword forms alone. He had a smile on his face which seemed oddly out of place with the grin he had fixed on his visage. It was just wrong somehow that a man should be smiling as he practised killing people. Then she remembered how she had smiled and preened for her sul'dam when she had done well. Her doing well had almost always been when she had gone another step to perfecting how to kill people. She had smiled as she had practised and succeeded in killing people. She felt sick. Dirk had saved her from that, shown her what channelling could really be about. She would choose Yellow and become a Healer like Revoir. The arches did not tell the future! They could not! She would not let that be so! Who said she had to choose Green just because in that illusion she had!

"Kea!" Dirk stopped in mid swing, smiling at her as if she were the sun itself. The sword was sheathed in a moment and he moved to her side. His Warder's cloak was neatly folded on the floor by where he had been practising. "It feels like an age since I have seen you!" he announced with a relived laugh. "You do work too hard now you are Accepted."

"I work too hard? It is you, who has not stopped for a moment. Always with Revoir Sedai I never have the chance to see you," she retorted.

"Nevir?" he repeated oddly. "Nevir?"

"No, not Nevir; never!" repeated Kea exasperated, being careful to express each syllable precisely. Was he making fun of her accent again!

"No, it's a name, a name I should know," he said quickly. "I must find Revoir Sedai. I must tell her!" His eyes lit up with excitement he moved swiftly to collect his things. Kea could almost not contain her groan of disappointment. She did not want him to go.

"Well I must only Revoir can help me recover my memories and find out whose Warder I am." Kea's eyes widened she had not realised that she had spoken her thought aloud, how embarrassing!

"You used to not be sure you wanted those memories back," cautioned Kea, even she could hear a petulant tone in her voice now. She did not like Revoir and she had barely seen Dirk and he had been so glad to see her. Or so she had thought? Now at a moments notice, the merest hint of something to do with her and he was off again. It was hateful and what was worse she knew she should be happy and encouraging him in this. Not hating Revoir and searching for reasons that he should not go. For the first time in her life she was learning to be selfish. It was not a good thing she decided.

"You convinced me I should. Remember, you read my Roots," Dirk riposted. He bent and picked up his shirt and Warder's cloak. "They accept me now Kea, like they Accept you. They are certain now I was Gaidin; they even call me Dirk Gaidin until someone discovers my real name."

"What do you mean?" Kea laughed incredulously her anger forgotten at the absurdity of what he was saying. "We know your name, it's Kye."

"What? I must tell Revoir, this will excite her, two names and one of them mine, imagine the progress she will make with that!"

But before he could move she seized his upper arm. "Dirk, don't you wonder how I knew your name? You're accepting my word very easily considering you don't remember."

"Do not remember what?"

"You already know this Dirk! You found out the same time I did! What else have you forgotten?" Kea demanded.

Dirk wrenched his arm from her grasp. "I have not forgotten anything!" he snapped. "Not since I forgot my whole life and it's that I am trying to recover if you will let me!"

He had not shouted at her before, not like that, never in anger. She wanted to reach out to him stop him, with the Power if she had too. She wanted to blame someone else; this could not be their fault they always got along. He was her only friend, her first ever friend. She would not lose him!

"What do you do with Revoir? I haven't even seen you since you started these sessions? You say I have been busy, but I have been trying to see you for days and you are always busy with her!" She tried but she could even here the jealousy herself. She was not thinking rationally, she didn't care.

"What we do is between us. She helps me recover my memory that is all!"

"Does she use the circlet?" asked Kea suddenly.

"What circlet?" responded Dirk non-pulsed, his voice quiet once more?

"Well weren't you surprised she knew you?" asked Kea.

"She did not know me" replied Dirk in confusion. "You do be misinformed she had never seen me until I did walk into her rooms, at your recommendation I do remind you!"

Kea paused here. Something was wrong. Aes Sedai did not just forget and she was not wrong. Revoir was an expert on the mind and she had been involved with that circlet in making Dirk forget. She must have known him once he told her his memories were gone she would certainly have remembered. Very calmly she spoke again.

"Sorry Dirk I must have made a mistake. What have you remembered about your previous life as a Warder since these sessions started?"

"Lots," he snapped but not as vehemently as before. He looked a little lost, his carefree smiles of but minutes ago wiped from his face, like memories of summer, taken by the first frost.

"She is breaking down the barriers that separate my two lives. With the name, we will be able to progress, I am sure of it."

Kea wanted to object. This woman was not helping. She had deliberately not told Dirk she knew him, had not used the same ter'angreal that she had before. He was forgetting things he had known before, changing in ways that scared her. Dirk had been the only one she had been sure she could trust, but now…

This was dangerous, if what she thought was right that meant not all Aes Sedai were good. It meant danger here inside this White Tower where she had believed she was safe. After the test for Accepted she should have known better. In the third, what had she seen, the fall of the Black Ajah. The Black, Aes Sedai who were evil in a secret Ajah. Maybe… but no. She was still trapped. She had no proof, worse she was not even sure herself of the Yellow's intentions. Ha and to think she had thought of becoming a healer. This woman was no healing hand she was a harmful hand.

Now Kea knew why she had worn Green in the archway. She could not heal Dirk it was true, but she could protect him. She knew how to fight better than any of these girls! She could tear this Tower down! But she stopped that train of thought immediately, it was suicide. She would be blocked, shielded and then judged and finally severed if she tried any such thing. She had to think, be subtle. That wasn't her strong point.

"Okay Dirk, go to your Aes Sedai then, see if I care!" It was not difficult to sound petulant. She did care and it hurt her to send Dirk into danger. Would she take his memories of her? All they had shared? Would she have to start all over again with him?

Without a word, but his hurt expression speaking volumes, he turned on his heel, with his cloak and sword in hand, and left. She needed help but there was no one she could tell this to except Egwene, and she was being kept apart from the Novices except at night. Since becoming Accepted, Kea had no way to contact her then. During the day Egwene walked around only when with her bodyguards, it truly felt hopeless. If only she knew others who she could be sure would not be Black Ajah, who would help her and not immediately punish her for even speaking that taboo in the Tower. She could deal with punishments but being punished for that would be impossible to keep quiet and she was sure once the Black knew that she suspected them, awful things would begin to happen.

But there was no way to be sure of anyone, you could not simply look at someone and know whether or not they walked in the Light. Unless; unless she trusted the test. The Test had shown her with Dirk as her Warder, Egwene as Amyrlin Seat, herself Green, having battled the Black Ajah. All things she wanted in her future, all things she believed she could see accomplished. She would certainly try to make that the true future!

The paintings that had stood front of Egwene's room. Elaida stood before the Amyrlin Seat saying she would protect her to unite the Tower. Elaida hated Egwene, but a Dark friend? That was hard to believe. Still Elaida would probably not even see her and it was too public anyway. But the other painting the one with the daggers plunged into the black heart. She had known what that represented, the Black Ajah and its destruction or so they had believed. Into it had been plunged six different coloured daggers, one for each of the hunters, in the colours of their Ajahs. Names she knew as well as she had known her own. Names she could trust: Seaine, Pevara, Saerin, Yukiri, Doesine and of course, her own.

She knew the names and the Ajahs they couldn't be that hard to find. Well one of them at least. Watching Dirk's disappearing form she seriously considered following him. But alone she stood no chance of getting in to see what was taking place. She had to catch this Revoir Sedai and prove her hunch was correct. But for that she needed Aes Sedai. Now she knew how to find at least five who she could be sure of. After all what could be less like a Black Ajah, than a Black Ajah Hunter.