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“Wisdom.”
Nynaeve’s head jerked up, half-filled water skin sloshing in her hands as she surged to her feet, fatigue washed away in a flood of alarm. “What is it?”
The warder held up a hand. “Nothing to fear. We are safe enough, for the moment.”
“Thank the Light.” Her shoulders sagged with relief and she crouched by the stream again. Lan didn’t move. She tried to ignore his looming presence, even as her neck prickled with the awareness of him that always sent blushes and goosebumps across her flesh when he was near. It didn’t help that her mind kept revisiting the look he’d given her—and Light blast Moiraine for interrupting, even if Nynaeve had to grudgingly admit the Aes Sedai had been right, and they had needed to hurry. Still. She might have given them a moment .
Not that it hadn’t felt like a thousand moments, being caught in Lan’s eyes, his strong hand on her arm, as if he didn’t even realize how tightly he held her. As if he’d needed to feel her in his grip to be sure she was safe. The idea made something in her stomach squeeze and shiver. And what she’d seen in his eyes—heat, and anger, all wrapped together with relief and something that might have been longing. It had tugged at her heart, that crack in his armor.
But she’d also felt a sharp, gleeful barb of victory in her chest, the sense that she’d finally, finally scored a point in her ongoing battle with Moiraine. Pride , that she could earn the regard of a man like him without needing the White Tower or pretty gowns or the strange bond—and as they’d galloped through the night that pride had curdled into sour, sickening shame. Did the strange flutter she felt in her stomach when he spoke to her mean anything at all? Or was she no better than Moiraine after all, using him for her own ends, interested only because she wanted something she could hold over the Aes Sedai? Maybe it was both, which was somehow worse –that she could feel such a rush of pleasure just from his voice, from the warmth of his presence, and also see him as something less than a person, like a game piece to manipulate and squabble over. The thought contaminated the joy that had leaped up in her, made her feel dirty, as if she'd somehow smeared her heart with rancid oil.
Nynaeve tried to focus on the cold of the water rushing over her fingers, to pretend Lan wasn't there. The Women's Circle would have something to say if they knew some of the things I–
“Wisdom.” He was crouching next to her, hand on her arm—a light touch, this time, warm through her sleeve. “It will not get more full, however long you hold it under.”
She blinked at him, stunned by the faint twitch of a smile at the corner of his mouth, and then she blushed hotly, pulling the waterskin out of the creek and fumbling with the stopper. She was no better than a goose-brained girl, mooning over a man instead of keeping her mind on her task.
He doesn't need to laugh at me , she thought sourly, drying her hands on her skirt, but then a finger was crooked under her chin, tilting her face up to his.
Nynaeve froze like a frightened rabbit, her heart thudding in her ears. His bent head meant that his face was in shadow, but she could see the gleam of his eyes, could picture their ice-chip blue color as he gazed down at her. He lifted his other hand. A calloused fingertip trailed a line across her cheek and she gasped, the inhalation sharp and uneven.
Lan paused. "Does it hurt?" he asked. She stared at him stupidly. "You haven't cleaned it," he added, lightly touching her face again.
She reached up, prodding gingerly as her fingers found the tackiness of drying blood. "It must have been a branch in the dark. It's just a scrape. I didn't even feel it."
He grunted. “It can be too easy to ignore small wounds in the heat of the moment, but even a small infection will steal your strength—and you need all you can muster.”
“Really.” Nynaeve sniffed, watching his face. “Someone should have told me this before.”
A thrill raced through her when she caught the corner of his slight smile deepen. That was real , she thought. No petty power struggle could make me feel so… she struggled to put a word to the sensation, only to have her mind go utterly blank as the warder’s hand curved around her jaw, her undamaged cheek cradled neatly in his callous-roughened palm. He’d produced a bit of cloth from somewhere and dipped it in the stream, using his cupped hand to hold her face steady as he cleaned the small cut. Nynaeve shivered. It was strange to realize that while she touched others—it was an essential part of her vocation, after all, touching hot foreheads and bruised ribs, and all manner of other places, when there was need—it was vanishingly rare for anyone to touch her with anything but brief, commonplace courtesy.
“Do you have an ointment suited for this?” he asked
Did she? Of course she did, she always did. Nynaeve leaned back, breaking away from his touch— Light! Burn the man for addling her wits, with his warm hands calloused in interesting, unfamiliar patterns —and managed to get her belt pouch open, finding the little jar, then nearly dropping it as she struggled with the lid.
“Permit me,” he said—not exactly a request, but at least he held out a waiting palm rather than taking the jar from her fingers. Nynaeve had dealt with enough men to appreciate that. He made quick work of the lid, set the jar on the ground between them, and before she could reach for it herself he had already dipped a broad fingertip into the salve.
“I can—“ she began, but Lan grasped her chin, tilting her face to the moonlight, as he repeated himself.
“Permit me.”
A bit full of himself, she thought, to be asking permission for something he was already doing, but it was hard to hold onto her indignation when she felt his breath brush her ear, when she was distracted by how firm yet gentle his fingers were against her jaw. He applied the salve with a delicate touch—not a hesitant dabbing, but deliberate and careful strokes that mitigated the sting.
“You took a great deal of risk tonight,” he said.
Nynaeve stiffened, but his hand on her chin tightened just the slightest bit, keeping her in place. “We’d have been in difficulties if I hadn’t,” she said. “Riding double wouldn’t have gotten us far.”
He grunted faintly. “I didn’t say that it wasn’t well done. You have courage, Wisdom.”
Heat flooded up Nynaeve’s cheeks and she dropped her eyes, hoping the moonlight hid her blush. Burn the man for making her feel so off balance! She wasn’t a simpering girl, ready to throw herself at the first man to give her a compliment (but he had been the first, at least the first not to add some qualifying rider—that she was good at woods craft ‘for a girl’ or a fine healer ‘for someone so young’…or pretty for such a shrew ).
The pad of his thumb rasped lightly down the edge of her jaw, nearly distracting her from his next words.
“You should have more care.”
She jerked backward, away from that calloused thumb, and glared at him. So his compliment had a qualifier after all. “Should I care more like your Aes Sedai?” she snapped. “Caring about people only when some garbled prophecy says they’re important?” He sighed wearily, but Nynaeve didn’t let him try to defend Moiraine’s priorities, when it was only by the blessing of the Light that Egwene had been with Perrin! Otherwise the girl could have been abandoned to who knew what fate. She prodded the warder in the chest with one finger. “ All of those children are important, not because of some prophecy or ta’veren or anything else, but because they’re my people.”
His hand closed over hers, large enough to envelope her fingers in a warm, firm grip—firm, but still gentle. “Your motives and hers are more alike than they are different,” Lan said. “But I meant that you should have more care for yourself. Nynaeve.” The low rumble of his voice made her name sound like a caress, and just that quickly she was blushing again, her anger evaporating. She opened her mouth, then closed it. The silence drew out, and under her hand— and when had her whole hand pressed itself against his chest! —she felt him take a rough breath. When he spoke again his voice was level and even, but his eyes were intent on hers. “You do not know what would have happened to you in the hands of the Whitecloaks. You cannot imagine—and the Creator forbid you should ever learn—what these creatures do to women, especially to women with the ability to touch the One Power.”
“I don’t—“
“They would drag it out of you,” he said flatly, then shook his head. “And there are worse than Whitecloaks in the world. You throw yourself into danger too readily. Don’t risk yourself so easily, when there are greater battles to be fought. Battles equal to your courage.” His palm cradled her cheek again, and Nynaeve felt a strangled sound catch at the back of her throat as her skin tingled.
He dropped his hand, and the cold air hitting the place where his touch had been felt like a slap. Nynaeve’s heart thudded in her ears as if all the blood in her body were rushing to her face.
“You should sleep,” he said. “We will ride hard again tomorrow.”
Nynaeve gaped at him, then hastily shut her mouth and looked away. “I should check on Egwene,” she muttered, stumbling to her feet, clutching the half forgotten water skin. The warder was already standing, nearly vanishing in the darkness as he always seemed to do. Not that she was looking at him. Not that she felt somehow too hot despite the chill, as if her skin were the wrong size, as if her knees were weaker than a new lamb’s. How dare he, she thought, although she didn’t bother to specify what, not even to herself. How dare he be so tall, how dare he have such blue eyes, how dare he make her stomach flutter as if she'd swallowed a dozen moths, how dare he be tied hand and foot and soul to someone else while he looked at her like that –!
She was relieved to see Egwene sleeping, both for the girl’s sake and because she could still feel her cheeks burning. Nynaeve sat on her blankets as gracefully as she could—which was not very, because her knees seemed to fold up under her—and tried to ignore the rush of blood humming in her ears. She deliberately did not look around for Lan, did not wonder if he had followed her back to the camp or if he was moving soundlessly through the dark, circling, as he often did, keeping the rest of them safe.
Then she was suddenly aware of his looming presence behind her, of the smell of pipe smoke and leather as he stooped. For a moment the edges of his cloak fell around her, enveloping her in his scent like an embrace.
The little jar of salve, that she’d left forgotten by the stream, dropped softly into her lap. A hand brushed her shoulder, resting for the briefest of moments beside the rope of her braid.
“Sleep well, Nynaeve,” he murmured above her, his breath a whisper of warmth against her nape, and then he was gone again.
With clumsy fingers she put the ointment away in her kit. She rolled herself in her blanket, and when sleep did finally come her dreams were laced with fragrant smoke and rich leather.