Chapter 3

Rand tries to slip out of Fal Dara through a sally gate, but Ragan and the hostile Masema enforce new orders barring all exits. Other gates are likewise shut, and the walls and deadly moat make climbing out impossible. Uneasy and hunted by a foul-smelling, unseen presence, Rand wanders the keep, avoiding Aes Sedai.

He moves through kitchens and servant halls, feeling watched. In storerooms he finds Loial observing dice games; Mat and Perrin join him. Rand recounts the sinister wind and the invisible watcher and declares he must flee south. Mat argues, Perrin worries, and Loial explains they are ta’veren. Panicking over endangering them, Rand viciously drives all three away, shocking nearby Shienarans.

Still searching for a hiding place, Rand encounters Egwene. After a scuffle and sharp words, she insists he cannot simply run and proposes hiding him where no one would expect: first the dungeon, then, if needed, the women’s apartments. She leads him to the cells, past sullen guards Changu and silent Nidao and two hostile prisoners.

At Padan Fain’s cell, the peddler greets Egwene but singles out Rand in the darkness, proclaiming the battle is never over and chanting a chilling rhyme. He mutters of Mordeth and stares upward, disturbing them both. Deciding the dungeon is too perilous, Egwene resolves to conceal Rand in the women’s apartments, using him as her burden-carrier.

Resigned, Rand wraps his weapons to pass as Egwene’s porter. Fain’s laughter and taunts echo in the dark as they prepare to risk the only place men never enter uninvited.