Chapter 17: Choices

After killing all five approaching grolm with precise archery from the void, Rand is overwhelmed when scores more arrive from every direction. Selene guides the group confidently to a Portal Stone in a hollow below the peaks of Kinslayer's Dagger, and Rand channels saidin through it in an overwhelming, painful surge—screaming as the power fills him—successfully transporting all four of them and their horses back to the real world.

Shaken by how intensely he craved saidin during and after the channeling, Rand weighs whether the Darkfriends are ahead of them or behind. Selene then reveals that mirror worlds can reflect future events as well as past ones—reflections of what will be are fainter than reflections of what is—suggesting that Hurin's faint trail tracked where the Horn of Valere will be, not where it was, meaning Rand's party may already be ahead of Fain's Darkfriends.

Persuaded, Rand decides to make camp near where Hurin lost the trail and wait for the Darkfriends to arrive, rather than escorting Selene home to Cairhien immediately.