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The wind moaned low against the stone, threading through the battlements like a ghost with nowhere left to haunt. Beyond the high-arched windows, the towers of Malkier stood still and whole, crowned by moonlight and the hush of snowfall. Inside their chamber, the fire had burned down to a reluctant glow—embers crumbling quietly into themselves, their warmth pooled in the thick pelts draped across the floor. The hour was late. The world had softened.
Lan lay on his back, one arm tucked behind his head, the other stretched across the cool linen sheets. Sleep tugged at the edges of him, slow and patient. He was warm, the weight of furs heavy on his chest, the scent of ash and lavender steeped into the air. And yet—he sighed—he was not alone.
Moiraine shifted beside him for the third time in as many minutes. A rustle of silk. The whisper of hair against the pillow. A breath, long and uneven.
He cracked one eye open. Her silhouette was barely visible, just a pale smudge against the shadowed bedclothes. She turned again, and the mattress creaked in gentle protest.
“If you don’t stop moving,” Lan muttered, voice sandpapered with sleep, “I will kick you off this bed.”
A beat. Then a soft chuckle, as rich as wine and twice as warm. “You’d miss me.”
“You underestimate how much I value sleep.”
She hummed thoughtfully, as if weighing the truth of that. Another shift, smaller this time—her foot nudging against his calf, cool toes seeking warmth. He grunted and caught her ankle under the coverlet, pressing it flat.
“Settle.”
“I’m trying.” Her voice was quiet now, not teasing but honest. “My mind won’t still.”
Lan sighed again, this time not in annoyance. He could feel the tension under her skin, the way her breath caught before each exhale. She was tired—he knew that. Not in the way that sleep cured, but deep down in the bones, in the part of her that had held too many burdens for too long. Even peace had its weight.
He let his eyes close again, breathing slow, steady. “Then lie still. Let me do it for you.”
A pause. Then, wickedly soft: “You didn’t say how you’d do it for me.”
Lan exhaled through his nose, a half-huff that barely passed for amusement. “Don’t tempt me.”
Her foot slid deliberately up his leg, cool toes brushing the curve of his calf. “Is that what I’m doing?”
“Yes,” he said flatly.
“Mm. Noted.”
She stilled—for a moment. Then came the sigh, the shift of her arm crossing over his chest, the slow drape of her body inching closer across the bed. The crown of her head nudged against his shoulder as if it belonged there. It did. Stars, it did.
“You know,” she said, low and musing, “for a man who once slept upright on horseback, you’re remarkably sensitive about the quality of your rest.”
Lan turned his head toward her, not bothering to hide the look she couldn’t see in the dark anyway. “You once told a Forsaken to sit down and behave.”
“And he did,” she said, pleased. “Eventually.”
“Because you exhausted him.”
“That was strategy.”
“That was stubbornness.”
She smiled against his skin. He could feel it—faint and warm where her cheek brushed the crook of his arm. It took no effort to let his hand fall to her waist, thumb stroking absently across the silk of her nightgown. The fire snapped in the hearth, more glow than flame now, casting soft gold against the stone walls. The light made a halo of her hair where it spilled across his chest, finer than silk and scented faintly of rose and snowmelt.
Moiraine shifted again, subtly this time, tucking herself in closer—sighing not from restlessness now, but satisfaction. Her fingertips danced over the flat of his stomach, idle and unhurried.
“I missed you today,” she murmured.
“You saw me at breakfast.”
“Still.” A shrug that brushed her shoulder against his ribs. “You were sparring. I was training initiates. Our paths barely crossed.”
He let out a low sound that wasn’t quite agreement but wasn’t dismissal either. She was right. It had been a long day, filled with the ordinary bustle of peace—the work of rebuilding, retraining, relearning how to live without always watching the horizon. A good day. A full one. But it was always this—this quiet, this closeness—that made it real.
Moiraine’s fingers trailed idly along the seam of the blankets. “Did you hear that Tuon’s expecting again?” she murmured, voice soft enough that the stone walls themselves might have leaned in to listen.
Lan grunted, half in assent. “The Empress. She’s added another to the long list of mouths to feed.”
“She’ll be a fine mother.” Moiraine tossed her hair over her shoulder; a lock of dark ringlets brushed his chest. “You know—apparently, she has taken to calling Mat ‘Husband.’ He nearly choked on his tea.”
Lan chuckled, amused despite himself. “He’ll be sure to carry that title like a trophy.”
Moiraine smiled at the memory as if she’d seen it play out before her eyes. “He has always been the kind of man who wore his heart on his sleeve.”
Lan’s gaze drifted upward, as though he could glimpse all of them gathered in the candlelit hall below: a found family bound by more than blood. “And Elayne wrote that Aviendha’s been teaching Mairella to ride already,” he added. “The little lioness.”
“She’s bold as a summer storm,” Moiraine agreed, voice brightening. She paused, then added softly, “I think Egwene would’ve loved how daring Mairella is.”
Lan shifted so her head rested in the hollow of his shoulder. “Torric, on the other hand, is thoughtful—quiet, like Rand in the mornings.”
Moiraine’s breath caught. “He’’ll take after Rand.”
“He’ll take after his parents,” Lan said simply, thumb brushing across Moiraine’s wrist.
She nodded, eyes on some distant vision. “I worry how Rand manages his silence these days. He stays here—with Min—so no one guesses he’s still alive, yet sometimes I see that old burden in his eyes.”
Lan tightened his arm around her. “He’s found peace.”
“Has he?” Moiraine’s voice was threadbare with longing as she laid her cheek against his chest, listening to the slow pulse beneath.
“He comes at dawn for sword practice, and at dusk for supper,” Lan murmured, pressing a kiss into her hair. “Because this”—he swept his arm around them both—“is home.”
Moiraine traced the curve of his collarbone. “And Perrin and Faile’s daughter too—stubborn as Faile already, helping tend the hounds.”
“Two by winter,” Lan said, voice thick with sleep. “They’ll have their hands full.”
Moiraine hummed, content. “They’re all ours, you know.”
Lan let his eyes close fully. “Aye. All ours.”
Lan’s breathing evened out in the hush, but Moiraine’s mind kept its restless dance. She closed her eyes and let the warmth of his body anchor her, but thoughts unfurled like silken ribbons: the faces of all they’d loved, lost, and saved. The tapestry of the White Tower still draped over her memory—Egwene’s bright smile, Egwene’s fierce command of the One Power, Egwene’s laughter echoing through the great hall. How strange, in this new world, to walk those corridors without her.
A soft sigh slipped from Moiraine’s lips. Lan’s arm tightened around her as though he felt the tremor in her heart. She leaned into him, inhaling the familiar scent of leather and pine from his cloak, mingled with the faintest trace of lilac from her own shawl. In their bedroom, the fire had died to pale coals, but a single candle burned on the carved oaken chest—its flame dancing against the carved dragons of Malkier, casting their wings in fleeting relief.
She remembered how, years ago, they’d stood side by side facing the Last Battle. Then, there was no comfort—only steel, sweat, and the roar of armies. Now, peace lay around them like a soft fog, settling over every stone of the Seven Towers. She pressed her lips to his shoulder, tasting the salt of his skin, and let herself drift back to smaller triumphs: Mat’s first triumphant laugh as Tuon claimed him; Aviendha’s fierce pride teaching Mairella to sit in the saddle; Perrin’s gentle hand guiding his own daughter through the echinacea in the garden behind the towers.
Moiraine whispered, almost to herself, “I still marvel we’ve earned this.”
Lan hummed, the sound low and content. “Aye. Not every man gets to live in a future he fought for.”
She lifted her head just enough to brush her fingers along his jaw. “I worry, though. That we will forget how precious this is.”
He turned toward her, eyes dim pools of candlelight. “Then we’ll remind each other.”
Her heart caught at the promise. She rested her forehead against his, closing her eyes and cataloguing the moment—how the weight of his body steadied her own, how the echo of their shared past throbbed like a second heartbeat. Outside, the wind rattled the eaves; a lark called from somewhere unseen. It sounded like hope incarnate.
Leaning back, Moiraine let her gaze drift upward to the painted ceiling where constellations glimmered—a replica of the night sky above Fal Dara. She wondered if Mat, across the sea, looked up at the same stars and felt the pull of home. And Rand, wherever he hid from rumor and rumor’s cruelty: did he see the promise in that sky, too?
“Do you think he ever regrets his choice?” she asked gently.
Lan was silent for a long moment. Then he said, “He chose peace for all of us, even if it haunts him.”
Moiraine drew in a breath, letting each syllable settle. “I wish he would let himself rest.”
“He will,” Lan promised. “As long as you keep coaxing him.”
She smiled, tipping her head so their noses brushed. “He’s stubborn.”
“Like his wives.” Lan grinned, half-awake. “And like his mother.”
A soft laugh bubbled from Moiraine’s throat. She closed her eyes, savoring the warmth of that laughter as it intertwined with the flicker of candlelight on the walls. In that glow, she saw not just two lovers but a family: the rambunctious twins squealing in the hall after successfully pranking another pesky lord that had been troubling their queen mother, Mat and Tuon murmuring schemes over another child, Perrin teaching his daughter to whistle by the hearth, Aviendha’s steady gaze as she watched them all. And she and Lan, the silent sentinels who had guided them here.
A breeze drifted through the window’s open slit, carrying the scent of spring blossoms from the gardens below. Moiraine lifted her hand and let it drift free of Lan’s hold, fingers brushing the edge of the quilt. The fabric was soft, muted blues and golds woven into the symbol of the Dragon.
“Do you ever think about home?” she whispered.
He thought for a heartbeat. “Home has always been beside you.”
Her heart fluttered like a bird released. She sighed and turned fully into his arms, letting her shoulder rest against his chest, her cheek against the steady rise and fall of him. “Then we’re home,” she said.
Lan pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Yes.” His voice was thick with sleep now. “Sleep, my heart.”
She closed her eyes at last, every worry soothed by that single word. The candle guttered, the coals glowed faintly, and the Seven Towers held them in its ancient walls. And in that moment, as Moiraine drifted into dreams, she knew that even the weight of history could not crush the fragile candlelight of peace they had kindled—nor the promise of love that would burn softly, always, in the dark.