Chapter 17: Choices

Rand kills all five pursuing grolm with bow shots through the center eye, drawing on the void and feeling saidin pull at him as he shoots. The relief lasts only moments before scores more grolm answer from every direction.

Selene leads them to a Portal Stone in the hills. Pressed for time, Rand channels through it, suffering through heat and light that brand his hand and tear a scream from him before the world flickers and they arrive in the real Kinslayer's Dagger, the Stone here long fallen and weathered. Shaken by how badly he wanted to keep drinking in the light, Rand asks Selene to tell no one.

Selene suggests the mirror world's faint trail reflected where the Darkfriends will be, not where they have been, meaning Rand's party may now be ahead of Fain. Rather than escort her on to Cairhien, Rand agrees to camp near where Hurin lost the trail and wait for the Horn to come to them.