Winter's Heart (The Wheel of Time #9)

Winter's Heart (The Wheel of Time #9) Page 73

“If you came here drunk, Nuli,” Mistress Harfor said firmly, “you will leave regretting it bitterly. I will see to it myself!”

“Yes, Mistress,” Rand muttered, jerking at his forelock. Inside his head, Lews Therin cackled in mad, weeping laughter. He had had to come here — it was necessary — but he was already beginning to regret it.

Surrounded by the light of saidar, Nynaeve and Talaan faced one another at four paces in front of the fireplace, where a brisk blaze had managed to take all chill out of the air. Or maybe it was effort that had warmed her, Nynaeve thought sourly. This lesson had lasted an hour already, by the ornate clock on the carved mantel. An hour of channeling without rest would warm anyone. Sareitha was supposed to be here, not her, but the Brown had slipped out of the Palace leaving a note about an urgent errand in the city. Careane had refused to take two days in a row, and Vandene still refused to take any, on the ridiculous grounds that teaching Kirstian and Zarya left her no time.

“Like this,” she said, whipping her flow of Spirit around the boy-slim Sea Folk apprentice’s attempt at fending her off. Adding the force of her own flow, she pushed the girl’s further away and at the same time channeled Air in three separate weaves. One tickled Talaan’s ribs through her blue linen blouse. A simple ploy, but the girl gasped in surprise, and for an instant her embrace of the Source lessened just a hair, the faintest flicker in the Power filling her. In that heartbeat Nynaeve stopped the pushing she had just begun on the other’s flow and snapped her own back to its original target. Forcing the shield onto Talaan still felt much like slapping a wall — except the sting was spread evenly across her skin rather than just in her palm, hardly an improvement — but the glow of saidar vanished just as the last two flows of Air trapped Talaan’s arms at her sides and pulled her knees together in their wide, dark trousers.

Very neatly done, if Nynaeve did think so herself. The girl was very agile, very deft with her weaves. Besides, trying to shield someone who held the Power was chancy at best and futile at worst, unless you were very much stronger than they — sometimes if you were — and Talaan matched her as closely as made no difference. That helped keep a satisfied smile from her face. It seemed a very short time ago that sisters had been startled at her strength and believed that only some of the Forsaken possessed greater. Talaan had not slowed, yet; she was little more than a child. Fifteen? Maybe younger! The Light alone knew what her potential was. At least, none of the Windfinders had mentioned it, and Nynaeve was not about to ask. She had no interest in knowing how much stronger than she a Sea Folk girl was going to be. None at all.

Bare feet shuffling on the patterned green carpet, Talaan made one futile attempt to break the shield that Nynaeve held easily, then sighed in defeat and lowered her eyes. Even when she had succeeded in following Nynaeve’s instruction, she behaved as if she had failed, and now she slumped so dejectedly you might have thought the weaves of Air were all that held her upright.

Letting her flows dissipate, Nynaeve adjusted her shawl and opened her mouth to tell Talaan what she had done wrong. And to point out — once again — that it was useless to try breaking free unless you were much stronger than whoever had shielded you. The Sea Folk hardly seemed to believe anything she told them until she told them ten times and showed them twenty.

“She used your own force against you,” Senine din Ryal said bluntly before Nynaeve could speak. “And distraction, again. It is like wrestling, girl. You know how to wrestle.”

“Try again,” Zaida commanded with a brisk gesture of one dark, tattooed hand.

All of the chairs in the room had been moved against the wall, though there was no real need for a clear space, and Zaida sat watching the lesson flanked by six Windfinders, a riot of reds and yellows and blues in brocaded silks and brightly dyed linens, a flinch-inducing display of earrings and nose rings and medallion-laden chains. That was always the way; one of the two apprentices was used for the actual lesson — or Merilille, Nynaeve had heard, actually forced to take the part of an apprentice unless she herself was teaching — while Zaida and one group or another of Windfinders watched. The Wavemistress could not channel, of course, though she was always present, and none of the Windfinders would actually stoop to participating personally. Oh, never that.

In Nynaeve’s estimation, today’s grouping was very odd, considering the Sea Folks’ obsession with rank. Zaida’s own Windfinder, Shielyn, sat on her right, a slender, coolly reserved woman almost as tall as Aviendha and towering over Zaida. That was proper, as far as Nynaeve understood, but at Zaida’s left was Senine, and she served on a soarer, one of the Sea Folk’s smaller vessels, and hers among the smallest of those. Of course, the weathered woman, with her creased face and hair thick with gray, had worn more than her present six earrings in the past, and more golden medallions on the chain across her dark left cheek. She had been Windfinder to the Mistress of the Ships before Nesta din Reas was elected to the post, but by their law, when the Mistress of the Ships or a Wavemistress died, her Windfinder had to begin again at the lowest level. There was more to it than respect for Senine’s former position, though, Nynaeve was certain. Rainyn, an apple-cheeked young woman who also served on a soarer, occupied the chair next to Senine, and stone-faced, flat-eyed Kurin sat beside Shielyn like a black carving. This relegated Caire and Tebreille to the outermost chairs, and they were both Windfinders to Wavemistresses themselves, with four fat earrings in each ear and nearly as many medallions as Zaida herself. Perhaps it was just to keep the haughty-eyed sisters apart, though. They hated one another with a passion only blood kin could achieve. Perhaps that was it. Understanding the Atha’an Miere was worse than trying to understand men. A woman could go mad trying.

Muttering to herself, Nynaeve gave her shawl a jerk and pre pared herself, readying her flows. The pure joy of holding saidar could hardly compete with her vexation. Try again, Nynaeve. One more time, Nynaeve. Do it now, Nynaeve. At least Renaile was not there. Often they wanted her to teach things she did not know as well as others — too often, things she barely knew at all, she admitted reluctantly; she had not really had much training in the Tower — and whenever she fumbled in the slightest, Renaile positively delighted in making her sweat. The others made her sweat, too, but they did not seem to take so much pleasure in it. Anyway, after a solid hour, she was tired. Dra