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"Do you really think she will learn your ways of weaving saidar?" Cadsuane asked, hiding her incredulity Kiruna and the others had told her of these lessons, but many of the Wise Ones’ weaves were very different froht in the White Tower The first way you learned the weave for a particular thing i a second was all but impossible, and even when you could learn, the secondlearned weave almost never worked nearly as well That was one reason soe; too ht have been learned already, and could not be unlearned

Sorilea shrugged "Perhaps Learning a second way is hard enough without all the handwaving you Aes Sedai do TheKiruna Nachiman must learn is that she owns her pride; it does not own her She will be a very strong wo a chair around to face the one Cadsuane had been sitting in, she eyed it doubtfully, then sat down She appeared almost as stiff and uncomfortable as Kiruna had, but she willed woman used to command

Cadsuane sed a rueful chuckle as she took her chair It ell to be renorant savages Of course they would know the difficulties As for handwaving Few had channeled where she could see, but she had noticed that they created soestures that sisters used The hand movements were not truly part of the weave, but in a way they were, because they had been part of learning the weave Perhaps, once, there had been Aes Sedai who could, say, hurl a ball of fire without so dead, and their teachings with thes just could not be done without the appropriate gestures There were sisters who claiht another sister by whichany of our new apprentices anything has been difficult at best," Sorilea went on "I do not speak to offend, but you Aes Sedai give oath, it seems, and immediately try to find a way around it Alanna Mosvani is particularly difficult" Suddenly her clear green eyes were very sharp on Cadsuane’s face "How can we punish her willful failings if itthe Car’a’carn’?"

Cadsuane folded her hands in her lap Masking surprise was not easy So much for the secret of Alanna’s crime But why had the woman let her know that she knew? Perhaps one revelation called for another "The bond does not work in that fashion," she said "If you kill her, he will die, then or soon after Short of that, he will be aware of what happens to her, but he will not really feel it As far away as he is now, he will only be vaguely aware, at that"

Sorilea nodded slowly Her fingers touched the golden tray on the table, then came away Her expression was as hard to read as the face of a statue, but Cadsuane suspected that Alanna would find an unpleasant surprise the next time she let her temper flare, or threw one of her Arafellin sulks That was unih Only the boy was important

"Most men will take what is offered, if it seeht of Rand al’Thor so Unfortunately, it is too late to change the path alk Now, he suspects whatever is offered freely Now, if I wanted hi, I would pretend I did not want him to have it If I wanted to stay close to hiain" Onceto see what lay inside her head The woh, or toothrill of possibility If she had had any doubts that Sorilea wanted to feel her out, they were gone And you did not feel out soreement "Do you believe aa chance "Or strong?" By her tone, she left no doubt she saw a difference

Again Sorilea touched the tray; the sht have quirked her lips for an instant Or not "Most men see the two as one and the sa endures; hard shatters"

Cadsuane drew breath A chance she would have scoured anyone else for taking But she was not anyone else, and sometimes chances had to be taken "The boy confuses the, and makes himself harder Too hard, already, and he will not stop until he is stopped He has forgotten how to laugh except in bitterness; there are no tears left in hiain, the world faces disaster He oes to Tarmon Gai’don as he is, even his victory may be as dark as his defeat"

Sorilea listened intently, and kept silent even after Cadsuane finished Those green eyes studied her "Your Dragon Reborn and your Last Battle are not in our prophecies," Sorilea said at last "We have tried to make Rand al’Thor know his blood, but I fear he sees us as only another spear If one spear breaks in your hand, you do not pause to ets not too far apart"

"Perhaps we do," Cadsuane said cautiously Targets even a hand apart low of saidar surrounded the leatherfaced woian look at least th did not lie in the Power "There is a thing you may find useful," she said "I cannot make it work, but I can weave the flows to show you" She did just that, laying feeble skeins that fell into place and melted, too poor to do what they were intended for "It is called Traveling," Sorilea said

This time, Cadsuane’s jaw dropped Alanna and Kiruna and the rest denied teaching the Wise Ones how to link, or a number of other skills they suddenly seeed to wring them out of the sisters held in the tents But this was

Impossible, she would have said, yet she did not believe Sorilea was lying She could hardly wait to try the weave herself Not that it was of much use immediately Even if she knew exactly where the wretched boy was, she had to reat gift," she said slowly "I have nothing I can give you to compare"

This time, there was no doubt of the brief smile that flashed across Sorilea’s lips She knew very well that Cadsuane was in her debt Taking up the heavy golden pitcher with both hands, she carefully filled the small white cups With plain water