The Hunt

[Natalie Grey]

Understanding took a while to descend, and every drifting second that it took she thought about erasing the words and starting again. But the heart that beat fiercely now did so in a cage, as self-discipline began to shore up the edges of careless abandon. Longing never ceased its plea, and temptation fingered at its prison bars. It wouldn’t take much to tip the balance over. But, she reminded herself, she had walked away from more difficult things. Her hands drifted behind her back, and she twisted the ring with a slow viciousness apt to gouge its shape in her finger. She forced herself to remember the battles she had endured for its token; the brother she had abandoned once more to bloody murder, the baby she had left motherless, and the woman she had killed to survive. For the Tower. The pain fed her a focus beyond his expression and lingering heat of lust. She needed that distraction.

The cruelty of it made her ache, but she only had herself to blame for rousing sleeping beasts. For recklessly testing her own limits until they no longer held her back from falling. Even as the trickle of seconds passed to minutes, and the warmth of his touch and kiss became a memory, it was still a memory that flushed her skin. She had always missed intimacy; always thought about it in lonely or bored or frustrated moments. But never sought an outlet. Partly it had been loyalty to the man she had loved; then, after that fragile bubble had burst, it had been discipline born of dying memory and lacking opportunity. The Tower had bundled her to the Farm when she’d been most apt for that kind of disgrace, but apparently fires burn deep. She’d never been easy to shape, to tame; maybe one day the Tower would give up trying and she would lose everything anyway. That thought was strangely sobering.

The glow of saidar slowly faded as her pulse gradually descended; the rise and fall of breath measured but not indistinct. If he closed the watery gap between them she could not foresee herself resisting, but her own feet at least were firmly planted, toes digging rivulets into the sand and silt. Anticipating the slow brew of a potentially unpleasant storm.

He was quiet for a long time.

And time she gave him, the infinite picture of patience, watching every struggle of emotion across his face - just as she had in the front hall that same morning, when he’d grappled with forces unseen. He’d been turned away then, obsessively counting tiles, but this time his gaze did not falter from hers despite how distant the man behind it seemed. In the front hall she’d known better than to touch him, but this time she seriously considered it. The burden of consequences shared, light she considered it.

He scrubbed his hair into endearing tufts, backed away. She wondered if she’d pushed him too far; had unknowingly coerced him to jump when he had no notion of the risks, and now he regretted it. Drifts of his conversation with Daryen had reached her ears earlier that day, and she knew why he’d returned to Tar Valon. She had the distinct impression he had been falling ever since. Hearts shattered on such impacts, and sought comfort in the arms of others. Light, she knew that well enough. Denied distraction, she wondered what conflicts replaced the desire. It was a sharp fall; but it could have been sharper still.

After Farune, she had grown to adopt a dismal view of any man’s integrity beyond the enjoyment of banter and flirtation. She liked Jai; so many characteristics already elicited a faint fondness, but it did not mean he received the benefit of doubt. Beneath the honesty of her attractions was a tangle of defensiveness; a wall he would hit if he delved too deep beneath the surface. When he reunited with his senses, she expected at least dismissiveness. Hostility, maybe; distance, certainly. She’d let saidar drift from her grasp, but even without its clarity she could see the way his expression dropped to sheer menace. She observed that without fear. Regret swung a heavy pendulum, but she would accept the reality of his judgement, whatever it revealed itself to be.

Her skin tingled hot then cool when he instead rested his arms about her shoulders, gathering her in. She did not resist. Neither, at first, did she move much at all; unwilling to trust, to submit to the circle of his warmth and jeopardise the fragile walls of control. Then his face pressed against her hair, and she melted into the unexpected affection, releasing a sigh for the tension she had not even noticed burdened her shoulders. She didn’t prod the stir of quiet feeling as she rested against his damp skin, eyes half shut. Rocking gently as a lullaby, sheltered in a protective embrace; his kindness unsteadied her more than his passion - at least she knew what that meant. He pulled away too soon, though only to catch her eye she soon realised; his playful tease was met with a smirk.

“You’re a terrible liar, Jai.”
A hum of laughter joined the jest, as well as the rise of a suggestive brow. She'd been about to scold his apology when he moved in closer, stealing the words before they ever left her lips. She drifted in the moment; the heat of passion replaced by something pleasant. A rush of sweetness, all the more intoxicating for its unpredicted tenderness. Light! He would unravel her at this rate. "You."
Face still so close to his he would taste the breath as it left her lips. "You are going to get me in so much trouble. And I hope you realise I'll pay it back ten-fold."

[Jay Carpenter]

Greatest thing about Nythadri. He had no idea what to expect from her. Gilded, beautiful women walking the high life: easy to predict; Nisele, one case in point. Girls pouring drinks with a pleasantly heavy hand: wonderful diversions. Jaslene, the innocent icon from more care-free days: a gleaming chandelier just waiting to crash into a million shards. Nythadri? A puzzle he could not quite make out. One moment, the lines balanced beautifully and the next, she'd do something make him scrap the work and start over. Like now. Her defenses seemed to drop as had that robe, as though the curse of its weight freed suddenly airy shoulders. Beyond the display of her half-hearted resistance, it was Nythadri's humming the rather ordinary sound of his name that buckled him. He could survive the march north on that memory alone. And the bit of her sliding out of her robes on a moonlit beach.

She was right. About lying. He was terrible at it. A venue rarely attempted. Except now, of course.
"Nonsense. I'm a great liar. No, madam, your new bonnet is very slimming. How clever, my Lord."
He grinned, awaiting her appraisal. If he searched Nythadri's eyes rimmed near to their edges with their blackened centers with enough focus, some of their extraordinary color bled through. Dancing like flames over fingertips. Jai was more than pleased to oblige the wit he sensed building up behind them. Only to stifle their teasing amusement with something dangerously suggestive.
"That's nothing. Wait until I pull out my real talent. No lying this time, I may be the greatest man alive with it."
The dramatic pause, and, "math, of course. Accounting to be more precise. Rather embarrassing, actually. May as well come clean seeming as i'm the only one in Arad Doman who didn't know everyone knew."
Hinting at the ditches Suaya dug earlier. Given Fate's lovely introduction in the Front Hall, it was no great leap for a Tower-educated to summize the son of a banking family slept with his numbers under his pillow.

He leaned around, daring her playful eyes to follow the trail.
"What'd you think I meant?"


He grinned. Like a fool. The sort of fool he'd made sure to point out in others in the past. But there was something gut-piercing to hearing the hum in Nythadri hinting at the things sparking inside her. Flared to the surface by him. Light, what a total fool. But he couldn't stop grinning. Nor could he want to stop the chill pebbling his flesh every time she grazed teasing words across his lips. It threatened to unhinge his hard-fought control. And he bloody soaked it up. It seeped through his grip on into her shoulders strong enough to redden her moon-drenched skin beneath. Heated still from their previously passionate moments cooled now to a temperature after the searing of a day boiling in the sun. Comfortable enough to make a man never want to leave. More so when he knew the rocky chill waiting with the next march forward.

He gathered her closer, if that was possible, in a decidedly conspiratorial manner. Taking a long, tedious time to travel from the whispering promises wetting her mouth toward the ear she'd given him not so long before. Thumbed the line of her jaw. Gripped the back of her neck. Pushed heavy strands behind her ears. Innocently grinned when the advantage of creator-given height fluttered a nice view while straightening the sleeves of her shift back symmetrical. Captured her snugly with both arms. Short of slithering down and out, there was no escaping. He almost hoped she'd try.

And for her promise of retribution: "I'll take that bet."
The words ended with an abrupt memory throwing her backward.

Easy as a puff of wind and with as much warning, she rose none too gently through a swirl of water and silt. Landing in the soft crest of a wave rising to greet her. With quite the splash, he laughed. With completely pure motives. Not at all to see her dunked all the way under. Certainly not to use it as an excuse to back off toward shore with a head start. Definitely not to make her chase him.

Not that he minded buckling to Nythadri when the time came to lose. But methodically drawing out so calculated a game filled the laugh ballooning his smirk.
"You should really be more careful! Those waves will sneak up on you."


Steps later, the flush of free air rivered heavy drips down to the dry sand. Laps of water chased his ankles onto shore. Nythadri close on their foamy heels.

After a bit of a search, including a scan for the sword belt and boots, he grappled into the discarded pants. Not so gracefully as they stuck to the water running down every inch of him. But when he turned around in the middle of lacing them just high enough to obscure the origin of the scar crossing up from one hip, he made sure to throw Nythadri the all too powerful innocent grin. In the next few moments of freedom, he procured the coat from somewhere flung off, and held it open as a cloak to settle on her night cooled shoulders. It was almost as long as she was; but warm enough to cover as much as she desired. The perfect blend of light wool circulated warmth against the skin safe within its folds while simultaneously opened the gates for sweat-slicking cool air without. Jaslene's charms weren't the only reason to go back to Tar Valon. There, tailors were worth their weight in gold.

With her settled, he sat, eventually leaning all the way to elbows; fingers digging fond pits into the powder beneath. Out of the water barely a minute and not so much as a drop evaporated and already sand seemed to stick to everything. Not that he minded. A few swipes and their grains would fall; gored off splatters of hide scoffed at the toughest of brush bristles. The salt was caking across the open flesh in his leg. Annoying shards rubbing reminders under otherwise soft wool. But like with every other scar, its lesson was permanently learned.

He drank it in. The glimpses of white foam, eternity of black water ending only when stars began. The scent of the sea. Wondering if Nythadri would slide away if he kissed her again. Probably not his wisest idea lately. Other images came to mind. Mostly the blockade of faces keeping his stomach from the feast. Daryen's plans to nestle up with the very race that'd see him enslaved if they had the dreaded collar to snap around his neck. The parasite brothers trying, successfully so far, to bore under his skin and chew their way back out. The warder who'd be asking more questions about malkieri heirlooms. Nisele, who's whispers hinted at swallowing him vulnerable, but only enough to slit his throat.

The shadowy pile of his sword, belt and boots waited dormant behind them on the sand. Far from the reach of corrosive waters, and too many strides out of reach to indicate its hilt was the first thing he'd seize in a surprise. He glanced back from studying the darkness blanketing the cliff back there.
"When I was a kid, my father caught me counting my steps as we walked. The next day they put a training lathe in my hands and said to count those steps instead."
He shrugged, not having seemed to mind the failed transference from one obsession to another. "My trainer always said to never trust a swordman with scars. He's either a fool who can't defend himself or likes the look of his own glory."


He looked at Nythadri with a small smile to reassure they toed no uncomfortable cliff with the topic. But he did hope she saw more than a proud fool when she looked at him.

[Natalie Grey]

“Uh huh.”
Expression perfectly serious, though therein lie the mockery. She did not smile, but there was a glint to her eye; amusement that ran deep, patient, and fondly. She found contentment in the possession of his embrace, in the warmth of a face so close his words brushed shivers across her lips. But like most flawless moments, the glass ceilings shattered under the weight of a little doubt. Shards fell like glitter; dazzling in the moment, but resplitting old wounds to tend to later. The intensity was beguiling; and dangerous in a way that didn’t fire rebellious instincts, but protective ones. He looked too deeply, like they weren’t just two disenchanted souls seeking distraction from an unsatisfactory life. Like they were lovers, not strangers; like he was as blissful lost as she.

Not that she balked from his gaze. Even at her unsteadiest moments, there was no lack of cool confidence. Uncertainty buried itself deep beneath an avalanche of dripping sarcasm and droll humour. And she was possessed of a steel that made her cruel as winter, and as enduring. “You. Are. An. Idiot,”
her only teasing answer to his suggestive quip, each word fluttering like a kiss across his lips. Though there was an intended sting there too, encompassing how easily he had fallen to Imaad’s machinations, and in turn how she now fell so easily to his. Weakness made her wary; at least when she suspected she was acting foolish. But she abandoned the faint disgust at herself for being so easily led by a handsome face. The moment was too precious and rare to lay victim to over-wrought cynicism. His grin was too boyish, too charming, and she couldn’t crush it even if she’d wanted to.

She would be in Tar Valon soon, and unlikely to ever see him again. Remembering that softened the urge to slip away; to sabotage this moment enthralling her so deeply before it exploded in her face. She was under no naïve illusions; her cynicism was a scar hard-earned and dutifully fortified - she harboured no girlish fantasies, no whimsical expectations. But secreted beneath all the sharp layers of apathy and scorn lay the ghost of an idealist - one that still nursed the fragments of the last time her world had ripped her to shreds. It stirred now persistent as hope and recklessly she let it, succumbing to Jai's playful teases and touches, to the flutter of her stomach at every brush of lips and fingertips. It was his smile, that bloody smile, which did it. She fell willingly. Content, and safe. Because tomorrow it would mean nothing.

Caught by the charm of a heart that skipped silent beats, his playful conspiracy went undetected until the last possible moments, when he broke away and whispered.

And then she was flying.

Water rushed up over her head; darkness and no air, weightlessness and the rush of bubbles. She sputtered as she broke the surface, pushing the sting of salt water from her face and bracing to find solid beneath her feet. “Ten-fold, Asha’man!”
The words were outraged, but she was laughing. Really laughing; at the audacity, at the charm, at the silliness after such a disarmingly intimate moment. She raced after him on impulse, spurred by the boyish laughter. Though she slowed when she realised she had little chance of catching him. And the view was hardly so bad; him racing back to shore to struggle into his pants, grinning like a fool. She followed more sedately then, absently chewing her lip now she knew he could not see her expression, and wondering how in the light she had ever managed to tear herself away from him.

Leaving the gentle caress of seawater, her feet sank into the wet sand and pressed prints in her wake. If she was self-conscious at being so scandalously attired, there was no sign. Shift slicked like a second skin, black hair spilled down curves like ink. Rivulets of water made silvered paths down bare skin, including the planes of her face. “If you’re shy, you should have just said. I promise I wouldn’t have looked.”
She managed to look vaguely unimpressed, but the subterfuge was marred by the light of laughter. Just as the promise was marred by a gaze that dipped south. Her lips finally flickered an impish smile as he settled his coat around her shoulders, like a faint reminder of the arms that had gathered her in minutes before.

The wisest thing for her to do now was to dress and dry. Cresting the cliff like a monolith, the sprawl of Daryen’s estate glared its twinkling lights like an indignant chaperone. Half-naked, drenched to the bone and nestled in an Asha’man’s coat… gifted as she was, even she would struggle to talk herself out of that one. But through she retrieved her dress from the sands, she neither dressed or dried – bar to pull soaking hair from the collar of Jai’s coat and wring a river from its length. Music drifted beneath the melodic call of the ocean, and the distance was reassuring. It seemed impossible Liridia or Yui or both had not noted her absence by now; sunset had receded to the full force of stars lit like beacons, and the last she had seen either of them the sky was still brilliant orange and red. Maybe the Aes Sedai was even looking for her now, to Gate her home. The threat rang somewhat hollow, like her existence had narrowed to this one moment at the expense of everything that waited tomorrow. If she could pull at the strings of time and slow its pace, she would have. Fall forever, never land.

Sand caked wet skin, irritatingly abrasive after the smooth freedoms of the sea. She sat upright, legs poking out from the folds of soft black fabric, knees bent soft and ankles buried in sand. The moment of comfortable silence reminded her she was hungry, but the vigours of her usual schedule often made a mockery of meal time. It was an easy gnaw to ignore, especially knowing that when they left the beach the bubble of escape was over. And time funnelled towards that inevitable path, despite inclination to soak up every last minute. Maybe Liridia would have nothing to say about her disappearance... it was always possible the Brown was so typical of her Ajah it would slip her mind. Unlikely, but possible. She considered that Jai probably had little idea as to the heavy hand of Tower expectation, or just how much trouble she would be in if Liridia were to descend on them as Aes Sedai are wont to do. She'd crossed a line just being out here alone, let alone the rest. But she felt no inclination to enlighten him. She was not here to impress him with her walk along the knife-edge; nor to make him feel guilty or flattered that she had chosen to take the risk at his behest. So she stared out into darkness and tried not to think about him sprawled half-naked beside her. About climbing atop, pushing him back in the sand and repaying him quite thoroughly for dumping her in the ocean. The faint impression of a wicked smile was the only indication of those thoughts; to him it probably looked like she was just smiling at the stars.

“And a swordsman without scars is either a coward or a sham. He should have just dispensed with the pretty sayings and told you to trust no-one.”
She did not put much stock in mindless counsel; any man could string words into wise-sounding banalities and offer them as truths. Her tone suggested as much. Though she had not missed his point; taught swordplay as a child, and with the obsessive nature to preclude the possibility of incompetency. The tilt of his lips was reassuring, not that she needed it; Nythadri was not the sort to tip-toe around uncomfortable topics. “There are worse vices than an over-inflated pride.”
Wounds like that more often left corpses than such wicked scars on living breathing men. She'd felt the sheer length of it in the ocean, and had caught glimpse of it when Daryen had hauled him from the ground during the hunt. Some women liked scars; some didn't. Nythadri was fairly indifferent, though she looked at it now. If there was a story she would not ask to hear it, unless he chose to share - not that she was disinterested, more that she presumed all those who ever saw the scar were always inclined to ask its origins.

And speaking of vices. She propped her chin her palm, elbow rested on one knee, and watched him a moment. “It wasn’t a deathnote. Not if Imaad was responsible.”

[Jay Carpenter]

Elbows stiff from holding so long; he fell back with a command to overcome their unwillingness to open. His head hit with the soft thud of a normally painless impact. But now rushed lights across his eyes, remind him of the Aes Sedai's unseen blow planting his head in the ground half a day earlier. What followed, no matter how many swallows, was the taste of dirt replacing that of Nythadri on his lips.

Surprise turned his head at her response. To a question he'd not asked, but hoped she'd provide. Still nights usually led to such things. Here, where the wind howled at the rocks and water lapped their heels, questions were never in short supply. Answers were.

Pride. Wasn't it the most cardinal of sins? The first lesson, real one anyway; still, wicked twists of flesh unsmoothed by the passage of time was their papal price. The lesson he'd told only yesterday? To a perfect strange over drinks no less. As usual. Although had Jai known the next table harbored the world's most gaudy coincidence, the conversation would have advanced far less personally. Cards, dice, women, and war stories. With the fitting touches toward detachment, of course. Although given the lad in question, blightborder or not on his tongue, he did not seem the type to care for swapping such dishonorable pasttimes. Light, that kid needed a good night of drinking and maybe the company of couple of women. Or men; whatever he preferred. But who couldn't use that?

Ugly boots, now? Jai wouldn't turn down sitting across a card table from that guy for a night. All the while fisting at saidin. Completely giving him the benefit of the doubt, naturally. But there'd be no blood stains until the cards turned over proof. Even without saidin, a man could do a lot of damage without spilling a drop. Jai's ribs could currently attest to that. A shift and he stifled a wince. Maybe ask what burned the man's brain into buying such Fade-face ugly footwear. And about his affiliation with Tomdry's regiment. Legion soldier turned Tower-bought, was the story? Cheaper allegiances had been bought before. But Jai would wager his inheritance the guy's name did not appear in the Legion's roster. Past or present. Bloody spooks. Mentioning Arad Doman, guised up in some friendly advice for pepper-oil. Burn it all. He should have seen it sooner.

"Right. Trust no one. You'd think I'd bloody know that by now. Burn them."
No stretching his collar-free neck toward the estate overhead. No indication of the curse's target. There was no target. Unless the whole blasted world counted. Though he glanced at Nythadri, wondering. Did she include herself in so pessimistic an equation?

He sighed. Supposing Nythadri saw it scrawled across his face, plain as sunset: pride. Obvious as that wicked scar of the same name; to have said what she said. Consoling the sinner of his vices. Not so bad, was it? He figured she was right. There were worse ones. Lying to one's family; probably. Dancing into an affair with a brother's wife; sure. Scorching brainwashed girls, enemies, but girls no less? His guts twisted hard. And cold. Jai knew he would someday burn for that. More than ten-fold. Light.

He swallowed. Kept his mouth shut. There was no point testing Nythadri's ability to justify those devils. It would take all night, and if they were going to only get one together, there were other things he'd prefer doing.

He looked at her. Low; serious. Hungry. For the legs peeking out from the depths of black shadows. For the toes digging playfully into wet sand. For the tongue grasping at what shreds of humanity remained in him. For the eyes that thought to search in the first place. Live, she'd said. She couldn't even take her own advice: not when the most powerful institution of the last Age held her leash. That was a loophole he could study forever and never find. But for her sake, would try.

He lifted the flopped open collar from her shoulder. Weighed there by the heavy dragon pin at the left of her collarbone. Slender. Seeming so frail. Like she could break in half at the first storm to blow by, let alone open battle. Not even the coat could ward off shrapnel, then. But her moon white skin pinking up at a hundred slashes would be warm. What a bloody disturbing comforting thought to taint the picture of Nythadri in his eyes. Like some vision of the future: a bloody fate awaited if she stayed within those sleeves. Jai was the one who wanted to die warm in his coat. And comforted by the bodies of a ten-thousand corpses piling strange mountains around him. Nythadri's life should end...happier.

For a moment, holding the dragon-outline against her slender neck, her pulse beat through to the callus of hard-worked hands. As though giving the dragon itself a tentative anime while it lasted. The irony of it dried his throat thirsty. But he grinned at the distraction anyway.
"It looks good on you."

A smile weakened his resolution toward sleeping with devils. They only had one night. Might as well kick those ugly bastards out of bed for once. Nythadri was far more preferable to hold against him.

The grin widened. The coat helped even the most sober of men seem imposing. Bow legged, green boys who couldn't saddle a horse let alone charge into battle donned the black shroud to their knees and suddenly the world shuddered before them. But Jai had never seen the coat hugging beneath so slender a jaw before as hers. He'd never thought to offer it to anyone, actually. A cloak? Sure. The gentlemanly thing to do. Of course, the same opportunity for his coat didn't exactly come up often. Never seen in anything else, most places frowned on a guy stripping to the waist in public. Not that they'd stop one if that guy could slide their skin off as soon as look at them. In private? Well. Taking off clothes was usually the point.

What a fool. He should trust her. Why wouldn't he? Although she'd just said to trust no one. And she'd also said to live.

Coping to something personal with someone he'd never see again. Fine. What did it matter? Coping to reality with someone bound by the same laws strangling their throats? Light! He'd never even told Daryen that story. The one consistent presence in their haunted lives most likely to understand. Maybe it wasn't understanding Jai wanted. This sort of topic wasn't exactly his usual pillow-talk.

He went for it. He'd curse himself over it tomorrow.

"Myrdrraal and pride don't mix well."
Bloody, light-forsaken weakness. He barely held from breaking under Nythadri's piercing eyes. But burn it all; he held them. Then, just to spit in the devil's face, he rolled suddenly onto his side and gripped her hand under his own. And held it like he clutched at roots on a cliff edge. It forced both of their hands to sink into the forgiving floor of sand beneath.
"And leaves a man face down in the dirt."
The truth grit deeper than she knew. Suaya's informer back at the Golden Fox laughed in the back of his head. "I should not have gotten up, Nythadri. No matter what they say."


He knew why he woke up a week later in a field hospital; foggy and weak. There was only one Healer within reasonable distance of the front line who'd been responsible. Someone left alive after the Eyeless twitched its long death had rolled him face up. Surely not the Yellow's warder. Even with shadow ranks breaking, there were still other Fists, other dreadlords to concern her safety. But someone stuffed the guts, hot with blood and bile and half formed excrement, back in a splayed apart cavity when she went to work. Others were left to moan for help while their headless killer twitched beside them. Their songs loud enough to implant memory through the unconsciousness of sure death. The long, agonizing passage of time unsympathetic to their brave cries for help while a perfectly able Healer spent all of her stores on one man. When dozens. Dozens! Might have been saved instead. At least spared their pains, if not their limbs. And who knew how many more had she not collapsed herself at the end of an hour's toils.

It made him sick to think about those sacrificed lives in place of his own. He was sick with it the whole length of recovery, watching others come and go around him. Representing the ghosts of good men who deserved to live instead. Men whose swords fought and killed for honor, for wives and children at home, or the Light-made-flesh Dragon himself; not because they wanted to; not because they needed that release only found in saidin's cold anger.

It took a month to sit up in that narrow bed. Six to walk without a cane. There was no place to walk anyway. Other than between rows of bedmates. Light knew he tried, though. The counting went slow in those months. Bedmates changed, Healed, strengthened, and walked out, but the beds remained. All two-hundred twelve. A field refuge far from the front lines, then, to be so large and protected. Almost a year before he could handle the ritual of sword forms giving their daily, soothing regime again. He'd felt his guts settle inside like the foundations of an ancient manor for another year after that. He thought he felt it still.

His breathing nearly stopped now to relive it. His throat burned drier than mere thirst could explain. His eyes burned the same. And while no Sunset pepper ladled Pit-red poison in his eyes; this was more excruciating.

He let go of her hand and sank back into the sand. Fearing he'd break if he held her eyes any longer. Light.. If he'd caught a Soldier feeling so sorry for himself Jai would have given him something to really burn hot tears down his face. Yet here he was, just as tender. Just as weak.

He lay flat and facing skyward. Only to find the stars above. Peaceful, yes. Like those lapping waters. Rhythmic. Predictable. And timed down to the second. He could tell the tide by their timing now. Or the disturbance of far off churning waters: storms or tempests beyond sight and sense. Yes, this is where he liked to hide. Where had his forefathers gone?

"Why was it not a death note?"
The question escaped thoughtlessly. Almost tired. Not almost. He was tired. It'd been a bloody exhausting day. And he was ending it with bruised ribs, a pounding head, a throbbing shoulder, and shredded leg. Not that strength was sapped completely. Had Nythadri given into her imagination, he would not have pushed her away now; heartleaf or no heartleaf. And she'd never known the difference until he sank fast to sleep in her arms afterward. But she didn't.

It was almost worth going cliffside just to track down a bottle of something. Anything. It was more fitting for devils to drown in bottles than in something so lovely as ocean waves. They certainly did not belong in Nythadri's bed. What she must see now, he'd rather not know.

[Natalie Grey]

His compliment was only met with a smirk, idly wondering how many others had heard such grinning flattery. Not that it mattered; she was not here under any pretence of being special. She watched him, something of a content smile tugging the corners of her lips. And she realised that she was happy - frustration aside, of course. Something of a revelation considering her restless wanderings only weeks past; the burden of Tower expectation, the stifling funnel of the future. Content to silence, to this beautiful unlooked for peace, her eyes drew to his when he spoke. And she realised almost immediately that while she had been ruminating tranquillity, he had been fighting demons.

He gripped her hand like it were a lifeline, and it only made her realise how alone he was. There wasn’t anything she could say. What meagre light could she shed on dark recesses such as those? It was not the Fade that caught the empathetic strings of an otherwise dissociative nature, and tugged them in a rare direction. Neither was it the pride which had earned him such eternal reminder – though it was a mutual sin. It was the admission that he should not have lived. The guilt. Shame might have marred her expression if she had cared to relate the emotion back to herself. It was something of a shared sin, too. But she didn’t.

There were no gratuitous platitudes waiting on her lips. There would be no soothing hand to wipe across his brow, no whispered reminders that the Wheel Wove as it Willed. Neither was there any gentle consolation that he had deserved to live in lieu of those who had died. Only that silent stare. She absorbed everything; every flicker of relived horror in those eyes. How close his expression came to ruin. It took a lot not to lean in, press her forehead against his. Distract the pain of memory with the pleasure of forgetting. If only for a while. Enough to turn keys back in locks and let the dust settle on memories better left to disused corners. She could offer him that, if little else.

He lay back, and took the decision from her hands.

Light.

She did not lean back straight away. She was liable to do something infinitely stupid if she did. Blood and Ashes, but how much control was one person supposed to have? Her well was running perilously low. Her head dipped, knees tucking tighter to her chest. Strange to look down and see black, the shadows of the collar high above her cheeks. So long since she had seen anything but white against her skin. The shadows, the warmth, the weight; it was comforting. She wondered if he was counting. If saidin caught him in a vortex of madness. A waterfall of sand seeped through her fingers to re-join its brethren. Her thoughts were drifting as that sand. But beneath the melancholy and frustration that bound her to isolation, she was strangely content. To have found something so raw and real. And for that very reason she did not speak solace.

When she did lean back it was to roll onto her side, propped up by a hand that curled damp hair through her fingers. Her pale gaze was oddly diffused. Unsure what she would see if she looked at him, or if he would even want her to look at all if the deluge of remembrance had gotten the better of him. Her other hand snaked over his knuckles, laced her fingers between his. Her grip was fluid; the delicate musician’s touch; fingers curling, straightening, falling to the distant brush of fingertips before stealing back palm to palm, lifting his hand from the sand. Her thumb brushed his, drifted as her hand slid back. The dance began again. Contact never broke, gliding close then far; she never let go entirely. A thoughtless affection; one she stared at mindlessly. Control frayed to tattered edges, like a half-hearted banner in the wind. The wind of caution had died to a murmur. Some risks were worth taking; even the ones she regretted in the morning.

“Do you want to know a secret, Jai?”


Her gaze did flick up then, but only to see that she had his attention. And she didn’t let go of his hand. If she was going to bare her soul, it would be with the solid grounding of contact. It made him real; reminded her of the refreshing honesty that had punctuated their playful teasing. He didn’t pretend, even when he could. And it was so rare, and so earnest. Blinded by the conflict of her own stinging vulnerabilities, she had never thought to see his so exposed. She began to doubt there was any game here at all, at least anymore. If she was wrong, it was going to cut deep.

“When I was fifteen I found out I was going to go blind. Headaches, fuzziness. A wisewoman diagnosed it. And I just... fell apart. When I should have been playing pretty at court, I was in the city instead. Sneaking out at dusk, and back at sunrise. Making a mockery of the struggles of my House and the indulgent tolerance of my parents. And I earned something of a reputation in the process, knocking yet more nails in the coffin of our fortunes. A marriage would have sealed our debts. I had no special objections. I just.”
Was too selfish? Yes. And too prideful and stubborn and gravely insulted by the ill hand of fate. Her world had been entirely insular; encompassing her music and Farune and precious little else. The sacrifice was too great to suffer, then; in hindsight it had been nothing. The impudent protestations of a child.

“My parents pandered to my self-pity, but my brother grew tired of the disgrace. He followed me, once. There were men in that tavern with grievances against our House. And when my brother pulled me outside, they followed.”
Light, how long had it taken to close this wound, and now it gushed hot blood as sickening as both times she had lived the moment. They had swarmed on Tashir. And had not even known she was his sister. Celian had tried to pull her back inside – had not known who Tash was either. The memory of rent flesh beneath her nails charred ash in her throat. Reminded her of the taste of her own blood. The screams that had rocked her from sleep so many nights after echoed a desperate symphony. Emotion cut a deep path but her expression showed precious little; that in itself was stark indication of discomfort, if he had known her well enough to recognise it.

“If I had not been there, they would not have had the chance to beat my brother to a bloody pulp. There was nothing to recognise of the body.”
And she couldn’t even say the devastation had set her upon the path of absolution. Even now she did not dare linger on the guilt circling above, though she felt the ice of its shadow on her heart. “The rumours deteriorated quite rapidly after that. Hence being a lady in little but name.”
Her lips quirked a smile, but her eyes were cool. Those facts were not secret in themselves, but the story had never passed her own lips. And she had never intended for it to; not here, not to him, not to anyone. It wasn’t exactly a declaration of trust, but it was a nod towards their earlier conversation. More like the first shoots of green after an abrasive winter. And that was the rawest comfort she could offer him. Not empty words, not fake but well-intended understanding. Just hope. A connection in the dark.

She rested her chin on his shoulder, briefly searching his expression before laying down her head; finding sanctuary in the dip of his neck. She brought her other hand up to cushion her cheek; trailing his fingers along if they came willing, letting them slip if they did not. For a long time she didn’t answer the question. Her eyes drifted shut, nestled between Jai’s warmth and the soft silk-wool of his coat’s collar. Reserves close to depleted, and none left at all to worry about an Aes Sedai’s wrath, she was inclined to stay there until forced to rouse. Her muscles relaxed. It was a rare bliss to indulge so still a mind – thoughts distant, relieved of burden. It was only remembering what waited at the top of the cliff that plucked her back from falling asleep. Tar Valon and the Tower would remove her from that thorny briar, but it wouldn’t him.

“He has no reason to want to see you dead. No profit in it.”
Said like it was obvious, even though it was clearly not to anyone but her. Her voice was muffled sleepy, like the words were slipping free without much effort. “And besides, if Tamal had meant to kill you that arrow wouldn't have missed. Imaad wants this treaty, and so far as I’ve seen today, you’re the only one speaking out against it. Keeping you out of the way would have made things smoother for him. Only you showed up.”
A faint smile. “I imagine that changed his plans a bit.”


She might have stopped there. Already she’d revealed too much; not in what she had said, but in how clearly it marked her affinity for the Great Game. She’d told him it was a facet of herself she detested, but showing him the breadth of how much she deducted in a single day with people she had never met? That was something different. The thoughts, the links, the understanding; it was all innate, impossible to deny as breathing. But she didn’t have to speak it, share it, make it real in words and conspiracy.

Except, if she was going back to the Tower, and he was caught in this viper-pit? Sleep had receded a little now; eyes that had blinked sleepily now stared at the shadowed curve of her own hand. Despite the urge to drift to silence, to enjoy his warmth and the strange unity of confession, she knew she would not hold back.

“He meant to push you over the edge, Jai. I thought it was an attempt to discredit you. Quiet your influence in Daryen’s ear. But.”
She frowned, breathed a sigh into his neck. “Daryen wants the treaty. So who’s Imaad fighting? I think - it’s supposition – but I think perhaps it’s Daryen he wants to discredit. Or threaten to. That was quite the display of Brotherhood back there, against all evidence that you’re a dangerous man. Everyone saw it. And then the rumours.”
She imagined he might tense at that, but she never paused. All hearsay contained essence of truth; she didn’t doubt that for a second. But it mattered about as much to her judgement of him as did his scars. Or his ghosts. “But why would Imaad want leverage over Daryen? Because he’s a king? Maybe. Did you ever wonder why Imaad is so heavily in favour of this treaty? A man of wealth. A man of profit.”
A man who hates channelers. The thought concluded itself so surprisingly, it startled even her. And she dare not speak it aloud. “The merchant wants something more from this than Daryen is likely to give. And if he cannot convince him peaceably, he will try and ruin him.”


Still half-resting on his shoulder, she lifted her head enough to meet his eye. Rough dried hair was tousled around her head where she had rested, but that gaze was piercing and now bereft of lingering drowsiness. Something of his earlier words had ignited against her own theorising, reminded her she was throwing fuel on an already raging fire. "I never asked what you were planning to do about this treaty. Light burn you, Jai; don't do anything stupid."

[Jay Carpenter]

Angles. Windows. Steps. The beat of hooves. The pace of forms. The logic in an equation. All orderly; all predictable. All reliable. All stable. For that, they were soothing. Softer than any hand on his shoulder. More grounding than the most confident of eyes. They could transform the fiercest chaos into a cocoon of peace. And that was where he needed to hide. In peace. And not for the first time did Jai appreciate the humor that his only addiction beat in anthesis to such an obsession for calm fueling his life. Saidin was not exactly a soothing essence. But a maelstorm once entered, it was hard to care.

Black infinity stretched tight as skin overhead. It was so..unpredictable. Angles in their tangible dimension were everywhere. Crafted by the hand of men today or born in the long shadow of the taint’s initial curse an Age ago. Up there, the world was lifeless. Flat. Random. Given any horizon, and Jai would find the marks. Every time. The charred studs of an abandoned building read an alphabet uncovered by fallen walls to his eyes. The symmetry in flagstones created glyphs around a fountain under his boots; but this was not the first night frustration rained from above. Making a mockery out of attempts toward order. A few minutes memorizing squares of light cast an enormous grid across his eyes, geometry spidered long spokes like like the heavens connected points pinned down with string on a terrain map. Only to return to the first point and their interpretor found everything shifted. The keystone star had changed in intensity. Dustings of new lights imperceptible before flared disruptions to his map. Suddenly the strings across the sky would snap as though the map were warped unrecognizable. He had only to scrap the old system and begin again but hours later find the same result. Every time. All the way to sunrise. Every single time he tried.

He knew what he was doing while he did it. He sacrificed many a tight back when exchanging a cot for the ground to delay the horrors wakened in men's sleep. He regretably scratched at the scrub of growth the next morning when insect bites made an overnight meal of his face. All just to lay under that grid and attempt pattern building all night. It never worked. The endless piles of ashes from burnt sketches could attest the same frustration. Their world was a neater story.

He listened to Nythadri’s steady breaths fill the gap between the sounds of water pushing onto the sandy slope and the farer crash of breaks in the distance. The wind seemed duller now, or perhaps Jai had stopped listening for it. He just laid there in the quiet, lidding the memory of any other noise from intruding on their moment. He was not aware of how long the awkward lack of response lingered in the air between them, but he didn’t take it as a good sign.

Regret started to worm its way in. The thought skidding a bare back over gravel. She must agree: one man was not worth so much a cost. The math was pretty straight forward; he didn't blame her.

He knew his own responsibility. Quite clearly. He knew a man could be brought back from the clutches of death if he had the will to hang on. He knew the length of his recovery was exponentiated by guilt. That while every little progress toward strength as one recovering soldier of the Light thumbed the Dark One a curse but also broke free another tear for someone grieving the dead back home. He was a mathematician. Not a soldier. Certainly not whatever he was now: some amalgamation of an asha’man’s penchant for gore and the glue holding together the middle-man world of espionage. But absurdly, that’s exactly what he was. At least Tar Valon was spared one embarrassing recruit; he would have made a fantastically terrible Guard.

He didn’t blame Nythadri her silence, but neither did he seek it out. It was better than knowing what she saw now. Lids slid down. Closed it all off: the capricious geometry he grappled to control, the waiting for a reaction from the unreadable creature beside him. Instead, the Oneness welcomed him in. The sand under his back lost its itch. The shoulder slowly numbed. The flame absorbed the rest and he lingered on the decision of going to sleep.

Only to be pulled back by a touch on his hand. This time, he followed, roles reversed. Shock rippled outside the dark cavern he’d wandered into. Almost as strong as the surge of saidin, and almost as provoking. Control, hard-won during those crushing, early days in training wizened the decision to not seize it now. But he was tempted in a decidedly more dangerous way than to use it for enhancing more advantageous effects. Practice and strength determined his kind’s final rank, but it was demonstrating control that won the footrace toward the pins in the first place. And Soldier Kojima got there fast. He drew on that discipline.

He didn’t move but to roll his face toward hers and slowly, mirroring the movements of her hand, forged an exploration of his own. His wrist lifted first, then the rest of his arm. Pivoting where the elbow perched in the sandy cushions beneath. It was mindless movements. Automatic from inside the Oneness, where he watched their fingers mingle and interlace like the sensations surged toward another body than his own. Rhythmic, but charming in the seduction of mindlessly going along with it. Was this truly the same hand he’d pulled down here however long ago that was? Her slender wrist was mostly obscured by his own, but the milky smooth skin contrasted so firmly with the dormant calluses woven around her fingers, he knew their implications beyond what music strings. He kept the observation to himself. His ignorance of White Tower training already showed itself once tonight, he was not keen to explore that hole any farther. But these were not a Lady’s hands. He certainly knew that much.

No. The trail ended at her ring. On her middle finger, lethargic and suspended as its living, stalking equivalent. His eyes landed on it eventually: the barrier that shielded their roles. Was it a cage for her? Or was the serpent the key out of a cage? Or was it the same as the pins were to him? Something to polish and obsess over as her last remaining symbol of identity. And all that it represented. No. Not a Lady. Something else. An Aes Sedai.

Or at least, she might as well be. He never really thought of it that way before, but suddenly recalled yesterday's thought . Aes Sedai weren’t women: Fate’s amusing laughter trickled around the edges of the Oneness. They were something else.

He found the pins fall the collar under their own weight again.

“Do you want to know a secret, Jai?”


Attention effectively won; he settled on her eyes for the first time since he’d broken away. And braced for what he'd find there.

The void kept him unreactive to her story. Expression making up the intensity that was absent from hers. So chillingly blank for one who watched their life fall out from under them in what should be the most promising of ages. He appreciated her position, though. Being only a few years older himself when he was moved south overnight. He also appreciated what it meant to walk a long path toward a dark ending. He wondered if her extraordinary pale eyes was an eternal gift of those days before her Healing. If they’d ever been another color. At least he assumed she was Healed. That she wasn’t still walking into that fateful hole. He couldn't help but search her eyes as she had his scar, but likewise, did not ask about it.

So many more questions arose. But suddenly. As her story took a cold and brutal turn, her dispassion made sense. He imagined she must have screamed for mercy. Unless the attackers worked her over as well. Then she likely begged for her own. Or perhaps they exacted a crueler penalty in the same essence of retribution as they gave her brother. Only they left her alive afterward.

Just looking at her, and he had nothing to say. Except to notice the hell of memory blanking her face white as stiff parchment. The ghost flew by, fingering its clammy hands at her face, catching its boney knots in her hair, enticing her to join it on the other side. She must hear its song. Sick and seductive; as he heard his own. She must know the taste of guilt for living when she’d led another to his grave. Did the howl of it fill her music with its forelorn haunts. It must; guilt was a heavy burden on so frail a shoulder. Wealthy Lords of any House never so much as pissed without their men around them, but to stalk toward disreputable streets to follow a beloved sister. He likely forbade their accompaniment to protect her honor. Or took his most trusted companion. And what could one or two do against a group of hired professionals sitting on a payday?

He stifled the growing curl of surprise from his brow. Her tale was given indicidentally as a duty report. She didn't let herself feel it, even now. The shock of it parted his lips. How many times had he seen that same expression ghosting her with a mask? How often had he mistaken the pain of her reality for the mystery of a playful taunt. Light! He had no idea. Whatever she held back now, he had the impression this ghost was her only one. Or maybe it was hopeful wishing that her soul not be so plagued with multiples. Still. A powerful, singular entity might be harder to handle than an army of faceless ones.

Tomorrow, he would remember how emotion coarsed his veins after simply deciding to switch from merely thinking about it. And just feel it. Tomorrow, he'd likely regret shattering the walls of the void he walls like sand through his fingers. But for now, he pulled her close with both arms, splaying his free hand gently through her damp hair. Then, without letting go, he flexed enough to sit up and press his cheek to her forehead. This was emotion. This was peace. Why had he never realized it before?

He gathered her in, shocked yet again at the stark, cold glass echoing from her blank voice against the warm gesture of her cheek nestling affection on his shoulder. Finding silent solace in one another. The heavy cloak of her mystery was frustratingly hard to lift, but he liked the difficulty in solving her. When he stroked her cheek with the back of his hand he felt like he stroked the very stars he couldn't pattern had gathered on his chest. Her breathing rose even and steady against his and he fingered her hair from her forehead, trailing down to tuck behind one ear. Lingering the stroke of fingers in the same place his lips had explored like he knew this would be the last time. He could feel his own heart pulse under her arm which draped over it. Every moment now so much slower than it had been in the water. Where anticipation building from a lifetime of foreplay without a face funneled both toward raw release. When hands explored one another as the passing seconds etched acid into the raw steel of their control, but at the time he hadn't cared. He remembered the flood of a chest trapped tight with fury when events collided right in front of his eyes on the hunt. He remembered when it beat out of control that morning and surged to a stop the moment he met her. He’d dropped his hand instinctively for that. Light, what a bloody fool.

He rested his hand across hers with the swelling hope she could not tell by touch alone what stormed outside the black walls of the void, distant and foreign as those stars above. Her fingers curled under his, narrow and elegant as arrows. He pressed them into his chest. Hoping to selfishly block out the intensifying pounding within. His throat treatened to go dry. The shards of released void shook, but in the strong vice of his grip, feebly lost the engagement.

Talk of Daryen slammed the vice on his jaw. Pulled the harness of tension between his eyes. Balled his fist across Nythadri's delicate hand. For a moment, the narrow bones inside her flesh curled down like the pages of a ledger until he knew nothing but anger damned the book from slamming all the way shut. Saidin blasted at the door just to hear his comrade's name, then kicked back at the reminder of brotherhood. Jai's eyes darted across the stars overhead as he had Daryen's face when he'd wrenched him from the ground after having nearly rent an innocent man inside out. Then shot fast to Nythadri upon her hinting at rumors.

Blood and bloody ashes. Was there anything left in Arad Doman that everyone didn't already know?

She hadn't missed a breath. He released his.
"No."
He mouthed the whisper of his shock. "I hadn't wondered."
Then absorbed the rest of her logic. Unsure of what to do with the information.

He mirrored her half stirring by flexing halfway to sitting himself. The question inked plain in his eyes. How the hell did she know all this?

"Suaya cast one of the votes that elected him. Why ruin him now? At their most prosperous. Their most.. peaceful?"
He grit his teeth on that last word, tasting the crimson price it took to win their peace. "What is there to do Nythadri?"


He pushed her away to sit up. Sudden as the call to attention as he searched her tousled outline for guidance. Which his smoothing hand did little to improve. Which was not so bad a thing.

"I don't think there's anything left to do."
He laughed at the deep resevoir of feeling sloshing underneath. At being so hurt. "I left, but we know how that worked out."
He attempted a grin. It soon faded with a shrug. "I begged him."
After having tried everything else.

However they held onto one another, he let go of Nythadri's hand with one lingering stroke between allies before turning away to scrub the tension from his hair. A hard-fought attempt at seeming playful finally lifted him back up.

"Blood and ashes. I don't particularly look forward to dying Nythadri, but i'd take an axe down the back any day over suffocating in a field of games."

He dug heels into the sand, perched both arms across the table created by his knees, and let his forehead rest there. Despite the rumors, he had little actual power. Under ranked and assigned to a post he wouldn't abandon twice. One on one he could see the moves. Nisele's, Fate's, the merchant's daughter; but standing before a broader window revealed nothing but shapes moving in the fog.

"You ever see one? A Damane, that is. You know she'll beg for mercy for the hand that beats her before even her own?"
The situation simplified his reasoning with the obvious. "If they had them, which they probably do, they'd slap a collar on Daryen's neck as fast as they would yours. I won't see it happen. I don't particularly like the idea of being broken like a dog and enslaved for however long we all will be around. He has to see reason eventually, right?"


Resolve settled; managed to pluck a grin from his gut. "I'll think of something."


Then the blow of epiphany might as well struck him dead. "Light.. That's it."


The fog started to burn away. And a shape took form, bowed down as a cowering dog to its owner. "He means to use the seanchan to clear us out. Prosperity for him. Imprisonment for Daryen. And Suaya's hands are clean." The face in the fog was his own. Jai felt like throwing up.

The fury of why burned the acid back down his throat.

[Natalie Grey]

She waited for the pieces to fit together on their own, and finally reveal something of the tapestry that had back-dropped this whole sorry episode. And a small part of her regretted it. Not only for presenting one of the ugliest facets of herself, but for ripping the comforting veil of ignorance from his eyes; both actions painfully irreversible. Light knew, she would have preferred to fall asleep under the stars and let the world beyond pass by unmolested; but it seemed the duty ingrained on every light-forsaken gold scale on that serpent ring was going to thwart every attempt at peace and comfort. She knew what talk of Daryen and Imaad and conspiracy would do to him. But it was necessary, if they were demons she couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t have to fight alone. He’d made a lasting impression. Ironic that the fact she actually cared unravelled the evening to such depressing finality. But in the end, silence would have been selfish.

“You and me both.”
Light, that sounded undeniably weary. Though she was not always sure which exhausted her more; the machinations of the Game itself, or her constant fighting of it. Recognition of her own flaws – that endless, burdening conflict – always sparked memories of better times. Of the tinker wagons and Farune. And that second Arch. In cold daylight she realised it had all been a fantasy. An impossible refuge. Laughable. Insignificant. And, above all, false. But the dark collusion of regret always swelled it to something more; something so light-forsaken beautiful and unattainable it made her grieve for the life she lived. Now, so close to the edges of another kind of denied peace, vestiges of hard-stretched control frayed to ash. And for a moment she shuddered dangerously close to shattering into a thousand pieces.

What a fool: flirting with memories over which she’d always presumed to have infinite control, when control had been spiralling distant since the sea had kissed her ankles. Recalling his response to her pain only made it worse; the wordless press of his cheek, the smoothing trail of his fingertips while she’d lain hollow in his arms. And she regretted the tangle of daes dae’mar even more, to have lost that final moment to its cold breath and indifferent embrace- only to have the flood of feeling creep up when it no longer made sense. It was so weak. Emotion roared in her ears loud as the Aryth – desperate to be soothed by music or saidar, and neither viable. There was no longer a warm neck in which to bury her grief, or a drumming heartbeat to centre her world. She shouldn’t have shared that confession. Light, she shouldn’t have. But she’d always been that way; offering little fragments of soul to strangers. Revelling in the way it made her bleed.

She was shaking her head in answer to his question about damane, but the tension in her features was a personal grief. The last time they’d spoken of the treaty, when daes dae’mar had crashed sickening waves over her head, she’d excused herself for air. There was nowhere to run, now. Defiance was a hard mistress; the same steel that sharpened her tongue against enemies did not recoil against the faceless ones. Every self-protective instinct urged her to look away, take a minute. But it was precisely the reason she didn’t. When she blinked her eyes were glassy. It took a moment to realise she’d driven the nails of one hand so hard into her palm it’d almost drawn blood. And it stilled the spinning fall. Dulled the world to flesh and pain.

She looked at Jai, and she wanted to find something more profound than a playful fumble in the ocean. Only it was delusional to place that kind of burden on his shoulders. Or hers. Waiting for the height of her delayed reaction to dampen, she hugged her knees to her chest and cushioned her chin. Her toes scrunched in the sand, half-hidden beneath black fabric. The tide of regret eased. What had happened to Tashir was fact. She had lived. The same as Jai had. Looking for meaning in the Pattern was like staring at the sun; it seared, making mockery of the effort. And the Game was in her blood. She couldn’t change that either. The memory of his surprise burned. But, regrettably, she let that drift too. Better to convince herself it didn't matter.

“You will, huh.”
He’d spoken with the voice of burden; of burning, singular burden. The earnest, brooding resolution of the words shouldn’t have made her smile, but there was that inappropriate humour again. There was something indefinably heroic in making such promises in the face of defeat, like his were the only shoulders broad enough for the task; except she did not think that was an impression he usually cultivated of himself. Hence the smile. She’d cast this net of darkness, and she wasn’t going to let either of them flounder in it alone. Only the epiphany hit him before she could speak again.

If the weight of that discovery could shake the very earth, it would have.

She took responsibility for that. She’d pushed him to this edge, this conclusion, and she wasn’t going to let him leap off that cliff. Or suffer the weight of such knowledge alone. Did he really think she’d spit poison then abandon him to its vice? Let it eat away at him until it devoured all reason and left the sort of monster apt for Imaad’s scheming? A pale foot peeped out from the confines of his coat, to brush his black clad leg. Who knew if he wrestled saidin even now; if it were so intrinsic to his emotion that it surged with the shock and gripped him senseless. Last time she failed miserably to talk him back. Nythadri was not the type to suffer failing twice.

“Stupid things you shouldn’t do include turning Imaad into a pile of gore. For the record.”
He would find a smirk ghosting her lips. And the ever-present pierce of her gaze, because she bloody meant it. Imaad crawled under her skin like a parasite, but he didn’t deserve to die. And Jai certainly didn’t deserve another ghost, born from the regret of pure fury. “There’s another thing to consider. And that’s Daryen himself. He clearly knows his court. His people. And presumably, he invited Imaad today. He’s not fighting a blind battle.”
If Jai might prefer there was no battle fought at all. The one thing Nythadri could not fathom? Why Daryen sought the treaty in the first place - why he played fire with men like Imaad. But the point was that the Asha'man king was not an ignorant. If Nythadri saw evidence of these strings after a day? She couldn't imagine Daryen didn't know. The only wildcard here was Jai. And perhaps that was what Imaad was counting on. "Whatever they say about the Tower, Jai. About Aes Sedai. They wouldn’t let that happen."
And she meant that, too. If there was one thing the Aes Sedai did well, it was to protect their own. Symptomatic of Nythadri's own evolving opinion of Asha'man that she naturally included them in the equation.

[Jay Carpenter]

There was no dancing around the images in his head now. He was thinking about it: the piles of gore formerly Imaad Suaya. Maybe more of a puddle ooze rather than a pile of flesh. Or just the erect posture of a man stripped of his skin like that flayed elk. Or what it felt like to struggle through strangling him still. That was new. He’d never actually thought about what it meant to feel someone go limp in his hands. The push of steel through flesh, sure. The sharp edge of Saidin; didn’t think twice. Scent of rotted carcass? Could actually do without that one blowing in on random breezes in his life. Tamal meanwhile had been provoked. An unplanned gut reaction to the collapse of conspiracy overhead. This new scan of ideas was the slow intensity born from the deep embers of hatred. Not so much for Imaad’s pug face. Politicians and merchants: their like were expected to be scum; but hatred at his own gullibility. How many nights did they share drinks and a card? The vile taste of defeat twisting Imaad’s expression every time Jai swept the coins toward his end of the table. Was imaad sore over being defeated at all or frustrated he couldn’t prove that his opponent was counting cards and swiping cash right out from under his nose. Light only knew if his disgust bubbled up from somewhere else besides greed? He’d done a good job proving an unstable man on the hunt. Was that the purpose? Or was it as Nythadri said: to undermine another reputation. The man who scruffed him by the collar and wrenched him back to his feet.

The ideas swirled watery and vague. Behind the rising waves toward violence, he logically began to sort them out, one by one. The captain of the guard, Antony, intercepted the note meaning to proceed with something now the voice of dissent was out of the picture. All the while Suaya’s man tracked the voice to the Golden Fox to dig up dirt that would prod him like hot pokers in case he came back. To discredit him. Maybe, or as nythadri said, to discredit Daryen for standing aside a known lunatic. But no matter how pissed Jai was, they were as Daryen said: brothers. And if the challenge ever came, Jai would step ahead of the line to shield any brother. Though if it were for Daryen, he might curse the bloody bastard as he did it. Suaya should have anticipated such a reaction. Unless he had and that was the entire point?

Plagued, Jai lifted from the table his arms made across his knees. He could hear the jest in Nythadri’s tone. Could see the mirth plucking the pale strings of her eyes. But the feeling did not jump from her throat to his. There was no dancing around the fact. He thought exactly about what she said not to do. It tightened his jaw shut as irons. Turning that plump mesh of fur and leather into a pile so hideous as to repel the very maggots inching up for a sniff would be a pleasure. Until he could not stand to look at the face of control any longer. Nythadri was more composed than he could fathom a single person could be. More than composed. Her flirting only shoved the dagger of doubt into his stomach. Her naked foot rubbed his ankle. Light, that should have been far more enjoyable than he was letting himself feel.

Layering another flavor of disgust in this veritable cesspit was Fate and Daryen. Their conspiracy did what? Carried the wildcard back to Arad Doman? The question of why lingered heavy on the horizon. That same question escaped vulnerable from his tongue back in the estate when he’d posed it to Daryen. When he’d tried his best to avoid running into the man but had in fact walked dead straight toward him. Daryen kept his answer short, too. Trust him. Then changed the subject as he did his clothes. Bloody white blasted gauzy silk all draped open in the breeze. Didn’t he know what a bloody button was!

A cool voice in the darkness touched at the edge. Summoned audible nearly straight from his head. “There’s another thing to consider. And that’s Daryen himself...”
The chaos, the anger. It all slammed to instant silence in his head. Frozen as the sickle light overhead. Numb but for the heavy press of his forehead across his arms. Every other sound died under the tune of Nythadri’s reasoning. “...He clearly knows his court. His people. And presumably, he invited Imaad today. he’s not fighting a blind battle.”


She said something else after. For once, the sound of his name parting her lips did not breach the gate. It already shut on his listening.

The variables started to come together. Daryen invited Imaad today; and Nisele; and all the rest. And him.

Daryen wants the treaty.

He knew his own court. Daryen knew the wolves were circling. Was he trying to decide which one to pick off first? Or was he using Jai as bait to lure them within range.

It was like turning at the last second to find a brother snuck up from behind to shove him off a bridge. When all the backstabber had to do was ask! And he would have lept of his own free will! Burn the man!

Blood gushed hot through his face when he let go of fisting knots into his own scalp. Never having realized he’d taken the fistfuls. It torched the rest of him awake. The shoulder. The leg. Liridia’s present. Every single scar a miscalculated lesson. Liridia was a peripheral advisor. Her warder a mere statue to step around. Sadiq’s wisdom a coincidental guide in the darkness. Nisele wove her designs for that darling royal family if Daryen continued to refuse everyone. As Jai knew he would. The idea of marriage sickened them both something fierce. Jai knew his own limits. He would not be able to charge toward death while the weight of a wife dragged love from his ankles. He had a guess why Daryen hated the idea so much. Though news of a lost child shook that theory a little. That left the parasite brothers. Tamal’s devices were roused by his brother’s puppetry. And Imaad. The bloodsucking merchant was only after zeros to add to his account.

And then bloody King himself. The master who shoved stones across the board of his court. If there was something Daryen did not do, it was fight blind. He knew his enemies. Light! Jai knew the man knew his enemy. Which is why it burned him sick to wonder what folded the cards in his friend’s head all of a sudden. To seek a peace with the very race he’d bloodbathed to win the country in the first place. The man literally ripped High Blood children from their decapitated parents’ arms to ship living messages back over the Aryth. Now he wanted to clink crystal and pretend it never happened.

“He knows I’d forge a bloody path through the mountains for him. I’d sit in a hole the rest of my life translating the Karaethon Cycle if he ordered it. Blast it, Nythadri! I’d strap on the blindfold myself and walk into Shayol Ghul beside him. But he’s not asking! Not saying anything!”
Harsh, and barely contained, Jai flexed with animosity.

He scrubbed his hair again. Exhaled the rest away. Bloody nervous ticks and bloody nothing to count but stars. But just admitting the depth of his allegiance doused some of the fire. About as much as a bucket over Dragonmount, but it was enough to swing the pendulum back from snapping out of control. Though even Jai wasn’t quite sure where that allegiance stood: with rank as a whole or to his superior in particular. Light, Jai wouldn’t know what to do with himself if he ever encountered the actual Dragon Reborn. Salute, he supposed.

He should laugh. The situation was so absurd, but he’d figure out something. He even managed to dig a grin out of the irony’s grave.
“For the record. Screw the Tower.”

Apparently that final bit she added sank in after all.

He pushed up. There was about a mountain of sand to swipe away, but dry, it fell easy as powder; though gave some care for the perilous crust of salt glued to his leg. Then with the most heroic and dramatic sweep of a palm as he could conjure akin to the gesture that brought her here, he offered the lady-in-name a hand to rise. And the moment he closed around her fingers, she was yanked most unladylike into the trap of his arms.

Mirth swarmed again, but distinct from before. The gaze of passion was still there but rounded off by reality. He knew this was likely the last time he’d get Nythadri alone. Let alone ward off any chill snaking inside the black swimming around her shoulders with his own heat. Which he did. Ignoring the ache of her pressing into the dark flush of fresh bruising. He said nothing. No grin to wash out the reality of their situation. Just tried to study her like she was seeing something to solve. The line of her jaw. The place of her lips. Her tousled hair was a wreck: he liked to think he had something to do with that. What did she see when she looked at the world? Was it all ghosts and music, or did something else fill the stroma?

“Think maybe we could bargain that tenfold down a bit? You owe me an ocean of debt, you know.”


His face met her shoulder; hugging her close. He heard himself laugh. The sound came surprisingly easy.

“Care to see Daryen’s suite? Its gaudy as glitter, but not bad. And I know for certain there’s bandages.”
And empty. Light, everything hurt; and he was bloody hungry.

[Natalie Grey]

He was silent and still a long time.

When Jai balled his hair into fists, she wanted to soften his grip and ease the fingers away. Only his wasn’t the sort of pain soothed by kindness; it was the sort that needed to run its course. She recognised that; and kept her distance. Nythadri had never found patience difficult; cool, distant and enduring as stone, she watched him the way one watches a storm behind a pane of glass. No part of her moved but the salted strands of hair lifted by breeze. A sensible woman might have taken the opportunity to leave. Warn those above of the rousing beast below. But she waited; watching as his world crashed about his ears. And rebuilt in the shape of nightmare.

That was the second time today Daryen’s name had stoked a vicious and complex reaction. If he lost it completely? Not much she could do, supposing she would attempt anything at all. She cared more for her own life than Imaad’s, if it came down to such sudden and shocking violence. And though Nythadri exacted the highest fortress of composure for herself, she did not demand it of others. She would warn him away from stupidity; gild her tongue in gold to chase away idiocy and make him see sense, but she would not overbear him with it. There were no strings to tie about his wrists; no crushing attempts at control. If he did not heed her, she would not block his path.

When he spoke her heart beat hard in her chest; measured, but loud enough to feel like it shuddered her entire ribcage. It was the formidable current of devotion in his words that did it. And the bloody pain. Not just at the Seanchan, but at the imposed isolation. The friend that turned his back. The faint impression of a pained frown shadowed her brow, the only indication that what he said struck a terribly deep chord. The expression smoothed itself after a moment, as she cut the imploring ties of empathy and drifted back to composure. Too deep and dark a fall to follow the path of those stirred memories; to identify with the sharp sting of rejection in his voice. She was too well-practised to commiserate misery with misery. Instead, seeing him so dishevelled only fuelled her collected exterior. It was easier to be calm for someone else than it was for herself. She was steady in the storm.

“Then you have a choice,”
she said, voice soft; measured and absent its usual current of dark sarcasm. “You take that blind walk bedside him, trust him. Or you don’t. It isn’t about whether men have scars. There aren’t really any clever or witty sayings; not even trust no-one. It just is. Or it isn’t.”


He stood abruptly. Her eyes followed him, but she did not move; even after the dramatic offering of his hand, her own did not emerge from the shadowed confined of his coat. Not immediately, anyway. Maybe she looked for signs that temporary insanity had now passed; that the earth beneath his feet had stopped shaking, and he stood solid. Or maybe it was just that now his hand offered goodbye, and she was absorbing the remnants of the evening like the last grains slipping through an hourglass. Reluctant. After a moment a smile bloomed slow and playful. When it touched her eyes like light, she reached out; and found herself crushed against his chest.

His arms snaked beneath the coat, rapturously warm; reminding her the tender limits of a sorely abused self-discipline. Unlike the last time his embrace caught her by surprise, when she relaxed into him it was with arms that wrapped about him rather than twisted knots behind her back. The intensity of the look he gave her might have wilted another woman. But she was not most women; and was supremely confident he would not find answers she was not willing to give. A dark brow rose.

“A whole ocean, is it? Sounds like you’re reneging on the terms to me. And here I took you for a betting man.”


When his head pressed into her shoulder, she brushed a hand over his hair; smoothing a path over his ill-treated scalp. Blessedly relieved to hear the release of his laughter. Light! The tension of the last few minutes had seeped into every muscle. It was probably premature to assume the storm had passed, but she was reassured at least that it had receded. When Jai shut down completely, he was impossible to reach. Although blood and ashes – Daryen’s chambers? A hum of dry laughter left her own throat; defeated. Strolling out of a bedchamber; that would testify her innocence. But the Light knew there were few risks she was not willing to take; even for no reward, just for the sake of whipping her fingers through flame unscathed. That, and she was not sure she was willing to leave him alone to brood on the things she had told him. “Sure. Why not.”


She slipped from his grasp to retrieve her clothes, and though her fingers trailed she did not linger to the bitter-sweet flush of sentimentality. A deft bend and the dress was bundled under an arm; it took longer to find her discarded shoes, nothing but patches of shadow against the cooled sand. Then she hovered over the decision to gather what remained of his things too, but did not want to touch the sword. The fact they presently moved of their own accord suggested she needn’t have bothered. Silly to have forgotten that Asha’man were not dissuaded from using the power for trivialities, the way women of the White Tower were. She watched his expression for the minute tell-signs of his grapple with saidin, moments before the distracting flash of silvered light robbed the clarity of sight. How many Gates had that made in one day? Few women were that strong.

“Hmm.”
Her only appraisal of the room as she passed from sand to carpet. One who lived the modest life of an Accepted – even one who had once been nobility – had no right to snub the grandeur of a king’s bedchambers, but Nythadri had never been the sort seduced by luxury. Her gaze over its ornamentation was cursory, disinterested. The drift of her thoughts was entirely practical; the forefront of which was erasing traces of that beach retreat. She shrugged Jai’s coat from her shoulders once the Gate winked shut, catching his eye as she held it out to him. “Thanks.”
Her lips flickered teasingly, as unembarrassed to be half-dressed in revealing light as shadowed darkness. And then she wandered away, before the weight of temptation had the chance to snare either of them.

The floor was luxurious soft under her toes, and the room boasted any number of mirrors to assess the damage. Relaxed as though the chambers were her own, she ran her fingers through stiff tangled hair, brushed them gingerly against cheeks burned pink from the day’s burning sun. They twinged pain. “I would offer to Heal you. If I could.”
She could see him in the reflection; offered a sincere half-smile. Saidar flooded her in the same instant, and she held his gaze long enough to ascertain he would not over-react. She would not stoop to ask permission simply because of his sensitivities, but neither was she completely without caution.

And then she turned her attention to the creased dress; shaking it out before threads worked magic through the creases.

[Jay Carpenter]

She slipped away. Again. Though half a smile watched her retrieve her things like she was polishing shoes with rocks. Until the distraction of channeling tore the majority of his focus toward his own version of the same chore. Except the sword: that he carried with bare hands. There was no room for other thought until channeling shifted away from molding the tempest raging into something useful and simply holding open the pinprick in the Pattern until they were both safe on the other side. Bubbles of the periphery returned to the surface then. Of Nythadri sneaking unshy glances his way every time he channeled. So timely, he had to wonder if the Black Tower had it wrong and women could sense something of saidin after all. Maybe she lent an ear to more than the one rumor. He wasn’t exactly building a strong case for sanity. Talk of peace, dedication, Malkier, violence and saidin draped rather creative conclusions about his shoulders. But like every personal layer, Jai clutched privacy’s cloak in a death grip as long as he could.

The suite was unchanged from before except someone wiped down the traces of his last presence: water prints were gone, sand swept, and windows thrown open. Even the bloody awful, gaudy stool was back in its spot. The same routine followed this time as before: dumping his things in a black mound on the floor. A few taps rained white powder from upturned boots. The sword carelessly dropped sheath, belt, and cords across otherwise pristine bedding. Only this time Nythadri caught him before he lost himself in the cave other men called a washroom. Large enough to feast in there, what with an enormous copper tub, enough porcelain basins to shame a Sea Folk, and mirrors sparkling on every other wall. The mirrors weren’t so bad, actually. It wasn’t often a man could gauge how he looked from all sides.

He turned toward Nythadri. If one thing undermined the possibility of extended age in Jai, it was the sheer open way emotion branded his face impressed. Seeing Nythadri disheveled in brightness as he did. Certainly not the proper and gentlemanly thing to do, to look her up and down; though Jai never claimed such ridiculous titles. She shrugged off the coat, to which he jutted a nod that she drape it along with everything else. The fluttering shift wasn’t made to be flattering, but memory of what it felt like pressed wet between his hands and her skin made up enormous ground.

A few minutes rummaging through cabinets otherwise beautiful enough to put a woodworker into early retirement found the remaining bandages. But glimpses of Nythadri walking about grappled him between the decision to pull one pant leg tight and high or drop the waist loose and low to access the crusted slice of thigh. Modesty wasn’t exactly an issue, since those chucked small clothes were long lost at sea. In the end, he propped one foot up and balanced it out best he could until giving up completely. The pants could use a good cleaning anyway.

Her voice struck chords across the air some time while he fumbled with circling long strips of white around a freshly washed and ridiculously tender split in his thigh. Jai shrugged in response. But the sympathetic smile emerging through the grimace in honor of her twinged cheeks gave him away.
“I would offer to heal you if I could.”


It felt like saying he would fly her to Shara. As he would attempt in an instant if she hinted at such a desire; but it was never going to happen. Although it would be something to work out: the way to fly. On a more realistic note, he couldn’t Heal a mosquito bite if his life depended on it. But to hear the admission from a woman vibrated his sense of the world: being of the misinformed opinion that most women could at least do that much.

He hovered on the colors of her rank, looking for the angle it played until giving up entirely. White Tower training was obviously a mystery as impenetrable as Nythadri’s constant composition. There was no point trying to puzzle out that mess.

Like she read his mind, pebbles immediately flushed his skin cold. The sudden douse of sensation smirked a turn at his lips and pivoted his eyes, provoked upward, toward her face. There was no trace at all of her channeling, but he knew saidar must be warping around them that second. The only reaction: an amazed shake. Then went back to oblivion.

Channeling longer than he cared to admit, Jai was unlikely to strengthen further. But the way of constantly flexing at the edge of his limits with saidin was gut-deep now. If it could be done with the Power, he did it. Though it was hard not to notice the rare pebble of saidar striking his hairs straight. Every time it did, he was astounded by how reliant on her hands Nythadri was. While he plucked a towel mid-air to wipe away fresh washing, she unfolded one from a pile nearby. The black threads were ripped of their sandy hostages by a net of Earth and she shook out the folds of white. By the time his boots were restored to an acceptable shine, he was lost to her routine altogether and sunk oblivious into his own. The sword and dragon unpinned by hand were carefully restored to their full glory by a tedious buffer of concentration: Air to cup them high and another of Water to glisten them back proud. Not exactly the easiest work in the best of times.

When finally he shrugged into the coat once more and was half-way up the line of buttons, he realized Nythadri had gone still as a scout. He watched her watch him, curious. All the way through to mindlessly buckling on Asad’s sword.
“What?”

Earnest curiosity lined his expression. Not at all accusing. Quite the opposite. A testament to his comfort with her: exposing sincerity.

She looked perfect. Like she’d done nothing all night but sit with a teacup. He grinned at that; knowing the secret behind her facade. More mystery to solve in the future: to try and guess what her perfect poise was hiding. Though he had a morbid sense after hearing of her ghost’s origins that she hid the light as neatly as she did the dark. Or tired to. Those pale eyes waving in the morbid winds of her humor would not soon leave his head.

Her hair curled undiffused ringlets again. Her cheeks were flushed by the sun. The Accepted’s dress pristine as bedding. Well, bedding before the slender impression of a sword trampled wrinkles across some servant’s hard work. How she managed all that so fast?

The whole of the time her cool words on the beach ran frustrating echoes in his head. He’d melted into her like it would be the last time they could embrace, then dripped achingly closer when her hand brushed away anger as slick as it had through his hair. Her strange power lingered ever since. Prodding him forward from behind. He felt the decision rumbling foreshocks of what was to come. To level on trust, or not. It wasn’t really a question at this point. Which really burned to realize now. He’d made the decision when he walked back to Arad Doman that morning.

“I already decided, didn’t I?”

He braced for whatever expression slapped the epiphany in his face.
“Damn.”
He gathered some sense, looked about the walls he knew so well, and put on the final touches.

One last pull snaked the excess strap of leather over and under the belt secure. There was no full drawing of the blade for childish brandishing as in his youth; not so much as a few inches free to show off the beloved steel beneath. As he had when sitting in the ignorant trenches of Black Tower training. Never draw a blade unless you intend to use it. Another clever saying percolating up from somewhere scribed bone deep. The only indication of affection now was fingering the cording until they swung a correct balance comfortable enough to nearly forget the weapon was there at all.

Then the detention broke, and Jai looked up a free man. And grinned triumphantly.

“Well then. As it seems i’m indispensable to global politics, suppose I should get back before the world collapses. By now the drinks must have run dry and the cards fell flat, another hour and nobles will be clawing out their eyes with the boredom.”
He held the grin at Nythadri’s expression all the way to her reflection hovering beside his as he checked the progress in a long mirror, tugging and smoothing the uniform here and there. And went on, “It’s a good thing we cleaned up.”
Saying the obvious. Like its a good thing soldiers have armor. A luxury typically isolated to the wealthy. He plucked at seemingly random hairs laying too orderly like poorer men plucked remnants of armor off the dead: he sought something specific, but the task seemed carried out indiscriminately. Ultimately, the arrangement branded him with the more more lovable, jaded disheveled look than the conservative-banker’s slick style. Then spun to face her, arms spread wide, modeling the result.

“Heroes are always the good looking sort. Yes?”


Leading grin and cocked brow, Jai barely glanced at the door and it swung open. When they passed by the king’s Guard without, he tossed the guy frowning at Nythadri an innocent shrug and offered her his arm.

“So. Walk out together and shove it in their faces? Or slip in ambiguously separate?”
Brows curled lightly on the question as they strolled in and out of night air, dancing toward their doom. His instinct said to flip the crowd a new stone on the board by walking exposed across their stage; like playing with the obvious was the best way to unhinge their game. But Nythadri was the expert.