Chapter Text
The air was damp — a sour smell of blood and sweat invaded her nostrils. She didn’t have to open her eyes to know where she was. There was only one place this could be. She had known, of course, that she would eventually end up back here, facing the fears of her past. She had gone prepared — and yet, now that she was here, she could feel the dread, slithering into her soul. She was that powerless little girl again, trapped in the cycle of violence she thought she’d escaped. She couldn’t even bear to open her eyes — she didn’t want to see the damp cell that had been her home. She didn’t want to remember the place that had haunted her nightmares.
And that’s when she heard him, cooing beside her. She felt a movement against her chest.
Aludran.
Instantly, the fear melted away, replaced by a deeply rooted love that overcame anything else. Nothing else mattered. As long as her son was by her side, she could face anything.
Her eyes immediately opened, her hands reaching for him in the darkness of her cell.
Her beautiful baby boy was in her arms again. She pressed her nose against his head, inhaling the smell of him to keep herself anchored. She had forgotten how small he used to be, how light he felt in her arms. She let her finger trace the curve of his nose, the swell of his cheeks. He was beautiful — he had always been. She kept whispering his name, over and over again, to deafen the sounds of steps behind the closed door of her cell, and he smiled at her, his little tiny fist resting on her heart. She looked at him, her son, her world, the reason she kept on fighting.
He started crying the moment the door burst open, as if he could feel the upcoming danger.
Lounald was standing there, in his robes, a twisted smile on his wrinkled face. His eyes, dark and greedy, fell upon her, and then the baby in her arms. His child. Oh, the way he looked at his son with disgust, as if his mere existence was an inconvenience to him. Her anger flared. Aludran had done nothing wrong. None of this was his fault.
Instinctively, Liandrin held him closer, shielding him from the gaze of this disgusting pig. He didn’t deserve to look at him — to touch him. Aludran was hers, and hers alone.
”Give it here” His voice echoed in her dank cell — an order, a threat.
She knew what would happen if she disobeyed. She had found out too many times over the years. She didn’t care. This was her child, her everything. He could beat her, break her, but she refused to let him touch her baby boy. She shook her head, looking at him with anger and defiance.
She wouldn’t cave. Not this time. Not again. Not ever.
She remembered that day. Remembered what had happened.
And she knew what she had to do. She closed her eyes, clutching Aludran against her chest, trying to reach for the One Power. She drew on her anger and her despair to clutch the evasive weaves and push them against her oppressor. She wanted him dead; she needed him dead. That had to be enough.
Except that it wasn’t.
No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t reach it — couldn’t reach the power she knew was within herself.
That was when panic settled in. And then, several things happened at once. Aludran was ripped from her arms; his cries echoing inside the room, mingling with her screams. Drown him , a voice said — Lounald’s. Then, suddenly, she was pushed onto the ground. Blood blinded her; her nose was broken. The pain was excruciating, but not as much as the thought of her child, her whole universe, being taken away from her. She tried to struggle, to break free, but someone was holding her down, pressing against her chest. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see — and her boy’s cries were getting further and further.
”Stop struggling you bitch!”
She didn’t stop. She couldn’t stop. His weight crushed her lungs. The stink of his breath — sour wine and cruelty — filled her nose. Her vision swam. But then she felt her son’s absence like a severed limb, and something ancient rose in her chest — not power, but rage. She bit, kicked, punched — she fought like a fury to get him off her. She hit him in the face. The sound of broken bones resonated within the walls — her hand, his jaw. Lounald staggered, falling back with a roar of anger and pain. She scrambled to her feet, blood smeared on her face, shaking and crying.
Aludran .
She needed to find him. It was all that mattered to her. The pain, the blood — they meant nothing.
She looked around in panic, but he was nowhere to be seen. She couldn’t hear his cries anymore.
She felt her heart tighten painfully, the mere idea of his death impossible to imagine.
”It’s too late”, Lounald said, cackling.
He spat some blood at her feet, heaving with laughter. He laughed at her pain, at her fear.
No, she refused to believe it.
Her baby boy was somewhere — she could still save him.
She wiped the tears and blood away from her face. The door of the cell was open — all she had to do was run. Run into the hallway, follow Audran’s cries.
The way back will come but once, a voice whispered in her head.
No. No, please, she whispered.
She looked behind the man who was supposed to be her husband. The Arch shimmered behind Lounald, its golden light alien in this prison of rot and blood. It was beautiful, silent, wrong, as if salvation had wandered into a nightmare by mistake—her way out of a life she couldn’t bear living.
A life without Aludran.
Aludran.
She couldn’t abandon him. Not now; not ever. She had sacrificed too much for him. Her eyes travelled to the open door. If she ran fast enough, maybe she could save her boy. Or perhaps she would find his floating body, on the harbour of Tanchico, lifeless and pale. The mere thought was almost enough to make her sick.
She looked at the Arch. And then at the empty hallway. She had a choice to make: either she betrayed her son, abandoning him to a certain death, or she betrayed herself, and the future she was trying to carve for herself. A future where no damp cell could ever hold her.
Time was running out — she had to decide. She stared ahead, trying to hear her child and see if he was alive. The hallway stretched into nothing, silent and endless. No sound. No cry. Just the echo of her footsteps and the sharp crack of her own sobs as she stumbled near the Arch.
“I’m so sorry, my boy,” she whispered, her voice shaking.
She stood there, trembling — a mother, a coward — no—a survivor.
This wasn’t real. She knew it wasn’t. Aludran was safe in Tar Valon. She knew that. But why did it feel so real? Why couldn’t she shake the dread, the horror, away? She felt sick with herself. And so, she ran — She closed her eyes and ran, unwilling to face the choice she had made.
”Where do you think you are going you filthy whore?” Her husband asked, his voice numbed by the thundering of her heart.
Lounald grabbed her ankle, trying to prevent her from leaving, and she stumbled. She kicked with all her weight. Bone shattered beneath her heel. His neck twisted with a wet crack. His neck bent at an unnatural angle, the light in his eyes extinguished.
For a moment, everything was still. The stench of blood hung heavy in the air, mixing with the iron tang of her own sweat. Her chest heaved. Her hands shook. He wasn’t moving. He would never move again.
She stood over him, broken but breathing, her foot hovering for one more blow she no longer needed to deliver. His mouth was frozen open as if even in death, he couldn’t shut up.
She looked at him — this man who had haunted her nightmares, ruled her fear, stolen everything — and felt... nothing. No triumph. No sorrow. Just a dull, aching emptiness.
She spat on his body, not out of anger, but because that was all he deserved.
And then, she stepped through the Arch, towards the light.
She collapsed to the floor, chest heaving, jaw locked against the pain. She didn’t cry. Didn’t scream. She just lay there, shaking, shattered, silent.
Aludran’s cries still rang in her ears, phantom echoes that stabbed deeper than any wound. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to hold onto the sound of him—his warmth, his weight in her arms, the curve of his perfect cheek.
Then ice water crashed over her like a slap.
She gasped, jolted back to the present, breath ragged. Droplets clung to her lashes as she blinked up at Aela Sedai, who stood above her with an empty pitcher and an unreadable gaze.
“You are washed clean of your sins,” Her mentor said. “And the sins committed against you. You come to us pure, in heart and soul.”
The words were formal, rehearsed—meant to comfort. But there was no comfort in them, not for her.
Sheriam Sedai stepped closer, already weaving the threads of Healing. Cool light poured into her, setting her bones to rights. She felt her nose crack back into place, her ribs knit themselves whole.
She hated it.
Part of her wanted the pain. She wanted the bruises and blood—proof of what she had survived. Proof that Lounald was gone, and that she had done it. That she had won .
But the weaves smoothed over her skin and the pain ebbed away.
Only the hollowness remained.
Aela Sedai knelt beside her and offered a steadying hand. Liandrin took it, reluctantly, and rose to her feet. She staggered slightly, then wiped the blood from her face with the back of her hand.
“Once you begin, you must continue,” Aela said quietly.
A warning. A command. A promise.
Liandrin nodded. Her body was mended—but something more profound was still cracked, still bleeding. The second Arch pulsed before her, waiting.
She thought of Aludran’s face.
Of his tiny hand against her heart.
Of the choice she had made.
The loss she would carry forever.
That was enough.
She took a breath, set her jaw, and stepped into the light once more.