The First Age

[[continued from The Point of No Return]]


Despite all words to the contrary, Arikan had not displayed cruelty. He could have forced her own hand to the deed, or allowed Jai to carry out the Compulsion himself. That he had not prompted a strange sort of gratitude, but not one she was ever likely to share, nor he to even appreciate. Nythadri saw efficiency not mercy, of which she happened to be a beneficiary rather than a recipient. He had acted for himself, exactly as he had promised.

She watched him with an air of recalculation in the final moments before he followed them through the gate. For now it was easier to examine with dispassion rather than dwell on the shock of what had just happened, or her willing complicity in it. No foundations were laid for trust; she was not sure she ever could. But she realised she believed him. That whether he truly strode in Light or Shadow, or some singular path of his own, he fully intended to clear the Dragon’s way.

The gesture of the wine was a vexation not a threat, she’d warrant, but she was unamused by the play. Nythadri did not think he’d have cause to poison them, but the room had been unattended, as had Arikan the entire day. A move against him she could well believe no matter how careful he was of his identity, and she knew little about the fort or its occupants – or even Talin’s connections to the place. Jai gulped the offering before she could think to caution him. The look she gave Arikan was withering.

“I’ve been told wine goes to my head,” she said dryly alongside her otherwise polite decline. Probably it would prove too subtle a warning for Jai, but she meant to remind him of the viper’s nest of the hunt. This was not a rescue, and they were not exactly safe. Clearly he did not realise who Arikan was. At some point he was going to wonder why he recognised a channeler but not a brother, though, and there were few enough answers for that. All of them bad ones.

At Arikan’s words a brow rose. She did not mention his sojourn into the Black Tower’s storeroom, but the clear cut of her gaze suggested she missed little of the opportunities gleaned for himself. He had more than fairly requited a price for his aid, such as it was. “You made sure you were seen,” she said instead. At her side she had not released Jai’s hand; all the better to remind herself that every step along this road tugged him along too, despite her desire to protect him from her choices. Distance had been a foolish shield though. Ellomai’s admonishment haunted decisions that felt well made at the time. She didn’t dwell on the mistake. Rather, she forged relentlessly ahead.

Arikan hovered uncomfortably close. She met his eye. “There’s more you should know. But first, where in the light is Talin?”

Once the Aes Sedai declined the goblet of wine, Arikan simply thrust the glass before the Asha’man, who readily accepted it on her behalf. He downed it as quickly as the first, and Arikan smirked when he left him to it.

He returned to the seat that he occupied when she found him in this very room not half an hour ago. He sat at his leisure, one leg crossed over the other and studied the pair absently. He was little interested in gleaning more information from their interaction. The fact the pair gripped one another’s hands was more than telling. The damsel in distress rescue said the rest.

“You made sure you were seen,” she declared. One brow lifted, betraying Arikan’s amusement.

“You miss nothing do you,” he replied with the sort of overt sarcasm that Talin never found humorous.

“I made sure I was seen, and made sure you weren’t. We should not have left the Dedicated alive. It will muddy the story, but he’s unlikely to be taken seriously... if he’s remembered at all by his superiors. Or they might kill him to cover up the embarrassment of a break in; either way, they’ll attribute the opening of the store room to me. Which only betters my reputation for how magnificent a feat that was.” As he paused, the weight of Arikan’s attention turned to Jai. The Asha’man was studying their surroundings with an air of caution mixed with delayed acceptance for questions clearly unanswered. Undoubtedly the lingering effects of the compulsion continued to slow his thinking.

Regardless, Arikan posed his questions. “How did you manage to do that? In my experience, brilliance was usually mired with madness. Were you always that way or did the taint bring it out in you?” That hooked his attention firmly back to the dreadlord. The pieces began to put itself together in his mind. Between their distinct power-level difference, the resolute fact that Arikan was in currently in possession of a sa’angreal that he intended to use to challenge the strongest of the Chosen, and that the Aes Sedai was reigning him in more than any of them combined, Arikan wasn’t concerned. He continued.

“Because it’s a hell of a gift. I will be able to use it going forward.”

The intrigue over news to be shared lifted an eyebrow. Momentarily, his attention shifted back to the Aes Sedai. Whether she did it to siphon his attention away from the vulnerable man at her side, or if she was playing another game, she successfully distracted him, though all he did was shrug in response.

“Talin said she had something to do. You can decide what that means.”

He gestured that they take a seat.

Jai had to stretch their hands out to place the empty cup on a table alongside the first. He still didn’t let go, and the one power was still out of reach.

He didn’t interrupt Nythadri’s conversation, but the darkness on his brow followed the shadow of her attention toward the nobleman. A channeler? Nobleman? And half-insulting Nythadri? The hell was going on? He glanced back at her, but her face was ice. Her hand was motionless in his. If something was really wrong, she’d do something? Right?

His question pulled a fresh frown on Jai’s already red-raw face. He didn’t answer it, of course. Given that two of the three people present knew the truth of such an answer. But rather than grip the hilt of his sword, his fingers latched tighter upon those already snaked through them.

“Time to take off the shield,” Jai said instead, but for all the latching of their gazes, the nobleman only lifted a brow.

“You sure you’re ready for that?” He asked.

Jai snapped, “Yes, I’m bloody sure!”

The moments hung on the air while the nobleman studied him. It made Jai’s skin crawl, though he’d dare not show the weakness. He must be some Asha’man that he didn’t know. Someone older, maybe. From before his time in the Tower. How did Nythadri know someone like that? Aes Sedai ways, he assumed. Or the ways of nobility. It was like they all knew each other, anyway.

He relaxed a little when the shield broke, and he scrubbed a free hand through his hair afterward, realizing only that moment that the palm was still mired in Daniel’s blood. He tried not to think of how that made his stomach turn; instead choosing to focus on the strategy for scrubbing the blood out of his hair later. It was always a damn chore.

Their conversation took a different turn after that.

Light he was tired.

“Who’s Talin?” he asked the both of them, but when his gaze settled on Nythadri’s, there were about ten more questions tagged along behind it.

She might have taken offence at his condescending explanation of the obvious. Instead, Nythadri was amused at what it appeared he had taken the time to glean from Talin about her, and a spark of it flared in her reaction. The sarcasm was sharp enough to part flesh, but to that end Nythadri had no real ego to injure, and she did not much care what Arikan thought of her. Prejudices weighed his shoulders like centuries old dust.

“What I noticed,” she corrected dryly, “is that this morning you claimed a need for suitable allies before you acted. Something has changed since I left, for you to now take the risk of making such a visible play.” Even the objects purloined from the Black Tower’s stores did not offer enough of a resource to warrant revealing himself. Not even for the sake of pride. And certainly not for the sake of their protection. Yet he hadn’t mentioned Elsae, for all his earlier outbursts concerning Talin’s creative interpretation of the bargain they’d made. What that actually meant she was not wholly convinced she wanted to know, especially given Talin’s absence, but neither did the directness of her attention break hold. She did not ask. She wanted to know what, if anything, he would offer. He clearly liked the sound of his own voice.

“If you truly believed that you would have done it. I doubt I could have stopped you.” The rest was given with a feigned shrug, though a life was hardly a casual topic. If he had killed the Dedicated, their fragile alliance would have frayed its very edges. But she believed he understood it would have been a betrayal unworthy of the gain. If Nythadri willingly cast a shadow upon her own soul in accepting this truce, she would not see the path of it strewn with needless bodies. Neither had she forgotten the way he had shaken at Talin’s arm though; the words that had spilled from his mouth. As he examined Jai like a shiny new tool, and she felt her ire rising at the casual needling, she studied Arikan with unhidden calculation in return.

She had a dozen and more questions about immediate plans. Nythadri never pledged by half measures, and if she found it reckless in herself, she could blinker her thoughts from the horror in favour of a cause. To that end she considered taking the seat offered and allowing events to transpire as they may. Alone, she would have, despite her own exhaustion. She wanted answers, and she had the gall to demand them, even of a dreadlord. But she felt every tension in Jai’s grip, both as subtle and insistent as the strings of her violin; felt too the instant of relief when Arikan must have acquiesced and released the shield, moments before he raked a bloodied hand through his hair. It settled a resolve. She would not allow a questioning at Arikan’s hands, nor at his witness. Not because she suspected his method; in a startling human affectation, Arikan seemed both genuine and curious in his awe, and Jai had no reason to withhold any answers such as he knew, and certainly not with her own prompting. She would not allow it because she understood the pain unravelling the truth of his Compulsion and its consequences would cause him. Privacy was the best balm she could offer to such an injury.

“She’s a Yellow Sister,” she said in answer to Jai’s question. “She’s the one who brought me here, and she has a lot to bloody well answer for.” If Talin were in the fort, she would have felt both saidar-wrought gates, and Nythadri couldn’t fathom a reason she’d keep her distance. Nor did she have any notion of where the woman might have gone. Surprisingly she cast no suspicion on Arikan despite his smugly evasive response. The manner in which they’d interacted earlier suggested some kind of earned trust between them, even if neither would call it such. Her absence was a frustration though, not least upon the strain thinning what was left of Nythadri’s patience for the mystery. “Light send we have no need of her, then,” she muttered.

Her gaze finally caught on Jai’s, and stayed there. She didn’t have enough in the way of answers for either of them, nor any desire to withhold the things she did know. Arikan’s aid was not without cost, and Nythadri had spent the coin for them both in desperation. She didn’t regret it, whatever future it consigned, only that he did not yet know it, and she did not enjoy the shape of that secret. She acknowledged unspoken the search of his gaze, and her thumb grazed the inside of his wrist. She would not lean on blind patience and trust, both undeserved in the moment, though she knew he would give them without question.

After a moment Nythadri’s attention returned to Arikan. “The news will keep until her return. We will take rest while we can, assuming there’s any to be had under this light-forsaken roof. I will find you in the morning.” She did not seek permission, but she did pause long enough to assess resistance. He played at nobility, or had been born to it. Either way she hoped he was astute enough to see and accept the sense in it.

He disliked her tone; verging on dismissal as it was. For a moment Arikan considered forcing her to be more deferential. The barest squeeze of his eyes betrayed the consideration before he opted against it. A willing accomplice was always more useful than a coerced one, and between the two, he was the greater player of the game, and Nythadri was already beginning to trust him. So he let the offending tone slide on account of the trying night, and filed away the tight control she wielded of her emotions. Though by the time she declared their departure, Arikan assumed that the tighter her control, it was because she was fighting it all the harder.

As the couple passed the threshold, he called out after them.
“Your time is running out, Aes Sedai.”

Her deadline approached, and despite the apparent absence of a threat, the reminder itself was all the more sinister for the casual utterance from Arikan’s lips. Then he smiled to himself and thought of the new resource she guessed he’d acquired. Valtin was busy himself, somewhere in the fortress. When Arikan explained the relevant details of his plan to his lieutenant, Valtin was more than eager to participate. The promise of overthrowing the Chosen practically made the younger dreadlord salivate with anticipation. For when the Chosen were gone, new lords of the earth would rise to take their place. Arikan had no desire to serve the Great Lord any longer, but Val need not know that. In the end, he was a tool just like the foolish, talented Asha’man traipsing after a beloved; just like Elsae would soon become.



Continued at Hiding in Plain Sight

Jai was pulled into the unknown, chased on the heels of the nobleman’s declaration. He looked back over his shoulder, but they were half down the hall by that point. The library was a distant glowing door by then. Jai frowned, uncomfortable by the echoing sentiment.

He licked his lips and looked aside at Nythadri, but her face remained encased in ice. His own softened as he followed. How many times had he wanted to talk to her in the past few weeks? How much had he needed to see her? Now she was so close. His head swam with so many things to say it was impossible to pluck one from the chaos. The longer the silence stretched, the tighter the knot in his chest closed.

He thought of Daniel. What was left behind. The Black Tower and brotherhood betrayed for reasons unknown. The ghost haunted him all the way to an unmarked door. Nythadri led him inside a guest room, and he simply stood there, still abuzz with shock and a million unanswered questions, while she dealt with whatever needed dealing.

A swallow and the drag of his shoulders eventually led to their parting of hands. He realized then that the blood on his must have darkened Nythadri’s, who deserved far better treatment than drenched with the blood of a murder victim. Jai hovered over a water basin. An old mirror hanging askew on the wall showed him the face of a man he did not want to see. So he focused on scrubbing the blood from his hands until the basin was a pink pool. The rags fared no better after dredging them through the water and wiping down his face.

It was something of an improvement when he checked the mirror a second time. The redness in his eyes were bright. Cheeks flat. Mouth drawn. And as he stared into his own eyes, all he saw was disappointment and fog and emptiness. And the pins. The pins. Everything coiled tight inside until he thought he would burst. Suddenly he did. He couldn't pull apart the buttons on his coat fast enough. Afterward, it was balled up, and he threw it to the floor.

He just stared at the black lump, only to leave it behind and sink into a nearby seat, arms on his knees.

He didn't look up when he spoke. His hands were still pink around the nails.
"I tried to find you... days ago. I came to the White Tower.... after I received.. your letter. They said you were gone."

Arikan let them go, though he didn’t look pleased about it. Nythadri bit down on the urge to fire a scathing retort at his final comment, but instead ignored him entirely.

She led Jai to the room she had shared with Elly, too exhausted to deliver them anywhere safer. His grip peeled away. Literally. Nythadri daren’t pause to look down at her own hands. She knew blood also soaked her skirts where she’d knelt to urge Jai from the m'hael's body, but the moment she considered it was the moment the frayed edges of her control would begin to unravel with the proof of what she’d done. Jai remained silent as the grave. Meanwhile she summoned a servant, who she spoke with quietly on the threshold for a few moments, employing the last armament of icy, shuttered expression she could muster. When she closed the door, Jai was occupied with routine and ritual, scrubbing his hands like he’d prefer to flay the skin from them. Light knew she understood the need.

She did not flinch when he wrenched himself from the coat, though it pained her to see the lines of self-revulsion and failure in his expression as he abandoned it to the floor. But words wouldn’t reach where he dwelt now, even if she could find them.

Nythadri didn’t look down until she finally pressed her hands in the dirty water. She had never been phased by gore, but this was a man’s lifeblood; a man she had looked in the eye, and known she would not fight to save. A man who had looked back and known his deliverance, even as he spat in the Dark One’s eye to the very last. Worse, maybe; it was a man she had hated for what he had taken from Jai. Such cold thoughts were what she tried to focus on, like she could cast herself remote from the act. But it didn’t work. She couldn’t control the tremble once it started. Her burning, tired eyes blurred as the water soaked into her cuffs.

After Tashir’s murder, the innkeep’s wife had sluiced the blood from her hands, speaking to her softly while they awaited the city guard. No one knew who she was, or that a noble’s corpse lay out on the cobbles. But after the battle of Tar Valon she had been alone over a basin just like this in the novice halls. It’s not mine, she had told the harried Yellow Aspirant working triage before she had been allowed to seek her own privacy, and it had only been half a lie. The girl had moved on with a tired nod. This was not so harrowing as that, she told herself, and she had survived it, but reason had plunged from the precipice, and even Nythadri had limits. Blood crusted the scales of the ring she twisted free under the pink water. She tried to breathe through it, disturbed by how badly she was shaken, and knowing bleakly that this was the peril of burying things too deep to feel. Ghosts never settled quietly forever.

Tonight she’d nearly lost everything that mattered. That was the crack chinking and fracturing across her composure, letting loose everything else inside. A scald of heat lanced down her cheek before she stitched herself back together. She squeezed her eyes shut; waited for the moment to pass, because it had to.

When Jai finally spoke, the words hurt as sharply as an accusation. In them she heard the shadow of her own failure, and the one mistake she regretted. But she heard his pain too. The helplessness of what he clung to first in this storm. She sought the shape of him in the mirror’s reflection, bowed over himself, and she wished she knew if the soft slur was shock or something worse. Who had told him that was set aside for now, for it felt like a weight of iron in her chest. The betrayal she already suspected must wait. The fate of the Towers must wait. Just as the light-forsaken dreadlord must wait.

The rags were sodden, the water too bloody to do much but leaven the worst from her hands. She abandoned the effort despite the turn in her stomach, and dried them as best she could on the bodice of her dress. “I should have come myself. I was afraid, and it seems I am destined to learn every bloody lesson the hard way.” Her voice sounded less shaky than she felt, despite the raw nature of her confession. Of the fear or the lesson she did not elaborate as she closed the distance to where he sat. “Though did you really need to do something quite so dramatic just to get my attention?” The brief edge of a sharp smile, tired sarcasm. She knelt before him, allowed herself to look at him properly for the first time since the Tower. For a moment her hands remained clenched in her lap, unsure if her body would betray her. But then her touch smoothed the line of his forearms. Her hands rolled over his, like so simple an affection might have any hope of protecting him from the thoughts laying siege to his head.

He’d professed to her being an obstacle to duty, once, and she knew he feared what he might leave behind if that duty ever demanded the worst sacrifice. But she wondered if he’d ever paused to consider before now the reverse. The not knowing. Being the one left behind. She accused him of the same thing the night he turned up at her door snow-soaked and blank-eyed, determined to sever the cord between them. For the risk he’d taken and the punishment he’d faced alone. Never realising how carelessly she might inflict the same injury.

Nothing since her Raising had transpired as she might have intended, and neither had she been absent from the Tower with anything close to choice, but intention meant little. When he’d needed her, he’d not known where to find her. When she’d realised, she’d not known how to find him either.

“I went to the palace after I heard about the treaty, but I arrived too late. I couldn’t find you either,” she told him. Light but she wanted to cup his face, lift his eyes to hers and seek connection. To understand too if she needed to worry. Or at least how much. But she was concerned the remnants of blood on her hands might only make him flinch, in disgust or panic or shame. “It won’t happen again, Jai.” The words were soft with promise, coaxing his attention.

He looked up once. To find Nythadri’s back turned, scrubbing herself over the basin. It didn’t occur to him to let her have first pass at the water. She didn’t complain. Not that she ever would. A lump threatened to close his throat tight, and he looked back to his hands. Warmth brushed his arms. Once again, Nythadri was before him, coaxing him back to the shore on which she waited. How many times would they find themselves in this same place. The night he fought with Andreu, she performed much the same miracle, signaling through the darkness, calling him home.

Did he even deserve to go? Well. We all knew the answer to that question.

He found her gaze. So close, he could see the veins in the white of her eyes, probably as red and broken as his own. But it was the colors streaking her sea-colored irises that made him stare. Her quip made him sincerely chuckle.
“You know how I like drama,” he murmured in response, but the humor was cut short by the admission that followed.

Prior to waking up in a pool of Daniel’s blood, there was nothing. Emptiness and blackness. It was strange. Like how time passed when asleep. You rest your eyes for just a second and next thing you know, six hours lapsed and you’re late for duty. He remembered the treaty though. Remembered it loud and clear. The square. Watching the parade of ceremonies and trade of treasures. Nythadri knew about the treaty then. Of course she would. She was Aes Sedai now. Inevitably his gaze fell to the ring on her finger. He almost rubbed the place it previously occupied on her left hand, a wall that kept them apart, but stilled himself from the motion. Mostly because her hands cupped his arms and he didn’t want to break free.

“You heard about that…? Suppose an Aes Sedai would,” he swallowed, speaking aloud the mirror of the thought that just passed his mind.

Then his gaze lifted up and away, it occupied the space above her shoulder. A frown took his expression like he was concentrating, but it didn’t work.
“The last thing I remember is being in the palace. I remember being so angry I could level a mountain. Is that why? Is that why I tried to do — what I tried to do?” Was it madness? Had he finally cracked? His jaw was slack despite the admission like he was willing to accept this part of himself. Like it was only natural. 

Her promise went unacknowledged. Back.. back there, he said he would never leave her alone. But he could see no other future but that they must part again. Tonight or tomorrow it would happen. 

So he said nothing, slipped to the floor with her and wrapped her into a tightly bound hug.

When he looked up it settled something vital in her, and had things been less dire she might have simply folded into him there and then. The world could turn a little longer without them in it, certainly. But was he really not going to ask why she hadn’t told him about her Raising? She watched his gaze dip to the serpent ring; felt him steel himself against a fortress wall that simply was not there. Not for him.

“Light Jai, you think if I’d heard because I was Aes-bloody-Sedai I wouldn’t have been there regardless of the damn sanction? Don’t do either of us the disservice of believing that.” Her tone was firm, quiet, and she smoothed away the surprised flicker of hurt in its wake. Given the way everything had happened he was entitled to the doubt, but she did not like that he withdrew into assumption rather than just speaking it plain. The entire world would see the ring before they saw the woman who wore it. It was one of the fears she had dwelt on; that Jai would see nothing more than a widened chasm.

“It’s been two weeks, give or take,” she added, softer. “Admittedly the days have blurred a little. There is a lot to tell you.” Weariness lined the words like comfort in a casket, but she didn’t share the weight as easily as she offered to take it from others. She’d hold nothing back when she did tell him, and there would be no judging what she thought he could and could not handle of what transpired since the Test. But there was other ground to cover first, and she had shoulders broad enough for the burden until then. She would not let him see the shape of her own worries, not yet.

“I heard nothing of the ceremony at all until I spoke to a sister in Caemlyn. That was only this afternoon, and she didn’t tell me because I was Aes Sedai.” She doubted Jai would read between the lines there, but Ellomai’s words lingered even then. Warnings and advice were usually things she rebelled against, either because she was reckless, or because she resented the notion she could not discern for herself what was important and not. Instead she’d been surprised at her own blindness. That her fear of Jai’s rejection would have consequences before she’d even gotten used to the shawl on her shoulders. She’d assumed him safe. She should have known better.

She should have at least known something of what was coming.

Yet of the final culmination of Arad Doman’s negotiations, Maylis had said precisely nothing, despite that over the months since the hunt they spoke of the Seanchan presence often. Prejudices armed the other Green and it made her outspoken; the whole reason Nythadri so easily accepted her mentorship when she agreed to Lythia’s offer. Retribution clearly suited Maylis better than the Dragon’s Peace, yet until now war had seemed nothing more than a fool’s ambition that kept her tongue loose, not a possibility. If the Altaran sister’s ministrations upon Nythadri’s Aspirancy had been more complex and subtle, it was an uncomfortable thought. Perhaps it was no wonder she had been so casually denigrating of Aes Sedai bonding Asha’man. Easier to blunt the ties than give a young sister reason for rebellion, especially when that sister was Nythadri. She recalled that Kabryn had asked her to visit the day of Talin’s gate. And Nythadri would never know if it was for impending honesty or something else.

“The Amyrlin publicly withdrew her support; apparently she barred any Aes Sedai from attending the proceedings today. Yui was not best pleased to see me, though it was all done by then. Daryen wasn’t concerned in the slightest, so the light only knows what he and the Amyrlin were up to. But whatever agreement he and Kaydrienne had is as good as ash now.” She did not look away, watching his expression to see how much he already knew. The news was hard to share. It felt like pulling the rug from under him, for she imagined some of the gaps would not be the Compulsion’s fault at all, but things Daryen had chosen not to tell him.

The toppling mountain of consequence was a problem for dawn’s light, though. And in all honesty only the least of them to crowd in the shadows around them. Nythadri would not spare the detail when it became necessary, but for now Jai was the only thing that mattered. Leaders would rise and fall. The Dark One would make his moves. Allies and enemies blurred to indistinction. Only one soul tugged her own, though. She watched his attention drift as he tried and failed to grasp at what had happened. His expression cracked pain right through her when he asked that single question.

“No, Jai. That’s not why.”

It was an ugly demon he bared, and not one she could heal; just one she could balance, maybe, when he allowed her to. She read it clearly in his abject acceptance, that the injury was just as deep as if he’d killed Larnair by his own hand. He believed himself capable. Whatever relief he might yet feel would not be an exoneration to him, for it was not a scab he was like to leave alone. Between belief and truth, belief had the far sharper edge. One he would continue to impale himself upon like a man with one eye on the gallows.

When he joined her on the floor, she held onto him fiercely. His silence disturbed her a little, but his closeness quieted her too. Her face pressed into the warm curve of his neck, glad the collar and pins were not there between them. Dark hair spilled down his back. Her body flushed tight. Words came in a whisper. “I hate that you’re tangled up in this now, but light I’m glad you’re here.” There was nearly always something dry or sarcastic or simply apathetic to Nythadri's tone. Even genuine sincerity was frequently camouflaged so, laid bare for what it was only to those who knew her well enough to navigate the sharpness. But not then. It was selfish, but very true. And for a while the strength seeped out. For a while it was him she leaned on.

She wished she’d taken him somewhere else then. Anywhere else.

When she eventually stirred it was not to untangle far. She brushed the line of his jaw, mindful of the diluted blood still on her hands, and pressed her lips gently to his. It wasn't the kind of reunion she had imagined, and light knew she had imagined enough to make even some of her Ajah sisters blush. It was a softer kiss, harder won. The kind that promised there were no dark spaces she'd fear to tread, if that was where she was to find him. Nythadri was rarely free with words of devotion, not even when he called her out on it, but he ought to know her by now. This is us, her kiss said. This is what I choose. Her gaze held promises she might never speak out loud, not for how soul-deep she knew it. She kept those things close. But she wanted him to feel it. Especially in the worst moments. Especially when he believed he did not deserve it.

When she sat back on her heels, his legs were still caged around her. Nythadri’s hands idled about his, unwilling to loosen the connection, but it was as soft as it had been that night in the sand. Her expression was bone-tired, but the shock had begun to ease its hold. The small tremble had gone.

“You were under Compulsion,” she told him. No sugar-coating to ease the blow. It was an honesty of equals; Nythadri had no intention of interrogating him for answers she could glean elsewhere. For she intended to find answers; ruthlessly if she had to, to discover who had done this to him. In the meantime they’d figure out what they could together. “I can fill some of the blanks. Guess at others. I found you in the White Tower, being escorted by a servant to the Travelling Grounds. You walked right past me.” How much he would want to know she was unsure. Jai only lied to himself, after all, and ignorance was a secret she’d keep for him, should he want that from her. But it wasn’t a choice she’d make for him. “Someone engineered the leadership of both Towers to fall in tandem tonight, and used you to do it. One of the Forsaken, it had to have been, though I do not think they acted alone. The only way to save you was to fulfil the command set. But it wasn’t you who killed him, Jai; you were shielded.”

Light. The bloody politics. Jai wasn’t so thick to wonder why the Amyrlin Seat cared about Domani treaties with the seanchan. The Tower was involved in everything. Though he was a little surprised to imagine Daryen was partnering with the Amyrlin Seat directly. It’s not like Daryen journeyed to Tar Valon on a regular basis. The guy hadn’t left Arad Doman in years; and Jai would know. Nor did the Amyrlin take a detour from the top of her tower to some beachside bungalow outside Bandar Eban. Surely Jai would have noticed if a whole regiment of Aes Sedai and parading Amyrlins showed up. That meant they were working together in secret. By code or writing or messengers carrying the negotiations between them. He rubbed his eyes. This was why politics made him want to fall on his sword.

But the Amyrlin changed her mind at the last minute? Come to think of it, were there any Aes Sedai at the ceremony? He didn’t think so. Trista, though, she was there. The only person connected to the White Tower at all and only because she was gaidar. After scrubbing a hand through his hair, he started digging farther back through memories he’d rather leave buried.

“That reminds me of something Kekura Sedai said,” he started. “The day I heard about.. about Dru. When I came to look for you, and they said you weren’t there. I asked properly, too. In the front hall during the day and everything,” he added on principle. Last time he showed up, things didn’t go so smoothly, but he found her. “She said the Tower would be pissed if Daryen bartered away Trista. Well, she didn’t say it exactly like that, but, he did it exactly like she said he would.”

When he slid to the floor, he was momentarily relieved when she hugged him as tight in return. As tight as their hands clinging to one another in the Black Tower. When she pulled him through that gate and landed them where ever they were now. In the back of his mind, Daryen was a dull presence. Like an itchy shirt you forgot you put on after a few hours. So they were no where near the west coast. But as his eyes roamed the wall behind a cloud of dark hair, he saw nothing to relay their surroundings. So he licked his lips and buried his face into her shoulder until she tipped it back up.

The tension in his chest crumbled with her kiss. It had been longer than he could possibly have wanted yet exactly like he imagined it would be. And where Nythadri led, he would always follow, so he melted into her embrace like he never wanted to let go. Relief that she still felt the same way rippled the surface of his heart, and once disturbed, churned something that Jai thought to bury deep. He kissed her eagerly in return, a man who desperately needed her. Needed this and wanted to put to action what he promised in the heat of horror, and time stood still.

He was breathing steady and sure when she pulled away. It wasn’t a forced or broken moment. On the contrary, it felt natural and safe, but despite the connection, he recognized the darkness of fatigue that shadowed her expression. Light knew he felt the same away. But they were together, and for this one night, they would be safe. Until what she revealed changed everything.

“You were under Compulsion," she said.

He blinked and pulled away, expression empty. Thinking only one thing. That compulsion made a lot of sense now that he thought about it. So he listened to the rest of the tale, just empty and absorbing what he’d done. Understanding the meaning of it all too deeply.

The Amyrlin and M’Hael swept were away in one night, and he was the reason. Oh it wasn’t his fault, exactly, but he was the agent that toppled arguably two of the most powerful people in the world. He couldn’t go back to Daryen, not after this. Being around him would only endanger his brother’s standing with the Black Tower. They would assume he was a part of it. Kings and Channelers were not well-received in the world unless that man was the Dragon. Add in a conspiracy that Daryen may have had anything to do with this, and might as well just chop off his head and spike it on the gate of his own palace.

There was no making this right and no knowing when it would happen again. He woke up from this compulsion literally in a pool of Daniel’s blood. Next time, it might be Daryen’s. Light. Thoughts churned horrified. Next time it might be Nythadri.

He stood. It wasn’t rushed or eventful other than to pace a few steps away and stare into the wall. Jai had money. He could find a change of clothes somewhere in this fortress. It would be easy to disappear. Or better yet, go back to the Blight and make his ancestors proud. Talk about disappearing. They’d never even find the body.

Back still turned, he tugged the shirt over his head and dropped it on the ground near another discarded pile of black. The fresh air felt good on his skin, he thought. It wasn’t cold here. Maybe they were south. When he spoke it was calm as the sea before a storm. Light knew he’d watched enough of those roll in to recognize it.

“Had you not been there, I would have been found with the M’Hael. They would have known I’d done it, and I’d be dead by now, and my brothers would have been right to execute me, but Forsaken don’t leave loose ends around. They’ll finish the job, and anyone that I’m close to will be in danger. I’m not dead because you were there, but I can’t let anything happen to you. I swear, I won’t,” he sighed, but nodded with a decision that was swiftly buried deep. When he turned, it was while undoing the buckle on his belt.

“So if this is the last time we see each other, might as well make it memorable?” he tugged off the belt, the hint of a grin forming as the loose pants settled low on the hips. Might have done a little pose because why not? Then, he offered a hand to help her up, hoping she took it but understanding if she didn’t.