A Memory of Light

PROLOGUE

    By Grace and Banners Fallen

    B ayrd pressed the coin between his thumb and forefinger. It was thoroughly unnerving to feel the metal squish.
    He removed his thumb. The hard copper now clearly bore its print, reflecting the uncertain torchlight. He felt chilled, as if he’d spent an entire night in a cellar.
    His stomach growled. Again.
    The north wind picked up, making torches sputter. Bayrd sat with his back to a large rock near the center of the war camp. Hungry men muttered as they warmed their hands around firepits; the rations had spoiled long ago. Other soldiers nearby began laying all of their metal—swords, armor clasps, mail—on the ground, like linen to be dried. Perhaps they hoped that when the sun rose, it would change the material back to normal.
    Bayrd rolled the once-coin into a ball between his fingers. Light preserve us, he thought. Light ... He dropped the ball to the grass, then reached over and picked up the stones he’d been working with.
    “I want to know what happened here, Karam,” Lord Jarid snapped. Jarid and his advisors stood nearby in front of a table draped with maps. “I want to know how they drew so close, and I want that bloody Darkfriend Aes Sedai queen’s head!” Jarid pounded his fist down on the table. Once, his eyes hadn’t displayed such a crazed fervor. The pressure of it all—the lost rations, the strange things in the nights—was changing him.
    Behind Jarid, the command tent lay in a heap. Jarid’s hair—grown long during their exile—blew free, face bathed in ragged torchlight. Bits of dead grass still clung to his coat from when he’d crawled out of the tent.
    Baffled servants picked at the iron tent spikes, which—like all metal in the camp—had become soft to the touch. The tent’s mounting rings had stretched and snapped like warm wax.
    The night smelled wrong. Of staleness, of rooms that hadn’t been entered in years. The air of a forest clearing should not smell like ancient dust. Bayrd’s stomach growled again. Light, but he would’ve liked to have something to eat. He set his attention on his work, slapping one of his stones down against the other.
    He held the stones as his old pappil had taught him as a boy. The feeling of stone striking stone helped push away the hunger and coldness. At least something was still solid in this world.
    Lord Jarid glanced at him, scowling. Bayrd was one of ten men Jarid had insisted guard him this night. “I will have Elayne’s head, Karam,” Jarid said, turning back to his captains. “This unnatural night is the work of her witches.”
    “Her head?” Eri’s skeptical voice came from the side. “And how, precisely, is someone going to bring you her head?”
    Lord Jarid turned, as did the others around the torchlit table. Eri stared at the sky; on his shoulder, he wore the mark of the golden boar charging before a red spear. It was the mark of Lord Jarid’s personal guard, but Eri’s voice bore little respect. “What’s he going to use to cut that head free, Jarid? His teeth?”
    The camp stilled at the horribly insubordinate line. Bayrd stopped his stones, hesitating. Yes, there had been talk about how unhinged Lord Jarid had become. But this?
    Jarid sputtered, face growing red with rage. “You dare use such a tone with me? One of my own guards ?”
    Eri continued inspecting the cloud-filled sky.
    “You’re docked two months’ pay,” Jarid snapped, but his voice trembled. “Stripped of rank and put on latrine duty until further notice. If you speak back to me again, I’ll cut out your tongue.”
    Bayrd shivered in the cold wind. Eri was the best they had in what was left of their rebel army. The other guards shuffled, looking down.
    Eri looked toward the lord and smiled. He didn’t say a word, but somehow, he didn’t have to. Cut out his tongue? Every scrap of metal in the camp had gone soft as lard. Jarid’s own knife lay on the table, twisted and warped—it had stretched thin as he pulled it from his sheath. Jarid’s coat flapped, open; it had had silver buttons.
    “Jarid . . ” Karam said. A young lord of a minor house loyal to Sarand, he had a lean face and large lips. “Do you really think . . . really think this was the work of Aes Sedai? All of the metal in the camp?
    “Of course,” Jarid barked. “What else would it be? Don’t tell me you believe those campfire tales. The Last Battle? Phaw.” He looked back at the table. Unrolled there, with pebbles weighting