Amys glanced at Melaine and Bair. "It is not we who punish you, child," she said, seeming to choose her words with care. "These punishments come by your own hand."
"Whatever I have done," Aviendha said, "I cannot see that it would have you make me da'tsang. You shame yourselves by treating me so."
"Child," Amys said, meeting her eyes. "Are you rejecting our punishments?"
"Yes," she said, heart thumping. "I am."
"You think your stakes as strong as ours, do you?" Bair asked, shading her aged face with her hand. "You presume to be our equal?"
Their equal? Aviendha thought, panic setting in. I'm not their equal! I have years left to study. What am I doing?
Could she back down now? Beg forgiveness, meet her toh somehow? She should hurry back to her punishment and move the waters. Yes! That is what she needed to do. She had to go and—
"I see no more reason to study," she found herself saying instead. "If these punishments are all you have left to teach me, then I must assume that I have learned all that I must. I am ready to join you."
She gritted her teeth, waiting for an explosion of furious incredulity. What was she thinking? She shouldn't have let Min's foolish talk rile her so.
And then Bair started to laugh.
It was a full-bellied sound, incongruous coming from the small woman. Melaine joined her, the sun-haired Wise One holding her stomach, slightly bulging from her pregnancy. "She took even longer than you, Amys!" Melaine exclaimed. "As stubborn a girl as I've ever seen."
Amys' expression was uncharacteristically soft. "Welcome, sister," she said to Aviendha.
Aviendha blinked. "What?"
"You are one of us now, girl!" Bair said. "Or soon will be."
"But I defied you!"
"A Wise One cannot allow others to step upon her," Amys said. "If she comes into the shade of our sisterhood thinking like an apprentice, then she will never see herself as one of us."
Bair glanced at Rand al'Thor, who stood in the distance talking to Sarene. "I never realized how important our ways were until I studied these Aes Sedai. Those at the bottom simper and beg like hounds, and are ignored by those who consider themselves their betters. It is a wonder they achieve anything!"
"But there is rank among Wise Ones," Aviendha said. "Is there not?"
"Rank?" Amys looked puzzled. "Some of us have more honor than others, earned by wisdom, actions and experience."
Melaine held up a finger. "But it is important—vital, even—that each Wise One be willing to defend her own well. If she believes that she is right, she cannot let herself be shoved aside, even by other Wise Ones, no matter how aged or wise."
"No woman is ready to join us until she has declared herself ready," Amys continued. "She must present herself as our equal."
"A punishment is not a true punishment unless you accept it, Aviendha," Bair said, still smiling. "We thought you ready weeks ago, but you stubbornly continued to obey."
"Almost, I began to think you prideful, girl," Melaine added with a fond smile.
"Girl no longer," Amys said.
"Oh, she's still a girl," Bair said. "Until one more thing is done."
Aviendha felt dazed. They'd said she wasn't learning quickly enough. Learning to stand up for herself! Aviendha had never allowed others to push her around, but these weren't "others"—they were Wise Ones, and she the apprentice. What would have happened if Min hadn't riled her? She would have to thank the woman, although Min didn't realize what she'd done.
Until one more thing is done. . . "What must I still do?" Aviendha asked.
"Rhuidean," Bair said.
Of course. A Wise One visited that most sacred city twice in her life. Once when she became an apprentice, once when she became a full Wise One.
"Things will be different, now," Melaine said. "Rhuidean is no longer what it once was."