A Memory of Light

lightning!” a man yelled behind her.
    Egwene immediately brought up a spire of molten iron and cooled it to draw the lightning that fell a moment later. She glanced to the side. The one who had spoken was Jahar Narishma, Merise’s Asha’man Warder.
    Egwene smiled, looking toward Taim. “Keep the others off me,” she commanded loudly. “All but you, Narishma and Merise. Narishma’s warnings will prove useful.”
    She gathered her strength and began to release a storm at the traitor M’Hael.

    Ila picked through the dead on the battlefield near the ruins. Though the fighting had moved downriver, she could hear distant shouts and explosions in the night.
    She hunted for the wounded among the fallen, and ignored arrows and swords when she found them. Others would gather those, though she wished they would not. Swords and arrows had caused much of this death.
    Raen, her husband, worked nearby, prodding at each body then listening for a heartbeat. His gloves were stained red, and blood smeared his colorful clothing, because he had been pressing his ear against the chests of corpses. Once they confirmed someone was dead, they left an X drawn on a cheek, often in the person’s own blood. That would keep others from repeating the work.
    Raen seemed to have aged a decade in the last year, and Ila felt as if she had, too. The Way of the Leaf was an easy master at times, providing a life of joy and peace. But a leaf fell in calm winds and in the tempest; dedication demanded that one accept the latter as well as the former. Being driven from country after country, suffering starvation as the land died, then finally coming to rest in the lands of the Seanchan . . . such had been their life.
    None of it matched losing Aram. That had hurt far more deeply than had losing his mother to the Trollocs.
    They passed Morgase, the former queen, who organized these workers and gave them orders. Ila kept moving. She cared little for queens. They had done nothing for her or hers.
    Nearby, Raen stopped, raising his lantern to examine a full quiver of arrows that a soldier had been carrying as he died. Ila hissed, lifting her skirts up to step around corpses and reach her husband. “Raen!”
    “Peace, Ila,” he said. “I’m not going to pick it up. Yet, I wonder.” He looked up, toward the distant flashes of light downriver and atop the Heights where the armies continued their terrible acts of murder. So many flashes in the night, like hundreds of lightning bolts. It was well past midnight now. They’d been on this field, looking for the living, for hours.
    “You wonder?” Ila asked. “Raen . . .”
    “What would we have them do, Ila? Trollocs will not follow the Way of the Leaf.”
    “There is plenty of room to run,” Ila said. “Look at them. They came to meet the Trollocs when the Shadowspawn were barely out of the Blight. If that energy had been spent gathering the people and leading them away to the south . . .”
    “The Trollocs would have followed,” Raen said. “What then, Ila?”
    “We have accepted many masters,” Ila said. “The Shadow might treat us poorly, but would it really be worse than we have been treated at the hands of others?”
    “Yes,” Raen said softly. “Yes, Ila. It would be worse. Far ,far worse.”
    Ila looked at him.
    He shook his head, sighing. “I am not going to abandon the Way, Ila. It is my path, and it is right for me. Perhaps . . . perhaps I will not think quite so poorly of those who follow another path. If we live through these times, we will do so at the bequest of those who died on this battlefield, whether we wish to accept their sacrifice or not.”
    He trailed away. It’s just the darkness of the night, she thought. He will overcome it, once the sun shines again. That's the right of it. Isn’t it?
    She looked up at the night sky. That sun . . . would they be able to tell when it rose? The clouds, lit from the fires below, seemed to be growing thicker and thicker. She pulled her bright yellow shawl closer, feeling suddenly cold.
    Perhaps I will not think quite so poorly of those who follow another path . . .
    She blinked a few tears from her eyes. “Light,” she whispered, something twisting inside. “I shouldn’t have turned my back on him. I should have tried to help him return to us, not cast him out. Light, oh Light. Shelter him . . .”
    Nearby, a group of mercenaries found the arrows and picked them up. “Hey, Hanlon!” one called. “Look at this!”
    When