Chapter 51: Against the Shadow

Rand flees Aginor across the hills near the Eye of the World until a sheer cliff cuts him off. Aginor catches up and decides to take the power he senses for himself rather than deliver Rand to Shayol Ghul.

Rand sees a glowing cord of light running from Aginor to a distant source. A strand drifts to him, and the two struggle for it inside the void. Aginor burns from within and dies.

Rand finds himself at Tarwin's Gap in the middle of a battle, the Shienaran army outmatched by a vast Trolloc host. Filled with the Light, he calls lightning down on the Draghkar, then sweeps fire and a rolling wall of earth through the Trollocs, breaking the army. A voice tells him the end is not here, and steps rise through darkness to Ba'alzamon's chamber.

Ba'alzamon offers him power if he kneels, and claims to have set every step of his life. Rand denies him. Ba'alzamon conjures Egwene and Nynaeve, then Rand's mother Kari al'Thor, and lets Fades tear at her.

A sword of Light forms in Rand's hand. He burns the Fades away, hears his mother's thanks, severs Ba'alzamon's black cord, and drives the Light through him. The chamber shatters, and Rand falls through blackness with Ba'alzamon's howl fading behind him.