As usual all speech in italics is in the Old Tongue.
Interlude XI - A Decision
Tel was angry. No that wasn't true, he was more than angry. He was absolutely fucking livid. He turned on his heel and stalked back across his huge bedroom. That fucking bitch! He turned again. He'd been pacing all night, back and forth, his boots wearing a hole in the plush rug. How could she speak like that to him?!
He'd gone to her, risked himself to offer her a chance to live and she'd spat in his face. He couldn't stop striding back and forth. Whenever he stopped all he could see was her hard, empty eyes boring into his. He'd always loved the soft, deep dark pools of her eyes, but there'd been no softness there. He'd bared his heart, exposed himself to her and she'd thrown it back at him. He was Sammael, he justified himself to nobody!
Those final words echoed through his head "Tel Janin Aellinsar is dead. I have no interest in speaking to a man who could never be loved."
She was wrong! He'd seen what needed to be done and had acted when everyone else was too weak. It had been inevitable. He could remember Adanza, at the end. He'd been standing on a small hill in the centre of the People's Park, surrounded by the bodies of trollocs and myrddraal. Exhaustion nearly dragging him to his knees. His comrades either fled or dead. He'd already known the Light had lost by then.
He could remember Lews Therin telling him that he was letting Taija's death cloud his judgment. That Adanza wasn't a strategic priority and that he'd wasted forces defending it that were needed on other fronts. He'd thought of refusals from the south to even send reinforcements and wanted to burn the man out of existence, but he'd just stalked off then.
Focus on strategic reality. Said by a man who'd opposed his reforms at every turn. Don't let nostalgia cloud your judgment. Coming from a man who'd clung desperately to an outdated, failing system. The man who'd as good as killed Taija. He hadn't managed to kill Lews Therin back then, but he could still kill Lews Therin reborn.
The Light was doomed, she was tying herself to some foolish boy trying to claim the name of someone who, for all his faults, was more than some Third Age peasant could ever become.
Perhaps he should accelerate his plans. That would show her, show the world. He had contingency plans, he could kill Ishamael, any of the others that were capable of opposing him. In a week there'd be nobody left to oppose his rise to nae'blis! Then maybe he'd be able to stop seeing her disappointed face.
No, that was foolish. He had to admit, she'd gotten to him if he was even considering this. He ran his hand across his head. He needed to pull himself together. They called Be'lal the Netweaver, but he had his own nets to weave and he wasn't going to throw away years of work because that bitch had put him off balance.
He'd been shocked by how vehement her rejection had been. He hadn't really expected her to understand. He'd been telling the truth when he said if you weren't there you couldn't understand. She was never going to.
There was a niggling doubt bothering him though. One that he couldn't quite squash. Years spent together, she had a temper on her no question. When you pushed her far enough all the softness vanished, but he'd never seen her so angry, so devastated.
The utter disgust in her voice when she'd asked what he'd done to join the Shadow. It took his mind back to places he didn't like to go. The screams of his command staff, when he'd turned on them. The trollocs stacking corpses for the cookpots at Satelle afterwards. Armies of shadowspawn pillaging their way through cities as he stood above them.
But she didn't understand. Everything worthwhile had its price. He needed to preserve something, anything and she spat on the sacrifices that he'd made for the greater good.
The idiot woman didn't even care that she'd be dead in the next six months. He knew her well enough, for all her faults she was clever. She knew he was right. She was alone in the world, fighting desperately to save these barbarian peasants in a losing battle. The so-called aes sedai opposed her, because of course they did. She was left herding a bunch of children in some forlorn hope that they could win for the Light and she still threw his offer back in his face!
If she'd been there, had survived that townhall and he'd died she'd have done what he did. She'd have understood and made the journey to Shayol Ghul, she just got lucky!
No. He shook his head, his ever-moving strides still taking him back and forth across the room. He wasn't like some of the others, an idiot who'd tell himself comforting, arrogant lies. He knew his capabilities and those of his enemies. She'd have died spitting defiance, sooner or later, but she wouldn't have turned.
Maybe that would have been better, if he'd died and she'd lived? She'd have pushed on, fought on… It was ridiculous. Yes, she'd have done that and then she'd have died with honour, alone and pointlessly. He had survived and he would lead, he would preserve humanity under his leadership.
His boiling fury made him want to lash out, punish her, but he knew his limits. She clearly had an angreal and she was dangerous. She'd gotten under his skin. He needed to do something though, he couldn't let her get to him like this.
Fuck Ishamael and his plans. It was idiocy trying to turn the Dragon, it just gave the boy more time to become stronger.
That would do it. He would kill Lews Therin, burn him to ashes and then he would have had the first true step of his revenge.
She'd no doubt have moved them since his visit, but that was fine. He had his ways, unless she was a lot more on the ball than he expected, he'd have no trouble finding the boy.
She was right about one thing though. Tel Janin Aellinsar was dead. Sammael didn't smile, because Sammael never smiled. He did stop pacing though.