She could stand it no longer. She crossed the brown thatch of the manor green, clenching and unclenching her fists, keeping her distance from Rand. The way this day was going, he’d notice her wrinkled finger and ask why she had been soaking it! If he discovered that the Wise Ones had been punishing her, he would probably do something rash and make a fool of himself. Men were like that, Rand al’Thor most of all.
She stalked across the springy ground, the brown thatch patterned with square impressions where tents had stood, threading her way through wetlanders scurrying this way and that. She passed a line of soldiers tossing sacks of grain to the next and loading them in a wagon hitched to two thick-hoofed draft horses.
She kept moving, trying to keep herself from exploding. The truth was, she felt just as likely to do something “rash” as Rand al’Thor would be. Why? Why couldn’t she decipher what she was doing wrong? The other Aiel in the camp seemed as ignorant as she, though of course they had not spoken to her of the punishments. She remembered well seeing similar punishments when she’d been a Maiden, and had always known to stay out of Wise Ones’ business.
She rounded the wagon, and found herself heading toward Rand al’Thor again. He was talking with three of Davram Bashere’s quartermasters, taller than each of them by a head. One of them, a man with a long black mustache, pointed toward the horselines and said something. Rand caught sight of Aviendha and raised his hand toward her, but she turned away quickly, moving toward the Aiel campsite at the north side of the green.
She ground her teeth, trying—unsuccessfully—to tame her anger. Did she not have a right to anger, if only at herself? The world was close to ending and she spent her days being punished! Ahead, she spotted a small cluster of Wise Ones—Amys, Bair and Melaine?
??standing beside a pile of brown tent packs. The tight, oblong bundles had straps for ease of carrying over the shoulder.
Aviendha should have returned to her pails and redoubled her efforts. But she did not. Like a child with a stick charging a narshcat, she stalked up to the Wise Ones, fuming.
“Aviendha?” Bair asked. “Have you finished your punishment already?”
“No I have not,” Aviendha said, stopping in front of them, hands fists at her sides. Wind tugged at her shirt, but she let it flap. Hurrying camp workers—both Aiel and Saldaean—gave the group a wide berth.
“Well?” Bair asked.
“You are not learning quickly enough,” Amys added, shaking her white-haired head.
“Not learning quickly enough?” Aviendha demanded. “I have learned everything you have asked of me! I have memorized every lesson, repeated every fact, performed every duty. I have answered all your questions and have seen you nod in approval at each answer!”
She stared them down before continuing. “I can channel better than any Aiel woman alive,” she said. “I have left behind the spears, and I welcome my place among you. I have done my duty and sought honor on each occasion. Yet you continue to give me punishments! I will have no more of it. Either tell me what it is you wish of me or send me away.”
She expected anger from them. She expected disappointment. She expected them to explain that a mere apprentice was not to question full Wise Ones. She expected, at least, to be given greater punishment for her temerity.
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.”