Chapter 42: Falme

In Falme, Nynaeve and Elayne watch the damane quarters from an alley, posing as country women in sheepskin coats. They are almost out of money, and Elayne has just stolen apples from a cart, using a trickle of the Power to topple the melons beside it. Nynaeve scolds her. A single channeling weeks earlier brought a three-day Seanchan search of the town. In the crowd Nynaeve glimpses a bony, big-nosed man in a Seanchan bronze robe she thinks might be Padan Fain, then loses him.

Nynaeve has been quietly probing an a'dam collar and believes she is close to working out how it opens. The difficulty is not the lock. The damane she last tested raised the alarm herself.

In a cramped room above the gardens, Egwene keeps Renna in sight through the window while she tries, sweating and sickened, to channel against the collar. Min arrives for her weekly visit in a green Seanchan dress. The matron Mulaen burned her coat and breeches for not fitting a Seanchan rank. Min has found a ship captain ready to sail without permission.

Egwene thinks it is too late. Renna has discovered she has an affinity for Earth, rare among damane: blindfolded she can pick out iron and copper ore, and outside town she pointed to a disused mine through overgrown ground. In a few days a ship will carry her alone to Seanchan, to be presented at the Court of the Nine Moons. The a'dam's conditioning has deepened to match. When Egwene reaches for Min's knife her arm cramps to the shoulder. Damane are not allowed near weapons, windows that open, or any way to harm themselves.

Two Aes Sedai are also collared in Falme. Egwene has spoken with one, Ryma of the Yellow Ajah, now answering to Pura, who is weeping because she is beginning to stop fighting. Egwene makes Min promise to remember both their true names.

Renna returns, feels through the bracelet that Egwene has channeled alone, and renames her Tuli. Min is sent out. Renna settles in to punish her so thoroughly that she will not disgrace a sul'dam before the Empress.