Chapter 21: Listen to the Wind

Nynaeve wakes alone above the Arinelle after the flight from Shadar Logoth. In the night Trollocs nearly ran her down, then sniffed the air and turned away. She tracks downriver and follows woodsmoke to a small camp where Moiraine and Lan are boiling tea.

Hidden behind a tree, she overhears Lan say that nearly a thousand Trollocs took part in the hunt and all of them, even the dead, have vanished. He cannot fathom how so many came so far south with the Ways closed and no living Aes Sedai able to Travel. Moiraine's coins tell her one of the boys is across the river and alive and two are downriver, their bond gone cold hours ago, perhaps driven toward Whitebridge by Halfmen.

Moiraine senses Nynaeve and calls her out. Listening to the wind, the unfailing weather sense, the cures that left no scar are all the One Power used unaware. The breakbone fever Nynaeve sat through as Mistress Barran's apprentice was Healed by her, and the chills that put her to bed a week later were the first reaction. Untrained women with the inborn ability usually die within a few years. Egwene has the same gift, stronger.

Moiraine rides south to reach the two boys before the Myrddraal do, judging Egwene able to find her own way to Whitebridge. Nynaeve refuses to be left and follows, telling herself she now has a weapon to use against the Aes Sedai if any of them come to harm.