The First Age

Of the King’s actual schemes, Nythadri did not know beyond guesses, but she would wager Kaydrienne’s public retreat had been tactical and agreed upon. Trista’s role had clearly been the work of months of planning, down to the gaudy and resplendent red of their matching attire. Ironic, really, for it to be a Red Sister to bring the whole thing crashing down around their ears. No one but Kekura could have mustered the support for a coup in the Tower. And Daryen would not find the same ally in her, that was for sure. She would not be an Amyrlin who sought to reign over peace-time, for if the loyal Red had acted it was simply because Kaydrienne didn’t.

Light, though, surely the Green Sitters wouldn’t support bringing war and sanctions upon the Seanchan, if it came to it? Lythia would speak reason to them even amidst the cavalcade of politics. At least Elayne saw sense when she sent men north with the Shienaran ambassador.

It wasn't even the only worry. For if Kekura did acquire the Amyrlin’s stole, it was unlikely Daryen’s sister would live to see beyond the shift of power – even if she renounced Kaydrienne entirely, and swore fealty anew. Rumour had long suggested the Brown was being groomed to replace Adrasteia as Keeper one day, but more, Fate was the strongest woman among them. She presented too much risk to rally future rebellion. And if the Greens were ferrying out their Accepted, no one expected things to proceed smoothly. How in the light was Daryen going to react if the Tower executed his twin? Nythadri did not know him well enough to even guess, but she remembered well what he had said; the subtle inference that he placed the crown on his brow above the pins on his collar. A dangerous combination to test.

Despite her gaze pinching concern, she said nothing of it though. For now Kekura’s ascension was all conjecture, and perhaps Kaydrienne would weather the storm unfolding in the Hall at this very moment. Nythadri doubted it, but it was possible. Such was the churn of her thoughts as she watched Jai sift through his memories.

It was the second time he used the vagaries of “they,” she noted, and yet he named Kekura without the blink of a hesitation. Did he even notice? Someone must have facilitated such a meeting, and before the Compulsion had later sent him to Red Halls given Jai remembered it. She ought to have asked then, who he had spoken to first, but she was wary to begin unravelling that thread. If he went through proper channels this time, it had to have been someone he trusted to deliver the truth of her absence. Not an Accepted or servant. And none but a Green would have known Nythadri was absent from the Tower anyway. Gone was a very different prevarication than cannot be disturbed, which one might expect to be offered to explain the unexpected disappearance of a young Sister to someone outside the Tower. Unless one suspected the Asha’man in question might well storm the bloody building in his search, had he believed she was simply being kept from him.

Maybe she was reading too far into ever deepening shadows, but it unsettled her. Only voicing those fears now made them too real.

So Nythadri allowed him the time to process, watching quietly as he stood. She remained where she knelt, hands rested in her lap, back straight. Reflection stilled her for a moment; realisation that even amidst such turmoil, Jai was the island that stemmed the chaos. He gave it purpose, the Game she hated, yet would play ruthlessly to keep them safe. He feared the conspiracy of being used. She’d seen it in Arad Doman, and she hardly blamed him. She couldn’t imagine the violation such use as Compulsion must leave, yet she knew him well enough to realise he factored himself not one whit into his worries. That skull was thick-headed though, and he never listened when he buried his head like that, so she let him run the course.

“Jai, are you actually propositioning “an Aes Sedai”?” Her tone was scathing. It stung still, how easily he had cast her with faceless aspersion the moment he saw the ring, and she was unlikely to let him forget it soon. There was a flatness to her gaze that indicated her to be unimpressed, spoiled somewhat by the pale glint in her eyes as she roamed his profile. He ought to be able to read the subtle shifts in her emotions by now though. As well as she read his.

“How very scandalous.”

She took the hand, as she always would, and fit easily into his arms. So far as distractions went, she was not resistant to playing into the jaws of this one – because she was selfish, and he was here. Jai wasn’t wrong about everything, if it was about the most absurdly ridiculous thing she’d ever heard him say. But it was hardly the first time the symbiotic relationship between his duty and his demons blinded him to the focus of a single path. Self-sacrifice was his unerring default, like he was still trying to finish the Fade’s work. “I hate to prove your theory about me peeling the layers around you correct, but I do desperately need to get out of this dress.” She murmured it close, and the grin was a little wicked, but she was talking about the blood as much as she was about temptation. It wasn’t incidental that her touch followed the path of his scar. Knowing it would shiver him through, and her too, but also knowing it would sober him. Because of course she knew what he was doing. And of course she wouldn’t let him bloody do it.

“Light Jai I’d accuse you of having nothing but air circulating between your ears if I couldn’t hear your bloody thoughts rattling around so loudly in there.” Her forehead pressed close, to stillness not passion, though the draw between them was always a little reckless, and if he started on the laces of her dress anyway she was unlikely to stop him. Between them, Jai was the only one who gave a passing nod to being noble. Nythadri would let the world burn for this. She’d already let a man die for this. One man, or twenty men, the cost could stack against her own soul and she would pay it.

She cupped his jaw in her hands. Voice soft. “You don’t get to be a bloody martyr. I swear it back. Ten-fold, if you like. Those were the old terms, no?” Nythadri didn’t make declarations like that, not usually. Not in matters of the heart anyway. Those terms had actually been retribution, a throwaway comment in a warm ocean far from home, to a man she should not have been in the company of to begin with. Let alone seen again. A smile played for the memory, and for once she did not try to deny the tangle they’d made of their threads since, or the way it made her feel. She could have told him the trouble she was in then. But this wasn’t about protection, and she didn’t want to drape the connection between them in chains of the duty he held so dear. When she pulled back far enough to meet his eye, there was only indomitable certainty.

“Loose threads won’t matter if there’s not a Forsaken to pull them.”

A knock sounded then.

Every muscle in her tensed. For Nythadri at least it was an unusually virulent reaction to something so mundane, though it only lasted a moment. “It’s probably just the servants,” she murmured, and regretted the phrasing in the same breath. Of course it was, she’d asked them to return, and she cursed Arikan for the seeds of paranoia slid like needles under her skin. She didn’t untangle quickly, but she did shore herself up in Aes Sedai stillness. Not to keep him out, but to keep herself in. And because she wanted him to pay her next words heed, for the warning came swift with urgency. She should have started here, but her priorities had been elsewhere.

“We might not be safe here, but I didn’t know where else to go. For light’s sake don’t put any trust in the bloody ‘nobleman’. He’s dangerous. The wine nearly gave me a light-forsaken aneurysm. But we need to stay within favour for now. Wait here.”

She peeled away to answer after a moment to assure herself he was listening. No hesitation marked the way she opened the door, for she was not sure she truly believed any danger lay the other side. It would hardly announce itself so politely. Still, relief left a tired hollow in its wake to see it true. A glance back at Jai cleared the concern, and she let the servants in, uncaring what they made of the half-naked Asha’man or the blood-stained sink. They’d brought the fresh water she’d asked for, and plenty of it. Towels and such like. She’d enquired over the fort’s medical provision, and apparently alarmed by the blood, a surgeon had been summoned from the barracks anticipating physical injury. Nythadri spoke with him quietly on the threshold while the other servants worked quickly within. There was food brought, too; simple fare. She’d not eaten since Ellomai’s pastries, and despite it found little appetite, but knew Jai had left the celebrations before dinner had been served. Talin was still absent, which was poor news, but a letter was delivered with a bow before the door closed once more, and they were alone again.

She drew boldly near, and Jai swallowed, surprised that she had actually approached. Not just surprised, but his heart quickened a little more nervous than he expected himself to be. Even more so when she unabashedly ran her hands up and down his stomach. "Are you Aes Sedai? It must have slipped my mind," he started to tease in return, already beginning to wonder how the hooks and strings of that dress held itself together.

This was it, he thought. Wanting to blaze every second into his mind. Everything he’d wanted for months all within reach. Her. This moment. And it should have been enough, he tried to convince himself. Enough to carry on. However, she possessed the ability to read him like a bloody book, and the expression on his face silently pleaded with her to not take this away from him. He swore he’d not leave her to deal with the mess of life alone, but that was before he knew a bloody Forsaken was after them.

When the knock came, they both nearly jumped. Talk of Forsaken and martyrdom pulled shadows out of thin air, and the room was already dim. He almost seized the One Power on instinct until Nythadri reminded them both of her previous missive. Her warning echoed repeatedly in his thoughts; thoughts that she claimed to read with a glance, which was probably true. But buried in that warning were questions he could not ask with others present. So he painfully stepped away from her presence to turn his back on the commotion, fastening his pants into something more secure as he did, or at least, arranging himself to be less obscene. As much as one could be without a bloody shirt on. And she was Aes Sedai.

Why wasn’t she more concerned about the Forsaken? Nythadri could hide her thoughts behind a wall of ice, but Jai could tell there was something far darker that bothered her. Probably the fall of her Amyrlin, he assumed, or witnessing a gory murder for the second time in her life. Jai remembered the sickness that clenched his stomach after walking his first few battlefields. A nineteen year old Dedicated who until then hadn’t even contemplated where their dinner roast came from let alone all the awful ways a man could die took a while to numb himself to the sight. All of that must have bothered her to the core as it would any sane person, and she’d mentioned wanting to feel clean more than once. So that must be it, he concluded; she weathered the worst, but it unsettled her, and for that he was powerless to fix other than to wait while the servants poured fresh water in the basin. Least he could do was get out of the way. It was then that he remembered all the ink on his hands. It wouldn’t wash as easily as blood. Black still rimmed his nails like dirt. The side of his writing hand was full on black to the wrist, and while he had no memory of when he’d taken to the work he must have produced, he intuitively knew why.

He must have been calculating or deciphering something. Something big to account for what must amount to two or three pots worth of ink; more than he could do in his head. He would claw his way through his own brain if he thought it would dig out an answer, but he knew it was a futile plan. Compulsion. From a Forsaken. And under that spell he’d done unspeakable things; things so bad that Nythadri witnessed and elected to not to give them power with speech. He swallowed. Pinched his eyes shut. Rubbed his neck and scrubbed his hair. Luckily, his back remained turned. It was why he’d gone where he had, out of the way. So they wouldn’t see the demon stirring.

On the same breath as issued warnings of Forsaken Nythadri declared the stranger in their midst just as dangerous. When he woke as himself, he was shielded. Nythadri affirmed as much. It wasn’t you. You were shielded. This man, this nobleman held the shield himself, and he must be more powerful than even the M’Hael to fend off both of them simultaneously as Jai imagined they must have dueled. Light. Former M’Hael. Someone so dangerous to not even accept food or wine from the man.

The conclusion for why was so terrifying that he turned sharply back around, epiphany writ all over his face. The servants had shuffled out by then, and Nythadri was absorbed in a letter, which hopefully meant she didn’t see his hands ball themselves up to fists to keep from gripping a sword hilt that wasn’t there nor behold all the blood drain from his face.

So he started to pace.

Steady, even steps. Back and forth as though the path beneath his feet might crumble at any second and offer some sort of wild escape. But still, he paced. Couldn’t stop. Inky hands wringing upon themselves repeatedly. It was a nice room. Big. Or so he thought for where ever they were. No clues on those bland walls though. Generic stone, furniture, and no crests or symbols. Regardless, it was a spacious room. Two or three of his own could fit in here. In fact, now that he looked, he wondered precisely how many of his rectangular quarters in the Black Tower would squeeze into the chamber. It could be calculated, he mused, if he had precise measurements. When desperate he could step off the space, but it was a crude foot-length that left a bitter taste in his mouth for the estimation. He scanned for ideas, settling finally on the rug underfoot. It wasn’t fashionable and certainly not fine, but antique and muted. More interesting was that beneath the rug were stones. Nice squares cut to equal size. That’ll work.

He promptly set off to count the length and width of the space by stones. Except that there were wide swaths he could not see. For instance, he curiously stepped around a chair, lifting it aside to capture the number of stones beneath it. The rug itself was an enormous issue, too. He had to lift up the corner of it and furl it back upon itself to no shortage of disturbed dust that nearly made him sneeze, not to mention shifting a few pieces of furniture in the process, to keep the line going. Fifteen and a quarter across. Probably twice that in length.

Problem with counting the length was the bed. Like the rug, it was an antique, framed in a four-poster style with rails at the top to mount curtains presumably removed for the season. But the thing looked heavy. No way he could lift it aside. Channeling would do it easily enough, but frankly, he was tired and there wasn’t enough space to really place it once it was up in the air. So, on all fours he went, crawling, crawling under the bed. Which was when he encountered a new problem: darkness. That was readily enough solved with a little orb of light hovering above his shoulder like a buddy. The counting continued until he came across a surprised spider. It was an ugly little bastard. He’d seen nastier, of course. Hide behind a log in the jungles of Arad Doman for a few hours and you’ll make a whole mess of friends of them. Enough to count and name them all if there was enough time. But even those were nothing like the horrific things crawling beneath the vines of the Blight. He shivered and immediately put them out of mind. Still, the spider that he’d disturbed with his exploration was promptly turned into a tiny little mound of its insides in moments. No point telling Nythadri it was there. Might make for some nervous sleeping later.

The bedframe was larger than he anticipated from above. Or else shimmying further beneath it was more effort than he guessed. Because by the time he got to the wall, something unexpected caught his eye. He called out excitedly from beneath the mattress.

“Dru, come here! You wont believe this,” but nobody responded. So he tried a different tactic. “Zak. Zaaaaak! Zaaaaaaaaaaaaak!” he bellowed.

”What the blazes is it?” His oldest brother’s voice echoed in his mind.

“Someone laid the tiles in the wrong pattern. Guess that’s why they put the bed here!” he laughed, promptly completing the count.

”Get out from there this instant before father sees you.”

“Did you know there are 2,250 tiles on the floor of my room. A nice round number isn’t it? Tar Valon was designed so well! Kiserai ti wansho! Isn't that the right saying? See, I told you I wasn't flaking on the Old Tongue. You’re the oldest and your room is much larger than mine. I bet yours has twice as many tiles. Let’s go see if there are any errors under your bed.” He was practically giddy with mischief.

He crawled back out to discover with some measure of confusion that his bedroom wasn’t there at all. Neither was Zakar present nor was anything he recognized, until his gaze fell upon the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen in all his life.

“Wow,” he blinked like his heart might stop, but the longer he looked at her, the calmer he felt. 

“Nythadri?” he nodded like the answer was the most obvious thing in the world. “You look.. you look so beautiful.” A smile began to soften the confusion etched upon his mind.

What was he doing? Oh. He blinked and returned to study the floor, scratching at his forehead as he did. Numbers fell like rain through his mind until he was satisfied. Hands on his hips, he nodded with great approval. “You know that 3.425 of my room in the Tower would fit in here. Thats three and seventeen fortieths of a room. Nice and spacious. Don’t go under the bed,” he warned.

Task complete, his gaze roamed curiously up the walls. There were more stones holding them up, though placed in far less orderly a way, but there had to be a pattern to it somewhere.

Nythadri skimmed the words in dimness, too tired to summon light. A list of broken bones: collarbone, ankle, low back, nose, ribs. Twisted ligatures. Wounds and burns. Internal ravages that blanched her pale. It took her a moment to realise the first pages were a transcription of patient notes, including some diagrams she could certainly have lived her life happily never having borne witness to. Then realisation twisted her stomach as she realised to whom the notes must refer. Arikan ought to be dead. No sister could heal all this and the patient survive it.

Yet he had.

She skipped ahead to where Talin had written an additional message; some indication of where she had gone, and why, which only pinched Nythadri’s brow with more tension. She looked up to find Jai, intending to share the information, but discovered him already deep in pacing. She might have hoped it would not come so soon, but neither was she surprised the pressure found a crack. It was not the first time she witnessed the methods with which he ordered the world around him. He'd been counting tiles the first time they met.

Her heart sank low with the realisation she had pushed him too hard, but there was little she could do to bring him back while the grip was so tight. Instead she busied herself with half a worried eye kept to his ordered, obsessive movements. She cleaned the scales of the serpent ring and pulled it from her finger to dry. Retrieved the pins Jai had thrown, and left them together in a pile by the folded letter, dropping alongside the hairpins presently slid from her scalp. She massaged her hair free, only to press her hands over her face in a moment of silent stillness. She didn’t crumble, but she acknowledged the weight. Of decisions she second-guessed. Of consequences unknown. Of all the things beyond her control. It wasn’t just her own fate in this balance.

Warm bathwater waited; it was foremost among the things she had asked the servants to deliver, but the facsimile of respite it offered proved a long way off, and she wouldn’t relent. Jai had said little in response, and she knew how stubbornly the gears of his mind turned. Nothing had changed but that he could no longer bear the weight of the decision. This wasn’t like before, where the worst that waited was reparation for a few broken Tower rules. When Jai saw shadows he saw them darker than anyone else. He would go this time. The moment opportunity robbed the burden of how difficult it would be for him to leave. He would go.

It was a painful realisation. Enough to burn her eyes. Devotion fed into a dark void, and it was quiet in that place, understanding it was not enough alone. She buried the sting of it. He would hurt them both in the process, and call it a necessary sacrifice even at a cost of blood. She knew why. But Nythadri was equally stubborn, and if she felt every hook and barb that bound her to a man who presently didn’t remember she existed, there was no regret in the suffering, and no flinch for old wounds salted fresh. It wasn’t like she ever chose the easy path. She wouldn’t let him go.

Her attention shifted to quiet alarm when he began talking loudly, though; not just the usual muttering to himself, but something far more delusional. That he called for Andreu cut her through. After that she only watched in helpless distress, not bothering to shield from her expression what he could not witness. It was a lonely aperture upon which she kept vigil, as ghosts of the past tugged his attention to vistas she could not see. Like a sentinel she waited. Wondering if he would even come back, or if desperation sent him too far into the arms of his madness to return; a different kind of flight than the one that would take him into the Blight, but no less final. And far worse for both of them. It was one place she could not go. For he had to realise she would only follow him north.

That she could take some of that weight, if he only let her.

“I wasn’t planning on going under the bed,” she said, reaching for a string of cobweb clung to his shoulder. Even in the drape of shadows she could see he was filthy with dust. If the desolate view beyond the battlements was any indication, she doubted guest rooms here got much use. A century’s worth of grime probably coated his chest and cheek. But any relief she felt at his recognition was as fleeting as his lucidity; he was already twisting away when she caught hold of his hand. There was a spark of uncertainty as she did it, recalling the way the Compulsion had blanked her from his mind entirely, and even the slow length of time it had taken to realise it was her a moment ago. Nythadri wasn’t sure if she was enough to coax him back. She was afraid she wasn't. “Jai?” she asked, seeking enough of his attention to offer safe harbour. “Keep me company a while?”

He lost everything left to him in a single night. She wasn’t ignorant of the ways in which he found a touchstone in her. A look, sometimes. How tightly he had grasped her hand tonight, and for how long. A connection first forged in the isolation of the Aryth’s arms had been an escape from the politics of the evening; enemies made bedfellows on the whim of a king. Later Jai found her in the Tower with bruised knuckles and the severed ties of a family who loved him dearly, because vilifying himself served better for their protection. Half asleep on her lap he offered a confession he had not finished, but which she heard anyway. Despite her better judgement, she had been answering with quiet resolution ever since.

“You might be content with a cold stripwash and flinging your discarded clothes about the room, but I am most certainly not. The tub is big enough for us both.” It was his focus she wanted, and his trust; to let her build a sanctuary around them in lieu of the call of math and madness. To beckon him somewhere safe a while, if he would follow. She watched for signs of presence, weary and resolute. And for another way to reach him, if that did not work.

She grabbed his hand, and without even realizing it, his grip closed around the twining of her fingers. A reaction that knew what he wanted until his mind caught up. He stared at the wall a long moment after, until the swing of his face reconciled what the the spirit already felt. His expression softened in her request, and the fissures in his mind ceased their expansion. She pulled and he followed. Just like what she started months beforehand and continued every waking moment up through an hour ago when what was tugged finally pulled free. He was slow and careful in turning their wrists until the twin of their arms twisted about one another, and laid the back of her hand to his cheek. There it stayed until suddenly, a grin broke. “Now who is propositioning who? How scandalous of you, Aes Sedai,” and he pulled her hand down to his lips where a heated smile rose behind the kiss he placed there. In her eyes, he found something, and he was going to hang onto it with every fiber inside. 

It wasn’t long after that steam curled around his shoulders.

As warmth soaked into every muscle on his body, Jai laid his head back, eyes sliding low. He and Trista sparred that very morning on the beach until he was thoroughly beaten and everything ached with useful exhaustion. It was hard to believe that was mere hours ago, but he could almost imagine himself back there, drifting in the sea. He’d chucked everything to shore and swam in it until the pull back to the city (and thirst) placed its demands. Little did he know it was going to be the last time. Course, he assumed every day was the last day he’d see it. That’s why he threw himself in the waves with such reckless abandon. He was literally soaking it in.

The first time he saw the sea he was stunned speechless. For a man born almost as far from the ocean as they could go, he never thought to see something so grand in all his life. Not even Dragonmount, as immense and legendary as its namesake was as moving a sight. They had arrived at night, and there was nothing to glimpse on the horizon except moonlight until the next day. Of course, Jai wasn’t patient enough to wait that long. He hiked down to the shore, planted ass in the sand, marveled at the blackness of the horizon and thought about well, nothing. It was the first time he soaked it in. He could still feel the sand in his grip. Still smell the salt on the air.

When he opened his eyes, he was somehow not surprised to find the black swath of a night sky and pinpricks of starlight overhead. He swallowed, but accepted what his mind said was there for the familiarity of comforting constellations he’d stared at so often on campaign. There was nothing more fascinating to study than the patterns in the stars, after all. And each shape had a story to match. Tales spun since childhood woven by some nanny in the precious minutes before bed. Sometimes, he woke his brother while storms rattled the windowpanes, and it was Zakar that soothed him back to sleep with fantastical stories of old. From Ages long past, Zakar always said, though he didn’t retell them with the gusto of a true believer. Jai wasn’t sure he believed himself, but he remembered the stories anyway just in case.

He was staring at the outline of The Archer’s bow when he decided someone should know something about his life before it was over.

“The first time I was even close to the sea was when I was with the Legion in Illian. We were probably a week to the north. Not that I knew that; I was only a Dedicated at the time. There were so few Asha’man in those days, and the ones we had were stationed in worse places than Illian. I ‘borrowed’ a horse and rode off to see it for myself.” He chuckled to himself, head shaking slightly, yet he didn’t break his glimpse of the constellation. He'd stared at it many times before. Tracked its movement across the sky; season after season until it disappeared fully. “I turned around when I reached the marshes, finally understanding why no army could march on the city. Bogs and swamp as far as you could see.”

A smirk threatened to break the fatigue holding him back when he glanced at Nythadri, eyes still red from the night's swinging emotions, but hers drew him in, as they had the very few moment he glimpsed them. She was stunning in the water; vulnerable, pure. Well, maybe not too pure. His gaze was drawn down, certainly not of his own free will, by the lines of black hair stuck to the curves of her neck, dripping down her collarbone and pooling upon the surface of the water. He cleared his throat and broke the line of sight. 
“But what were they going to do to a Dedicated? All I got was a yelling from the captain. He should have reported me. To this day I don’t know why he didn’t. What an idiot. If I caught some kid-” Well, he didn’t finish that sentence, but shifted to get a little more comfortable.

“I was in Illian long enough to figure out how to channel alongside a real army. Then one day I was summoned home. I woke up in Maredo and went to bed that night in a fortress in Kandor with a second pin... and I felt like I was on top of the world.” He swallowed, hands settling on his stomach beneath the privacy of the water’s surface. They hadn't stayed in bed long, and by the next morning his life was never the same.

He shook off the rest of the story and skipped ahead a few years. Best not to linger on that one too long. Even if he was telling the story for one reason only, and she already knew that part of it. He rolled his aching shoulders and trailed a finger across the surface of the water.

“Arad Doman isn’t as dangerous as it once was. Suppose there are enough of us now to leave one Asha'man there all the time. Well, two technically.” His voice trailed. Arad Doman was a far cry from the years of battle against Seanchan. Fierce damane who would claw their way back into their collars as sure as rip him apart, but he couldn’t think about it now. His gaze floated upward once more, surprised to find that the ceiling returned. But it was comfortable. Warm. Safe. He just blinked at the rafters, and realized amid the other sensations gripping his guts that he was thirsty. Maybe it was all the talking.

As he reached for a cup, a figure in a corner caught his attention. A woman, wearing a clean blouse tucked into wool skirts. Snugged across the front was an apron with flour smudges on the pocket. She had curly red hair that caught the firelight when she turned to look straight at him. He sat up a little, watching her with the pinched tension of someone confused by the sudden appearance but not really shocked by the oddity of it. His line of sight followed as she approached, picked up the cup and handed it to him.

She said nothing when he accepted it. Only looked down at him with eyes that made him wonder if she was sad.

“Thank you,” he told her. “Can you take that one to Nythadri?” After glancing at its pair, to his surprise, she was gone. He just blinked, then twisted about to scan the room for evidence of her departure but upon finding none, he looked back at Nythadri sincerely confused to discover she already had a cup, and the One Power was flowing around the room.

Then he understood.

But stayed silent. There was nothing to say.

Relief loosened a knot in her chest when his hand tightened naturally around hers. The lights back to shore were slow but sure, and she was quiet in the captivation, accepting it for the solace it was. In the connection between them her heart beat steady, and for perhaps the first time since she left the Tower her thoughts were still. Light knew that grin had always been her undoing. “Utterly,” she agreed. Her lips flickered a smirk, coaxed to the fore, but it fell to something softer soon after.

In honesty Nythadri wanted more than it was wise to take. Memorable seemed a fine enough compromise when they could tally the consequences later, but so sharp promised the cruelty now that even she was unsure she could weather the aftermath. A fall from the heights of self-imposed duty would be painful for him, and she did not want to remember it that way. She’d seen the distressed plea of his expression earlier, and she was afraid of the fragility still in this moment as much as she was prepared to protect every second of it. So if she led his hands to the laces of her dress it was in tender intimacy, and a quiet direction of his help. The blood dried down her front disturbed her. He knew well enough she was not squeamish. Yet if it seeped through to the shift beneath, Nythadri was desperate not to see it. Her gaze remained uplifted to his, her returned touches soft and practical. She recognised restraint but she had no defences against him. It was trust and torture in equal measure.

Finally in the steam and water, Jai drifted for a while. She left him to the quiet of those horizons, glad to see the slide of his lids fall low. Perhaps time and rest would alleviate some of the fractures torn wide tonight. Truthfully it was not something they had in any abundance, yet she was masterful in this bubble of their isolation, and fully prepared to shoulder the burden of their situation while she fought for them. The world could wait a while at least; let him find at least a little peace. In the meantime the heat was pleasant, and she was blessedly glad to feel clean. Though she did not relax back the same way, unsure what strength the lull would erode that she might still need. Her thoughts circled tiredly as she pressed the water over her face like she could soothe it all away.

For a while she thought he might sleep, but when he roused to speak she listened, her attention full on the moment. Shadows limned his face but not the tremendous rawness in his eyes when he finally opened them. Nythadri understood the offerings of a confessional, though she chose to hear only the intimacy of what was given, not the reasons why. It was why she did not interrupt. Yet she heard something else, too. In the softness between words. In the fact he shared at all. It stirred something in her, as delicate as a second kiss in the ocean when neither of them were thinking about tomorrow.

Then his attention phased out again, and the awakening of power brought a cup to her surprised hand even as he spoke to air. It was fleeting, yet felt like the unexpected slide of a blade between her ribs; the kind of puncture that threatened a slow and unavoidable loss. Confusion reigned in its wake soon after, and acknowledgement drew Jai blank when the pieces fit the dismal picture. Nythadri did not look away from it, though her breathing had grown a little shallow. She’d be utterly foolish not to feel a flutter of fear, knowing what it meant. “I would suggest we just get spectacularly drunk, but to be honest that advice has never served me well in practice,” she said into the void of his silence. The humour in her sparked morbid and familiar, seeking like kind in that hellscape of recognition. Nythadri had no face for pity, and no caution for the path she knew she would take despite it. “Nor you, come to think of it. Plus, I do not actually think there is enough wine.”

She smirked and balanced the cup on the tub’s rim, her pale eyes seeking something else from him then. She wanted to close the distance, and she felt it more keenly when she knew he would be apt to draw away from affection he might not feel he deserved. Faced with such stark evidence of the danger he presented, she knew he would be thinking about the worst of possibilities. Adding yet another fistful of gravedirt on the ending he had already written for himself. Light how could he not? He was dangerous.

“The first time I ever saw the sea was with you,” she told him then, soft with the offering of that memory between them, realising not for the first time that it was something precious. Like world’s end, he’d called it. And she’d laughed, told him things were rarely as they seemed.

The water sent a blush against his skin as it lapped with every shift. Her gaze followed the warm skin up to his eyes. Light only knew what he was thinking now. If she trusted herself she would have moved closer. “I know you want to do the right thing,” she said. “That you push on because you know no other path to follow.” Words he’d said to her months before, the last time duty and desire met at her crossroads and found a resolute knot in the road. “So light Jai, let me show you a different way for us to go.”

“I know. That’s why I took you to it.” He couldn’t hide the proud flicker threatening the seriousness of his composure. He’d unearthed the secret of a first-timer and was damn smug about it too. Seeing if she was up for a dip in the water was the motivation he told himself, but standing on that balcony, he all too well remembered the possibilities tempting them both to shadows and seclusion. Saidin built the path, but what he really wanted was to be the one to give the gift of the sea to her. Stealing kisses, or more, was only an undeniable perk.

He rubbed his face, but the gesture was a flimsy shield to hold back the tide of that night’s many memories. It was sheer torture; pulling at laces of a gown now abandoned on the floor while holding the level of his gaze high. He noticed that she did the same to an ever-closing knot tightening in his chest; no teases, no testing the last shreds of his honor. Because if she had, he wouldn’t be able to resist a third time. Light. It was torture.

Not going to lie, her solution to present problems was already given ample consideration. Drinking away the rest of the night’s troubles was a sound plan, but wine was a weak weapon against the war waging in his head. Plus he’d sworn off alcohol for at least another six months following a lesson that definitely sank in. Suppose learning lessons the hard way was a common trait they shared, but come to think of it, Nythadri boasted how often she’d ‘been told’ she couldn’t handle her drink. It was a defense she used all the way back during the Hunt itself, though he assumed it had to do with her rank at the time than a bad experience. But maybe she once learned that lesson just as firmly as Jai. He wondered, but for all the curiosity, he’d never ask.

Small consolation, but at least she left the obvious unsaid. He assumed she recognized madness when she saw it. She probably came to the Tower after the cleansing of the taint, but he didn’t really know. The only insight into her age that he knew for certain was the long five years that once tempted her to his arms. But she was Aes Sedai; and he knew that she knew. It’s not like it was a big secret, though. Still, there was nothing that could be said, and he was silently grateful they let that particular ghost go undisturbed.

When she repeated his own words back to him, he looked at her with the same accusation that said he knew something too. But it wasn’t the kind of insight that usually sent him running. In fact, he wanted to give her the key to the rest of what was locked up in his head and tell her to root around to her heart’s content. It was the sort of invitation that suddenly sparked a very strange daydream absolutely out of no where. What it would be like to introduce Nythadri to his parents? Well, Nythadri Sedai, he reminded himself. Valoni were always eager to serve Aes Sedai. It was an honor that went back three thousand years. They’d probably gasp and fawn all over her, and wonder what in the light their youngest son was doing in such lofty company. Of course, he never could, and he sighed in acceptance. Releasing the daydream for the same reason he never dwelled on ribbons and vows and cradles. It was a path he dared not explore further for a hundred different reasons, but still, he wondered.

For that same reason, he knew he had to climb out of the water. So he did.

Jai wasn’t bashful. Definitely not modest.  He swam in not but his bare skin the night they first met after all so it wasn’t like she hadn’t seen (or felt) as much before. But he was careful to not look back while he wrapped towels around himself. It was with very distracted dabbling that he dried the water streaking down his back in an effort to avoid the hazard of puddles on the floor, but he might have modeled a little longer than was necessary just to show off what she was missing. Soon enough he was decently covered and moved away. Despite the warmth of a southern nation wrapping the room, his skin chilled during those strung-along seconds until he was dry, and crossed toward the fireplace. She could probably tell the moment he channeled even with his face turned. Yet from darkness, he summoned flows of the One Power to flare the hearth to life with only the barest movements; Fire was always the easiest to wield. Light knew it came naturally, but for all the bad memories those flows burned, hopefully it would bring Nythadri comfort when she was ready.

It was then that light gleamed on nearby gold, but of the three objects laid to rest there, his hand hovered unsure of which one he was going to touch first. He grazed the head of her serpent ring before thinking better of himself, and in the end, he let them rest undisturbed. A small peace, he supposed. He’d wear the pins again soon enough. He always did; always would.

He needed the time to steady himself. Not just over the throes of madness lurching around his brain like a boat on rough waters, but because strength and honor were worn as thin as they could go. To bolster the cause he set for himself, Jai forced himself to remember. To retrace the painful paths washed with fresh blood and watch fate wrenched from his hands. As much as he wished for another way, all roads led to one end. He knew it the moment he first saw Nythadri in that hall. When hand brushed his heart and he bowed with enough formality to make his ancestors proud, he hadn’t apologized over being startled when a regular guy was captured by the most piercing gaze he had ever seen. Though those ropes certainly snugged tight in his chest. It was because he knew there would be no end but this. He’d fight for the Light until the end of his days, but it would always end in blood; if not now, then in the Last Battle itself. When he decided on the Blight, it wasn’t to scorch vines and slaughter nightmare spiders. It was to confront the cowards that hid behind the border. He intended to go down fighting; as he was always destined to do. As he was willing to do.

Resolve strengthened, he turned, able to look upon her face with the will to remember that path. More, he accepted it.

“What other way is there to go, Nythadri?” He shook his head, not liking how that came out. “What I mean is, I did this. I know it wasn’t my fault, but I did it just the same, so I will take responsibility. And I’ll deal with it.” His gaze was determined. Jaw set.

Ready.

And that was okay.

Her gaze lifted as she watched him rise from the water. The breath quickened in her lungs, and if it was a wicked torment, it was a moment she lingered in without regret. The dim light shrouded a devilish temptation, water droplets following the lines of muscle where once fingertips had roamed. He was slow about it, and she didn’t mind in the slightest. Probably fortunate he did not look back, though, for the heated way in which her attention followed him then. 

Jai was quiet for a long time. For now Nythadri only leaned back into the warm water, less careful of the space she filled now he brokered distance between them.

“You’re so bloody stubborn,” she said when he finally turned to look at her. Accusation bit the tone, but a small smirk lifted her lips, and she laughed a little. Of course she chose that moment to push herself up into shadows and firelight. Water sluiced, and hair spilled like ink across skin. She didn’t hazard a guess as to whether he would watch as she had, or if hard-won honour would snap his attention back to the flames before his resolve flattened.

“They don’t test us in the field; they use a ter’angreal to do it,” she said as she gathered one of the towels and pressed it to her. “Pull out all our fears and desires and regrets. It feels real. Some women never come out once they go in. In the Tower it’s considered crass to talk about, even amongst ourselves – of the things we must do to prove our devotion and earn that ring.” She didn’t elaborate, though only because it wasn’t the reason she shared. He knew enough of her by now to guess at some of it; more than anyone else anyway. She spoke because of the way he had lingered upon the marks of their station, glinting where she had left the small pile on the sideboard by the basin. Nythadri knew she could never fully understand what the pins meant to him. The identity he carved from them like salvation, and clung to even when it cut him open. To her the ring was a necessary step to freedom; or the illusion anyway, for there had been little enough of that these past weeks so as to dispel the myth. But it was a jailor too, fought with stubborn tenacity for every way it had tried to mould her in its image. The difference being, saidar had never tried to unpluck from her the roots of her sanity. She had never needed that anchor.

She squeezed the weight of water from her hair as she walked. A robe draped over a chair, left in haste only that morning before she’d dressed and Talin collected her. A lifetime had passed since then; the kind of shift that marked beginnings and endings, though for now her thoughts remained blessedly quiet; fixed only in the moment, and the man sharing it with her. She shouldered the robe over still-damp skin, untucked the lay of curls where they stuck at her neck. “The second test is about competency. The most convoluted, complex and utterly useless set of weaves you’ve seen in your life – one hundred of them. Practising amongst the Accepted gets a little sadistic, actually. We know we’ll be distracted. But they don’t warn us they use a ter’angreal for that too.”

She joined him at the hearth while she pulled the tie snug about her waist. The warmth from the flames burned with a pleasant sort of lethargy, and it was almost easy to forget where they were. Dawn would bring reality, but for now the world was a smaller place. Her heart fluttered for all sorts of reasons, looking up at the mask duty made of his expression. Nothing shielded her own. She wasn't hesitant, only marking the moment into memory.

“What I mean is,” she repeated back to him, a little sly for his density. Her fingers brushed his. “That I’m offering you my bond, and we'll deal with it together.”

He heard movement in the water, and let the Light burn him through right then. Jai practically had to cut himself open to not turn and look. If he did, it’d be over, and no vow, no oath and no resolution in the world could keep him standing still. The story. Focus on the story, he told himself and scrubbed a hand hard through his hair.

Through the reel of images flashing through his mind—Nythadri’s hair cascading down her chest, her lips glistening with steam, her stomach…. He clenched his eyes shut, trying to focus on the sound of her voice. Somehow, he caught fragments of what she was saying, her words piercing through the walls he was desperate to hold. Here he thought they had it tough, but now he had some idea of the torture she put herself through. For what? To earn a ring that imprisoned her all this time? He had no idea she’d been through anything like that. To go into something and risk never coming back out. Chancing death to prove devotion? Was five lonely years not enough proof to the cause? Light, she did it though; walked in and walked back out again all in one piece, twice! He could almost smile at that. He'd never doubt her for a second.

A moment of weakness chanced a look over one shoulder. Thankfully, she wore a robe, but somehow, the robe was worse. The way it clung to her body, damp skin and sleek hair. Memories from that night in the Aryth rushed back. Desire and guilt, and the burden of the choices he had pressed upon her washed fresh; to make her put those sacrifices on the line and walk away. When she drew near, his gaze gravitated toward her, but it was killing him. The ache constricting his chest was so tight, he could barely breathe but to stand there and try and memorize her face.

It was the faith in her eyes that was unraveling him, and when their fingers intertwined at the barest touch, her offer shattered the breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“I would be thrusting you into the very danger I want to save you from.” And his voice cracked, wavering under the weight of more emotions than one person could possibly know, and he could barely say the next few words.
“You’ll feel the madness in me.” And there was no knowing if it would only get worse with the years. 
“There’s a hundred reasons why it’s a bad idea.” And he shook his head. Trying to remember them.

But staring into her eyes, he saw the woman that slid from a saddle to stand between justice and hatred. A woman who saw tenderness in the touch of a killer. And in return, he saw her strength. Her humor. Her devotion. Her.

And his resistance crumbled entirely. On a sudden turn, he took her in his arms and kissed her before they both came to their senses and she changed her mind.

It was the kiss he denied himself all night. To tell her that he was there; somewhere buried in this shell was a man desperate to have her. To be with her. To never want to leave her again. He paused only to breathe, yet he held her close, his forehead grazing hers. “But when have I ever done the right thing?” And he sank to his knees, gaze holding to the anchor of hers all the while, and he nodded.

Jai looked like a man stricken. The tight emotion locked behind his tired eyes marked the path between duty and desire like he couldn’t fathom their coexistence, yet when he spoke through the crack of emotion it sounded more like disbelief than denial. She’d spied it in him before, that boyish insecurity. Nythadri considered how deeply it might have burrowed in him, then; her silence, and his discovery of her absence from the Tower when he came to find her. She’d never asked him why he was there, probably because she knew, and light but she’d never intended to hurt him that way. It should have been a reunion unfraught by the sorts of perils that waited outside the door now. She wished she’d given him that.

“You’ll feel me too,” she said simply. Not in an effort to convince, but because for a man who saw patterns in everything she sometimes wondered at his blinding propensity for self-delusion. Their fingers entwined as soft and sure as their threads, bound unconsciously in one another. An answer she already understood.

She had been prepared for the vestiges of his defences. For honesty. It was a promise and not a solution after all. But she had not been prepared for him to sweep her to him, or for his kiss. After the careful dance of self-denial, the surprise of it flushed her entirely into its captivation, and she held nothing back. Emotion shivered her through unchecked, every truth suppressed given outlet, and she found the way he left her breathless afterwards entirely unfair. It ruffled every sensible thought in her head. He still pressed close, his arms around her warm through the thin robe. Desire burned a very distracting ache, but it was the connection she lingered in. Though the words prompted an irreverent and unguarded smirk as he sank to his knees.

“It's the right thing,” she told him. A scathing sort of certainty, softened by the smile. She traced her hands through his hair, soothing the path of self-inflicted torment as she sank down too. A mystery he had any left, the way he scrubbed at it sometimes. His eyes never left hers, though for a moment she leaned close enough to press an intimate whisper into the shell of his ear. “I would have followed you north anyway, Jai Asad Kojima.” It wasn’t an incidental invocation of his name; a legacy shared and remembered. Nythadri was rarely sentimental, or not openly at least, but she tucked those things safe.

Saidar fluttered on soft wings by then. Her hand cradled the curve of his jaw as she made the weave, then let it sink in; searching for signs of recognition that he realised when it was done.

“And you say I’m stubborn?” He couldn’t help the half-grin that threatened to break the seriousness of the moment. He’d not put it past her, tailing him north. The only Borderland nation he knew was Kandor, but it was memorable enough to form a gateway. He would have made the effort count, though, and it would take time to find the best place to make the crossing. Nythadri would likely have sniffed him out by then and the whole thing moot. Not that he would mind being tied up if she was folding the knots, but the salt poured in fresh wounds would hurt.

He hadn’t intended to be strung with tension, but he expected it to be cold. Like healing or worse. Light knew he’d been through it plenty in the past, but Nythadri's touch on his face was as warm as what followed. But unlike the tight grip of control, it felt like losing control. Like floating on the water, but the more he fought the waves, the worse they washed over, but only trusting to them found peace in the rhythm; a peace that infused soul-deep. Like falling without caring she once described it; like bliss, joy… and strength. And he knew that must be saidar.  

And in that, it was like healing, but the freshest, strongest healing that washed away every ounce of exhaustion. He opened and closed his fists like he was reacquainting himself with his own skin. Then rolled surprisingly loose shoulders. As he looked around, he found his sight sharper. The fog filling his mind was gone, replaced with a quickness he couldn’t explain. And in its place was someone new. Jai wasn’t sure what to say.
“I uhm—“ he started, and scrubbed a hand through his hair as diversion from the fact he’d been rendered utterly speechless. When he looked back up, it was with a sheepish smile plastered on his idiot face.
“I feel great. You all should advertise this.” After a quick laugh, he studied her face to correlate the feeling in his head with what he saw. The dissonance of the two were striking, but he always suspected that Nythadri felt far more deeply than she let on. It was like being let in on a secret.

He took her hands, where the graceful cascade of her robe’s sleeves spilled over her wrists, grateful for their trust and endurance. His fingers grazed her arms, leaving a trail of sensation as they journeyed upwards, finally resting in a gentle rub on her shoulders. The cloth was softer than anything he’d ever felt before yet beneath the softness was a weight she shouldn’t have born. He’d not leave her to it again. As he helped her to her feet, his expression transformed from sheer amazement to a playful roguishness. And this time, when he pulled the tie on her robe, it was while laying a kiss to the side of her neck.


Across the continent, thousands of miles away, Daryen walked the recently emptied corridors of the Domani palace. Fatigue drew his steps, but contentment was etched upon the angles of his sun-kissed face nonetheless. As he reached his quarters, he paused to consider the thread of worry etched deep within, a sensation he worked diligently to postpone acknowledging all these hours. It was only a moment, and he nodded his gratitude to the servant that held the door, but as he passed beneath it, a weightlessness washed over, and he collapsed.




[[Daryen written by me]].