Chapter 8: The Dragon Reborn

Lan walks Rand to the Amyrlin Seat's chambers in Fal Dara. The Amyrlin tells him Mat will die unless the dagger is recovered, and offers him a place riding south with Ingtar to hunt the Horn. Then she names why she summoned him: he can channel, and he is the Dragon Reborn. Moiraine recounts how Gitara Moroso had a Foretelling on the morning the Aiel War ended, of a child born on the slopes of Dragonmount, and how she has searched twenty years since. She also reveals that Tam was a blademaster, Second Captain of the Companions of Illian, who came back to the Two Rivers after the war with an outlander wife and an infant boy. Rand's void shatters under Tam's remembered fever-words. He refuses to be a false Dragon on a Tar Valon leash, but agrees to ride with Ingtar.

Nynaeve listens to a storm she cannot place: clear sky, but the wind warns of a tempest somewhere beyond her reach. Hunting for Rand, she finds Lan instead. He presses the signet ring of the Malkieri kings into her hand and tells her it will buy guestright and aid from any lord in the Borderlands, and bring him to her if she sends it. He calls her mashiara—beloved, and lost. Moiraine appears once he is gone and lets Nynaeve know she has long known Nynaeve can channel, and that Nynaeve will come to Tar Valon whether she likes it or not. Nynaeve closes her hand on the ring and swears to learn enough to pull Moiraine down.

Egwene packs for the road. Nynaeve tells her to stop calling her Wisdom now that they are both women a long way from home. Word comes that Rand is at the women's apartments, sword on his hip and shouting for Egwene from the door. She walks him down the hall. He will not say what the Amyrlin wanted, only that he is done with Aes Sedai and will not be used. He warns her that the next time they meet she may want to gentle him, and asks her not to choose the Red Ajah. She holds him and promises to find a way to help. He murmurs that he loves her, then walks away.