I heard there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall and the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

The motions of her hands were slow, hesitant. Hesitance had ensnared all of Myrth’s expressions, it would appear, for all traces of what might have been fluidity appeared to have given too wide a berth to her. She placed a pale, thin finger toward the harp’s string–a hair’s breadth from the silver wire–before drawing back. Her breaths were uneasy, uneven, and seemed lacking of all the sinuous grace of the instrument before her. She bit her lip, undecided. To be a harpist was to be akin to a riverbed, all hallmarks of decision gone from you. No, you did not pluck the notes and play the music; you were a conduit through which the music flowed. Myrth thought she should be good at being a conduit, being the path on which others strode. The river trickled through the bank and the bank did naught for it–it did not permit and it did not prevent–but the water flowed nevertheless.

Riverbank, Myrth, she told herself delicately, rousing no emotions. She could be emotionless; Myrth could be serene. It was a fine art, playing the harp, one requiring every mite of eloquence, every whit of exactness as weaving the flows of saidar. Her objective was composure and Myrth proceeded by evening her breaths into a slow, steady rhythm. All thought, all consciousness, was occupied with a tiny spot behind her navel. The trick to ignore the heat and cold as taught to all Aes Sedai appeared to work well enough for building concentration, yet it was a pity it took so much concentration to begin with.

The wetness of tears misted her vision. The harp was her outlet for her emotion; if she could not master it for what it was, would her emotions be anything more than a weight pulling away inside her skin?

Even if Myrth bastardized the thing with the arrhythmic touch of pale, slender fingers, her harp was a thing of beauty. It had been crafted by a Cairhienin and though that was no guarantee of quality . . . the piece had quality nevertheless. Overlain with gilt, the neck of the harp was swirling mess of rose and ivy, beset with tiny amethyst gems. It stole her breath, seeming all too beautiful to be touched. The soundboard, another work of gilt, was perfectly parallel with the strings. Quality indeed. It had cost her a very pretty penny–a surprising amount of her stipend–and though it was a luxury . . . well, perhaps a little luxury was a necessity? She’d thought so at the time, yet every glance she paid it in passing only reminded her of the self-indulgent harlot she was all too good at being!

Adjusting herself on the tiny stool, Myrth hid her emotions if only from herself. She was a short woman, certainly, with dark hair as long as she, and had only hoped that might somehow be an advantage in the playing of her harp. As usual, of course, that certainly had been no truth. Relaxing her back and focusing on that familiar point behind her navel, Myrth lowered her elbows, loosened her wrists and rested her right hand on the soundboard with only a cautious gentleness. “So far,” she murmured, adjusting her positioning just so, “so good.” She eased the stool forward a mite. She could do this. “And now. . . .” She played.

Her tiniest finger was the only one that did not touch the strings as she played. As she did, however, Myrth was fluidity embodied. Her hands felt as though caught on eddies, curling tendrils of air . . . before falling rigid so that her hand strummed the wire with an unnecessarily loud twang. It was an unpleasant sound with an equally unpleasant reverberation and she hastily held the wire stiff, checking rapidly for any signs of damage. She couldn’t have ruined it already! The silver wire appeared fine and none of neck’s gilt seemed to have flaked away.

The harp was fine. It was undamaged. She’d done nothing wrong.

And there, the tears caught up to Myrth insofar that she found herself caught in a downpour.

She felt like a fool to weep over something so insignificant, for such a thing that had never even happened. Light, what was this that was eating away at her nerves, putting her so readily on her emotional precipice?

Giving a final, shuddering sob that allowed her tears to abate, Myrth knew the answer to a question she ought not have asked. It was Salven. It was Adriel. A morning had pushed herself to her limit this time, seeing them in passing, stealing a kiss from either when they thought nobody was looking. Oh, for the sake of the Light and all beneath, she only hoped nobody was. But for how long could such a sordid thing continue? It was there, hanging over the three of them like some vile, horrible archway. How long before the marble grew checked and crumbled? How long before the keystone gave way? Her emotions were strong for each man and they knew it–oh, Light, they knew it as well! Perhaps that was the worst of it. Neither man pushed Myrth; neither seemed to want to goad a decision out of her. They simply abided by it, showing so much more patience than she’d ever expected of anyone in the whole of the world.

Myrth sighed. This ordeal . . . it was making her positively miserable! If she’d learned anything, it was that no one was a bottomless wellspring of patience, men perhaps least of all. Adriel and Salven seemed amicable to one another, true. How long before they reared their heads and turned on one another? How long before they turned on her?

Salven was her lover in name–though Myrth knew as well as she knew herself, knew as well as she knew the sky bore clouds and the grasses grew tall, that she did not love Salven. It seemed sometimes as though the entirety of the world would be easier if she could love him, but something about the curly-locked servant precluded her from opening up. Nevertheless, Salven represented the person she herself wanted to be. Spring was the epitome of optimism and Myrth longed to call herself a ceaseless optimist. Salven had the penchant to bring laughter from tears, to bring joy with his every step. It was that joy she felt when she was with him, though a joy that was leagues apart from what was love.

Adriel . . . their past was lengthy, reaching long years back into the span of time. Light, but she’d met the man as a novice! Oh, she’d be painting herself the liar to claim that he’d been the only one of the pair to bandy cruelty about. I was cruel as well. Yet that did not excuse what he’d done, what he’d said . . . the man had been embarrassed to be seen with her as an Accepted! The man had left the Tower to be away from her as soon as he’d gained the sash! The man had taught himself Compulsion, if only for the sake of knowing it! Compulsion, to play upon another’s free will as though it were a fiddle, was all too close to the Shadow for her to not despise it with every whit of her being.

“But Adriel was my first friend,” she murmured. Even before Rilain, her brother, had come to the Tower, Adriel had been her friend. Adriel had been her only friend. Would she be an Aes Sedai without his aid, both as a teacher and an emotional crutch?

She loved Adriel, yet she could not like him. She liked Salven, but she couldn’t bring herself to love them.

What was this twisted game the fates were playing with her, anyway?

And leaving no spare thought to break her rhythm, Myrth fell into position and began again with the harp. It was a fluent segue. Salven’s grinning, apple-cheeked face, his chestnut locks bobbing idly . . . Adriel and his smooth, pale cheeks, and blue eyes so hauntingly pale . . . may the Creator strike her down for doing this to them. She was horrible.

Myrth knew not how long the gentle notes of her harp played out . . . it was a sweetened tune, spilling too much joy into sadness and raising sadness on high from what was joy. It invoked memories of her childhood; Myrth always had known this song, an unnamed ballad from times long ago. She’d never understood what it was to be bittersweet before she’d lain eyes upon Adriel al’Tanthe and Salven Imerad.

The music carried her to a faraway place, one bereft of men and worries, one of joy and innocence and all for which Myrth longed. And even still, without one or the other, this world was as thin as vellum. They made it something more. Delicately strumming the final note with her second finger, her weak finger, Myrth rose, wiping tears from her vision. She was getting better at this therapy.

Myrth strode to the door without her shawl; to leave the sanctity of her chambers was to leave herself bare and exposed for the whole world’s speculation, to be nude and under the eyes of what seemed to her as millions. The shawl clothed her, in a way, imposing all the dignity of an Aes Sedai upon her shoulders. Nevertheless, it was an uncomfortable burden upon her head, the fabric twisting every which way as it pleased and causing her scalp to itch as though afire. Oft it very nearly slid right off her head. Wouldn’t that be something for a class of novices to witness of its teacher? And so, unless there was some very ceremonious need, Myrth was one of the majority of the sisters who went without it.

Closing the door behind her with a soft click of the latch, Myrth strode the hallways with a strict initiative. There was no room for Myrth to tarry: sling in hand, Myrth would tackle this proverbial beast, taking it down by its very head. And for this she needed her brother.

There was no great length to walk indeed for the Green Ajah Wing was on the same floor as the Yellow, which made for a convenience. One flamboyant set of halls emptied smoothly into another, with tapestries of notable medics and paintings of herbs giving way to hanging weapons, if only there for display, and depictions of slaughtered Trollocs.

“Leeuwarden?” she said, peering at the tall Green in passing. He raised his nose and gave her a rather genteel look, flourishing his cloak much the same as a gleeman would. Myrth had always supposed Leeuwarden Mekashi had been a gleeman in a past life, if not the life before his coming to the Tower. “Rilain . . . do you know where he might be? If you’d be so kind, of course.” Leeuwarden was stronger than she was in the Power, if not by much, and so a small amount of deference was required.

The man laughed jovially. “Out of luck again, m’dear . . . your brother’s in Kandor today, unfortunately.” Myrth tried not to frown, but only yesterday had Rilain been in Saldaea and the day before in Kandor again. “Yes, well, it’s not unusual for a Green to spend so much time out of the Tower,” he said, reading her poorly-hid emotions well, “especially not one with such eagerness and combative talent as your brother. No doubt his cache of Talents will be put to some fair use. You ought to be proud. Good day, Myrth.” And he continued on his way. Myrth swallowed uncomfortably, forcing herself aware of the faces around her. Serenity was crucial.

Myrth was proud of Rilain, certainly . . . if anyone deserved to be given such an impressive range of missions, it was her brother. Rilain’s Talents, unsurfaced until his latter years as an Accepted–Aligning the Matrix and the skill of making ter’angreal–could indeed be put to some use by the Greens. Still, though, even as a grown woman, she needed his advice. She needed him and perhaps even more than his entire Ajah. Certainly more.

Though I’ll never walk if I rely on a crutch. It was a humourless thought if any warranted the title, though Myrth would not shy from the truth. To rely on her brother now for a listening ear, to lift her after every fall, would be the dastard’s way to play the game. This was not Snakes and Foxes; she would not cheat herself. There was an ugly behemoth before her, but armed with sling in hand, Myrth could fight such a proverbial beast. She’d not shy away from any of this!

And it was this fuelling notion that carried Myrth down staircase after staircase, lower down the labyrinthine passages of the White Tower. Few Aes Sedai, excluding perhaps the Mistress of Novices and her assistant, had cause enough to enter the Kitchens. Myrth considered herself no taskmistress and would not put these servants through their paces if only to take some joy in it. It was a narrow hallway, a tiny streamlet, branching off from the Kitchens. The walls were unadorned and white, perhaps checked here or there, with a sterile stone floor beneath the walker’s feet. She had Salven’s daily agenda memorized as well as she did her own and so late in the afternoon as it was, Myrth knew where he’d been, would be and was right now.

Myrth pushed open the door to a tiny, even stygian room, all of flat grey stone. Salven sat in the middle of it upon an upturned bucket, hands submerged in sudsy water, laundering some sort of garment. She could just barely spy the banded hems of an Accepted’s dress poke up through the froth. Salven was on his feet in an instant, bounding up to greet her with a boyish sort of enthusiasm. A wide grin curved across his face; Light, but the man was pretty!

“Salven,” she said, though she found saying anything further was an impossibility through his kiss. When they drew back, she smiled. “I played my harp today.” Her cheeks prickled. What sort of bloody stupid thing to say was that?

Salven’s smile held, if now slightly thin. “That’s great, Myrth.”

The silence hanging between them was awkward though she did not expect it to be anything else. She wanted to sigh aloud. Salven didn’t really care for music, did he?

“Listen, I know . . . I know you’re busy. I should be as well, I suppose. But . . . can we talk? I mean, really talk. Later? Alone?” And he just stared at her. He just stared! What about that had made him so silent in all suddenness? Light! If the man didn’t break the silence, she felt awfully tempted to break his limbs. Not that she would, of course, even if she had been the violent type, but that certainly didn’t assuage the fact that he just gaped openly at her!

“Of course, Myrth,” he said. “I won’t have a moment to spare for myself for a while yet–”

“Which is fine,” she said breathlessly. “Tonight in your rooms, then, where we ought not be interrupted.”

They met for a kiss again, though it seemed so . . . watered? Emotionless? Passionless? She did not know exactly what she was going to say to Salven but she wanted a chance to talk nevertheless. Away from prying eyes. Maybe if she tried opening up to him, tried exposing to Salven her psyche, it all would come easier. Myrth knew she had to learn how to talk to the man. She departed, trying to sort out what she’d say to him tonight. It was all too perplexing, all too confusing for her. All too much.

Deciding that what would happen would happen, Myrth made for her chambers. If never again, Myrth would get use out of that harp now.

The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you
And she tied you to her kitchen chair
And she broke your throne and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

The brass stand lamps flickered softly, breathing off a dim, perhaps even frail glow hallmarked by hours of laboured burning. A night sky had descended upon the Tower or the Tower had ascended to meet the night; Salven Imerad cared little for trifling matters. The walls had become swathed in shadows, dancing figures of light and night that leaped here and beyond. Scraping the tin bucket for its last remnants of water, Salven carefully drew the ladle over the crackling flames. Tilting his hand with the slightest of motions, Salven looked on as water splashed forth and steam erupted. The lamp hissed reproachfully though that was worth little importance. It was soused. He smiled in satisfaction.

The novices and Accepted would be in their beds but likely only under the facade of sleep. He himself had once been a novice. He sometimes wondered with an idle grin–for there was little else to do while laundering linens than to wonder as you worked–if the Aes Sedai knew as much of their own initiates as they thought they did. Oh, the archetypal Aes Sedai was a knower-of-all–as Salven had thought before coming to the Tower. They had senses of humour, too! They could laugh; they could weep; they were people!

The hall had taken on a sudden chill for the world was showing all signs of winter as could be expected for such a hapless season. He did not much care for the silence but the silence was there, for the Aes Sedai had their Power to stop outside sound from reaching their inside halls. Those weaves remained spared from a test of their strength; the world outside was a dark abysm. It was serene. It was placid.

Serene, placid–until a soundless maelstrom stirred outside, a sudden bout of chaos, a sudden rage of the whitest snow and the palest ice born out of silence. The windows shook dangerously in their steel casings, an omen of work to be done. Three past winters had Salven withstood within the Tower and such harsh winds always had whispered foreshadows of shattered glass and broken vases, of upturned bins and scattered papers. He was a servant: a faceless, nameless prop of the White Tower. He leaned back to the wall with an ironic smirk. Winter brought an upthrust of new duties, which seemed to be the last of anything Salven needed.

And still . . . though this battered relationship with Myrth seemed to be spiralling, them both seeming only able to hang on by the skin of their teeth, the air most certainly was alive with change. His grin was vindicated. Salven could smell it.

Myrth wanted to lie with him.

Salven’s smile held steadfast. No, he supposed he could not consider himself any sort of authority on the subject . . . not in recent years, anyway. In his home nation of Ghealdan, in a forested village that’d garner no more than a speck on a map–just as easily mistaken for a mote of dust–Salven might’ve been spotted hither and yon, kissing with a red-cheeked young girl, but days like that had passed. His parents had sent him to Tar Valon for the Aes Sedai to make something of him and they’d made of him a novice. When that novice was too weak in the Power to continue being a novice, the Aes Sedai had made of him a servant.

It was a job he’d held all too long here, much like a pair of britches, darned and darned again, of which he’d long-since grown out. He’d already earned himself enough pay to travel to any part of the world he wanted, perhaps buying a modest home. In fact, Salven likely would already have left . . . if not for Myrth. The woman was the only thing keeping him here. She had bound him to that pair of britches, her ties as strong as heartstone. For now, so long as Myrth was at his side, Salven would remain a servant.

Or a fool, he supposed with a bark of laughter. What sort of fool did it take to get himself tangled in the romantic interest of an Aes Sedai, anyway? He outright laughed right there, the earless hallway laughing back its echoes. Fool indeed, for not only had he gotten himself involved in the predicaments of an Aes Sedai, but rather two. Two Aes Sedai. He was the lowly servant.

His lips tightened and his grip grew taut over the bucket’s wire handle. Salven could make jokes; Light, he was good at making jokes. It was fantastic making Myrth laugh at some of them, the woman seeming as though her innards would tear apart. Still, what good were jokes when you were no Aes Sedai? He sometimes wondered if Myrth thought him stupid. Adriel was an Aes Sedai. Salven respected him, sure, and Adriel was prompt in handing it back, yet the man was practically a scholar. He was a Brown. How could Myrth care at all for Salven compared to him?

She does, he tried to assure himself. Myrth had to. She wanted to lie with him, after al. Oh, Myrth had not come out and said it, but he did not think she had to. She hardly seemed able to string together whole sentences sometimes . . . and what else could she have wanted to speak to him in private about that could not have been said right there? Alone as he worked?

He’d be a fool not to think it.

It was all the needed confirmation. He’d thought she would choose him . . . hoped . . . and she had. He had his proof. And the smile returned again, in full force. Salven could sing!

Though he didn’t, of course, as few Aes Sedai would care for a singing servant, especially one traipsing about so late in the evening. He did whistle, however, and there was an unquestionably distinct kick to his step. His chestnut curls bobbed with his every step, emulating all that he felt. He’d already made the preparations. Heartleaf tea, sent up by himself earlier in the evening–he had no use for a servant to do his bidding–was awaiting her in his quarters. Something of the importance of contraception could not be forgotten.

Salven was hasty in the finishing of his duties: armed with his ladle, he emptied out the last contents on the final few stand lamps, their crepitations replaced by further hissing. He truly was skipping through blackness. The snows waging their hostilities beyond the window only heightened.

A sterile clang sounded as the bucket slammed against the stone counter-top. The Kitchens were dim and the fires but frail embers, their spits empty of the fowl that had been turning mere hours prior. Laras ushered the last few servants out, hampering a yawn herself. Salven hung back, his breath bated in anticipation. He waited until he was alone.

And when he was, Salven climbed the narrow stairway with none at his side. And his feet ghosted softly over the lacquered floors, the very tips of his fingers and the fore of his palm just barely sliding across what swells of plaster adorned the walls. And his breath was bated. And his heartbeat grew rapid. And when he reached the end of the hall, and when his outstretched hand fingered the brass nob . . . and when they did, he opened the door, and if the door opened up to him, Salven never was sure.

But it was Myrth standing on the opposite side of the door, peering at him in muted shock. She was quick to flatten her expression, assuming a smile. She was backlit, the moonlight threading silver through the ends of her hair, smoothing imperfections from her silent beauty. She was his tiny porcelain figurine. He longed, as he always did, to reach out and touch her, though did not for fear she’d shatter to fragments, the fragments then dissolving into tiny motes, the motes getting caught upon an eddy and ghosting away from him. He did not touch her for fear she’d not touch him back.

But if she wanted . . . ?

“I hope you don’t mind me letting myself in,” she said, smiling quietly. “I . . . your tea. I’m sorry. You probably wanted to drink it yourself, but my throat was dry, and . . . I’m sorry.”

She thought he’d wanted the heartleaf? He grinned. Myrth had more of a sense of humour than for what she credited herself. “It was for you,” he said softly.

Silence passed between you, the dredges of time sweeping years into their stares, Ages–until her smile broadened and she walked back to his bed, seating herself back upon it. His room, as any servant’s room might be, was tiny. A novice’s room might be rivalled by it. Even still, his bed ran sidelong before a window, silver moonlight spilling through it. The silent storm was a storm no more, though the silence remained unchanged. She gestured for him to join him, her motions seeming blurred and long-drawn in the light. Myrth made a sweeping gesture for him to join her. And he did.

“I . . . I’m here to talk with you, Salven.” Her words were quiet, yet seeming almost laboured. It never had been easy for Myrth to talk with him; that much he knew. He grinned. He could spot a lie when he was put to the task. Myrth had no interest in talking with him, did she? But . . . but Myrth was constrained by the Three Oaths! Perhaps she’s here to talk beforehand, he thought, or afterwards. Certainly not during, he hoped. “I mean, we’ve been with each other for months, haven’t we? Closer to a year. We’ve had great times, Salven, but . . . I mean, I can open to my brother. I can open up to–to other people, Salven.” He nodded, easing himself closer to her. “But never with you.”

“I knew that, too.” She seemed oddly distracted, peering at the floor . . . was she nervous? Light, he was nervous, with his stomach soaring to the moon and beyond, immixing with the stars and clouds and what lingered beyond. “Myrth, are you okay?”

She nodded, her dark eyes suddenly occupied with her hands. The woman’s eyes were almond-shaped like no Cairhienin Salven ever had met; his mother was Cairhienin and his experience was tested knowledge. He never had asked her why she had them. “My mind isn’t with me tonight, I suppose,” she sighed. “Do you think there’s something wrong with us? We’ve never . . . talked before, Salven.” Talked? A metaphor, perhaps? “And I want to, Light, I do–but the situation never seems right! I see Adriel and I know that I love him, and I see you . . . and know that it never will be easy to open myself to you like that.” But that’s why she was here, right? To ‘open herself up to him’, as she put it? She paused. “Do you think I’m . . . I’m over-thinking it? It’s just that it feels so wrong to me.”

He grinned. Oh, Light, but she really did have to be nervous. He inched ever closer to her; her eyes were misted in the moonlight, drawing on tears. Taking her chin in his hand–how her cheeks burned with warmth–he turned her gaze to him. Their eyes were interlocked, a blacksmith’s puzzle, and Salven would never let them untangle. His fear surfaced, suddenly, bubbling up as though from a sickly quagmire–would she let him touch her? But her hands clasped around his in an instant, without thought, and they remained in that consecrating limbo. Their grip held promise.

All breath within him was stolen away as their lips met, the kiss draining life from him and fuelling so much of it back. They were locked, the pieces of the puzzle fallen together, as they fell back against one another. Scent and sound, warmth and wonder . . . Salven and Myrth were a tumult spinning together, their breaths growing louder, deeper.

Her dress, grey silk as fluid as she felt, slipped down from her chest, her shoulders bared to the moonlight. Myrth’s hands felt clumsily for the fastenings of his tunic, fumbling. Making a smooth transition, leaving no time as brief the beats of their hearts, Salven undid the horn buttons and tossed his tunic thoughtlessly into the surrounding darkness, letting it gravitate to the ground. They lost all sense of time, all sense of space, all sense of logic and feeling, all sense of and reason and emotion . . . and logic and feeling . . . and reason and emotion. . . .

Immurements tangled between and around them, immurements of hair and linen. Salven braved the battle, combing past lengths of hair as tall as she. He held her in his grip, the whole of her body in his arms . . . like his tiny porcelain doll. He’d prove that he could be so gentle. Falter, fumble, and she’d fall to pieces in his hands, and Light, he’d not let that happen. He’d fear it no further!

Legs found themselves snaked and entwined into one, their shoes and stockings alike receding to expose white ankle. They grew into a shivering mass of life and lustre. Salven’s eyes jerked downward, catching a glimpse of her ankle . . . raw, puckered scars, swaddled in the fabric of a soft, silver light . . . there were many of them, pink and slashed every which way, appearing almost fresh. Almost new. He drew back to say something, to ask of what horrors had befallen her, but his tongue became further tangled within hers. Myrth groped for his belt. That she undid with almost an impossible ease, clawing for his smallclothes, and he for her shift.

And there, clad only in their skin and a moonlit sheen of perspiration, suffocated if only by their kisses, Salven and Myrth’s breaths became lost as a maelstrom of ice and snow rose again beyond the window. There was no silence to this one; to him, it deafened the world.

Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you

Baby, I've been here before
I've seen this room and I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
But love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Memory could be read like a book. One might find it worn and weathered in some places, perhaps tattered in others–possibly even torn as needed, amended of things that ought never be read again. Nonetheless, memory could be read, pored over as one would with a book. It could be analysed and scrutinized, thought over with embarrassment or plagued with what-ifs, regrets . . . but as one only could with a book of any magnitude, one must simply bear it and read. No book was as easily read all the way through, certainly, and some books were simply read with greater ease than others. Adriel was never one to question the established facts of life.

Adriel’s memory had its own share of regrets–in fact, it even could be claimed to be teeming with them. He’d choke on ashes before calling that an exaggeration. His parents had begged and bartered with him, thrown themselves to the ground and plead for the mercy of all the Light in the world . . . and yet he’d gone. The Aes Sedai had told him that training was not an option for him, but rather a necessity. They’d not stand to depart from Shol Arbela without him. Had Adriel argued? No. Had Adriel wanted to remain? Hardly. He’d forsaken his family when their most dire moment had ascended. They were vindicated in declaring anathema. And so, no sooner than a week into Adriel’s Acceptance, had he received a letter of a soft, albeit ruffled vellum. Lora, his sister–Light, his only sister–had been killed half a mile south of the Blight. She’d run away. Had Adriel been there, he’d have been able to save her. Had Adriel been there, Lora would not have died.

Some books . . . some books Adriel wanted naught more than to destroy. It would be the burden on his shoulders until the day his thread was woven from the Age Lace.

Myrth. To herself, Myrth had her own chapter in that book and without a shade of a doubt, hers was the longest. These regrets had no prologue, no epilogue, but rather ran on indefinitely like a street blurring into a heavy fog. In sooth, it all had come to slam down upon that pinnacle of bashfulness. What could not be said for embarrassment. They had been novices with one other, friendless where others had friends. They’d learned the Power, leeching off of what information they each could proffer to the other. It seemed, however, that the closer they became, the further apart Adriel only could be. One would’ve thought that after Lora . . . but he had, and now . . . and now it was late beyond what could be withstood.

Sometimes? Sometimes, Adriel felt like he wanted to tear away Myrth’s chapter. Other times? Other times, he wanted to rip away every word besides hers.

And only then did he tear himself back to reality, ripped from his woolgathering. A bell pealed out, loud and magnificent, into the Tower, the faithful gong that herded the novices and Accepted like cattle from one place of learning to the next. By no means was it an uncommon occurrence for a Brown to find his or her self unable to navigate a forest of thought, a true Haddon Mirk spawned inside one’s mind.

Adriel found himself standing, leather-bound tome in hand, upon the threshold of the Sixth Depository, the marble archway that divided the Great Library from this depository of books. Some tiny, confused part of him wondered of what significance this had. He’d grown wary of omens in past times, trying to decipher the future from his surroundings. He was Talented not only in the art of Dreamwalking but in Dreaming: to use one’s dreams to decipher what lay shrouded in the future. Light, but he was a dedicated believer in futurology; how could he not be, with the proof of foresight vested within him? Shortly after gaining the title of Aes Sedai, however . . . when he realized that he loved Myrth . . . that he loved her . . . his Talent had fallen silent. While those with the Foretelling may not find proof of their Talent more than once in the whole of their lives, Dreamers’ dreams rose regularly. How could a Talent just die from him? And likewise, Tel’aran’rhiod seemed to have barred himself from its sempiternal depths. How much of him was dying without her?

“Turn and face me, Adriel.”

He did not turn immediately. To say the voice was familiar would be to say that saidin was a difficulty to manage or that an Arafellin winter could grow nippy. The Borderlands were a wasteland of ice during winter; saidin was an absolute beast to manage; Myrth’s voice was impossibly familiar. His turn came slowly, gradually, for Adriel al’Tanthe was never a man to move in rashness. Her eyes were lustrous, shining in a sheen of fresh tears, ones that cleaved rivulets down the sides of her cheeks. She’d been weeping. Her eyes shone red, her face even unusually pallid, but there was nothing about the Myrth he watched that claimed the woman was at a weakness.

Last night. The snowstorm, the fiercest of squalls, had been birthed from silence. An omen, mayhap?

And his vision subsided to a sea of stars, of lights dancing and receding, dancing and receding, until he stabilized himself and peered at her. One hand shot to the marble arch’s side for support as the other hastened to his cheek. It burned. Myrth was sobbing before him and with a haste-ridden motion, Adriel pulled her into the Sixth Depository and closed the door in her wake. He only watched with an unhinged jaw as she stood there, weeping, and Adriel shot an eye down the shelves and around the room that composed the depository. The Light bless him. It was empty.

He watched with a nervous stare, words seeming to have been thieved from him, as Myrth’s tears all seemed to abate and drain from her. She stared at the floor, swallowing her breaths. Pacifying herself. “You’re the riverbank, Myrth,” he said, recalling the exercise as used by many a female novice. “Are you–?”

Winter was unleashed again in Myrth as her fists hammered against his chest, an unexpected outlet of snow and sleet, of rage and wrath. Her blows lacked kilter, aim seemingly tossed into the wind. He watched Myrth’s fists rain upon him in a stupor. On one prior occasion–one–had he seen her angry and never had he thought she’d tossed the lantern with any real conviction. How wrong had he been.

Adriel had been standing rigid when a crack broke the rhythm of her blows. Myrth drew herself all the way back, recoiling, and drew her hand tight to her bosom. Eyes clenched tight, teeth grating against one another, Myrth’s face was dripping pain. He’d have said she started crying if not for the tears already in fluid motion.

“Oh, bloody Light, Myrth,” he breathed, approaching her. She only fell back tighter to the arch like an injured animal, fearing the pain that could merely be disguised as aid. “You didn’t . . . your thumb goes outside the fist when you . . . well, here.” She could draw back from him no further, for the solid arch would not grant her passage through its side. His hands were indecisive, his motions uneasy, for Myrth still seemed not to want him to touch her. He seized saidin, soon remembering that Myrth could not sense this. “I’m holding the One Power, Myrth.” Adriel felt obligated to tell her this, to let her know. He’d not let her think he was deceitful.

Channeling threads of Fire, Earth and Spirit–red, green and white, a medley that spoke sans truth of festive times–Adriel gracelessly wove them into the form of Healing.

“Are you going to . . . no! I can . . . myself. I don’t want anything more from you. Myself, Adriel.”

“I’ll pretend the Yellow in front of me isn’t implying that she can Heal herself,” he said in wry humour. True, Healing was a great strength of Myrth, not him, but he thought he could Heal a bone. So small a bone, too, and it might not even have really broken. Directing the weave at her hand, hidden just barely behind the stopgap refuge of her opposite palm, Adriel Healed her. Myrth’s convulsion was hardly more than a flicker of shock in dark, almond-shaped eyes, but there. And so it had worked.

She peered at her hand, at slim, tiny fingers, at alabaster skin and gossamer nails. “You wouldn’t have done that for me, Adriel, if you’d known what I’d done.”

“What you–?”

“What you let me do!” She was the salvo again, the onslaught of attacks, face wrenched in emotion and arms beating against his chest. “How could you? How could you! You told me you loved me, Adriel; you kissed me and told me how you loved me!”

”Myrth!” Coils of saidin bound her hands together to his chest as she peered up at him helplessly, ruthlessly, seemingly able to convey a millpond of emotions in a single, fleeting flash of eyes. He could hardly even discern which he preferred more: the rain of fists or her silent, agonizing stare. “What in the Pit of Doom are you talking about? What happened?”

“I was with him last night.” Her stare was level, silent. “I was with him, Adriel. I was with Salven. To whatever you’re thinking . . . yes. I was with him.”

Saidin left him. He hardly could register emotion, his head swimming down somewhere in his torso, but saidin did leave him. The One Power’s exhilaration, the Void’s numbness . . . it all left him, baring him to the coldness of the world. Why, then, did his breath not mist before him?

There was a fluid segue between her words and his, between what Myrth said and what he said to her in reply.

“I never said I loved you.”

He hadn’t, yet he did for all the Light of the world.

She’d never been good at keeping serenity. Myrth’s face broke. Her tiny smile, her glistering eyes–they seemed to have broken away as she peered at him in wide-eyed horror. In pain.

“Adriel,” she said, her voice quavering dangerously. She appeared to be trying to swallow down the warble, to swallow all the words she wanted to lob at him. Quiet she was, though that said nothing for serenity. “We stood at the top of the staircase together. You kissed me, Adriel, and then said you understood how I was torn. And there, Adriel, you told me–bound by the First Oath!–you told me that you would fight for me. You told me you’d fight Salven for me. Where’d your spirit go, Adriel al’Tanthe?”

Myrth had . . . been . . . with Salven, but the blame had been thrust in his own clutches. Had she not wanted to, then? No. If Myrth felt for Salven a fifth of what Adriel felt for her, then Myrth would have done so without thought. If Myrth did not feel for Salven that fifth of what Adriel felt for her, then Adriel would have done so with Myrth without thought. These were the sad basics of their being.

He shook his head, vowing not to let his eyes meet hers. He’d mastered an Aes Sedai’s placidity before even gaining the sash, yet Adriel knew the limits of his abilities, and knew a simple glance would betray the whole of the truth. “How often have we been here before? This isn’t the first time we’ve exchanged words, Myrth. We’ve never been entirely truthful, have we? We’ve never been entirely honest? I fell in love with you, Myrth, but now . . . Myrth. I’m sick of it. I’m sick of ambiguity, I’m sick of wondering, I’m sick of tender moments alone atop staircases only to have you try to beat my chest in beneath a marble arch. I don’t want to be hated anymore. I don’t want to someday have to hate you, too.”

Laughter sounded in the great yonder, the unstifled giggling from floors below them of novices. Only novices would giggle so idly. They’d be studying–or under such a façade, for likely their minds were steadfast in the moment. Such laughter could only speak of novices who were so far from their studies, so far from the past or the future, that they knew naught but the present. That once had been Adriel and Myrth. The years were slowly killing them.

“And that’s the truth?” He pictured Myrth in his mind’s eye, eyes wide and pleading that this be some twisted joke. Imagination could never be as vibrant as reality, however, and that was why Adriel did not meet her gaze. “And that’s it? You don’t care for me?”

He’d never said that. He didn’t mean it, either; Light, he loved her. So long as she was with Salven, however, nothing could be made of them. Adriel could not endure this horrible limbo. If the fates had placed Myrth in Salven’s hands–and this proof undeniable–then Adriel would not fight with what was to be. He’d not fight with this.

He’d flex and fold the First Oath for all the life within him! He’d dance around unspoken lies until his bones became dust! “All that I said, Myrth,” Adriel murmured, “was the truth.”

“I believe you.”

There was no drawn farewell. No final caress. No parting kiss. Nothing of any sort. Myrth Vendedd, Aes Sedai of the Yellow Ajah, and the first woman Adriel had ever loved, turned and parted ways. She departed, skirts swishing methodically. She left him standing there on the threshold of the Sixth Depository, but he knew that was wrong. The number. It was all wrong.

Adriel turned, hastening himself away from the marble arch. He seemed only to remember then that he still held the leather-bound tome in his head, that he’d even propped himself up with it. Had he even been paying attention?

The Brown turned to the shelf and placed the book between two thinner volumes. Even with his love for her, Adriel’s eyes misted with the onset of tears. He wept.

But love is not a victory march