Robert Jordan - The Gathering Storm

They sat on either side of her desk. A proper desk, finally, with a proper chair to sit upon. She was inside the Amyrlin’s study, purged of any and all references to Elaida. That left it bare, the walls empty, the wood paneling unadorned by picture or tapestry, the end tables empty of works of art. Even the bookshelves had been emptied, lest something of Elaida’s offend Egwene.

The moment Egwene had seen what the others had done, she had ordered all of Elaida’s effects gathered and placed under secure lock, guarded by women Egwene trusted. Hidden among those effects would be clues to Elaida’s plans. They might simply be hidden notes slipped between the pages of books, left for further review. Or they might be as obscure as connections between the types of books she’d been reading or the items she’d had in the desk drawers. But they didn’t have Elaida herself to question, and there was no telling what schemes of hers would return to bite the White Tower at a later date. Egwene intended to look over those objects, then interview each and every Aes Sedai who had been in the Tower and determine what clues they hid.

For now, she had her hands full. She shook her head, turning over the pages of Silviana’s report. The woman was proving to be an effective Keeper indeed, far more skilled than Sheriam had ever been. The loyalist women respected Silviana, and the Red Ajah seemed to have accepted—at least in part—Egwene’s offer of peace in choosing one of their own as her Keeper.

Of course, Egwene also had two stiff letters of disapproval—one from Romanda and one from Lelaine—on the bottom of her stack. The two women had withdrawn their effusive support almost as quickly as they’d given it. Right now, they were arguing over what to do with the damam Egwene had captured during the White Tower raid, and neither one liked Egwene’s plan to train them as Aes Sedai. Romanda and Lelaine would trouble her for years yet, it appeared.

She set the report aside. It was late afternoon, and light peeked through the slits of the louvered shutters to her balcony. She didn’t open them, preferring the quiet dimness. The solitude felt nice.

For now, she didn’t mind the room’s sparse decorations. True, it reminded her just a little too much of the study of the Mistress of Novices, but no number of wall hangings would banish her memory of those days, not when Silviana herself was Egwene’s Keeper. That was fine. Why would Egwene want to banish those days? They contained some of her most satisfying victories.

Though she certainly didn’t mind being able to sit without cringing.

She smiled faintly, scanning the next of Silviana’s reports. Then she frowned. Most of the Black Ajah in the Tower had escaped. This report, written in Silviana’s careful, flowing script, told that they had managed to seize some of the Blacks in the hours following Egwene’s raising, but only the weakest of the lot. The majority of them—some sixty Black sisters—had escaped. Including one Sitter, as Egwene had noticed before, whose name had not been on Verin’s list. Evanellein’s disappearance indicated strongly that she was Black.

Egwene picked up another report, frowning to herself. It was a list of all the women in the White Tower, an extensive list several pages long, broken down by Ajah. Many names had a notation beside them. Black, escaped. Black, captured. Taken by the Seanchan.

That last group was galling. Saerin—acting with foresight—had taken a census following the attack to determine exactly who had been captured.

Nearly forty initiates—over two dozen of them full Aes Sedai—snatched in the night and carried off. It was like a story told to children at bedtime, warning of Fades or Halfmen who stole wicked children. Those women would be beaten, confined and turned into nothing more than tools.

Egwene had to steel herself from reaching up to feel her neck, where the collar had held her. She wasn’t focusing on that right now, burn it all!

Each of the Black Ajah members on Verin’s list had been seen healthy and alive following the Seanchan attack. But most had escaped before Egwene arrived at the Tower to take her seat. Velina was gone. So were Chai and Birlen. And Alviarin; the Black hunters hadn’t managed to get to her in time.

What had tipped them off? Unfortunately, it had probably something to do with Egwene seizing the Black Ajah in the rebel camp. She had worried about overplaying her hand. But what else should she have done? Her only hope had been to seize every Black in the camp and hope that word didn’t spread to the White Tower.

But it had. She’d captured the ones who remained, and had them executed. Then she’d resworn every sister in the Tower on the Oath Rod. They hadn’t liked it, of course. But the knowledge that all of the women in the rebel camp had done it had swayed them. If it hadn’t, the news that Egwene had ordered the execution of her own Keeper probably did. It had certainly been a relief when Silviana had offered to swear first, in front of the entire Hall, to prove herself. Egwene had followed by reswearing herself, then told the Hall truthfully that she had watched each and every woman in the camp prove that she wasn’t a Darkfriend. They’d captured three more Black sisters who hadn’t been on Verin’s list. Only three. What accuracy! Verin had proven herself once again.

Egwene set aside the report. Knowledge of those who had escaped still chewed at her. She had known the names of sixty Darkfriends, and they had escaped her grasp. That number reached to eighty if she included those who had escaped from the rebel camp.

I will find you, Alviarin, Egwene thought, tapping the sheet with her finger. I will find you all. You were a rot within the Tower itself. The worst kind of rot. I will not let you spread it.

She set the sheet aside and picked up another. This one bore only a few names. A list of all the women in the Tower who had not been on Verin’s list and who had either been taken by the Seanchan, or had disappeared following the attack.

Verin had believed that one of the Forsaken, Mesaana, was hiding in the Tower. Sheriam’s confession corroborated this. Egwene’s task of reswearing every Aes Sedai on the Rod had revealed no Darkfriends of great power. Hopefully, the reswearing itself would ease the tension between the Ajahs. They could stop worrying if there were Blacks in their midst. Of course, it could very well weaken the Aes Sedai by giving proof that the Black Ajah had indeed existed in the first place.

Either way, Egwene had a problem. She looked over the sheet before her. Each woman in the White Tower had proven that she was not a Darkfriend. Each woman on Verin’s list was accounted for. She’d been executed, she’d been captured, she’d fled the White Tower the day of Egwene’s ascension, she’d been taken by the Seanchan or she was out of the Tower at the moment—and had been for some time. The sisters had instructions to watch for those.

Perhaps they’d been lucky, and the Forsaken was one of those women who had been taken by the Seanchan. But Egwene didn’t believe in that kind of luck. One of the Forsaken would not be captured so easily. She’d probably known about the attack in the first place.

That left the three names on the list in front of Egwene. Nalasia Mer-han, a Brown; Teramina, a Green; and Jamilila Norsish, a Red. All were very weak in the Power. And the women on this list had all been in the Tower for years. It seemed implausible that Mesaana had been impersonating one of them and doing it so well that her subterfuge hadn’t been noticed.

Egwene had a feeling. A premonition, perhaps. At the very least, a fear. These three names were the only ones who could have been the Forsaken. But none of them fit, not at all. That gave her a chill. Was Mesaana still hiding in the Tower?