Chapter Text
“Nynaeve!” Egwene sobs, screaming as loudly as her smoke- and exertion-ravaged throat would allow. “Oh Light, Nynaeve— please, Light, NYNAEVE!”
Egwene crawls and stumbles through rubble, blood dripping into her eyes and blurring her surroundings. She follows the bright lights trailing across buildings and through the sky and ground like veins of life itself, praying it will lead her to her closest friend, her mentor, her— no. She can’t think about this right now. She has to find her. She will find her.
A horned beast notices her as she tries to drag Master Luhhan under one of the raised houses near the river, so she hides Luhhan and weaves quickly between buildings and down alleyways to draw it away from her people. Egwene may be looking for Nynaeve, but a Wisdom’s first duty is to her people, and Nynaeve would want her to help whoever might need it before she ever helped herself.
The veins of light pulse with the pounding in her ears, and she knows beyond a doubt that she must follow as they arc through her very soul. Someone important and powerful is calling to her.
As she weaves between her traumatised neighbours, Egwene’s heart beats out of her chest, the screams and soul-wrenching crying foretelling the loss she begs she herself won’t have to suffer. Finally, Egwene reaches the village square and completely deflates while simultaneously gasping in awe. The Aes Sedai stranger who has been tracking her for the past week is calling those veins of light towards her, shifting and bending and thrusting pure power out into weapons used against whatever these foul creatures are that are destroying her peaceful town. Her male companion — an actual Warder? — guards Moiraine’s back, cutting down beast after beast like stocks of wheat, and she begins to glow, pulling more and more light from everyone and everything.
Moiraine makes eye contact with Egwene, some sort of message hidden in her gaze before she breaks it to release the mass of power she has accumulated in a big wave. Egwene has only a second to bring her arms in an X in front of her face and chest and plant her feet as a scorching hot wind blows back her braid and whips at her skirts, blinding powerful strikes shaking the ground and piercing behind her eyelids. Once the torrent abates, Egwene loosens her stance, looking up from behind her slowly lowering arms to find complete destruction of the town square, from destroyed buildings to upturned earth, and the mass of creatures that had been gathering ready to charge the Aes Sedai were simply… gone. Egwene looked down at herself, checking for damage, but found only windswept skirts and nearly every hair strand falling from her newly minted braid.
And a perfect circle of ground arcing back ten feet to encircle a cart that had people sheltering and crying in, under, and behind it. With Egwene at the centre. Crumbled stone, gore, and smoking ruins surround her on all sides except for the feet directly around her. The Aes Sedai had protected them— what if Moiraine hadn’t seen her enter the square? Would she have truly allowed her and these people to be hurt? Or did she just not see them until Egwene entered?
Egwene allows herself only a moment to settle, to assure herself she was breathing, none of the bodies around her are her friends, and that Moiraine and Lan survived the blast. They had, but Lan was holding Moiraine protectively on the ground, trying to scan both his bonded and his surroundings. As Egwene starts to see a faint green and purple roped light build and trail faintly towards the Mountains of Mist, snaking under and out of the ground, she finally understands the lights must be the One Power if Moiraine is able to wield them. She can work with that. The lights lead straight past Lan, so as she begins to sprint across the square, she slows to check-in.
“Will she be ok?” Egwene rasps, noticing Lan eyeing her warily and pulling Moiraine’s exhausted-looking form closer to his chest. He looked dirty and perhaps a little tired but otherwise unharmed. Nynaeve would be proud of her quick assessments of people’s well-being if— when— she finally finds her.
Lan nods. “She was hit with a Trolloc blade early in the battle but did not want to leave your town defenseless. She nearly drew too much of the One Power, so she just needs rest and a healer. Where is your Wisdom?”
Egwene gulps and tries to breathe to stave off the growing nausea and dizziness that were trying to overtake her. She doesn’t have time for this. She goes to turn towards the slowly fading lights, as if they trail off the further they get from their source. “She was taken, but I can follow her. I can find her. I, I see her trail. I just have to—” A strong arm wraps around her shoulder as she realises she was swaying precariously too far to the left; she jumps from the contact, adrenaline spiking again until she sees Lan’s strong chin tipped towards her, catching her eyes as he catches all of her weight against his solid frame.
“Egwene, right?” She nods. “Your Wisdom is probably in a Trolloc nest, which is dangerous even for trained wielders and their Warders. You cannot go alone, and you definitely cannot go in this state.” Egwene starts shaking her head. No. No. We’re not leaving her. No — she won’t do it.
“We won’t. We won’t leave her, but we need proper reinforcements, and you and I will not be enough. We would just join her in her death.” She must have spoken aloud. Light, her head was pounding. Why can she not think? Where is Nynaeve? Light twinkles at the edge of her vision, and that feels important, but she doesn’t see anything when she turns.
Lan has gently guided her back to where Moiraine leans against the now burnt remains of the Men’s Tree that had once bloomed with shining golden leaves and massive pink and white blossoms year-round. Egwene wonders idly where the ribboned wishes from the branches drifted off to and whether the bottled fireflies and lanterns that had adorned the branches beside had gone up quickly or burned slowly with the tree. Lan leans fully against the thick, charred trunk while Egwene and Moiraine silently slouch side-by-side at its base, their hands less interlocked and more haphazardly resting on each other, with the roots comfortingly encaging her so she does not fall over.
“The Wisdom would be proud of you, Egwene,” Moiraine suddenly rasps from beside her, somehow still sounding melodious. Egwene only side-eyed her, confused— she hadn’t the strength to turn her head properly. Moiraine chuckles quietly, “You not only saved multiple people in what should have been the scariest moment of your life, even putting off going after your friend to take care of your people like a true Wisdom, but you also shielded yourself and all those in that wagon when I released the blast. Where did you learn to do such a thing?”
Moiraine was looking at her with a muted sense of awe and suspicion, but Egwene was not a wielder, just a Wisdom-in-training, and she hadn’t even told Nynaeve that she’d accepted the position. And to shield a pure blast of One Power from a full-fledged Aes Sedai would be nowhere near her capabilities even if she could wield, as it would’ve been her first time.
Dawn began to break, and the people of the Two Rivers slowly crawled from their hiding spaces. Those that had fought came around buildings and out of alleyways with dripping makeshift or dull weapons, either still on alert or staring glassy-eyed around at the destruction in the square. Egwene’s father crawled out from the rubble of their Inn with her mother’s help, looking mostly unharmed, and began slowly directing others to form provisional healer’s quarters with growing rows and rows of wounded or dead. She noticed her mother had been almost entirely covered in ash and dark blood--- of course her mother had been amongst the fighters. Egwene just sat there, letting the warmth of Lan on one side and Moiraine on the other seep into her shaking and freezing bones, trying to draw some sort of strength from the ground itself and even a little from her companions if they were willing to give it.
She would give herself a few more minutes of rest, enough for the world to stop swimming in and out, and then she would get to work aiding the wounded. Egwene would need to find Perrin and Mat, whose sisters were probably scarred for life, though she couldn’t say the rest of them would fare much better on that front. Rand was luckily far from town and safe from the attack. She could see a tiny plume of smoke rising from the direction of his cabin and prayed he wouldn’t have heard the attack and tried to come down the mountain to save them. She prayed he was safe. That they were all safe.
Egwene just needed a moment. One moment, then she’d get to work.