Chapter 29

Geofram Bornhald rides into a ravaged village on Almoth Plain and finds a makeshift gibbet holding thirty dead, including children. Reports suggest the killers wore Taraboner and Domani cloaks; Bornhald concludes Questioners staged the massacre. When Child Jeral brings Jaichim Carridin’s order to pull back and scour the plain for Darkfriends, Bornhald rejects it, believing the real threat sits in Falme.

Determined to confront the true enemy, Bornhald orders messages to rally scattered Children and prepares to move onto Toman Head. He interrogates a captured officer for intelligence on the invaders, seeking clarity on the Seanchan and their methods.

Aboard Spray, Bayle Domon is chased by a towering Seanchan ship. Columns of flaming seawater erupt around him, forcing surrender. Captain Egeanin boards with soldiers and a collared woman controlled by a leashed handler; Egeanin calls the collared woman a damane and forbids the name “Aes Sedai,” asserting the Seanchan’s right to make all swear oaths.

Egeanin leaves a soldier, Caban, to ensure compliance as Spray is shepherded to Falme. Along the way, Domon witnesses numerous Seanchan ships, the First Watcher caged at the Watchers Over the Waves, and strange beasts serving the invaders. In Falme, locals bow to Seanchan authority, carry weapons under oath, and live under the threat of damane and monstrous troops.

Egeanin searches Spray with the damane and finds a small cuendillar seal Domon had hidden. She escorts him to a grand house, where strict ceremony precedes an audience with High Lord Turak. Egeanin presents the seal; Turak adds it to a cabinet of cuendillar rarities, revealing a second identical seal already in his collection.

Turak refuses to release Domon, desiring a cultured conversation in a land of “oathbreakers.” Offering kaf, Turak probes how a mere trader obtained cuendillar, while Domon attempts to lie his way to freedom, now a captive along with the precious seal.