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Chapter Text

A hesitant knock on the door made Mat sit up in bed. He eyed the door suspiciously. Surely the Aes Sedai had to be done with him by now, after all those “tests” the Reds had done to determine whether he could channel (which mostly seemed to consist of beating him up with the One Power and waiting to see if he’d fight back) and then, once the Amyrlin had intervened and figured out what was actually wrong with him, the final Healing from the dagger.

Mat shivered a little. Surely the Aes Sedai had to be done with him by now.

The knock came again, more confidently. Mat wished he had the guts to tell an Aes Sedai to fuck off. He considered pretending to be asleep, but Aes Sedai were stubborn bastards and always got their way in the end. If the knocker wanted to enter his room she was going to do it whether he gave permission or not, so he might as well just give it to maintain some façade that he had any control over his own life.

“Come in,” he said with the utmost reluctance. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe it was someone bringing him food.

The door opened, and a woman came in. No food in sight, Mat noted in disappointment. Then he took a closer look at the woman and was surprised to see that she was young, probably his own age. She was wearing a plain white dress—not an Aes Sedai, then, but someone training to be one.

The third thing he noticed about her (well, fourth, if you counted her lack of food) was that she was pretty. Extremely pretty. Mat might even go so far as to call her beautiful, and that was not a word he used lightly. The only other person he’d ever met who was truly deserving of it was Rand.

Rand. His shoulders slumped, that familiar guilt and regret washing over him, and a longing so sharp it made his heart ache.

This girl’s hair reminded him of Rand’s. It was more gold and less red than his, but Mat had never seen anyone else with a color even close. Rand’s hair was like fire, and hers like…the sun, he decided.

The girl shut the door and smiled at him. “Hello,” she said.

“Who are you?” Mat asked.

“My name is Elayne. I’m a Novice,” she said. “What’s your name?”

Mat narrowed his eyes. If she’d been sent here on an errand, surely she would have at least known his name. What was she up to? She looked harmless, even friendly, but Mat knew all too well how deceiving appearances could be when it came to Aes Sedai.

He glanced at her hands. No ring. That put him a little more at ease. The twitch of a hand wearing a red-stoned serpent ring was permanently associated with pain in his mind.

“Mat,” he said, and left it at that. “What are you doing here? Did someone send you?”

“No. Actually, I’m not supposed to be here,” Elayne said in a conspiratorial whisper, looking thrilled to be breaking the rules. “But everyone’s been talking about you, and I wanted to see the boy who could put Elaida so on edge.”

Elaida…Mat recognized the name. A Red Aes Sedai. Though she had only come to see him with the Amyrlin, not with her fellow Reds, and had not done him any wrong. Still, he eyed Elayne a little more warily.

“I’m not a boy,” he grumbled. “And I’m not some exotic animal to be gawked at either. If you’ve finished satisfying your curiosity, Elayne” —he tested the name out, liking the feel of it on his tongue— “I would like to take a nap.”

Rather than leaving, Elayne wandered further into the room. “I won’t trouble you long. I only have a few minutes before I’ll be missed anyway,” she said. “They keep us Novices very busy. I’ve never washed so many pots in my life.” She laughed. “Well, I’d never washed a pot at all until I came here.”

Mat grunted, giving her an unimpressed look. Some spoiled noblewoman, then. Or at least, she used to be. Supposedly all Aes Sedai became equal when they entered the Tower, but even for the full sisters he’d met, he could sometimes tell who’d been highborn and who low, by the way they spoke or dressed or carried themselves. And though Elayne didn’t yet have the freedom to dress as she pleased, her accent and bearing were as uppity as Mat had ever seen.

Yet, despite that, the way she smiled at him, it was hard to feel that she was looking down on him.

“Why are you here, Mat?” Elayne asked, taking a seat in the chair by the window. “We don’t see many men in the Tower, aside from Warders and servants.”

“I was sick,” he said. “Needed Healing.”

“It must have been quite some sickness, from the rumors I’ve heard.” She lowered her voice. “I heard it took ten Aes Sedai to Heal you, including the Amyrlin herself. And that they were all tired afterwards.”

“I don’t remember much of it,” Mat said, truthfully. “Why do you care so much anyway?”

Elayne shrugged. “Every day in the Tower is the same, for Novices. You’re the first excitement I’ve had since I got here,” she said. “Besides, I thought you might be lonely.”

Mat blinked at her. “Lonely?”

She nodded. “A country boy all alone in Tar Valon, far from home, very sick, shut up in the White Tower with Aes Sedai.” There was sympathy on her face, but it felt…kind, rather than condescending. “I thought you might need a friend.”

Mat gave her a bewildered look. A friend? What was she on about? Was this some kind of trick? Either she was the most naïve woman in the whole Tower, or the most cunning.

“I’m not a boy,” he said again, not sure what else to say.

“No, I see that now,” Elayne agreed. Was that an appreciative look she was giving him? Mat tried not to preen. He had less than zero interest in flirting with an Aes Sedai, of course, even a Novice, but it was nice to be noticed. It had been a long time since anyone had flirted with him, a long time since anyone had looked at him with anything other than worry or disgust or fear (or Aes Sedai coolness). Not since Dana in Breen’s Spring, before the dagger sickness had taken too strong a hold.

The thought of Dana raised goosebumps on his arms. And made him think of Rand, and there was that guilt and regret and longing again.

Something must have shown on his face, because Elayne asked, “What’s wrong?”

Mat glanced away. “Nothing.”

“You look sad.”

He looked back at her and hesitated. He certainly didn’t want to tell her anything about Moiraine and the Dragon Reborn and all of that, but…he was lonely. He missed his friends, he never should have left them. He missed Rand. He missed Rand’s warmth and kindness and comfort, missed his reassuring presence, missed his hugs and his smiles and his laugh, missed his promises that he would take care of Mat and that everything would be all right.

And…it was stupid, he knew it was, but Elayne reminded him of Rand, a little. She had that same warmth in her smile.

So he spoke. “I messed up, before I came here. I was traveling with my friends and we…got into some trouble, and I left them behind to save myself. I abandoned them,” he said, staring at his hands. “And I don’t know if they got out, if they’re all right. If I’ll ever see them again. One of them…he took care of me while I was sick. We got separated from the others for a while, and it was just the two of us, and I was so sick and he took care of me, every moment of every day, and he never complained. And I left him.” Mat’s voice shook. “He was always there when I needed him, but when he needed me, I ran.”

There were holes in his memory of the time between Shadar Logoth and Tar Valon, but he remembered the gist of it. He couldn’t remember every time Rand had protected him, every day he’d taken care of him, but enough of them to know how things had been that month they were alone. Enough of them to know that Rand had been good to him, so good, so selfless, and that Mat hadn’t deserved a moment of it.

And the look on Rand’s face when he’d turned back at the Waygate and realized Mat wasn’t following—Mat would never forget that as long as he lived, memory-holes or no.

Elayne was quiet for a moment. Mat dared to glance back up at her, expecting judgment, disapproval, but he saw nothing of the sort. “Elaida says you were possessed by an ancient evil. She says she’s never seen its like before,” she said. “She says it’s a miracle you survived at all.”

“Elaida tells you a lot of things,” Mat remarked. He didn’t know much of the White Tower’s rules, but he’d noticed that the full Aes Sedai tended to treat the Novices as if they were invisible.

“Oh, she didn’t tell me. I eavesdropped,” Elayne said matter-of-factly, and Mat couldn’t help but laugh. “My point is, if what she says is really true, then it’s not your fault that you left them, Mat. You weren’t yourself.”

Her voice was so sincere, so full of conviction. Mat wished he could believe in himself as much as she seemed to. “It is my fault,” he whispered. “It is.”

Frowning, Elayne got up from the chair and came to sit on the edge of his bed. She took his hand, and Mat was too startled to stop her. Her hand was so soft, a noblewoman’s hand, free of calluses despite all the recent pot scrubbing. It had been a long time since someone had touched Mat like this, or at least, it felt like it had been. There had been the Reds’ rough handling of him, the Amyrlin’s would-be motherly pats on the shoulder that felt like she was holding him in an iron grip, preparing to steer him in the direction that would best suit her purposes.

But no one had touched him like this since Perrin and Egwene had hugged him at the Waygate. Since Nynaeve had washed his face at the inn and promised he’d be well again soon. Since Rand had held him close after nightmares and let him cry into his shoulder, had led him by the hand on the days the dagger had made him almost too weak to walk, had curled around him protectively to keep him warm on the nights spent sleeping outside under bushes.

Elayne’s gentle, affectionate hand clasping his was almost enough to make him start crying.

He cleared his throat and blinked rapidly, and luckily she was still talking and didn’t notice. “It sounds to me like you went through a terrible ordeal with your sickness. And you would have died if you hadn’t come to the Tower,” she said. “Your friends will understand. When you find them again, you can apologize, and I’m sure they’ll forgive you. There’s no hurt a sincere apology can’t fix.”

Light, she was the most naïve woman in the Tower. “What if they don’t forgive me?” Mat said, still looking at their entwined hands. “What if he doesn’t? I left him.” He sniffled despite himself. “But I guess he probably wouldn’t even hold it against me because he’s so bloody nice and good and—and I never deserved him.” Mat could have slit Rand’s throat with that dagger, and Rand would’ve used his last breath to tell him it wasn’t his fault.

Elayne’s thumb stroked across the back of his hand. “You love him,” she said. “Don’t you? This particular friend of yours. You love him as more than a friend, I mean.”

“Yes.” The word slipped out before Mat could stop it. He bit his lip. He’d never told anyone that before, not even Perrin. And yet, he didn’t regret telling Elayne. He swallowed and said softly, “I love him, and I never told him. And now I’ll never have the chance.”

“You’ll find him again,” Elayne said with firm encouragement. “When they let you leave” —if they let him leave, Mat thought— “you’ll go find him. I’d wager he’s already looking for you. He might be on his way to the Tower right now.”

“He’s not coming to the Tower,” Mat said. “He’s probably—he’s probably dead.” His voice broke.

It was the truth he’d been trying so hard not to think about since he’d woken from his Healing. They would’ve all gone to the Eye of the World by now. They would’ve fought the Dark One, figured out who the Dragon was. And that meant that all but one of his friends must be dead. And if Rand was the one who was still alive, then that meant he’d been cursed with a fate worse than death.

Mat had saved himself, but at what cost? Maybe it would’ve been better to die with them than live with the guilt.

Elayne frowned again. “You don’t believe that,” she said.

Mat didn’t argue; he couldn’t very well explain his certainty without revealing far too much. “Even if he isn’t,” he said instead, “he wouldn’t come looking for me. He wouldn’t come all the way to the White Tower for me. Because he knows I wouldn’t have done it for him.”

“You said he took care of you on your journey,” Elayne said, and Mat nodded. “Well, then I’m sure he will come looking for you. If he took care of you for that long while you were sick, then he must love you very much. My brother and I, no matter how much we fight, we never stop loving each other. So whatever you did, I don’t think it could have made your friend stop loving you.”

Mat looked at her, speechless, trying to find a denial somewhere in all the emotions clogging his throat. But Elayne just smiled and squeezed his hand, then let go of it and stood up. “I’ve been gone too long, Sheriam’s going to box my ears,” she said, though she didn’t look all that concerned about it. “When I have the time, may I visit you again, Mat?”

“I…I’d like that,” Mat said, surprising himself by how much he meant it.

Elayne smiled at him again, practically beamed, and the room felt too empty after she’d gone.

True to her word, Elayne came to visit Mat every few days. At first only for a minute or two between chores or lessons, but the Aes Sedai caught on to her interest in him quick enough, and then, rather than being punished for nosiness, she would sometimes be given a whole hour to spend with him as part of her duties. No doubt the Amyrlin hoped she could use Elayne to spy on Mat and find out why Moiraine was interested in him and his friends.

Mat was careful not to tell Elayne anything he wouldn’t want the Amyrlin knowing, though he thought Elayne was just as much a pawn as he; if there was a scheme afoot, she didn’t appear to be in on it. She was clever and observant, but too naïve to be a spy, at least knowingly. And she genuinely seemed to like fussing over him and taking care of him. Mat didn’t mind it as much as he might have expected.

It was another thing about her that reminded him of Rand.

Elayne was curious to know more about “the boy who held his heart” (in her melodramatic words), so Mat told her a few safe things. He told her that his name was Rand, that he had hair like fire and eyes like the sky and a smile like the sun. That he was a stubborn idiot and the kindest person Mat knew. That he was tall and incredibly handsome, and incredibly unaware of it. That all the girls in the village had wanted to marry him and he’d never even noticed. That there was one girl he’d had his heart set on marrying ever since they were children, so it didn’t matter what any of the other girls felt, or what Mat felt.

That Rand would never see him as more than a friend, and for years Mat had been trying so hard to make that feel like enough.

He told her that Rand was a shepherd, that all he’d ever wanted was to have a family and grow old with them up on the mountain. That Mat wanted excitement and adventure, but he would’ve given all that up in a heartbeat to settle down with Rand if Rand had asked him to. That Rand never would ask him to. Especially not now. But whenever he got started on that, Elayne would interrupt to insist that Rand was all right and would come for Mat soon enough, with such confidence that Mat couldn’t help but believe her, just a little.

Elayne also liked hearing about Emond’s Field and the people who lived there, and Mat’s sisters especially. It hurt to dwell on them, when he had no idea if they were being looked after or whether he’d ever see them again, but at the same time he could have talked about them for hours, recounting so many tales of their silliness and mischief to Elayne, who was gratifyingly delighted by every one; she said she’d always wished to have younger siblings instead of older.

She claimed that the Two Rivers was part of the country of Andor, but Mat had never heard any such thing, and they often argued playfully about it. Eventually he wormed out of her that she was the Daughter-Heir of Andor, and her mother was its queen. Mat couldn’t say he was entirely surprised. She did seem like a princess.

“Will knowing that make you see me any differently?” Elayne asked, a little hesitantly. “Will it…make you not want to be my friend anymore?”

Mat looked at her for a moment. He had nothing but contempt for nobles, and royals were surely even worse, but the fact that Elayne didn’t expect or even want him to treat her differently because of her status said enough about her true character. He shook his head. “No,” he said, and she beamed.

Elayne confided in him that she’d never had a real friend before. Gawyn didn’t count because he was her brother, and the children of other nobles didn’t either because they all wanted something from her, they looked at her and only saw the Daughter-Heir, they didn’t see Elayne. Mat thought this was one of the saddest things he’d ever heard, and he found himself sorry to think that he would be leaving the White Tower soon (any day now, no doubt) and would never see her again.

When he’d been there a month, Elayne had a free day. “My first since I arrived,” she said excitedly. “I have the entire day to do whatever I want! No chores, no lessons, nothing!”

“Well, then, we should celebrate,” Mat said, smiling at the prospect of having Elayne to himself for a whole day. Not that—not that she would want to spend the whole day with him. And not that he wanted her to. It was just that he’d been in the Tower a month and still she was the only person here who was even remotely pleasant to be around, and her company kept his regrets and fears at bay.

Mat would’ve liked to take her out into the city—she’d confessed she’d never been in a tavern or inn before, and he thought that ought to change—but Novices weren’t allowed outside the Tower grounds, and neither of them could think of a good enough plan to smuggle her out. (Mat hadn’t been spending much time in the city either even though he was allowed; Elayne’s visits were usually impromptu, and he never wanted to stray too far from his room for fear of missing one.)

So they stayed on the grounds all day, mostly outside in the garden. They treated themselves to a longer walk than usual before settling in their favorite spot, shady and enough out of the way that they weren’t likely to be disturbed. Mat brought out his dice cup and set about teaching Elayne—her luck was good, though never as good as his. Still, her eager entreaties for “just one more round?” never faltered no matter how many times she lost. They were only betting flowers anyway.

By the time dark forced them back inside, Elayne’s losses had given Mat an entire flower crown. Mat flushed a little when she set it on his head, because in Emond’s Field a girl would put flowers in a boy’s hair to show she was interested in him, but he’d never mentioned that in any of his descriptions of life in the Two Rivers, so he knew she didn’t mean anything by the gesture.

Mat used to daydream about Rand putting flowers in his hair at Bel Tine. In the years before Rand and Egwene had officially gotten together, Mat had even let himself hope that this year, this year it really might happen, would put extra effort into his appearance the morning of just in case.

It had never occurred to him that he could put flowers in Rand’s hair. Maybe if he’d tried it…well, he probably would have gotten a punch and nothing more. But even then, it might have been nice just to know for sure that he had no chance, rather than getting his stupid hopes up every time Rand smiled at him.

Rather than having to spend the rest of his life wondering if Rand ever could have loved him, and never knowing the answer.

Mat sighed. “Wish I could’ve taken you to a tavern,” he told Elayne as they arrived at his room. “I bet you’d be fun to get drunk with. Have you ever gotten drunk?” She shook her head, looking both scandalized and excited at the suggestion, and he laughed. “Yeah, I figured.”

A mischievous gleam came into Elayne’s eyes. “Wait here,” she said.

“Not like I have anywhere else to go,” Mat pointed out as she hurried out the door.

Elayne returned some time later with—Mat’s eyes nearly fell out of his head—an entire cask of ale. Small enough that she could carry it on her own, but big enough that she struggled a little. There were two glasses balancing precariously atop it, and Mat hastened to dart over and grab them as Elayne half-placed and half-dropped the cask on the floor with a thump.

“There,” she said triumphantly. “Do you think this’ll be enough to get us both drunk?”

“Uh, yeah, this should do it,” Mat said with a grin. “How’d you manage it?”

“Well, the kitchen staff has orders to make sure you don’t want for anything during your recovery.” A sly look crossed her face. “And there’s a certain kitchen boy who’s very receptive when I flutter my eyes at him.”

Mat ignored the twisting in his stomach reminiscent of watching Egwene put flowers in Rand’s hair at Bel Tine in favor of opening the cask and filling both glasses to the brim.

It didn’t take much to get Elayne drunk, and it was just as fun as Mat had anticipated. “Do you think, hey, Mat, do you think the Amyrlin has a secret lover?” she mused, flopped out on his bed staring up at the ceiling. She’d surpassed her giggly stage and moved on to philosophizing.

“I thought she wasn’t allowed to,” said Mat, who held his drink much better and was only pleasantly tipsy.

“That’s why I said secret, silly. Do you think she does?”

Mat tried to picture the stern woman with a lover and burst out laughing. “If she did, I’d pity the poor fool. Her bed must be colder than the Mountains of Mist in winter.”

Elayne gasped and slapped his arm—or tried to, but missed most of it. “Mat! You can’t talk about the Amyrlin like that!” she said, but she was laughing as hard as he was.

“Do you think she’d make them call her ‘Mother’ in bed?” Mat got out between snickers, and that sent both of them over the edge.

After they’d recovered, Elayne’s expression grew pensive. “Have you ever kissed anyone?” she asked.

“Loads of times.”

“Women too? Or do you only like men?”

“Women too. I like anyone,” Mat said, which made Elayne’s face light up, for some reason.

“What’s it like? Kissing,” she said. “I’ve never done it.”

“I don’t know, it’s kissing,” Mat said with another laugh. “I can’t describe it.”

“Is it like—in stories they always say kissing feels like magic. Does it really?” Elayne said. “I wonder if it feels like touching the Source.”

“Magic?” Mat scoffed. “No. Doesn’t feel like that, what they say in stories. Those are just stories.”

“Maybe you just haven’t kissed the right person yet,” Elayne said stubbornly. “If you kissed Rand, I bet it’d feel like magic.”

Mat’s smile faded, and he took another sip of ale. “I did kiss him once. But it wasn’t—real,” he hastened to add when Elayne sat up straight with a gasp. “It was—we have a game back home, Kiss the Daisies. One time me and Rand had to kiss because of it. It doesn’t count as a real kiss.”

“What was it like?” Elayne said, apparently forgetting Mat had just said he didn’t know how to describe kissing.

He shrugged and took a stab at it this time. “It was…quick. Wet. He didn’t like it. Wouldn’t look at me the whole rest of the day.” It had been the best kiss of Mat’s life, though, despite also being the shortest and clumsiest.

“Then he’s a bloody woolbrained idiot,” Elayne declared. She’d been picking up some Two Rivers slang. “I’d give anything to kiss you.” Mat’s heart stopped. “You’re so handsome and funny and nice and this Rand of yours is blind if he’d rather run about with some ninny who’d rather be the Wisdom than marry him. How could he want anyone else when he could have you?”

Mat sat there frozen for only a moment before Elayne was grabbing the empty water pitcher by his bed and heaving her guts up into it. Mat snapped out of it and moved over to hold her long, beautiful hair (Light, it was even silkier than he’d imagined) out of the way, trying to slow his heartbeat with the reminder that she was drunk out of her mind right now and had no idea what she was saying. She didn’t mean any of it.

Of course she didn’t. And he wouldn’t want her to anyway. Of course he wouldn’t.

Mat saw Elayne only briefly the next day, hungover and fresh from a trip to Sheriam’s study because her hangover had not gone unnoticed. Mat felt bad for getting her into it all in the first place, but she just smiled, tired but sincere, and said she knew she’d had fun, even if she couldn’t remember most of it.

She didn’t remember. Mat knew she couldn’t have carried off this particular lie so well if she did, knew she couldn’t have met his gaze without any trace of blush or embarrassment. She truly didn’t remember.

Well. That was. That was a relief. Definitely. And Mat was never going to think about it again himself. Definitely not.

A few days later, Elayne brought him visitors.

“I met two women who’ve come for training,” she said, practically bursting with excitement. “They say they’re from Emond’s Field and they know you—”

Two women pushed past Elayne, one gently and the other impatiently, and Mat’s jaw dropped. “Egwene?” he said weakly. “Nynaeve?”

He expected them to be angry with him, to yell at him, or at the very least to lecture him. But Nynaeve’s face broke out into a broad smile, and Egwene burst into tears, and they both shot across the room and flung their arms around him.

Mat was crying too, hugging them so tightly and letting them pepper his face with kisses. “We thought we’d never see you again!” Egwene said. “We had no idea where you went, we thought you might be dead, oh, Mat, we were so worried, why did you stay behind?”

“I’m sorry,” Mat said in a quivery voice. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have left you. I was scared. I shouldn’t have left you.”

“Well, you’re safe, and we’re together again now,” Nynaeve said. “That’s what matters.”

“Where are Rand and Perrin?” Mat asked as they pulled back. “Are they all right?”

Their smiles faded, and Mat’s heart dropped into his stomach.

“Perrin…Perrin is fine,” Egwene said, lower lip wobbling. “He stayed in Fal Dara.” She darted a glance at Elayne. “Something was stolen and he stayed to help them get it back. But…”

Mat’s stomach was made of lead. “But?” he said. “Where’s Rand? Where is he, Egwene?”

Tears filled her eyes again, and she let out a sob and buried her face in his shoulder. “He’s dead,” Nynaeve said, spitting the words out with a kind of rageful grief. “He was the one Moiraine was after, and they went alone to do what needed to be done, snuck off in the night without telling us. She came back. He didn’t.”

Mat just sat there, utterly still, unable to breathe, feeling like a fist was squeezed around his heart. Rand was the Dragon. Had been. He was dead. For all these weeks Mat had told himself he must be dead, but nothing, nothing could have ever prepared him for the reality of it.

Numbly, he looked at Elayne over Egwene and Nynaeve’s shoulders. There were tears in her eyes, as if she’d lost Rand too. As if she considered Mat’s pain her own.

“Oh, Mat,” she said, voice trembling. “I’m so sorry.”

She hurried towards him and squished in next to Egwene so she could wrap her arms around him in a tight hug. Mat closed his eyes and took shallow, shaky breaths, trying to take some comfort in Elayne’s presence, the way he usually did, but he couldn’t, because she felt so much like Rand, she felt like home the way he did, and now he was gone, home was gone.

“He—he—he thought I abandoned him,” Mat choked out. “He never knew—he never knew I—” He broke off, throat closing up.

“I’m sure he knew,” Elayne said, rubbing his back. “Even if you never got to tell him, I’m sure he knew you loved him.”

Mat felt Egwene lift her head out of his shoulder, and he cracked his eyes open to see her eyebrows drawn together in a sort of wary understanding. Catching her expression, Elayne’s eyes widened, as if she was remembering what Mat had said about the girl Rand had wanted to marry.

But Mat just couldn’t bring himself to care, not now. Not when it didn’t matter anymore. Nor, it seemed, could Egwene; her face softened again and she joined Elayne in hugging Mat, kissing him on the cheek like a silent acknowledgment of their shared feelings, an unspoken acceptance of his equally-unspoken apology.

“Was he—” Mat cleared his throat. “Was he angry with me? For staying behind?”

“No,” Egwene said. “I was, but he stood up for you, said that you were selfless and generous and brave. He wasn’t angry with you. He always saw the best in you. Always.”

And the fact that Rand had still believed in him even then, at Mat’s worst—somehow that hurt more than it would’ve if Egwene had said he had been angry. Because by all rights he should’ve been, Mat deserved for him to have been. But Rand had always been so much better to him than he deserved.

Egwene let go of him and wiped her eyes. “We…we should go,” she said, voice still watery. “Sheriam Sedai only gave us a few minutes to settle in, she’ll be expecting us, and I don’t want to get into trouble on our first day.”

Mat nodded, not really listening, and Egwene and Nynaeve squeezed his hands, promised to visit him again when they could, and left. “Sheriam must be looking for you too,” Mat told Elayne, staring blankly at the opposite wall. Rand was dead. Rand was dead. “You should get back before she notices.”

“Oh, burn her,” Elayne said. “You need me, and I’m staying right here until someone comes to drag me out by force.”

For some reason, that was the thing that finally made Mat break down. He sagged against her and cried until his throat was raw, and she held him all the while, petting his hair and kissing his forehead and murmuring soothing little words he barely registered.

Eventually he’d run out of tears, but the empty ache in his heart was worse than ever. The gaping hole where Rand used to be. Mat wondered if it would ever be healed. Wondered how a person could ever possibly come back from this kind of grief. Wondered how it didn’t just eat them up from the inside until there was nothing left of them.

“I wish you could’ve met him,” Mat whispered, face pressed into Elayne’s neck, trying to absorb some of her warmth, trying to use it to fill that emptiness inside him. “You would’ve liked him.”

She kissed the top of his head. “You described him so beautifully to me, I feel as if I did meet him.”

“You would’ve liked him.” Mat closed his eyes, feeling her heart beating against him. “You remind me of him.”

Chapter Text

Mat appearing in the doorway was like the sun coming out after a week of storms. “Mat!” Elayne gasped, and she scrambled to her feet and flew across the cell to throw her arms around him. “What under the Light are you doing here?”

“Oh, I just fancied a midnight stroll in the Stone of bloody Tear,” he said, and she laughed for the first time in days, reaching up to rest her hand on his cheek, as if to reassure herself that he was really there.

Mat flinched at the touch and pulled her hand off, holding it up in front of his face to look at it. His eyes went right to the new serpent ring on her finger. Stoneless still, since she was only Accepted and hadn’t yet chosen her Ajah, but it made his brow furrow nevertheless. Elayne knew he had been hurt at the hands of the Red Ajah, although he never would tell her exactly how, and she’d sworn to him many times that when she did get a stone, it would never be red.

But…maybe that wouldn’t be enough. Maybe he would only ever see the ring, and not the color of the stone set into it. Maybe when she became a full sister, their friendship wouldn’t be enough to outweigh his fear and mistrust and hatred of Aes Sedai.

And yet, he didn’t let go of her hand. On the contrary, he laced his fingers through hers, and his face softened into worry as he took in the bruises all over her. “Ashes, Elayne, what happened? Who did this to you?”

Elayne’s reply was cut off by Nynaeve stomping over to grab Mat by the shoulders and give him a shake. “You bloody fool!” she said angrily. “This is the last place you should be! What were you thinking, coming here?”

Mat looked affronted. “Well, burn me for wanting to rescue you—”

“And burn me, now I have to worry about you too!” Nynaeve snapped, and she pulled him in for a tight hug.

They woke Egwene, who also gave Mat a scolding and a hug. Whatever Egwene had done to Amico in Tel’aran’rhiod, combined with a solid punch now from Nynaeve, broke her shielding of them. Elayne called upon saidar with relief and she saw the glow surrounding Egwene and Nynaeve too. Nynaeve healed all their injuries, and together the four of them raced down the corridor and into the battle for the Stone.

Saidar was all the more intoxicating for Elayne’s time spent severed from it. Most of the work to clear their path was done by Nynaeve—she was more than angry enough—but Elayne and Egwene held their own.

As did Mat. Elayne had thoroughly enjoyed watching him trounce Gawyn and especially Galad in the practice yard of the White Tower, what felt like a lifetime ago, but she’d never seen him in a real fight before. He was as graceful as a cat with his quarterstaff and twice as deadly, and he was surprisingly in tune with Elayne considering he couldn’t see her weaves.

They fought back-to-back and side by side, and somewhere in the back of Elayne’s mind she thought she would have liked him as her Warder someday, if only she didn’t hate the thought of keeping him leashed when he wanted to run free.

Minutes or hours could have passed by the time the four of them found themselves in the Heart of the Stone. The fighting was thickest of all here, but before Elayne could join the fray she was nearly blinded by a crack of lightning filling the room. She quickly shut her eyes and threw up a hand to block out the brilliant light.

“Stop!” a man’s voice rang out.

The sounds of fighting faded away. Elayne opened her eyes and saw a man standing in the center of the Heart, holding a fiery blade above his head. Callandor, she realized, wonder filling her. She’d learned of Callandor in her studies, of course, and she knew it had sat at the Heart of the Stone of Tear for thousands of years, unable to be wielded by anyone but—

But the Dragon Reborn.

She heard Egwene and Nynaeve gasping, and Mat suddenly grabbed Elayne’s arm—to keep himself upright, Elayne thought when she looked at him and saw how pale he’d gotten, how much he was shaking. Elayne was dazed too, seeing the Dragon be Reborn right before her eyes, but as she looked at Mat she realized there was something besides just shock in his face.

Recognition.

Elayne turned back to look at the man rather than the sword, and her heart stopped. Tall and handsome. Hair like fire. Eyes like the sky. No smile now, though; his expression was fierce and determined.

She knew who he was even before his eyes landed on Mat and widened in an expression identical to the one on Mat’s face, even before Callandor trembled above his head and made her wonder if he was going to drop it.

But then he looked away and his face hardened again and Callandor steadied. “I am Rand al’Thor!” he called, and the silence had become so total that every ear in the room heard him easily. “I am the Dragon Reborn!”

Aiel warriors and Tairen Defenders of the Stone alike started kneeling. Mat sank to his knees too, though Elayne thought it was more due to shock than reverence, and he was still gripping her arm so tightly that she was pulled down with him.

“The Dragon is Reborn!” someone shouted, and immediately everyone else began taking up the cry. Everyone but Elayne and Mat and Egwene and Nynaeve, who were frozen and silent as they stared at the man wielding Callandor. At Mat’s Rand, as Elayne had always thought of him.

Mat’s Rand was alive.

Mat’s Rand was the Dragon Reborn.

Elayne could see Mat’s hands shaking a little as he smoothed out his coat. He’d acquired new clothes since leaving the White Tower, expensive-looking ones; when Elayne had asked about it, he’d shrugged and said that his luck at dicing had been very good lately.

“What if he doesn’t want to see me?” he asked, quietly, looking more vulnerable than Elayne had seen him since the morning she’d held him in his room in the Tower as he’d wept because Rand was dead, and the night she’d held him in his room in the Stone as he’d wept because Rand was alive.

“Of course he’ll want to see you,” she said. “He’s still your Rand, whatever else he might be too now.”

“He was never my Rand,” Mat said, but the way Rand had looked at him in the Heart of the Stone begged to differ, in Elayne’s opinion.

Even so, she could understand Mat’s apprehension. A week had passed, and he and Rand still hadn’t exchanged a word or even seen each other, aside from once when she and Mat had spotted Rand walking down a corridor surrounded by Aiel and Tairens. It seemed that Rand had a great deal to do and a great number of people vying for his attention.

Too busy for me, Mat had said with a bitter smile, and Elayne had told him he was being ridiculous. The kindhearted shepherd Mat had told her about, the one who’d protected him and taken care of him and believed in him even at his lowest point, would surely have dropped everything to see him.

Although, to what extent that shepherd still existed remained to be seen, and even if he did, he might not look as kindly on Mat now as he once had. And that was what Mat was afraid of. Elayne could tell he dreaded seeing Rand face-to-face as much as, if not more than, he looked forward to it; she was fairly confident Mat could’ve found some way to speak with him by now if he’d really tried, but he kept stalling and coming up with excuses.

“He’s probably busy anyway,” Mat said now. “No point trying, I’ll just wait until tomorrow—”

“You’ve been saying that all week,” Elayne said. “If he’s busy, we will plant ourselves outside his chambers and wait until he’s free.”

“If he wanted to see me, he could’ve found the time by now,” Mat said, and Elayne shook her head at the hypocrisy. “That means he doesn’t want to see me. And why would he? He’s the Lord Dragon now, he’s got all those fancy clothes and servants waiting on him hand and foot and women throwing themselves into his bed, and probably some High Lords too, although maybe they’re all too terrified of him to want—”

“None of that is what you actually care about,” Elayne interrupted. “You’re afraid that he’ll be different inside. And that he’ll be angry with you. For the Waygate.” Now that Rand’s secret was out, Mat and Egwene and Nynaeve had shared with her the full story of their travels. Elayne thought she ought to resent them for not trusting her with it before, but she didn’t; small wonder they hadn’t wanted to reveal that they were mixed up with the Dragon Reborn, even after Rand’s supposed death. It had always been obvious to her that they were hiding something anyway, and she’d never pressed them.

Mat’s shoulders slumped. “What if he is angry with me?” he said in a small voice.

“Then I daresay you can hold over his head the fact that he made you think he was dead,” Elayne replied, and she was pleased when Mat cracked a smile.

But it vanished just as quickly. “What am I supposed to say?” he said. “What do you say to your best friend who you’re in love with and who you abandoned, and who you thought was dead for months, and who is now the most powerful and most dangerous person in the world, destined to go mad someday and kill everyone he loves and die a horrible death and have a fifty-fifty shot of either saving the world or breaking it?”

Elayne shrugged. “Start with ‘I missed you’ and go from there,” she said. “Now, are you ready to go, or do you want to fret for a few more hours first?”

Mat gave his reflection another anxious glance. “Do I look all right?”

“Very handsome,” Elayne said, trying to keep her tone light, trying not to let him realize how much she meant it. “Go on. The sooner you leave this room, the sooner it’ll be over.”

“Will you come with me?” Mat asked. “I’m not sure I won’t chicken out if you’re not there to bully me.”

Elayne laughed. “Of course, if I wouldn’t be intruding.”

“Not at all.” Mat smiled. “I have always wished you could meet him.” His smile faded. “But I’m not sure…who exactly I’ll be introducing you to.”

“He’s still your Rand,” Elayne said firmly. She touched his shoulder, with her ringless hand. “He is.”

They left Mat’s room and headed towards Rand’s. Elayne rather hoped they wouldn’t run into Egwene and have to tell her where they were going. It wasn’t as if Elayne was encouraging Mat to steal Rand’s heart or anything of the sort, but still, things had become somewhat awkward since Egwene and Mat had discovered that the man they both wanted was not, in fact, dead. No fights or bad feelings had emerged yet, and Elayne wasn’t even sure whether they did still both want Rand (Egwene had only mumbled that it was “complicated” when Elayne had asked a few days ago where things stood with her and Rand), but regardless, she would prefer to keep herself out of the matter.

Yet at the same time, she wanted to put herself right at the heart of it. She’d spent weeks listening to Mat talk about Rand in loving, wistful detail and encouraging him to look for him after he left the Tower, then more weeks comforting Egwene through the wall between their rooms when she cried over Rand’s death and over the fact that even if he was still alive she didn’t think she would’ve loved him enough to choose him over the Tower. Now that they were both reunited with Rand, Elayne wanted to help them mend their relationships with him, she wanted them to be happy. And it killed her that one’s happiness would come at the expense of the other’s.

It was difficult indeed when your two dearest friends were in love with the same man. Elayne glanced sideways at Mat, who was so preoccupied with thoughts of Rand that he hardly seemed to notice she was still walking beside him, and stifled a sigh. More difficult still when you were in love with one of them yourself.

She had tried. One of the first things she’d learned about Mat was that his heart already belonged to another, and she’d tried so hard not to let herself love him, but she hadn’t been able to help it. At first she’d told herself the growing feeling was friendship—she’d never had a real friend before, after all, she wasn’t used to it—but as she’d befriended Egwene and Nynaeve and Min, she’d had to admit that what she felt for them was different.

Well, maybe for Min it was the same, a little bit. But Elayne didn’t know if that was because of Min herself or just because her dry wit and mischievous grin reminded her so much of Mat.

She pulled herself out of her wallowing as they approached Rand’s door. Mat was a mess right now, internally if not visibly, and he needed Elayne to have it together. “We wish to speak to the Lord Dragon,” she told the Aiel Maidens guarding Rand’s door. “Is he here?”

“Rand al’Thor does not wish to receive visitors at this time, Aes Sedai,” one of the Maidens said with a glance at Elayne’s ring, her tone respectful but firm.

“He is here, then,” Elayne surmised. “Please tell him that Mat Cauthon wants to see him and will not be taking no for an answer.”

“Mat Cauthon?” The Maiden said the name as if she recognized it. She peered at Mat, seemed to recognize his face too, and gave him a nod. “You may enter at once, Mat Cauthon.”

“Oh,” Mat said, clearly startled. “Well, thank you.”

He gave Elayne a confused look, and she just smiled. It was obvious that Rand had let the Maidens know he would want to see Mat at any time, how could Mat not realize that?

Elayne started to follow him, but the looks on the Maidens’ faces stopped her. “Mat Cauthon may enter alone,” said the one who’d spoken before. “Rand al’Thor does not wish to receive any Aes Sedai, aside from Egwene al’Vere and Nynaeve al’Meara.” Clearly Elayne didn’t match whatever descriptions Rand had given of those two.

Well, far be it from her to put up a fuss. She thought it best to give Mat and Rand privacy anyway, whatever Mat said about wanting to introduce her. “Go on, Mat,” she said. “I’ll find you later.”

But Mat stubbornly took her hand (the one with the ring, and he didn’t flinch when he touched it) and told the Maidens in a tone that brooked no argument, “She goes where I do. She comes as a friend, not as an Aes Sedai.”

Elayne gave his hand an appreciative squeeze even as she thought, Why can you not let me be both?

The Maidens exchanged looks with each other, then reluctantly gave Elayne permission to enter. She and Mat walked up to the door together, pushed it open, and stepped inside.

Elayne had grown up in a palace, and this was still the most opulent room she’d ever seen. But she spared hardly a glance for the furniture or décor, because her attention had gone straight to the man sprawled in a chair reading.

He looked up at them with a scowl, and Elayne could see the intended objection dying in his throat as he saw who it was. He scrambled to his feet, his eyes passing over Elayne altogether and locking onto Mat.

For a long moment, the two of them just stared at each other. Elayne took the opportunity to study Rand; she’d never seen him so close up or in a quiet moment. Physically, he fit Mat’s descriptions of him exactly, right down to the slight crookedness of his nose from when it had been broken at age twelve in a fight with a boy who’d been bullying Mat. And if anything, even Mat’s lovesick words hadn’t managed to convey the full extent of how desperately beautiful Rand really was, she thought, her face feeling a little warm.

And yet, he wasn’t what Elayne had expected. More than anything Mat had spoken of Rand’s smile, his warmth, his kindness. Right now, Elayne couldn’t see them. The man before her looked like a king, regal and cool, and it was hard to reconcile him with the sweet, humble shepherd she’d held in her mind’s eye for all these months.

But…there was something, in the tremble of Rand’s lower lip as he looked at Mat, in the timid uncertainty in his eyes, that made Elayne feel she could almost catch a glimpse of that shepherd.

Finally Mat broke the silence. “Well. Back from the dead, eh?”

“You stayed,” Rand said. “I thought you would’ve been halfway home by now.” Elayne had only heard him speak the once when he’d proclaimed himself, but now his voice was soft, pleasant, with the same country accent she was so fond of in Mat.

“Why would I have gone home?” Mat said, still gripping Elayne’s hand tightly for support, or perhaps for protection.

“You tried to before. At the Waygate,” Rand said, and Elayne winced. They were getting right to the heart of things, then. “You stayed behind. I thought I’d never see you again. How could you do that? How could you leave us, Mat?”

How dare he resent Mat for staying behind when he’d bloody made Mat think he was dead? Elayne had half a mind to take him to task, Dragon Reborn and a perfect stranger or no, but then she saw that Rand didn’t look resentful at all. He looked hurt. When he’d said “us,” Elayne realized, he’d really meant “me.”

She could feel Mat’s hand tremble in hers. “How could I? How could you?” he said, but he too sounded more hurt than angry. “You made me think you were dead. You bastard. You fucking bastard, I thought you were dead!”

His voice cracked, and Rand hunched his shoulders, curling in on himself, and then, then, Elayne finally saw him. The shepherd. Mat’s Rand. He didn’t look like the Lord Dragon at all anymore, just a boy, lonely and scared and so far from home.

“I’m sorry,” Rand whispered.

“I thought you were dead.” Mat sounded like he was crying, and Elayne glanced sideways and saw that he was.

There were tears in Rand’s eyes too. “I’m sorry, Mat,” he said, sounding so small. “I thought—I was trying to protect all of you—you know what I am—”

“You’re Rand al’Thor, that’s who you are,” Mat cut him off, fierce despite his tears. “With the ugliest face and the thickest head in the Two Rivers.”

Rand’s face crumpled into something that was so happy and so sad at the same time, and he started to cry. Mat dropped Elayne’s hand and in four quick strides he had his arms around Rand, holding him so close as Rand clung to him, as they both wept.

Mat reached up to cup Rand’s face in his hands, and Elayne was amazed that someone so scared of channeling could touch the most dangerous channeler in the world like that, without a hint of fear or hesitation. “Don’t leave me,” Rand said, voice quivering. “Please, Mat, don’t leave me again—”

“I’m here,” Mat said softly, a small, tearful smile on his face. “You know that, right? No matter what happens, I’m here.”

Rand let out a noise that was half-sob and half-laugh and rested his forehead against Mat’s, and he smiled too. Mat had been right. It was like the sun.

Elayne now felt as if she was intruding on something private, so she slipped out of the room as quietly as she could. Mat could introduce her and Rand another time.

“Light, I missed you,” was the last thing she heard Mat saying as she eased the door shut behind her. She smiled; he’d finally gotten around to her advice.

Elayne didn’t see Mat for the rest of the evening. She stopped by his room just before bed to see if he was there and wanted to talk about how things had gone with Rand, but there was still no sign of him.

Nor was there when she returned in the morning. The bed was empty and perfectly made. Mat never got up this early, and he never made his own bed either. It hadn’t been touched since a servant had done it yesterday.

Elayne stared at it for a minute, an odd mix of emotions coming over her. Relief and regret, happiness and sorrow all at once.

She turned to go, and her eyes fell upon some dead flowers lying on a side table in a jumble with some of Mat’s other possessions, a tinderbox and a ball of twine and a striped rock and a colorful feather. No, not just flowers, Elayne realized as she moved closer. A flower crown. The very one she’d made for him at the White Tower during her first free day, when he’d taught her to dice.

The realization worsened the lump in her throat. Why had Mat kept that silly thing? Kept it for months, from Tar Valon to Caemlyn to Tear, kept it long after the petals had withered and dried out?

Footsteps sounded out in the corridor, and Elayne quickly cleared her throat and was composed by the time the newcomer entered—Egwene, she was surprised to see. “I was looking for Mat,” Egwene said. “I take it you haven’t seen him either?”

Elayne hesitated. She didn’t want to hurt Egwene, but she deserved to know the truth. “He went to speak to Rand after dinner yesterday,” she said. “And that was the last I saw of him. I…I don’t think he slept here last night.”

Egwene’s expression was startled for a moment before shifting to inscrutability. “Ah. I see,” she said. “Well, I suppose I don’t need to talk to him after all, then.”

Ashes. She was hurt, and angry with Mat. What was Elayne to do? She didn’t want to be caught in the middle or forced to take sides—but she already had taken a side, and now Egwene was suffering because of it.

“I’m so sorry, Egwene,” she said anxiously. “It’s my fault, I’m the one who encouraged Mat to talk to him—I practically dragged him there and forced him to, and now—I didn’t expect this to happen, but I should have guessed—”

“What? Oh, Light, Elayne, don’t be silly,” Egwene quickly cut her off. “You didn’t have a thing to do with it, I’m not upset with you. I’m not upset with anyone. The reason I was looking for Mat is because I wanted to tell him that Rand and I ended things for good yesterday and that Mat was welcome to him if he wanted. But now I don’t need to tell him because Rand obviously already did.”

Elayne blinked at her, trying to process this. For days she’d been so on edge, prepared for a fight to break out at any moment. “Oh,” she said. “Well. That’s good news. Sort of. But I’m sorry about you and Rand. Are you all right?”

Egwene thought about it for a moment, then gave a slow nod. “I am. Or, I will be,” she said. “I already knew, really. Ever since Nynaeve asked me to become her apprentice back in Emond’s Field, I knew that was it for me and Rand. We already ended it once, before the Trollocs came, and everything that happened between us after that was just…putting off the inevitable. And then, well, I thought he was dead. I grieved his death for months. This is easy, compared to that.”

Elayne supposed that was a good point. Egwene wasn’t visibly upset, but Elayne hugged her anyway, and Egwene seemed grateful for it. “And what about him and Mat? Does it bother you?” Elayne asked after a minute, letting go of her again. “That Rand moved on from you within hours, and with one of your best friends? Now, I don’t know him, so I oughtn’t make assumptions about his character, but that seems rather, well—”

“My pride might be a bit bruised, I suppose,” Egwene said with a chuckle, “but I’m not actually upset. I care about both of them, and I want them to be happy.”

“That’s awfully noble of you,” Elayne remarked. “You’re allowed to be selfish, you know. You can be upset in front of me, I won’t tell anyone.”

Egwene shrugged. “If this had happened a year ago then I certainly would’ve had some choice words for the pair of them, but now? It seems like such a silly thing to be fussed about, with everything else that’s happening,” she said. “Besides, none of us knows what might happen in the future, how long we’ll have together. Might as well make the most of the time we do have while we’ve got it. Especially Rand.” Her expression grew somber. “If they’ll be able to have a little happiness before…before things start changing, then I’m glad of that.”

Elayne nodded, her heart aching. What must it be like for Mat, knowing how fleeting this happiness was? Knowing that the one he loved likely had only a few years to live, knowing that he’d have to watch as Rand slowly grew mad and lost himself and rotted away?

Perhaps a bit like how it felt for Elayne to know that the one she loved probably had even less time to live, would probably die violently because of Rand, whether indirectly or by Rand’s own hands.

As if reading her thoughts, Egwene said, “What about you? Are you all right?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Elayne asked.

“You love Mat. Don’t try to deny it,” Egwene added when Elayne opened her mouth. “I know you too well.”

Elayne should’ve known better than to think she could keep Egwene from ever noticing. She sighed and folded her arms, hugging herself. “I’m all right,” she said. “From the day I met Mat I knew how much he loved Rand. I was there when he found out he was dead. I watched his heart shatter. How could I possibly mind that they’ve been reunited and Rand returns his feelings? How could I possibly mind that Mat is finally happy?”

She meant it. She meant it with all her heart. But there was still a part of her that stung like an open wound.

“You’re allowed to be selfish too, you know,” Egwene said softly. Elayne’s lip wobbled. Egwene pulled her in for another hug, and Elayne let herself be selfish just for a little while.

Chapter Text

Rand drifted awake gradually after the first dreamless and truly restful sleep he’d had since…since the last night at the inn in Tar Valon, probably, before they’d left for the Waygate. Since the last time Mat had been with him. Having him near again made Rand sleep easier; it was like old times.

Well. His eyes were still closed, but a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Last night hadn’t been quite like old times.

He still could hardly believe it was real, half-wondered if he’d dreamed the whole thing. Mat was here in Tear, and he wasn’t angry with Rand, and he returned his feelings, and he wanted to be with him despite what he was—it all seemed to good to be true. And yet, not even in his most foolish daydreams during these past months had Rand allowed himself to imagine that he could have this much.

He was…happy. For the first time since Machin Shin, he was happy. There was lingering sadness about Egwene—and guilt for how quickly he’d fallen into bed with Mat after they’d ended things, he’d have to find her today and apologize and explain before she heard it from someone else—but Rand had never expected them to be together ever again, he’d never thought he’d even see her again, so the pain wasn’t so fresh now. It was more like…re-acceptance of something he’d already come to terms with.

In his heart he’d given her up months ago, at the Eye of the World, when he’d turned his back on the Dark One’s temptation of the future they could never have in this life. They’d both cried yesterday when they’d ended it for good, but it hadn’t come as a surprise to either of them, and they both felt it was the right decision and didn’t regret it. Too much had changed, and they just didn’t fit together anymore. The paths the Wheel was weaving for them were leading them too far apart.

And Rand had assumed the same would hold true for Mat. Had assumed Mat would never return his feelings in the first place. Rand had loved him consciously since that silly game of Kiss the Daisies years ago, unconsciously probably even longer, had loved him at the same time he’d loved Egwene, and he’d never imagined Mat would ever love him back—and especially not now. Rand knew he should have pushed Mat away last night, for Mat’s own good. Being with Rand could only end badly. Egwene was safe from that now, Rand should have ensured Mat was too.

But he just…he’d been so lonely, all those months since the Eye, wandering alone, terrified and grief-stricken and guilt-ridden and half-mad already. So when Mat had come last night and told Rand that he loved him, that he would never leave him, that he would stay by his side and help him face whatever came—Rand had needed that, needed Mat, more than he’d ever needed anything before, and he hadn’t been able to stop himself from greedily accepting all the love and care Mat had offered. Couldn’t bring himself to reject it even now that his head was clearer and he knew he should.

He reached for Mat beside him…and his hand met empty space.

Rand’s eyes flew open, and he rolled over to look. Mat wasn’t there. Heart pounding, Rand sat up and looked wildly around the room. Mat wasn’t there. “Mat?” Rand said. Silence answered. And—and the only clothes left on the floor were Rand’s own.

Mat wasn’t there. He’d left. Again.

No, he wouldn’t do that, Rand tried to tell himself even as his breath started coming in short, painful spurts. He wouldn’t. Not again. He wouldn’t leave me again. He promised. He promised! Rand couldn’t believe that Mat would leave again—but then, he couldn’t have believed he would leave the first time. He couldn’t have believed Mat would stay behind watching him go into the Waygate alone, until it had happened.

Mat had lied last night. All those things he’d said, all those promises he’d made, he hadn’t meant them. But—no, Mat wouldn’t do that, he wouldn’t be so cruel. It was Rand’s fault, not Mat’s. Mat had meant every word of it at the time, but then after Rand had fallen asleep Mat must have thought better of it, changed his mind. Because Rand was dangerous, after all, he was a monster, and he would only hurt Mat, and how could Rand expect him to stay by his side? He’d been so selfish last night, begging Mat not to leave him, forcing him to promise to stay, how could Rand have asked that of him, knowing how much it cost? It was his fault, he never should have trapped Mat like that, and now Mat was gone and Rand deserved it, he deserved to be alone, he—

The door opened without any knock or word from the Maidens, and Mat came in juggling a tray of tea and pastries and fruit. He gave Rand a rueful smile. “Damn. I wasn’t fast enough,” he said. “Thought I could make it back before you woke up. It was supposed to be a surprise. Ah well, that’s what I get for trying to pull some romantic shit.”

Rand’s heart was still racing, his chest tight. “You…you came back?” he said, so uncertainly it sounded like a question.

“’Course. I’m starving, and you must be too. We worked up an appetite last night.” Mat’s grin faded as he took in the look on Rand’s face. “Rand? What’s wrong?”

Rand shook his head and tried to smile. He couldn’t let Mat see he’d been on the verge of a breakdown, Light, that really would drive him away, seeing how needy and clingy and pathetic Rand was. But when he whispered again, “You came back,” his voice cracked and gave him away.

Mat’s eyebrows drew together, comprehension and guilt and self-loathing all mixing on his face and making Rand’s insides shrivel in humiliation. “Fuck,” Mat muttered, hastily setting the tray down on a side table and hurrying to the bed. “You woke up and I was gone. Burn me for a fool, burn me, Rand, I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking—”

“I’m fine,” Rand said, swallowing back tears. “I’m fine, I was being stupid, I’m sorry—”

Then Mat’s arms were around him, and Rand couldn’t stop a quiet sob from escaping. He leaned into Mat and rested his forehead on his shoulder, taking deep, unsteady breaths and letting Mat rub his back and play with his hair until he’d stopped shaking.

“I’m not going to leave you again. Ever,” Mat said. “I promise.”

Rand lifted his head to look at him and saw tears in his eyes, which made him feel worse. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have—it wasn’t fair of me to ask that of you, I’m sorry, Mat, you don’t have to stay, it’s all right—”

“I lost you once when I stayed behind at the Waygate,” Mat interrupted. “And a second time when Egwene and Nynaeve told me you were dead. I’m not going to lose you a third time. I can’t. Ashes, Rand. I’m not staying because you need me. I’m staying because I need you.”

Mat…needed him? At a loss for words, Rand gazed into his eyes and saw nothing but sincerity there. “Oh,” was all he could say. The knot in his stomach was loosening. Mat needed him. Maybe—maybe it was all right that Rand needed Mat, if Mat needed him too. Maybe Rand wasn’t the only one afraid of being left.

And the way Mat was looking at him, Rand knew for sure that he wasn’t the only one in love.

He let out a breath and nodded. “All right,” he said.

Mat put a tender hand on Rand’s cheek, drawing him in for a kiss. They kissed for a while, Mat whispering reassurances and words of love against Rand’s mouth. Rand was the first to heat things up, needing more than the careful delicacy Mat was treating him with, and he was pleased to discover that Mat seemed just as eager for more, now that he knew Rand wanted it.

Mat gently pushed him to lie down, guiding his head to one of the impossibly-soft pillows to make sure he would be comfortable. Then he knelt over him and kissed him sweetly, one hand entwined with one of Rand’s and the other lightly stroking his side and making him shiver, and Rand felt—he felt so safe, so taken care of, so desired, so loved.

It was good to be with someone who wanted Rand al’Thor instead of the Lord Dragon. Someone who’d loved the shepherd from Emond’s Field, and still remembered him. Still saw him.

“I’m here. I’ll be here until you get sick of me, and long beyond,” Mat said, and Rand laughed. “I love you, Rand. Want me to prove it?”

Rand smiled broadly at the words and more broadly still at the adoration on Mat’s face as he gazed down at him. “You don’t have to prove anything,” he said.

“Maybe I want to,” Mat murmured, the hand on Rand’s side wandering lower.

Rand closed his eyes and let out a shaky sigh. “Go ahead, then.”

By the time Mat finished proving it, the tea had long grown cold. “I might be able to heat it up,” Rand said. “Saidin doesn’t always work the way I want, but I could try to—”

“No,” Mat said so quickly that Rand started and looked at him. “Sorry. It’s not—it’s not you. Just, channeling in general…it sets my teeth on edge. When anyone does it. Not just you.”

Rand could hardly blame him for that. He gave a hesitant nod, and relaxed more when he saw that Mat still seemed perfectly comfortable to sit naked in bed with him, that he didn’t actually seem afraid of him. If he didn’t trust Rand to channel, at least he trusted him not to channel if Mat didn’t want him to.

They ignored the tea and just ate the food, and Rand remembered something from the previous evening that had slipped his mind. “Who was that woman who came with you to see me yesterday?” he asked.

Mat’s whole face went soft. “Elayne,” he said. His mouth was busy chewing, but Rand could see his eyes smiling. “Burn me, I was supposed to introduce you two. I hope she’s not offended. She must’ve snuck out when she realized the direction things were going.”

Rand hadn’t noticed her leave either, only noticed that she’d arrived with Mat and then at some point was no longer there. “Who is she?” he said again. He’d spoken with Egwene and Nynaeve a few times since the battle for the Stone (and Perrin who’d also wound up in Tear; only Mat had been avoiding him) and they’d mentioned a fellow Accepted named Elayne. But Rand didn’t know how Mat knew her—and knew her well enough to make his face look like that just at the mention of her.

It was very close to the way Mat had been looking at Rand all morning, and all last night. But noticing the similarity didn’t make Rand feel jealous. Just…happy, to see Mat happy.

“I met her at the White Tower, after they Healed me,” Mat said. “She was a Novice then, but now she’s an Accepted. But not—she isn’t like Moiraine and Liandrin and the others. She doesn’t use people like they do. She’s like Egwene and Nynaeve. I trust her.”

Rand nodded. “To be fair, it did turn out that Liandrin is Black Ajah,” he said, though he too was wary of even the supposedly Light-serving Aes Sedai. But if Mat vouched for Elayne, that was good enough for Rand.

Mat harrumphed. “Well, you’d think they could’ve bloody found that out before she bloody tortured me, couldn’t they have?”

Rand dropped his apple. “Before she what?”

Mat looked like he regretted saying anything, but (with some difficulty) Rand managed to wring out of him the full story of his capture by the Red Ajah. And by lunchtime, the entire Stone had heard about the shouting match between the Lord Dragon and Moiraine Sedai. (Not that Moiraine had shouted back, of course, merely stood there with cool superiority letting Rand yell himself out as if he were a toddler throwing a tantrum.)

Rand was pulled this way and that by High Lords for the rest of the day, but he did manage to find Egwene for a few minutes in the afternoon to tell her about Mat. To his surprise, she just smiled and said she already knew, then interrupted his apologies by hugging him tight and saying she was glad he was happy. Rand was relieved she didn’t appear to be hurt, though he couldn’t help but wonder whether she was only so forgiving because she knew he had no more than a few years to live and felt sorry for him. But he firmly pushed that thought aside. He wasn’t going to let himself think about that inevitable future. Not yet.

It wasn’t until they were in bed that night that Rand and Mat were able to continue their conversation from the morning. “Tell me more about Elayne,” Rand said, lying on his side with Mat behind him holding him, which he imagined must look a little silly with him being bigger and taller than Mat, but he liked being held, liked feeling safe and protected.

Mat brushed a kiss to the side of his neck, fingers tracing meaningless shapes on his arm. “Well, she’s the Daughter-Heir of Andor,” he said. “And she’s friends with me, can you believe that? A farmboy and a bloody princess. It’s like something out of one of your books.”

Rand smiled. “How did you first meet?”

Mat told him the whole story, then went on to regale him with more stories of his entire time knowing Elayne. His voice was so warm and full of fondness, and at one point Rand rolled over so he could watch him talk, smiling at the matching warmth and fondness on his face.

Mat told him that Elayne was as stubborn as any Emond’s Fielder but so good at being diplomatic that you wouldn’t notice she’d never given an inch of ground until she’d already turned you around to her way of thinking and convinced you it had been what you’d wanted all along. That she spoke her mind, that she never shied away from a difficult situation, that she was brave and impulsive and would probably make him go gray before thirty with all the trouble she got herself into.

He told him that she was prim and proper and ladylike and that she’d once been sent to the Mistress of Novices for punishment because she’d used the Power to dangle her brother Galad upside-down in midair after he’d expressed disapproval of Mat’s company and influence (and that she would kill Mat if she heard him call Galad her brother). That she had such a high opinion of herself she practically went around with her nose in the air, and such a strong sense of duty and justice that she’d lay down her life in an instant if she thought it would benefit her people.

That she’d never once made Mat feel poor or worthless despite their vast difference in status. That she had the biggest heart of anyone Mat had ever met, except for Rand.

“She can’t wait to meet you,” Mat concluded. “I may or may not have spent a lot of time rambling to her about you like a lovesick idiot.”

And now you’ve done the same to me about her. Rand kept the thought to himself, knowing Mat would take it as an accusation. But he wouldn’t have meant it that way. It was that same feeling as when Mat had smiled at the mention of Elayne earlier, that same happiness at seeing Mat happy.

The other day Rhuarc had mentioned that he had two wives and, at Rand’s surprised and probably nosy questions, had explained a bit about how that worked. And Rand thought he was beginning to understand. After all, he’d felt something similar for a few years, loving Egwene and Mat at the same time. Thinking that he was just confused or that there was something wrong with him or that he was betraying Egwene by having feelings for Mat, even though those feelings had never done anything to diminish the ones he’d had for her.

Besides, there was no telling how much time he and Mat would have together. The High Lords and Moiraine and the prophecies were all trying to drag Rand in different directions, and he didn’t know where he would go or when, or whether Mat would be able to follow. It would make Rand glad, he thought, to know that Mat had Elayne keeping him company while he was gone.

And after he was gone, permanently. Rand knew his life would be short and violent, but he would do everything in his power to make sure that Mat didn’t become collateral damage, that he wouldn’t die because Rand loved him. That he would live on for decades yet and that he would have Elayne, or someone else, loving him after Rand no longer could.

But Rand wasn’t sure whether he was interpreting Mat’s behavior correctly in the first place, and even if he was, he doubted Mat was aware himself that he had feelings for Elayne. Rand would bring it up eventually, maybe, but not yet.

So for now he just smiled and said, “I can’t wait to meet her either.”

In the end, it was entirely by chance that Rand met Elayne. He’d finished his latest meeting sooner than expected and had some time before the next, so he escaped outdoors for a bit of fresh air, blessedly unseen and unfollowed by anyone except Bain and Chiad, whose presence he didn’t mind. He knew he’d only manage a few minutes of freedom before someone whose presence he did mind found him, but he would take what he could get.

Rand stepped into a white marble colonnade and crossed it to sit on the balustrade, resting his back against a column and putting one foot up on the balustrade in front of him. He closed his eyes and took a contented inhale of outdoor air (muggy and hot, but still fresher than inside) and the scent of flowers wafting up from the garden ten paces below. He so rarely spent much time outside these days; his chambers were the only place he was guaranteed privacy (and not always even there) and the further he went from them, the more likely he was to be hassled by someone seeking the Lord Dragon’s attention.

Sure enough, a sudden voice called to him from inside. “My Lord Dragon?”

Rand startled and lost his balance, and he found himself tumbling over the balustrade and down into the garden. At the last second, he managed to seize saidin and cushion his landing—somehow. Belatedly he realized he’d used a weave of air to create a soft barrier between him and the ground; he dropped it and let himself fall the last inch.

“Oh!” a new, closer voice was exclaiming.

Letting go of saidin a little regretfully, he looked up and saw that he’d landed right at the feet of a woman reading on a stone bench. A finely-dressed woman with red-gold hair. Though his attention had been almost entirely taken by Mat when they’d come to his rooms, Rand still recognized Elayne right away. Her beauty was so striking, it would be impossible not to. This was the first time he’d had a good look at her, and he felt a little short of breath. No wonder Mat liked her (if Rand’s hunch was correct). It was a miracle he still liked Rand, with Elayne looking like that.

She clearly recognized him too; she looked surprised and a little flustered, two spots of pink appearing on her cheekbones. But before either could say anything, the voice above came again. “My Lord Dragon? Are you hurt?”

Rand scrambled into the shadows at the edge of the building, pressing himself against the wall in hopes that he wouldn’t be visible to anyone looking down. Elayne watched him curiously, and he put a finger to his lips. She grinned and nodded.

“My Lady,” the voice said, its owner obviously spotting Elayne. “I thought I just saw the Lord Dragon fall over this balustrade.”

Elayne looked up. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken. It was a serving boy fooling around,” she said, and Rand grinned too. “I’ve already sent him back inside to be punished for giving me such a fright!”

The voice thanked Elayne and apologized for disturbing her, and after a minute Elayne turned to Rand and said, “All clear.”

Rand got to his feet and dusted himself off, and Elayne stood too, looking uncertain. She took a hesitant step towards him, and he did too at the same time. “Thank you,” he said. “I owe you a debt.”

“Not at all,” she said with a laugh. She had a beautiful laugh; it crinkled her nose in a way that reminded him of Mat. “I quite understand the desire to hide from people incessantly seeking an audience with you.” Right, she was a princess. Daughter-Heir, rather, Mat said she got huffy about being called a princess. “Are you hurt?”

Rand fussed with his coat a bit, trying to straighten it out. For some reason, Elayne’s bright blue eyes on him made him feel embarrassed about his clumsiness and resulting dishevelment. They made him think of the sea; he’d never seen the sea until arriving in Tear, and its beauty, sometimes gentle and sometimes stormy, still awed him.

“I’m fine,” he said. “I channeled to break my fall.”

“Ah,” Elayne said. “Well, I’m glad of that. I haven’t learned how to Heal yet, at least, not with the Power.”

Rand glanced up at her; those sea-like eyes were still studying him with interest. He hesitated a moment, then said, “So, you’re Mat’s Elayne. Uh, my Lady.”

A blush returned to Elayne’s cheeks, but she arched an amused eyebrow. “Call me Elayne, or else I shall call you ‘my Lord Dragon’ and curtsy,” she said sweetly, then laughed at the look on Rand’s face. Mat must’ve told her how much he hated that. “And I’m hardly Mat’s anything.”

“His friend, surely?” Rand said.

Elayne smiled. “Well, yes. That, of course,” she said. “Anyway. It’s a pleasure to finally meet Mat’s Rand.”

There was a note of teasing in her voice, and now Rand was the one to blush, flustered but pleased to hear himself called that. “It’s a pleasure to meet you too,” he said. “I’ve been looking forward to it. Mat speaks very highly of you.” He noticed with interest that that made her flush again. “I’m sorry that we were rude to you the other day when you came with him to see me. We shouldn’t have ignored you like that—”

“No, I was intruding, I shouldn’t have come along in the first place,” Elayne hastened to assure him. “I knew you would have a great deal to catch up on. Mat spoke highly of you too when he was recuperating at the White Tower.”

“I understand that you made his time there much more enjoyable than it would’ve been otherwise,” Rand said. “I was…very worried about him, with his…sickness.” He didn’t dare mention the Shadar Logoth dagger in a public area of the Stone; there were ears everywhere even though he and Elayne appeared to be alone. “And I’m glad that he had you with him then. Thank you for looking after him when I couldn’t.”

Elayne lifted her chin. “Your thanks are unnecessary. I did little but keep him company. Besides, he isn’t some injured bird to be passed back and forth between us.”

Rand stifled a smile; “like I was some injured bird she found” were the very words Mat had used to describe Elayne’s love of fussing over him. “Of course not,” he said. “But Mat is important to me, and I’m grateful that you were there for him when he needed someone. Am I allowed to thank you for that?”

Elayne ducked her head, stifling a smile of her own. “I suppose.” She paused, then ventured, “I’m glad that things have…worked out, between you two. It’s good to see him smile again.”

Again. Because there had been a time when he had stopped smiling altogether. Rand bit his lip. “You…you were there with him, when he thought—when he thought I was dead,” he began. “How did he—what was it like for him?”

Elayne hugged her book to her chest, looking uncomfortable. Rand had a brief moment of delight when he saw the title; The Adventures of Jain Farstrider was one of his favorites. “That’s something you should ask him,” Elayne said.

“He’d never tell me. He wouldn’t want me to feel bad.”

“And what makes you think I would want you to feel bad?”

“I don’t think that. But I do think you care enough about Mat not to gloss over the truth,” Rand said. “And I…I have to know. I have to know what I put him through.”

Elayne scrunched her face up and looked away, but she did seem to be considering the question. “How would you feel if you thought he was dead?” she said finally.

It was too awful to contemplate. And the fact that he’d come close to facing Mat’s death a dozen times since leaving Emond’s Field and would likely do so a hundred more times in the future—would possibly even face it for true—would possibly be the one who caused it—that made Rand cold all over, far more than the prospect of his own death did.

“I would feel as if a part of me had died with him,” he said softly.

Elayne looked back at him, her eyes sad and sympathetic. “Yes. I think that’s how it was for him too,” she said. “He didn’t say much to me. You know his aversion to discussing his feelings.” They exchanged a small smile. “But I saw it well enough. Some days he wouldn’t say a word to me when I came to visit, wouldn’t eat, couldn’t even get out of bed. Others he’d be out in the city getting into trouble, drinking himself into a stupor or starting brawls, so much trouble sometimes he’d need Aes Sedai Healing when the city guards dragged him back to the Tower. He stopped being so anxious to leave Tar Valon. Before he’d talk about going every day, but I don’t think he cared anymore, once he knew that you wouldn’t be out there waiting for him.”

Rand’s eyes and throat were burning, and he sniffled and blinked rapidly, trying not to cry in front of her. Light. He’d imagined it, many times, he’d imagined how it would feel for Mat and Egwene and Perrin and Nynaeve to think he was dead, he’d tortured himself with it those months wandering the wilderness alone, but hearing it recounted was so much worse.

“I’m sorry,” Elayne said. “I’ve upset you—”

“No,” Rand said quickly. “Well, yes, I am upset, but it’s my own fault. Thank you. I needed to hear that.” He took a shuddering breath. “Ashes. I don’t see how he managed to forgive me. I don’t see how any of them did.”

“I do think I might have given you a harder time, if I was them,” Elayne said, one corner of her mouth quirking up, and Rand let out a watery laugh. “But they all love you too much to want to waste any time being angry with you. Mat especially. You should have heard the way he talked about you when we first met. Like you’d personally put the sun in the sky, just for him.”

Rand smiled. “That’s how he’s been talking about you to me these past few days,” he said, and she went pink again.

Before either could say anything more, a familiar and welcome voice called out to them. “Burn me, all this anticipation on both sides of you two finally meeting each other, and I bloody missed it.”

They both turned to smile at Mat, entering the garden with his coat unbuttoned and dice cup in hand. “The world doesn’t revolve around you, you know,” Elayne said.

“I’m ta’veren, Elayne. It quite literally does.”

Rand laughed, but his smile slipped a little as he thought back to what Elayne had said. Mat reached them, and without a word Rand pulled him into a tight hug, as if trying to make up now for all the pain he’d caused him then. Rand wasn’t sure he ever truly could, but he would do his damnedest.

“What’s this for?” Mat said, sounding startled but not displeased.

Rand knew he’d be cross if he knew Rand and Elayne had been talking about his feelings behind his back. “No reason,” he said. “I just love you.”

Mat chuckled and patted him on the back. “I love you too, you big sap.”

He gave Rand a quick peck on the lips before letting go of him altogether, making Rand blush. The gossip flying around the Stone was already far more than either wanted, so Mat had only kissed him in front of other people a handful of times, and then only their friends or the Maidens. And those times had flustered Rand too, but for some reason Mat kissing him now in front of Elayne flustered him even more, made butterflies swirl in his stomach. Not in an unpleasant way, though.

He glanced sideways at her and saw that she was hastily lowering her eyes to the ground, again looking a little flushed.

“Thought you were busy all day,” Mat was saying, and Rand looked back at him.

“I escaped the vipers’ den sooner than I expected,” Rand said. “I went to get some air and I ran into Elayne. We had…a good talk.” He turned to Elayne, who had lifted her eyes again and was looking at him. Rand gave her a shy smile, which she returned.

Mat was smiling too. “Yeah?”

“Yes,” Elayne said. “I think we shall be great friends, Rand and I. Perhaps even better than you and I, Mat.”

“You’d better not,” Mat said indignantly. “Can’t I just have one friend who likes me more than Rand?”

“If you didn’t want Elayne to like me so much, you shouldn’t have spent so much time talking me up to her,” Rand said. “‘Like I’d put the sun in the sky,’ so I hear.”

Mat huffed, blushing a little himself now. “Burn the pair of you,” he grumbled.

Elayne giggled, then tucked her book under one arm and said, “I’ll leave you, I’m sure you’d like some time alone.”

“Actually, I was looking for you,” Mat said. “Egwene told me you were out here. I thought we could dice. All these bloody lordlings want to do is play cards, and I’m sick of it.”

“I’ll go, then,” Rand said. “You two have fun.”

“As if I’m going to let you just leave when I’ve managed to corner you away from High Lords and Aes Sedai—present company excluded—for five whole minutes,” Mat said. He looked back and forth between Rand and Elayne, his expression uncharacteristically hesitant. “Maybe…maybe we could all play? Together?”

“I’d like that,” Elayne said, smiling at Rand.

Rand smiled back. “So would I.”

Chapter Text

Sighing, Mat absentmindedly rolled the dice. All sixes. He scooped them up and rolled again. All ones.

“What’s wrong?”

He looked up to see Rand watching him with concern. Mat put on a smile and returned his eyes to his dice. “Nothing.”

“You’ve been quiet all day,” Rand continued, not fooled. “Is it because Elayne’s leaving soon?”

Mat frowned and rolled again. All sixes. Elayne, Egwene, and Nynaeve still hadn’t decided where they should go, which Black Ajah rumor they should chase, but Elayne had said that time was running out and they would be making that decision and leaving Tear within the week.

Which Mat was fine with. Elayne was Aes Sedai now, and he wanted to keep clear of Aes Sedai, so, better for him if he never saw her again. He hadn’t thought he would ever see her again after he’d left Tar Valon. This time together in Tear had been an unexpected…event. Not gift or blessing or anything of the sort. Just an unexpected event that was now drawing to a close. And Mat was fine with that.

“She can take care of herself,” he said, picking the dice back up for another toss. All ones.

“Of course,” Rand said. “But you’ll miss her.”

All sixes. “Only because she’s the only one who talks to me when you’re busy with your lords and Perrin with Faile and Egwene and Nynaeve with their Aes Sedai business and Thom with whatever he does all day.”

“No, because you care about her,” Rand said, still not fooled. “She’s your friend.” He paused. “More than that.”

Mat froze, dice still in his hand, his next roll not yet made. He finally looked back up at Rand. “What are you talking about?” he said, surprised at how even his voice came out; his stomach was in knots.

Rand was wearing that stubbornly determined expression that said he was trying extra hard not to let you see how nervous he was. “You have feelings for her. You love her,” he said. “Don’t you?”

Mat’s spine stiffened and his heart started pounding, fight-or-flight response triggered as thoroughly as if Rand had just pulled a knife on him. “What are you talking about?” he said again, harshly. “You think I—don’t be stupid, Rand, I love you, bloody ashes, do we have to have this conversation ten times a day? What more can I possibly say to make you stop doubting—”

“I’m not doubting that you love me,” Rand protested, but Mat was stuffing the dice back into the cup and getting to his feet. Rand stood too and reached for him. “No, hey, come on, don’t leave, Mat, I want to talk about—”

“Yeah, well, I don’t want to talk,” Mat snapped, pulling his wrist away before Rand could grab hold of it. “Not if you’re going to accuse me of—”

“I’m not accusing you, I’m sorry, Mat, I’ve gone about this all wrong, if you’ll just let me finish—”

“Oh, you’ve already made your thoughts quite clear,” Mat said, turning his back on him and stomping over to the door.

“Mat, stop.” Mat kept walking. “Please, Mat, just stay and let me finish.” Mat kept walking. “We are not done with this conversation.” Mat kept walking. “Burn you, just listen to me!”

Mat stopped walking—but not on purpose. He was…stuck, somehow. Unable to move anything but his eyes. Bound by invisible ropes.

He was back at the White Tower, held by the Power, helpless to escape as Liandrin stalked towards him—

Half a second later the invisible bonds released and he could move again. He whipped around to face Rand, who looked like he was about to cry. “I’m sorry,” Rand whispered, so small and pleading and guilty. “I’m sorry, Mat, I didn’t mean to—”

“Don’t,” Mat said, voice tight, “channel on me.”

“I didn’t mean to, I’m so sorry, it was an accident, I-I lost control—”

But Mat was already out the door, slamming it shut behind him, and Rand didn’t follow.

For once, Perrin was alone when Mat went to his room. “No Faile?” Mat asked.

“No Rand or Elayne?” Perrin shot back—with good humor, but Mat still frowned as he shouldered past him into the room. He didn’t spend that much time with Elayne. Did he?

He flopped down into a chair, and Perrin took the one beside it. “What’s wrong?” Perrin asked.

Why did everyone have to read him so easily? Mat didn’t bother trying to deny it this time. “Rand and I argued.”

“About what?”

“None of your business.”

“I agree, but you obviously came here because you wanted to talk to me about it,” Perrin said mildly, and Mat huffed out a laugh.

He paused, trying to gather his thoughts. “Are you ever…afraid of Rand?” he said after a moment.

Perrin leaned forward in his chair, brow furrowing. “Did he do something? Did he hurt you?”

“No,” Mat hastened to assure him. “It was only…we were arguing, and I was trying to run off before he’d gotten his word in, so he channeled on me, made me freeze in place so I couldn’t move. It didn’t hurt or anything, and it was only for a moment and he didn’t mean to do it, and he stopped as soon as he realized, and I know he hated himself for it. But it still happened. And I—I was afraid, Perrin. Just for a moment, but I was.”

Perrin nodded, mulling it over. “I know he would never hurt me on purpose,” Mat said. “Of course I know that. But…but he might by accident, someday.”

Perrin was quiet for a while, and Mat waited impatiently for him to say something. But he knew this was Perrin’s way; he always considered things carefully, so that if he did end up giving advice it would be genuinely helpful, rather than just empty words of reassurance.

“It wasn’t a Trolloc that killed Laila,” Perrin said finally, startling Mat. “It was…” He swallowed. “It was me.”

Mat stared at him. “What?”

“We were fighting them together, that night,” Perrin said, looking down at his hands. “I heard a noise behind me and I swung my axe around because I thought it was a Trolloc. But—but it wasn’t.”

He wasn’t crying, but his hands were trembling. Heart aching, Mat exhaled slowly and rested his own hand on Perrin’s shoulder. “It wasn’t your fault,” Mat said. “It was an accident.”

“I…I know,” Perrin acknowledged. “I know that, now. But I’ll never forget it. I’ll never lose that guilt. I’ll never be able to be in a room with Faile without being afraid I’ll—” He cut off and took a shuddering breath. “But Faile isn’t afraid. She knows everything. I told her the whole truth of it. And she still isn’t afraid of me.” He said it wonderingly, like he still couldn’t believe it, and sat up a little straighter, raising his head again to look at Mat.

“That woman could spit in the eye of the bloody Dark One without being afraid,” Mat said wryly, and Perrin let out a watery laugh, the fondness in his eyes easing that ache in Mat’s heart. Perrin deserved this. He had—he had been through so much, lost so much, and he deserved the happiness that Faile brought him. Even if Mat couldn’t understand his taste for the life of him. Then again, he was in love with the Dragon bloody Reborn, so who was he to judge?

“Point is, I don’t know if I can help you, Mat,” Perrin said. “If you want to know how not to be afraid of Rand, Faile could tell you better.”

Mat would rather die than express vulnerability to Faile. And besides, the way a weight had visibly lifted from Perrin’s shoulders when he’d said that Faile wasn’t afraid of him—that told Mat more than anything the woman herself could have said. “Thank you,” he said, squeezing Perrin’s shoulder. “You did help me, actually, I think.”

They had a quiet drink together, and then Mat went to his own room, lost in thought. He’d barely set foot in here since he and Rand had gotten together. Most of his clothes were in Rand’s room now, and his most valuable possessions he kept on him at all times, but there were some scattered belongings here still.

He picked up the pretty striped rock. The holes in his memory had eaten the details, but he was fairly confident Rand had given him this rock, somewhere along the road to Tar Valon, to cheer him up. Because that was who Rand was, at his core, who he always would be. Someone who found pretty rocks to cheer Mat up. Someone who pulled a sword on Aes Sedai and Warders to defend him. Someone who kept him alive across half the continent without complaining once about how difficult Mat made it.

The look on Rand’s face when he’d realized he’d channeled on Mat—it was so similar to the look on Perrin’s as he’d told him what had happened to Laila. And Mat realized that however afraid he himself had been in that moment…it was nothing compared to how afraid Rand had been.

Rand was terrified. Mat had guessed at that well enough before today. Every moment of every day, Rand was terrified of himself, of his power, of his fate. What a burden that must be, to be terrified of yourself all the time, to walk around constantly fearing you might lose control and hurt someone you love without meaning to. The way Perrin had felt ever since Bel Tine.

The way Mat had felt on the road to Tar Valon.

Even with the memory-holes, Mat could remember it. Could remember when the dagger had twisted him into a version of himself he didn’t recognize, when he’d been so sure that he was the Dragon Reborn and was going mad and had killed that family on the farm and would kill Rand too if he stayed with him.

But Rand had stayed with him, even through the worst of it. And looking back, Mat was pretty sure Rand’s steadfast faith in him had been the only thing that had kept him clinging to sanity.

If Mat could do the same for him, if he could conquer his own fear so as not to add to Rand’s, if he could be for Rand what Rand had been for him and what Faile was for Perrin…maybe that would help keep the madness away a little longer. Maybe it would help Rand hold on, if he knew there was at least one person in the world who loved him without fear.

Mat smiled a little, rubbing his thumb across the rock’s smooth surface. Then his eyes traveled over to the flowers on the table, and he sighed. All this time he’d just been trying to distract himself from the root of the argument.

There were the dead flowers from Tar Valon that he’d kept for months, like a sentimental idiot. And there were fresher flowers too from their dice games the past few weeks. Mat had taken Elayne to dice and drink in the Maule once, but she’d drunk quite a bit more than Mat had advised, lost a spectacular amount of money, and been hassled by a number of shady men who weren’t at all deterred by Mat’s claims that he was her husband. Mat stabbing one of his knives right into a wandering hand had necessitated that the pair of them beat a hasty retreat back to the Stone, and the next morning Egwene and Nynaeve and Aviendha had shouted at him so much for putting Elayne in harm’s way (as if Elayne wasn’t the one who’d bullied him into bringing her along in the first place!) that he’d sworn off ever taking her to a tavern again.

So, now they only diced in the garden and bet flowers, like they had at the Tower. Mat always smuggled his winnings inside to hide in his room, as though he didn’t want Rand to see them, as though he felt he’d done something wrong.

Except for the afternoon all three of them had diced together. That had been…wonderful.

Mat picked up that occasion’s flower crown, turning it over in his hands. Elayne and Rand had both made it for him, taking turns adding to it at each of their losses until it was finished, at which point Elayne had set it atop his head and Rand had told him he looked beautiful. Then he and Mat had gone back inside to go to Rand’s room, but Mat had wished—

He’d wished Elayne would come too.

Heaving another sigh, Mat put the crown down and got to his feet. Rand had been right. Mat hadn’t known it himself until Rand had said it, but the words had brought some deeply-buried truth up to the surface of his heart and he couldn’t shove it back down again, no matter how hard he tried.

Rand had been right and Mat had yelled at him, run away from him like a coward, goaded him into channeling. Mat would have to—to go back and apologize. And confess. He owed Rand the truth. No more secrets, they’d promised each other. No more lies, even if it was meant to protect the other person.

Yes, I love her, but in addition to you, not instead of. Rand would think that was a lie anyway. Mat would, if it had been someone else’s feelings and not his own. He couldn’t understand it, but there it was. Elayne right next to Rand in his heart, sharing it with him instead of trying to take it.

He dawdled and dragged his feet, but eventually he reached Rand’s room. The Maidens gave him cool looks, no doubt blaming him for whatever bad mood Rand had been in as a result of their argument, but didn’t try to stop him from entering.

Rand was sitting in a chair by one of the narrow windows, gazing forlornly out into the night sky. His head turned at Mat’s entrance, and he got to his feet, eyes wide. “Mat.”

Mat hated that look he got sometimes. Like he was surprised Mat had come back. Mat hated himself for that look.

“Hey,” he said rather lamely.

“I’m sorry,” Rand said, his lower lip trembling. “I’m so sorry, Mat.”

“I know,” Mat said softly, and he didn’t even hesitate to cross the room and envelop Rand in a hug. “I know you are.” He couldn’t quite bring himself to say it was all right, because he had been scared and it had come too close to painful memories, though now he could acknowledge it had been those memories that had scared him more than the actual present moment with Rand.

Still, it wasn’t quite all right for Mat, and he was sure it definitely wasn’t for Rand. But he did know Rand was sorry, and for the moment that was more than enough for Mat.

They held each other in silence for a while, soothing each other with closeness, letting balance and calm be restored. Then Mat said, “I suppose that I do, sometimes, have a bad habit of running away from hard conversations.”

Rand lifted his head out of Mat’s shoulder with a small grin, and seeing that he was feeling better lightened Mat’s heart. “Just sometimes,” Rand agreed. “And I have a bad habit of pushing too hard, sometimes.”

“Just sometimes,” Mat said, grinning back.

He let go of Rand and wandered over to sit on the edge of the bed. After a moment’s hesitation, Rand came and sat beside him, looking uncertain. Mat scooched closer and leaned against him, reassuring him that he did want him close, and was quiet for a moment. Rand wasn’t pushing him now, just waiting for him to speak.

Finally he did. “At first I thought it was just that I missed you,” he said quietly, gazing straight ahead at a tapestry on the wall. “I was lonely and missing you, at the Tower, and she was there, and she reminded me of you, a bit. I thought I was just…I don’t know, latching onto her in your absence. But now you’re here, and you love me back, and I still feel those—those, ugh, those butterflies or whatever” —he scrunched his face up in disgust, and Rand laughed— “every time I see her.” He sighed. “I’m sorry, Rand.”

“Do you not love me anymore?” Rand asked.

His voice was calm, genuinely curious, but Mat still flinched. “Of course I do,” he said. “Of course I still love you. This—thing, with Elayne, it’s in addition to you, not instead of. I know that sounds crazy but—but I swear, it changes nothing about my feelings for you.”

“I believe you,” Rand said. “So, if it hasn’t made you stop loving me, then why are you apologizing?”

He didn’t…he didn’t sound angry. He’d laughed, Mat realized belatedly. Laughed with perfect happiness at Mat’s mention of those butterflies. And he hadn’t seemed angry this morning either, but Mat had been too panicked and guilty to notice.

He glanced sideways at Rand. Rand was watching him, his expression patient, encouraging. Not angry. “I thought…you would be hurt,” Mat said uncertainly. “By the fact that I love someone else.”

Rand reached out and took his hand where it rested in his lap. “Rhuarc has two wives,” he said apropos of nothing.

Mat blinked. “Huh?”

“He explained it to me a few weeks ago,” Rand said. “He loves them both, neither more than the other, and they both love him and don’t mind sharing because they’re such close friends that they didn’t want to fight over him. So they both married him, and all three are happy with it.” He smiled. “In fact, Amys and Lian later fell in love themselves and married each other too. It’s not uncommon among the Aiel, for people to love more than one person.”

Mat struggled to make sense of this. He had never even heard of such a thing before, would never have imagined it was possible, would never have managed to conceive of anything like it. “That’s…that’s crazy,” he said faintly.

Rand laughed. “I thought so too at first. But then I remembered…” He paused. “That time we kissed during Kiss the Daisies, when we were…seventeen? Do you remember?”

“Of course.”

“Egwene and I weren’t together yet, hadn’t even kissed or anything, but we’d been flirting a little more, and of course I’d always loved her,” Rand said. “But after kissing you that day—which was my first kiss, by the way—”

“I figured. You were terrible at it,” Mat said fondly, and Rand laughed again.

“After that kiss, I was—I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” Rand said. “I think I’d already been falling in love with you for years, I just didn’t notice until that kiss. And I’ve loved you ever since then.”

Mat was stunned. “You…?” He cleared his throat. “I thought this was…only a recent thing for you. Egwene—”

“It never changed how I felt about her,” Rand said. “It was never you instead of her. Only in addition to. That’s what I’m saying, Mat. I understand how you feel about me and Elayne. I really do. And I don’t mind.”

Mat looked down at their entwined hands, suddenly overwhelmed. “Oh,” he said.

“I noticed it the first time you ever told me her name,” Rand said. “I wish you could see yourself talk about her. Your whole face just glows.” Mat snorted, feeling himself blushing. “No, really. I’ve never seen you act like that about anyone before—except me. I’ve been thinking about all this for weeks, and I wasn’t going to say anything, but now that she’s leaving soon…I think you should tell her how you feel while you have the chance.”

“What? Absolutely not!” Mat spluttered. “I don’t want to get slapped, thank you.”

“She wouldn’t slap you,” Rand protested. “Worst case she’d let you down gently. And best case, she feels the same way.”

“Of course she doesn’t. She could do so much better. So could you, at that.”

“You’re the best anyone could ever ask for,” Rand said stubbornly. “And more fool Elayne if she doesn’t agree.”

Mat couldn’t help but smile. “I’m not going to tell her anything. But…” He hesitated. “But hypothetically…if I did—if—you’d really be all right with it?”

It felt surreal that he was even asking that question. But Rand looked so earnest and sincere when he said, “I would.”

“And if she felt the same way and wanted to be with me, which she never would, but if she did, you’d be all right with that too?”

“Yes. I like Elayne, and I think she does you a lot of good, and it would make me happy to see you happy. As long as she also didn’t mind sharing and wouldn’t try to take you from me altogether.”

At last there was a flash of insecurity on Rand’s face. It…comforted Mat, in a strange way, to know that Rand was as out of his depth as Mat was with this whole situation. But Rand was still trying his best to figure it out and make it work, just because he wanted Mat to be happy.

Mat squeezed his hand. “Well, that goes without saying. I’ve wanted you for the better part of ten years, I’m not about to give you up now that I’ve finally got you,” he joked, and it made Rand smile, made that insecurity relax into affection.

Rand leaned closer and hesitated, like he was still a little afraid that Mat was afraid of him. To clear him of any doubts, Mat closed the distance and kissed him. Even after a few weeks, it still thrilled him that he got to kiss Rand now, after all the years he’d longed to and thought he would never be able to.

“I love you,” he whispered against Rand’s mouth.

“I love you too,” Rand said. “And I’m sorry for earlier. I know how much channeling scares you, and I hate that I made you feel that way.” His voice shook. “I wish—I wish I could promise never to channel on you again, but—”

“I know. I understand,” Mat said, so Rand wouldn’t have to acknowledge aloud the madness lying in wait for him. “I knew you could channel when I told you I loved you. I knew you were the Dragon Reborn when I promised to stay by your side. I won’t pretend that I’m not scared, because I am. Scared for you more than of you. But I knew what I was getting into, and I don’t regret my choice. I could never regret you, Rand.”

Blinking back tears, but beaming, Rand kissed him again.

It was two days of thinking it over and discussing it with Rand and receiving his encouragement (and pestering Rhuarc to tell him more about this marrying-two-people business) before Mat found the guts to talk to Elayne.

They were out in the garden, just chatting. Mat had come to think of this as their spot, his and Elayne’s; it brought to mind fond memories of strolling the White Tower grounds together. When there was a lull in the conversation, Mat seized his opening. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

Elayne looked over at him with a curious expression, no doubt wondering at his sudden seriousness. “What is it?”

Mat realized he had absolutely no idea what to say next. So, I’m in love with you, but I’m still in love with Rand too, so I was wondering if you might want to be with me, but you’d have to share me with him. Was there a casual way to say that? Light, she was going to slap him right across the face. And then set Egwene and Nynaeve and Aviendha on him.

Mat racked his brains for a gentle way to lead up to it, in order to minimize his chances of getting slapped. “So, you know how Rhuarc has two wives?” he said. Maybe, if he explained that whole concept first to make sure she understood, that would make the explanation of his own feelings go more smoothly.

Elayne was clearly startled at the new conversation topic, but she nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Aviendha told me all about it the other day. Egwene met one of his wives in Tel’aran’rhiod.”

Mat nodded as if meeting people in dreamworlds was an entirely normal thing to do. Honestly, the way his life was going, it almost was. “So you know about how Aiel sometimes love more than one person at the same time,” he said.

“Yes…” Elayne said uncertainly.

“So. I want that. With you and Rand.”

All right. Okay. That had not come out as eloquently as Mat had hoped. So much for a gentle lead-up. But at least it was very clear and unambiguous, laying all his cards right out on the table. Right?

Elayne nearly fell off the bench. “W-What?” she stammered. “What in Light’s name are you talking about?”

Mat swallowed. “U-Um. Um. I like you,” he said, his face as hot as the Tairen sun. “As more than a friend, I mean. But I still love Rand too, just as much as I always have. And he knows how I feel about you and is okay with it, and he’s the one who told me I should tell you before you left Tear, burn him, I don’t know why I let him convince me this was a good idea—”

“You have feelings for me?” Elayne interrupted, her eyes very round. And so blue. Like the sea. Why did she have to have such pretty eyes? Pretty eyes always got Mat into trouble. Rand’s eyes had been so very pretty too when he’d been talking Mat into this.

Mat briefly considered passing the whole thing off as a temporary bout of madness—maybe he could claim Rand’s was catching—but he knew Elayne would never believe that. “Yes,” he admitted reluctantly.

“You have romantic feelings for me?” she said, like that wasn’t already abundantly clear.

“Yes,” Mat said. The slap was going to come any minute now.

“And Rand knows?”

“Yes.”

“And he doesn’t mind?”

“Yes.”

“Because you still love him too?”

“Yes.”

“So you want to be with both of us? Have us share you?”

Ashes, it sounded so absurd when she said it like that. “Yes,” Mat mumbled. “But it’s stupid, I know, it’s crazy, just forget I ever—”

“I like you too,” Elayne blurted out, then flushed crimson.

Mat gaped at her. “You…do?” he said. “Why?”

That was. Not exactly the question he’d meant to ask. But it did make Elayne laugh, which was always a good thing. “Why wouldn’t I? You’re wonderful, Mat,” she said, her voice so warm. Though not as warm as Mat’s face.

“Uh. Well.” He coughed. “But…Rand…”

“You love him too, yes,” Elayne said, nodding. “That’s fine with me. I see how happy he makes you, and I love that for you, Mat. I do. How could I ever resent that he makes you smile?”

Mat started to smile now. Was this…actually working out? “Oh,” he said. “So, you like me.”

“Yes.”

“And I like you.”

“Yes.”

“And Rand is fine with me being with you.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re fine with me being with Rand.”

“Yes.”

“Oh,” Mat said again, smiling wider, and Elayne was smiling too, her pretty eyes sparkling with joy, like sunlight hitting the sea. “So…now what?”

“Now, I think you should kiss me,” Elayne said, her confident air undermined by the breathlessness in her voice and the deepening blush on her cheeks.

Mat grinned. “As my Lady commands,” he said. He slid one arm around her waist to pull her close, and his other hand came up to rest on her cheek. Light, her skin was so soft.

Their noses were touching and Mat could feel Elayne’s quick, uneven breath warm on his lips, but he hesitated a moment, suddenly shy. He hadn’t been shy to kiss someone since—since that game of Kiss the Daisies when he was seventeen.

But luckily, with that boldness he loved so much, Elayne took matters into her own hands and kissed him. Mat relaxed into it right away and swiftly took charge of the kiss because it became rather clear that Elayne, bless her, did not actually know what she was doing. Although she was still better at it than Rand had been when they were seventeen, and a fast learner too. But in Rand’s defense, Elayne had more time in which to learn; this kiss lasted much longer than the ten seconds of Rand and Mat’s first kiss.

Finally Elayne pulled back, resting her forehead against his and breathing as hard as if she’d just run to Caemlyn and back. Mat stroked her cheekbone with his thumb, smiling. It was quite flattering to see the ever-composed Elayne so overwhelmed because of him. Not that he was any less overwhelmed; his heartbeat was skittering just as madly as hers was against his chest.

“First kiss?” Mat asked, although he knew it was, unless Elayne had kissed someone since that night they’d gotten drunk together at the Tower. Indeed, she blushed and nodded. “Was it like touching the Source? See, I can’t touch the Source, so I wouldn’t know.”

Elayne let out a breathless laugh. “What are you talking about?”

“Something you said once. On your first free day, when you got drunk for the first time. Remember that night?”

“Only very vaguely. Did I say anything embarrassing?”

“Not unless you consider it embarrassing that you called me handsome and said that you wanted to kiss me and that Rand was a bloody woolbrained idiot for not feeling the same way.”

Elayne groaned and hid her face in his shoulder, but she was laughing, and so was Mat. “Light burn me,” she said. “Why were you so nervous just now if you knew all this time that I liked you?”

“I did not know,” Mat insisted. “I assumed it was just drunken rambling, didn’t think you meant it. Didn’t think you could ever see anything appealing in me.”

Elayne lifted her head again to look at him, and the tenderness and admiration in her eyes made his breath catch. “Then you’re the bloody woolbrained idiot,” she said, and he blushed. “Now, what did I say about the Source?”

“You were asking what kissing was like, and you said stories always said it was like magic, and you wondered if it was like touching the Source,” Mat explained. “So? Was it?”

Elayne smiled and leaned back in. “No,” she murmured against his lips. “It was better.”

And she kissed him again.

Mat could’ve happily sat out there kissing Elayne for the entire rest of the day, but all too soon, they were interrupted. “Matrim Cauthon!” Nynaeve’s shout echoed through the garden and made them jerk apart. “You lying, cheating, two-faced—and you too, Elayne, I thought better of you! How could you do this to Rand?”

She was standing at the entrance to the garden with her hands on her hips, her face like thunder. “N-Nynaeve!” Mat stammered. “Listen, it’s not what you think—”

But she was already whirling around and storming back inside. Mat groaned. “Oh, fuck me,” he said.

Elayne stifled a laugh. “I suppose we should try and find Rand before she does.”

“I bloody well suppose we should!”

They did not. But at least Nynaeve was looking appropriately embarrassed and chastened by the time Mat and Elayne reached the anteroom to Rand’s chambers. “So,” Rand said, grinning from ear to ear. “Is there something you two want to tell me?”

Mat huffed. “There would have been if Nynaeve knew how to mind her own flaming business—”

“Well, how was I supposed to know?” Nynaeve said indignantly. “Why would I assume you had Rand’s permission to kiss Elayne?”

“Why would you assume I would kiss her without his permission?! Do you really think I’m a complete piece of shit?”

“You watch your tongue before I—”

“Thank you, Nynaeve, but we will be continuing this conversation privately,” Elayne interrupted, grabbing Mat and Rand’s arms and dragging them into the bedroom away from the Maidens’ snickers.

The room felt very quiet after Elayne had shut the door. Mat looked from her to Rand and back again, their obvious happiness dizzying him almost as much as his own. He felt like he had during that dicing fever his last night in Tar Valon, buzzing with luck and watching a fortune fall into his lap in the blink of an eye.

Rand stepped closer and took Mat’s hand, smiling at him. “Told you she’d feel the same way,” Rand said, turning his smile on Elayne. “She has the best taste of anyone I’ve ever met.”

She turned pink and smiled back. “Are you really sure you don’t mind it? Me and Mat?” she asked.

“I don’t mind at all,” Rand promised. “Do you mind me and Mat?”

“Of course not. I would never want to come between you,” Elayne said, and Rand looked relieved.

Elayne sidled over towards Mat too, looking a little shy and, also shy, Mat took her hand with his free one. Both of them darted glances over at Rand, but he only smiled wider.

Rand’s hand was bigger than Mat’s, warm and rough with the heron brand on his palm. Elayne’s was small and delicate, her serpent ring cool against Mat’s skin. He didn’t mind it anymore; it was as much a part of her as Rand’s scars were of him. Both felt like home to Mat.

After a moment Elayne withdrew her hand and said, “Well, now that that’s all settled, I’m sure you’re busy, Rand.”

“No, stay. If you want to,” Rand added. He grinned. “I’d like to get to know my new sister-wife better.”

Elayne giggled, and Mat flushed. “Well, now, that’s—slow down, would you?” he spluttered. “It’s not like any of us are married!”

But Rand and Elayne were still laughing, ignoring his protests as they moved further into the room together. Rand poured three glasses of wine and immediately started asking Elayne about matters of foreign policy, which made her light up and Mat roll his eyes. Rand didn’t know what he’d just gotten himself into; there would be no shutting Elayne up for the next hour.

Although Rand actually seemed interested in whatever boring nonsense she was saying about taxes. Mat didn’t register a word, too absorbed in watching them. They were both so beautiful, so perfect, so kind and good and wonderful. And they both loved him. The Dark One’s own luck, indeed.

Rand said something that Elayne agreed with so enthusiastically that she reached out to clasp his arm, which seemed to startle both of them. She quickly dropped her hand, both of them blushing and avoiding each other’s eyes then, after a moment, sneaking glances at each other when they thought the other wasn’t looking and blushing harder when they discovered the other was looking.

Mat raised an eyebrow. That was most intriguing. He felt a pang of regret that Elayne would be leaving before it had enough time to develop into something. But right now it was hard to regret anything too seriously, hard to worry about the future too much.

Finally Rand and Elayne both turned to look at Mat, as if only now realizing he was still standing by the door. So, smiling, he went over to join them.