Chapter 30: Daes Dae'mar

Rand, Loial, and Hurin are stranded in Cairhien, caught in the web of Daes Dae'mar at The Defender of the Dragonwall. Rand has been burning noble invitations unopened as a tactic of neutrality, but Cuale the innkeeper urgently delivers two bearing personal seals: one from King Galldrian, one from Lord Barthanes, High Seat of House Damodred. Hurin warns that insulting either will bring assassins, while accepting one will be read as an alliance against the other.

Rand devises a stall—carrying the unsealed invitations visibly through the common room for every spy to see, then walking to the gate guardhouse to ask after Ingtar and Selene. The clerk stonewalls him, and Rand catches a glimpse of Captain Caldevwin ducking away to avoid him. Loial notes that Fain and his Trollocs lurk in the Foregate, leaving no safe road out of the city.

On the walk back, Rand and Loial spot a column of black smoke above the rooftops—the inn is burning, flames breaking through the roof. Rand plunges inside and crawls through the smoke-choked hallways to find Hurin lying unconscious on the floor, struck down before the fire was set.

Loial hauls Hurin out on his back, leaving his books to burn. Rand doubles back into his own room, already a mass of flame, and snatches his saddlebags containing the banner of Lews Therin Telamon before the ceiling collapses. Outside, he discovers the chest holding the Horn of Valere is gone—stolen while the fire served as a distraction. Mat, Perrin, and Ingtar ride in from the crowd at that very moment. Rand tells them they came too late.