"You'll live through this, sheepherder," she insisted. "I'm going to see that you do."
He smiled at her. He looked so tired. "I almost believe that you'll do it, Min. Perhaps I'm not the one the Pattern bends around, but you." He turned, then knocked on a door in the hallway.
It cracked, Merise peeking out. She looked Rand up and down. "You seem as if you can barely stand on your own feet, al'Thor."
"True indeed," he replied. "Is Cadsuane Sedai here?"
"She has done as you asked," Merise replied. "And, I might say, she's been very accommodating, considering how you-"
"Let him in, Merise," Cadsuane's voice said from inside.
Merise hesitated, then gave Rand a glare as she pulled the door open all the way. Cadsuane sat in a chair, speaking with an older man whose long, gray hair fell loose to his shoulders. He had a large beak of a nose and regal clothing.
Rand stepped to the side. Behind them, someone gasped. Rodel Ituralde stepped up to the doorway, seeming stunned, and the man in the room turned. He had kindly eyes and coppery skin.
My liege," Ituralde cried, hastening forward, then going down on one knee. "You live!"
Min felt an overwhelming sense of happiness from Rand. Ituralde, it appeared, was weeping. Rand stepped back. "Come, let's go to my rooms and rest."
"The King of Arad Doman. Where did she find him?" Min said. "How did you know?"
A friend left me a secret," Rand said. "The White Tower collected Mattin Stepaneos to 'protect' him. Well, it wasn't too much of a leap to wonder if they might have done that with other monarchs. And if they sent sisters to Arad Doman to seize him months ago, before any of them knew of gateways, they could have gotten trapped in the snows on their return trip. He seemed so relieved. "Graendal never had him. I didn't kill him Mm. One innocent I assumed that I'd killed still lives. That's something. A small something. But it helps."
She helped him walk the rest of the way to their rooms, contents-for moment-to share in his warm sense of joy and relief.