A Memory of Light

many things, but he has been wrong, too. This is not a decision he should be allowed to make alone.”
    Elayne shuffled through the sheets of paper, then stopped on one of them. “ ‘His blood shall give us the Light . . .’ ” She rubbed the page with her thumb, as if lost in thought. “ ‘Wait upon the Light.’ Who added this note?”
    “That is Doniella Alievin’s copy of the Termendal translation of The Karaethon Cycle” Egwene said. “Doniella made her own notes, and they have been the subject of nearly as much discussion among scholars as the Prophecies themselves. She was a Dreamer, you know. The only Amyrlin that we know of to have been one. Before me, anyway.”
    “Yes,” Elayne said.
    “The sisters who gathered these for me came to the same conclusion that I have,” Egwene said. “There may be a time to break the seals, but that time is not at the start of the Last Battle, whatever Rand thinks. We must wait for the right moment, and as the Watcher of the Seals, it is my duty to choose that moment. I won’t risk the world on one of Rand’s overly dramatic stratagems.”
    “He has a fair bit of gleeman in him,” Elayne said, again fondly. “Your argument is a good one, Egwene. Make it to him. He will listen to you. He does have a good mind, and can be persuaded.”
    “We shall see. For now, I—”
    Egwene suddenly sensed a spike of alarm from Gawyn. She glanced over to see him turning. Hoofbeats outside. His ears weren’t any better than Egwene’s, but it was his job to listen for things like this.
    Egwene embraced the True Source, causing Elayne to do likewise. Birgitte already had the tent flaps open, hand on her sword.
    A frazzled messenger leaped from horseback outside, eyes wide. She scrambled into the tent, Birgitte and Gawyn falling in beside her immediately, watching in case she came too close.
    She didn’t. “Caemlyn is under attack, Your Majesty,” the woman said, gasping for breath.
    “What!” Elayne leaped to her feet. “How? Did Jarid Sarand finally—”
    “Trollocs,” the messenger said. “It started near dusk.”
    “Impossible!” Elayne said, grabbing the messenger by the arm and hauling her out of the tent. Egwene followed hastily. “It’s been over six hours since dusk,” Elayne said to the messenger. “Why haven’t we heard anything until now? What happened to the Kinswomen?”
    “I was not told, my Queen,” the messenger said. “Captain Guybon sent me to fetch you at speed. He just arrived through the gateway.”
    The Traveling ground was not far from Elayne’s tent. A crowd had gathered, but men and women made way for the Amyrlin and Queen. In moments the two of them reached the front.
    A group of men in bloodied clothing trudged through the open gateway, pulling carts laden with Elayne’s new weapons, the dragons. Many of the men seemed near collapse. They smelled of smoke, and their skin was blackened by soot. Not a few of them slumped unconscious as Elayne’s soldiers grabbed the carts, which were obviously meant for horses to pull, to help them.
    Other gateways opened nearby as Serinia Sedai and some of the stronger of the Kinswomen—Egwene wouldn’t think of them as Elayne’s Kinswomen— created them. Refugees poured through like the waters of a suddenly unstopped river.
    “Go,” Egwene said to Gawyn, weaving her own gateway—one to the Traveling grounds in the White Tower camp nearby. “Send for as many Aes Sedai as we can rouse. Tell Bryne to ready his soldiers, tell them to do as Elayne orders and send them through gateways to the outskirts of Caemlyn. We will show solidarity with Andor.”
    Gawyn nodded, ducking through the gateway. Egwene let it vanish, then joined Elayne near the gathering of wounded, confused soldiers. Sumeko, of the Kinswomen, had taken charge of seeing that Healing was given to those in immediate danger.
    The air was thick with the smell of smoke. As Egwene hurried to Elayne, she caught sight of something through one of the gateways. Caemlyn afire.
    Light! She stood stunned for a moment, then hurried on. Elayne was speaking with Guybon, commander of the Queens Guard. The handsome man seemed barely able to remain on his feet, his clothing and arms alarmingly bloodied.
    “Darkfriends killed two of the women you left to send messages, Your Majesty,” he was saying in a tired voice. “Another fell in the fighting. But we retrieved the dragons. Once we ... we escaped . . ” He seemed pained by something.