Chapter 48: The Blight

Ingtar and a hundred lances escort the party from Fal Dara to the border of Malkier, where Moiraine leads them north into the Blight. The corruption worsens with every mile—diseased leaves, rotting flowers, stifling heat and the stench of decay—while Lan warns of deadly creatures like the Stick that lurk among the foliage.

At sunset they camp on a hill overlooking a network of lakes, where the shattered remnants of seven towers rise in the distance—the ruins of Malkier. Moiraine bends light to hide them and sets guarding wards, and Egwene eagerly speaks of going to Tar Valon, even proposing to make Rand her Warder someday.

As the others sleep, Nynaeve and Lan share a quiet exchange in which she all but asks him to be with her, and he refuses—not from lack of feeling, but because all he has to offer is a war he cannot win and the sure knowledge of a widow's grief.