Lan hadn't spent much time alone with Stepin since reaching the White Tower. Moiraine needed him more often than she didn't, and he still didn't know where he stood with Nynaeve. But now Moiraine had whisked Nynaeve away to assess her ability to channel on purpose, and Nynaeve had asked him to stay with Stepin.

Speaking of not knowing where people stood with Nynaeve, he hadn't been able to figure out what exactly was going on between Stepin and the Wisdom. Lan thought he could remember a time when not knowing something hadn't bothered him, but spending more than 20 years with Moiraine could cure anyone of a healthy lack of curiosity. Still, he didn't know how he could ask, not when they were both working so hard to keep it secret.

"I haven't seen you in the practice yards since we got back," he said.

Stepin smiled ruefully. "Nynaeve says I'm not to handle weapons, even practice weapons, for a day or two yet."

"You follow her orders now?"

Stepin shrugged. "I know better than to argue with a healer."

It was an obvious deflection, but Lan let it pass for the moment. Stepin looked better than had yesterday, although Nynaeve plainly wasn't restricting his drinking. That was good - anything that took the edge off the pain could help a Warder stay alive until the wounds in his soul began to heal.

"What's going on with you two, anyway?"

It took Lan a moment to realize it was Stepin who had asked the question, as closely as it matched his own thoughts. He considered pretending not to understand, but there wasn't much point - Stepin had a way of getting information out of people, even when you thought you were talking about something else entirely, and somehow you always felt like you were making things awkward by not just telling him.

"You tell me," he said instead. "She talks to you."

"Not about herself. She asks questions, mostly, uh, trying to understand the Warder bond. How much of the pain I'm feeling is a thing of the Power, and how much is the natural result of losing Kerene after having her closer than the inside of my own skin for half of my life. I haven't been alone inside my own head since I was younger than Nynaeve is now, you know?"

Lan wasn't sure what to say to that. It was much the same with him and Moiraine, and he didn't want to think about what it would be like to lose that connection, didn't want to know whether he could step back onto the path she'd found him on.

"I really thought I'd changed," said Stepin. "Grown beyond the person I was when Kerene found me, but…"

Stepin kept talking but Lan was no longer listening to the words. There had been a minute shift in the direction of Stepin's attention, so utterly normal for a Warder that he almost hadn't noticed, except that it was impossible. Stepin wasn't bonded anymore. He couldn't be picking up on a change in his Aes Sedai's mood or condition. Alanna had asked to bond Stepin, but Lan hadn't thought he'd accept. And it was unlikely that another Sister would have offered. Unless…

"Is she injured?" He asked.

"No, just annoyed," said Stepin. His eyes widened, as he realized what he'd said. "Don't miss anything, do you?"

Lan didn't want to ask. He needed to know. "Nynaeve bonded you?"

"She came to see me uh, yesterday afternoon. Don't know what she said, but she got Alanna to teach her the weaves."

Well then. Lan felt obscurely as though he should have seen this coming. He'd known that Nynaeve was meant for the Tower - however she might resist it, Aes Sedai didn't let go of what they'd decided was theirs. She would be Aes Sedai herself, sooner or later, and once she was, she would have taken a Warder of her own, and perhaps more than one, if she chose Green. And, if he were still alive, he would still be bound to Moiraine. No matter what else happened, no matter what might or might not exist between the two of them, it had been inevitable that Nynaeve would bond a Warder, and that her Warder would not be Lan Mandragoran. But Light, he'd thought they would have a little more time to figure things out first. That was foolishness, though - men like him didn't get time to sort through their feelings.

This was a good thing. Accepting a new bond was the only chance Stepin stood of staying alive. Lan hadn't been looking forward to watching Stepin destroy himself, or to hearing about it months later, the next time this endless mission brought them back into range of news from the Tower. And for the other part of it, well, he'd been half hoping the Wisdom would take an interest in Stepin, even before Kerene's death. He'd keep her safe, and his sense of humor might be good for her. How Nynaeve meant to avoid the consequences that befell Novices and Accepted who bonded a man before attaining the shawl he didn't know, but if anyone could find a way, it was her.

He'd been silent too long. Stepin was looking at him oddly.

Before the other Warder could say something, or worse, ask something, Lan put his hand on Stepin's shoulder. "Congratulations, old friend." He hoped he sounded like he meant it. He did mean it, but he was feeling so much else at the same time.

"I'll do my best to take care of her for you," said Stepin.

What?

"You're good for each other. She won't let you take yourself too seriously. And I know you'll do what you can to keep her safe, but Moiraine has to come first. Nynaeve needs a Warder of her own, and I suppose I'll do for the time being."

"But if she bonded you…"

Stepin actually laughed. "She didn't take me to her bed. Don't know what I would have done if she tried."

Lan suppressed his first thought, that if a woman wanted you, that was her decision, and you made the best showing you could. The men and women of Malkier who had raised him kept to the old ways, and those early lessons ran deep, but he had come to understand, and even to appreciate, customs further south. He wasn't sure he was comfortable with it, but then he wasn't sure what he was comfortable with anymore.

He could admit to himself that he was glad Nynaeve wasn't with another man, even if it left him with no better idea how to handle his own feelings for her, but everyone knew that sex was part of how you saved a Warder who had lost his Aes Sedai. Surely Alanna would have - but no, it would never have crossed the Green's mind that someone would bond a Warder without intending to bed him as well. And the Light knew Nynaeve was prickly enough about such personal matters that no one with any sense would actually ask.

"You'll do for more than the time being," he said, moving the conversation to firmer ground. "A Warder's oaths are for life."

Stepin twisted his body slightly, pulling away from Lan's touch and turning to face him fully at the same time. "Don't be so certain. I still don't know how long I can live with this pain. I've had my share of losses, but nothing…nothing has ever hurt this much. Is it supposed to?"

"I don't know," said Lan. There was nothing else he could say. His nation and all his blood family gone before he could remember them, dozens of comrades lost in the blight, in the Aiel war… but he'd survived it. If Moiraine died, would he last as long as Stepin had? Ride back to the Tower with Moiraine's ring tucked into his belt pouch beside the heavy gold signet bearing the crane of Malkier? Would he force himself to look at both of them every day? He shook his head, trying to clear away the shadows. "I don't know," he said again. "Perhaps you should talk to Avar? Or Nuhel?"

"Light, is Myrelle in the Tower?!" Stepin actually looked around, as though he expected her to walk in at any moment.

Lan smiled. "She's not here. You can calm down."

"Oh." He relaxed, slightly. "Wouldn't mind knowing how those two managed it, I suppose. They can't just be walking around with pieces torn out of themselves. Not after all this time. But I don't know how they could, uh, let it go, either."

Lan stood up to make tea. It was hard spending time with Stepin. It was hard to look at him. He could at least have a moment's respite from the latter, and he spent longer than he probably had to looking through Stepin's small selection of teas, choosing mint, and setting it to heat.

"It doesn't feel real," Stepin said abruptly. "I uh, I have a reason to stay alive now. Sparing Nynaeve the pain of my death should be enough. Protecting her and helping to protect her friends if we ever get out of this place. And if she, or one of them, is the Dragon Reborn, I can't think of worthier work than helping them to save the world. But I don't feel it."

There were too many ways Lan could respond to that, and not one that felt right. You will was hollow, and might very well be a lie - how was he to know? You don't have to was too cold. He didn't think Stepin needed to be reminded of just how long a man could keep moving on nothing but his sense of duty. There were times when it was proper to reassess your path, to actually stop and think about what you were doing, and why, and whether it was right, before you cast yourself back into currents of responsibility and necessity that would have you too busy keeping your head above water to question anything beyond surviving the next day, the next hour. He poured the tea into two small cups.

As soon as he turned around, he knew something was wrong.

Picking the peach had been an impulse. He'd seen the ornamental trees lining the path, remembered the poisonous fruit, and reached. Hoping that it was too dark for Nynaeve to see what he was doing. Hoping she would stop him. It was firm, and velvety soft to the touch, unnervingly like human skin. He'd carried it in his pocket all last night, only allowing it out of his reach when he undressed for a few hours of fitful sleep. Nynaeve wouldn't search his pockets. She'd blame herself for that, he was sure, but it was as much as he could do to wait until she was out of the room.

Everything had seemed so clear in those first few minutes after Kerene was torn out of his head, taking part of him along with her like a honeybee's insides coming out with its stinger. He just had to get to where she was, and kill whoever had done this to her. Then what he was feeling would stop. He could stop. But he'd failed. Logain was still alive, and Stepin was still alive, and Kerene was still dead. Maybe she'd been reborn already. Maybe she'd ended up in the same place as Karile, and would grow up with him like Birgitte and Gaidal Cain, unrecognizable even to each other. He had no way of knowing. He didn't want to know.

How much would it take? A bite? The whole fruit? Light, why hadn't Logain killed him? Why hadn't he been thrown out of the radius of Nynaeve's explosion of healing weaves. It wasn't as though he was of any use to anyone anymore. It wasn't right that he continued when everything that made his existence matter had ended.

It didn't take long to make tea. If he was going to do this, he couldn't wait any longer. He held the peach against his lips for a moment, feeling that unsettling layer of fuzz, and then he took a bite.

He'd worried that it would be hard, that the poisonous fruit would be too bitter to eat in the limited time he had. But it was soft, if somewhat mealy - sugary, and tasting rather like meadowsweet. How quickly would it start? He was long past caring whether it hurt, but he needed it to be over by the time Nynaeve realized. She was distracted, aggravated, and unaccustomed to the bond. Maybe it would be enough.

"It doesn't feel real," he said. "I uh, I have a reason to stay alive now. Sparing Nynaeve the pain of my death should be enough. Protecting her and helping to protect her friends if we ever get out of this place. And if she, or one of them, is the Dragon Reborn, I can't think of worthier work than helping them to save the world. But I don't feel it."

Lan didn't say anything. Stepin was used to his friend's odd silences and sometimes abrupt interjections. He wished there was a way to get Lan to leave, or that he could leave. Maybe if he'd waited - but he couldn't. He couldn't. His heart was starting to beat faster. Was that the poison starting to work, or just his anxiety over whether it would?

Stepin knew he was driven by the effects of the broken bond, as much as by any natural emotion. It didn't matter. He had to do this. But he kept expecting Kerene to see him, demand to know what he was doing. No… not Kerene… the thought skittered away from him. It was getting hard to breathe. It was working. Soon…

At some point he'd closed his eyes without realizing it, but he heard when Lan dropped the teacups. Too late now. Too late, he had to hope.

"What have you done?"

There were several ways to answer that, and Stepin couldn't think of any of them just now, but it was easy enough to open his hand, revealing the stone from the center of the peach. That should be answer enough. Lan would understand.

He opened his eyes as the other Warder took the peach pit from him, cursing softly. The pain that had been tearing away at the center of him every waking moment since Kerene died was starting to fade. He wished it wouldn't. Lan looked closely into his face, and Stepin hoped he found whatever he was searching for there. He was so tired.

The last thing he was aware of, unaccountably, was a sharp pain along his forearm. Then he was falling into darkness, and nothing hurt.

Nynaeve, to her immense irritation, was really trying. She took another breath. She was a blackthorn bud, ready to open itself to the first tentative sunlight of early spring. She held the image in her mind, waiting for the warmth that had filled her on the few occasions that she'd channeled before. Nothing happened. Nothing had happened for over an hour now. She wished Moiraine would say something, if only so she could shout at the Aes Sedai for distracting her. She was a blackthorn flower, opening - pain flared through the bond.

Stepin was hurt. Blood and ashes! The moment she left the man alone… Lan was supposed to be looking after Stepin, burn him. She focused on the bond, trying to sense more of what was happening, but there was almost nothing, not even the sharp-edged hurting to which she'd already almost become accustomed. Something was very wrong.

She stood abruptly, almost treading on her skirts. Moiraine looked surprised, and seemed on the point of speaking.

"I have to go," Nynaeve said simply.

Then she was running. She didn't think she'd ever run so fast, even when she had trollocs after her. Three floors down from Moiraine's quarters to Stepin's. She was almost sure it was three. Light, she couldn't afford the time she would lose if she got it wrong. She knew that, she could feel it.

It was three. She burst through the doors from the landing, still at a dead run, and almost skidded on the floor as she turned to enter Stepin's room.

Lan and Stepin were both sitting on the floor. Stepin was at the foot of the bed, slumped over. He was bleeding sluggishly from a shallow cut on the back of his arm, but he didn't look injured otherwise. Lan knelt in front of Stepin…holding his hand? No, his wrist. Feeling for a pulse.

"He's alive," she said. "For the moment. What happened?"

Lan didn't have to be told to get out of the way, allowing her to take his place on the floor. Stepin's lips were an odd, bright red - Nynaeve recognized it from descriptions of miners who'd breathed in bad air.

"He ate a peach," said Lan. "I don't know… I only turned my back for a moment."

Nynaeve didn't miss the honest confusion and dismay on his face. All too easy to imagine how quickly Stepin had acted once he saw his moment. But she shoved her sympathy aside, and embraced anger instead. She needed it, needed the strength it gave her.

"How did you let this happen?"

"I…"

"Never mind. Shut up and let me work."

There were no herbs that would treat the poison peaches contained. An emetic could sometimes save the victim, but it had to be administered within a minute or two, forced down the person's throat before they became ill. It was too late for that. She would have to channel, and anxiety briefly threaded through her anger. She hadn't been able to touch the source upstairs, not after an hour of trying. If she failed now…

But it came easily, filling her up, sharpening her senses. She didn't know the words for what she was doing. The Aes Sedai probably had a special name for the weaves that she used to search out the damage in a patient's body - they were terribly fond of naming things. But Nynaeve wasn't an Aes Sedai. She just knew that it worked, spreading her awareness through Stepin's lungs, his blood vessels, his heart. Light, it was everywhere. If she took the time to study it, she could learn exactly how peaches killed people, but there wasn't time. Stepin was dying. She closed her eyes - when she'd healed people back in the Two Rivers, she hadn't known anything about weaves or the five powers, and if she tried to construct something the way the Aes Sedai did, she'd only get in her own way. She focused on her intent, on what she needed, and forced power into him, letting it shape itself to her desire.

It took only seconds. Even before Nynaeve let the weaves go, she could feel Stepin's breathing getting deeper, his heart slowing to normal. She knew without looking that the cut on his arm was healed too, though the blood remained. She wetted her handkerchief with tea from the teapot, the first source of clean water she spotted, and wiped it off. There. Except that he hadn't woken, it was like nothing had happened, and it was just as well if he slept for a while.

"Help me get him on the bed," she said to Lan.

He complied wordlessly. It was much easier with his assistance than it had been… the previous afternoon? Had it really been so short a time? She hadn't slept, and she'd channeled more than once. Her head hurt.

"Come with me out into the hall," she said. "We need to talk."