Moiraine and Lan have gone to two other Aes Sedai, sisters Adeleas and Vandene, but first she springs on Lan that she’s arranged for his bond to transfer to a Green named Myrelle if she dies, so he won’t waste his life trying to get revenge. It’s a complex issue and both make good points, but unfortunately it’s followed by Moiraine ruminating on how Lan’s relationship with Nynaeve (and they haven’t even done anything yet) is messing with his head.
Vandene says one translation of a prophecy points to the Dragon going to Toman Head, where Fain had said he would meet Rand, but the rest is basically just catching us up with stuff we already knew. But things improve when Moiraine is attacked by a Draghkar, which is then killed by both Lan and the sisters’ Warder Jaem. Moiraine realizes it was able to get so close with help from the Black Ajah, and now she has to head off somewhere unspecified, but not to Tar Valon. Well, we do still have viewpoint characters there anyway.
Quite a mixed bag here. Moiraine’s plans for Lan provide a very thought-provoking situation, where I can perfectly see why he’d be upset while also seeing the logic behind it. Then things drop considerably with more of the tiresome barely there romance and a largely pointless infodump riddled with As You Know. And finally it picks up again with the very suspenseful Draghkar attack, during which I genuinely thought Moiraine might die. Though there still isn’t much evidence that Jordan is on George RR Martin’s level in that regard.
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