Chapter Text
The Aiel offered wine in crystal cups. Moiraine sipped slowly. Already lightheaded from sand, sun and sleeplessness, she could not afford to slip further. These Wise Ones had words like jagged glass. Approach from the wrong direction and those words cut.
If you do not go to Rhuidean…
And there was the slice. Melaine bit her tongue but her slip cut to the bone. Fate often did.
The Dragon to the columns. The witch to the rings.
When she stumbled away from her cracked-mirror visions, a thousand fractals of pain, she wanted only to lie down and sob, but she had no water to cry and her throat felt cut to ribbons from screaming. Blinking sand from her eyes, she tried to stop the world from swimming.
Then Rand was there. This time there was no blood spilled to the thirsty sand, only an extended hand and murmured words that slid off the domed surface of her mind.
I won’t hurt you, she promised. He didn’t seem afraid of her, though. She reached to Delve him, to make sure he wasn't hiding a wound – Warders could – but he said I know, save your strength, can you stand?
She managed. She always did.
She followed him glassy-eyed and docile, his hand on her back like a Warder, and when her knees buckled he cradled her like a crystal figurine. She in turn cradled the Sakarnen, smooth as glass. One hand gripped the Dragon Reborn’s shirt and the other clutched the orb and that became her world. She was weak, though, and after the sa'angreal fell twice to the sand, she finally let Rand tuck it into her pocket.
She’d banished her childish habit of lip-biting, but in deliverance’s arms, she clamped down so hard on whimpers that her teeth drew blood.