
"So kind of you to sacrifice yourself, child," Leane said dryly. Elayne’s expression did not change, yet she colored furiously; few outside this room knew, and no Aes Sedai, but Nynaeve had no doubt that Elayne’s first act in Caemlyn would be to get Rand alone and kiss him within an inch of his life. "With your mother… missing… if Rand al’Thor has you, and Caemlyn, he has Andor, and the Hall won’t let him have any more of Andor than they have to, or anywhere else if they can help it. He carries Tear and Cairhien in his pocket, and the Aiel as well, it seems. Add Andor, and Murandy and Altara — with us in it — fall if he sneezes. He is growing too powerful, too fast. He might decide he doesn’t need us. With Moiraine dead, there’s no one near him we can trust."
That made Nynaeve wince. Moiraine was the Aes Sedai who had brought her and Rand out of the Two Rivers and changed their lives. Her and Rand and Egwene and Mat and Perrin. She had wanted for so long to make Moiraine pay for what she had done to them that losing her was like losing a piece of herself. But Moiraine was dead in Cairhien, taking Lanfear with her; she was fast becoming a legend among the Aes Sedai here, the only Aes Sedai to have killed one of the Forsaken, much less two. The only good thing Nynaeve could find in it, much as it shamed to find any good, was that now Lan was freed from being Moiraine’s Warder. If she could ever find him.
Siuan took up immediately where Leane left off. "We can’t afford to let the boy go sailing off with no guidance at all. Who knows what he might do? Yes, yes, I know you’re ready to argue for him, but I don’t care to hear it. I’m trying to balance a live silverpike on my nose, girl.
