Chapter 52: There Is Neither Beginning Nor End

Rand wakes amid Aginor's ashes and staggers back to the great oak marking the Green Man's grave, where Egwene, Nynaeve, and a battered Moiraine are waiting. Egwene flinches when he reaches for her, then throws her arms around him anyway.

Moiraine draws the full account out of him: the sword of Light, the severing of Ba'alzamon's black cord, the flames consuming him. She had suspected since the flight from Emond's Field, when Bela suddenly had the speed to outrun Mandarb. Rand reached for saidin that night without knowing it, and again at the Eye. She cannot teach him. The men who could are three thousand years dead. But he is ta'veren, and the Pattern may not be finished with him, so she will not send him to Tar Valon to be gentled. Only Lan, Nynaeve, and Egwene are to know what he is.

Lan, Loial, Mat, and Perrin return from the drained pool carrying what was hidden inside the Eye: a shattered cuendillar disc that was one of the seven seals on the Dark One's prison, the Horn of Valere in a gold and silver chest, and the banner of Lews Therin Telamon. Moiraine says the Horn must go to Illian. The Blight is already killing the Green Man's grove, and they will leave at first light.