Morgase looked up, staring ahead through the trees. It wasn’t really a forest. “They say you were as single-minded as Goldeneyes,” she said softly. “That you would not rest, that you barely took time to eat, that you spent every moment searching for a way to free me.”
Tallanvor said nothing.
“I’ve never had a man do that for me,” she continued. “Taringail saw me as a pawn, Thom as a beauty to be hunted and romanced, and Gareth as a queen to be served. But none of them made me their entire life, their heart. I think Thom and Gareth loved me, but as something to be held and cared for, then released. I didn’t think you’d ever let go.”
“I won’t,” Tallanvor said softly.
“You go to Tear. Yet you said you’d never leave.”
“My heart stays here,” he said. “I know well what it is to love from afar, Morgase. I’d done it for years before this fool’s trip began, and I will do it for years yet. My heart is a traitor. Perhaps some Trolloc will do me a favor and rip it free of my chest.”
“So bitter,” she whispered.
“You have made it amply clear that my attentions are not wanted. A queen and a simple guardsman. Pure foolishness.”
“A queen no longer,” she said.
“Not in name, Morgase. Just in mind.”
A leaf fell from above and struck the pool. With a lobed margin and verdant richness, it should have had a long life yet.
“Do you know the worst part of this?” Tallanvor asked. “It’s the hope. The hope I let myself feel. Traveling with you, protecting you, I thought maybe you would see. Maybe you would care. And forget about him.”
“Him?”
“Gaebril,” Tallanvor snapped. “I can see that you still think of him. Even after what he did to you. I leave my heart here, but you left yours in Caemlyn.” From the corner of her eye, she could see him turn away. “Whatever it is you saw in him, I don’t have it. I’m only a simple, common, idiot of a Guardsman who can’t say the right words. You fawned over Gaebril, and he all but ignored you. That’s how love is. Bloody ashes, I’ve all but done the same thing with you.”
She said nothing.
“Well,” he said, “that’s why I have to go. You’re safe now, and that’s all that matters. Light help me, but that’s still all that I care about!”
He began to walk away, feet crunching twigs.
“Gaebril was one of the Forsaken,” she said.
The crunching twigs stopped.
“He was really Rahvin,” she continued. “He took over Andor through use of the One Power, forcing people to do as he said.”
Tallanvor hissed, twigs crunching as he hastened back to her. “Are you certain?”
“Certain? No. But it does make sense. We can’t ignore what is happening in the world, Tallanvor. The weather, the way food spoils in a heartbeat, the movements of this Rand al’Thor. He is no false Dragon. The Forsaken must be loose again.
“What would you do, if you were one of them? Raise up an army and conquer? Or simply stroll into a palace and take the Queen as your consort? Twist her mind so that she lets you do as you wish. You’d gain the resources of an entire nation, all with minimal effort. Barely a finger raised…”
She raised her head and stared off into the distance. Northward. Toward Andor. “They call it Compulsion. A dark, foul weave that removes the will from your subject. I’m not supposed to know that it exists.
“You say that I think of him. That is true. I think about him and hate him. Hate myself for what I let him do. And a part of my heart knows that if he were to appear here and demand something from me, I’d give it. I couldn’t help myself. But this thing I feel for him—this thing that blends my desire and my hatred like two locks in a braid—it is not love.”
She turned and looked down at Tallanvor. “I know love, Tallanvor, and Gaebril never had it from me. I doubt that a creature like him could comprehend love.”
Tallanvor met her eyes. His were dark gray, soft and pure. “Woman, you give me that monster hope again. Be wary of what lies at your feet.”
“I need time to think. Would you refrain, for now, from going to Tear?”
He bowed. “Morgase, if you want anything from me—anything—all you ever need to do is ask. I thought I made that clear. I’ll remove my name from the list.”
He withdrew. Morgase watched him, her mind a tempest despite the stillness of the trees and pond before her.
Chapter 22
The End of a Legend
At night, Gawyn couldn’t see the White Tower’s wounds.
In darkness, one couldn’t tell the difference between a beautifully intricate mural and a wall full of mismatched tiles. At night, the most beautiful of Tar Valon’s buildings became another dark lump.
And at night, the holes and scars on the White Tower were patched with a bandage of darkness. Of course, on a night as dark as these clouds caused, one also couldn’t tell the Tower’s color. White or black; at night, it didn’t really matter.
Gawyn walked the White Tower grounds, wearing stiff trousers and coat of red and gold. Like a uniform, but of no specific allegiance. He didn’t seem to have a specific allegiance these days. Almost unconsciously, he found himself walking toward the eastern tower entrance as if to climb up to Egwene’s sleeping chambers. He set his jaw, turning the other way.
He should have been sleeping. But after nearly a week of guarding Egwene’s door at night, he was—as soldiers liked to say—on a midnight lunch. Perhaps he could have stayed in his rooms to relax, but his quarters in the White Tower’s barracks felt confining.
Nearby, two small feral cats stalked through tufts of grass, eyes reflecting the torchlight of a guard post. The cats hunkered low, watching him as if considering—for a brief moment—whether or not he’d be worth attacking. An unseen owl cruised in the air above, the only evidence of its passing a solitary feather that floated down. It was easier to pretend at night. Some men lived their entire lives that way, preferring the curtains of darkness to the open windows of daylight, because they let them see the world all in shadow.
It was summer now, but though the day had been hot, the night was strangely cold. He shivered at a passing breeze. There hadn’t been any murders since the death of that unfortunate White. When would the killer strike again? He—or she—could be moving through the hallways at this moment, searching for a solitary Aes Sedai as thos