Moiraine lies on her bed, eyes fixed on the ceiling as if trying to bore a hole through it. How many nights has she spent in this room chasing sleep? Not many, certainly not enough. She has been away from the Tower for years, yet her room has seen its share of her turmoil. It feels as much like a cage as it does a refuge.
At least within these private quarters, she can finally exhale the remnants of the day's carefully maintained facade. But even as she closes her eyes, she cannot escape the face of the woman she once loved. So she forces herself to stay awake, going over the plans for their journey to the Eye of the World -except that everything is already in place.
The Blue Ajah sister sighs and sits up, her feet meeting the cold floor. Her eyes dart to the door at the sound of a knock. She closes her eyes, pinches the bridge of her nose, and rises to answer it.
Moiraine exhaled slowly, letting the tension in her shoulders settle, though it did nothing to ease the weight pressing down on her.
“Here I thought we’d finally get a good night’s sleep once we reached the Tower.”
She kept her gaze lowered, unwilling to meet the knowing eyes of her Warder. Through the bond, he would already sense her unease, but seeing it written plainly on her face would only deepen his concern.
“Lan,” she murmured.
He stepped into the room, his presence steady and grounding, the scent of the damp evening air still clinging to his cloak. “Moiraine, what’s wrong?”
She sighed, knowing he would not leave without an answer. Lan was relentless in that way.
“Nothing.”
His jaw tightened. “It’s not nothing if it keeps us both from resting.” He studied her, sharp eyes missing nothing. “Is it Liandrin Sedai?”
Moiraine’s head snapped up at the name before she quickly averted her gaze. The flicker of reaction was brief, but it was enough. Lan had seen it.
On the other end of the Tower, Liandrin waits until midnight before slipping down a flight of stairs, her movements melting into the shadows of Tar Valon. She glances over her shoulder repeatedly, wary of being followed. Her pace is hurried yet controlled, each step practiced and silent.
At last, she reaches the entrance of a secluded apartment at the farthest end of a narrow alley. Only then does she release a long, measured exhale. The door gives a faint squeak as she pushes it open.
She steps inside without hesitation, moving with the ease of familiarity. But as she turns toward a room, she stops abruptly.
She hears someone.
She almost embraces the One Power when suddenly she hears a man’s laugh –her son’s.
Moiraine stops on her track and turns to Lan, her hand in the air, a silent tell to stop following her without uttering a word.
“Moiraine,” Lan said, his voice deepening, bordering with concern and warning, “I need to be with you. We’re in Tar Valon but that doesn’t mean you’re sa-”
“Lan, I need to do this alone. I’ll be fine.”
“But I also know the dangers that lurk in the White Tower. You are not invincible, Moiraine.”
Her lips pressed together in the ghost of a smile. “Nor am I a child in need of coddling.”
Lan exhaled sharply through his nose, frustration barely contained. She knew he hated this, being told to stand aside when every fiber of his being demanded he guard her. He was her shield, her sword, and yet, she was asking him to lay down his duty, even for a moment.
“Please.”
Lan’s jaw clenched, the cords in his neck tightening as he struggled against the urge to argue further but his ajah’s glassy eyes tell it all.
Moiraine turned away, her dark blue dress whispering against the marble floor as she strode forward. Behind her, Lan’s voice came again, softer this time. “Be careful.”
She didn’t look back, but she let the bond carry her answer, an echo of warmth, of certainty.
And then, she was gone.
Her feet take her to the very end of the city. She waits in an alley and as soon as she sees the caretaker walks out of the apartment, only then she moves smoothly. She takes out a key from her pocket, a red ribbon attached to it. When she enters, she takes a moment to feel the place. She walks slowly to the room where a boy, a man really, lays on his ragged breath. She slowly pushes the ajar door, smiles when she sees the man looking at her.
The man’s breath hitched, his eyes searching for her face, “Alys…” he whispers as he recognizes her.
Moiraine smiles, her teeth showing, “It’s been a long time, don’t you think?” The brunette says as she walks by the bed, her arms stretch to find the man’s hand and lay a trinket on his palm. The realization hits her when Aludran doesn’t move to inspect the object. Moiraine’s heart shatters then with guilt and hopelessness. She takes the trinket and lifts it to show the boy, spins it to fully show it. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
Aludran only hummed, but his face lit up when the older woman continued with her story of how the item came to her possession.
“Oh light, you should have seen the girl’s face when I told her she couldn’t have it.” Moiraine couldn't help but be pleased when she heard the man laugh, “Don’t laugh! I feel bad enough. But in my defense, I got it first and of course I couldn’t come empty handed when I visit you, my little boy.”
The frail man continues to laugh, although his breath catches on him and he can’t help but cough. Moiraine quickly goes to the bedside table to fetch him water, she doesn’t stop when she feels something else in the room.
“Don’t you dare!”
Even Aludran’s coughing stops at the voice. Demanding as it sounds, it carries a protectiveness he couldn’t shake, even if he tried. Liandrin snatches the glass from his oldest friend’s hands, her fingers tightening around it as if the very act could shield him from whatever unseen force had settled in the room.
Aludran’s eyes darted between the women.
Moiraine stands still, poised yet unreadable. The flickering lantern light catches in her dark hair, making her seem ethereal, otherworldly. His mother, in contrast, is rigid, her stance defensive. The tension brews between them.
“What is this?” his mother demands, her voice clipped, edged with something almost frantic.
Moiraine does not flinch. Instead, she tilts her head, studying the older woman with the measured patience of one accustomed to waiting for the other to catch up.
“A reunion,” Moiraine answers smoothly. “One long overdue.” She then turns to him, and smiles sweetly.
Aludran swallows hard. Whatever this was, whoever Alys truly was, it’s no mistake they knew each other.
Of course they knew each other, even though Alys never wanted me to utter a single word to my mother whenever she came to visit.
Liandrin’s jaw tightens, before she could berate Moiraine, the brunette turns her back on her, and puts the trinket back on Aludran’s chest. Only then the blonde connected how her boy is so comfortable, laughing even with this woman.
“It’s okay. Everything’s alright. I needed to talk to your mother anyway.”
The door shut with a dull thud, sealing them in. The room seemed to shrink around them, thick with unspoken words and the weight of old grievances. They’re finally alone.
Liandrin whirled, fury radiating from her like an unforgiving storm about to drown a village full of men.
“The audacity, Moiraine,” she spat, her voice low but seething. “You come into my home, to my son?” Her breath came sharp, uneven. “You have no right.”
Moiraine sighs, her shoulders slumping. When she meets the younger woman’s eyes, she can almost see the novice girl, ever short-tempered, but the woman standing in front of her is no longer that girl, she’s one of the powerful channelers Moiraine knows.
Liandrin studies her then, the way Moiraine’s shoulders lower, as if shedding an old, tattered cloth. A trick of the light, perhaps, but Liandrin knows better.
The flickering candlelight catches in the fine embroidery of Moiraine’s deep blue sleeves, the delicate silver thread glinting like starlight. Her face remains a mask of Aes Sedai calm, but Liandrin has spent too many years learning how to see past such things.
A small, almost familiar sight, Moiraine’s nail pricks against the pad of her thumb. A tell. A sign of nerves. But her expression? It betrays nothing.
Typical.
Liandrin shifting her weight. “You’re nervous,” she says, tilting her chin. “You should be.”
Moiraine scoffs but looks away, the light illuminates her eyes and Liandrin almost misses it, but she sees a glimmer of water in the woman’s eyes. A blink and it is gone.
Liandrin sees it, drinks it in like a wolf scenting blood. She takes another step forward, “Apologize?” Liandrin’s voice is sharp, cutting. “For what? For threatening me? For going behind my back?”
Moiraine flinches, so subtly that most wouldn’t notice, but Liandrin does. She doesn’t relent, doesn’t step away. Liandrin moves with intent, until they are face to face.
“Who else knows?” the blonde whispers, her query laced with venom. She knows the other woman can’t lie.
“No one nor will I tell anyone.”
The blonde smiles, slow and sharp, tilting her head ever so slightly. “I don’t believe you,” she murmurs, the words curling in the air between them like smoke from a dying flame.
Moiraine exhales through her nose, measured and deliberate. “Believe what you wish, but it does not change the truth.”
Liandrin studies her, searching for a crack, a weakness, anything to hold onto. Her sister was always so careful, so infuriatingly composed, but even a porcelain doll breaks.
“You always did play this game well,” Liandrin whispers. “Half-truths wrapped in riddles. But this, Moiraine, crosses the line.” She lifts a hand, brushing an invisible speck of dust from Moiraine’s shoulder, her other hand by her side, ready to make a weave.
When Moiraine sees the tiniest thread, she steps backward, “Stop, Lia.”
The last time she’d heard it from Moiraine’s lips, it had been whispered in the hush of candlelight, laced with something unspoken. Something long buried.
A shiver creeps up her skin, but it isn’t from fear. It’s resentment—dark, bitter resentment for the woman before her, for the years that stretched between them, for the past Moiraine dares to invoke so effortlessly.
And guilt. Light, the guilt.
It comes like a crashing wave, swallowing her whole, dragging her under. Liandrin clenches her fists, desperate to fight it back, to drown it before it drowns her.
But then Moiraine takes a step away, retreating, and something in Liandrin snaps.
Before she can think better of it, she moves forward, closing the space between them in a single, swift step.
Moiraine’s back meets the wall.
She stops, blinking up at Liandrin, her expression close to vulnerable and Liandrin sees the way her throat moves as she swallows, the way her breath catches just slightly.
“You don’t get to do that,” Liandrin whispers, her voice rough, raw.
Moiraine doesn’t answer.
Liandrin presses closer, just enough to feel the warmth radiating from the other woman, just enough to remind her that they are not novices anymore and she is not the girl she used to know. They are something else. Something messier.
Something unfinished.
Moiraine’s lips part, but no words come.
Liandrin exhales sharply, shaking her head. “When?”
Moirane’s brows furrow, “What?”
“Since when did you know about my son and how long were you keeping it a weapon over me?”
Moiraine gasps, as if the words have physically wounded her. “I w-would never—” she stammers, shaking her head, her control slipping. “I—I came here to say I’m sorry… for saying I’d tell on you.”
Her lips tremble, her voice breaking like shattered glass.
“Lia,” she whispers, the name slipping out like a plea. “I’ve known since we were novices.”
Liandrin stops breathing.
Moiraine's eyes are wet, her tears slipping down her cheeks in quiet betrayal of all the composure she tries to hold.
Liandrin watches, frozen.
The room feels too small, the air too thick. She steps back, her boots echoing against the wooden floor.
Distance. She needs distance.
Her hands tremble at her sides, but she clenches them into fists. No. No, she will not break.
She meets Moiraine’s tear-filled gaze, but there’s no satisfaction in seeing her like this. Only an ache Liandrin refuses to name.
“So what?” she says, voice hollow. “You’ve always known? And yet you stood there, threatening me?”
Moiraine swipes at her cheeks, shaking her head. “I was wrong,” she whispers, pained. “I was angry, but I never meant to use it against you. Never.”
Liandrin closes her eyes briefly, trying to find solid ground beneath her feet. But there is none.
There never was with Moiraine.
And Light help her, there never will be.
“What do you want, Moiraine?”
To say sorry and to say my goodbye Moiraine wants to say but she whispers, “I told you.” The older woman sighs, composes herself, and turns to leave.
Liandrin watches her, her resolve crumbling, “You think you know everything don’t you?” she spits, grasping at anger, at anything that can shield her from the gnawing feeling inside her chest.
Moiraine stops in her tracks, But I do. Nothing the value of a few gold coins couldn’t buy. Nothing a well-placed inquiry to the right people wouldn’t uncover. A girl. A small village. A secret buried in blood. The men who had kept her prisoner, murdered. A babe in her hand, blood all over her, asked everyone for help.
Moiraine had known for years. She had known before Liandrin ever wrapped herself in crimson, before she became the woman she is now.
Before the world hardened her into something sharp and unyielding.
She had known.
And yet, she had never spoken of it, until earlier, when panic and exhaustion became better of her.
She hates this. Hates that Moiraine stands there, quiet, unshaken. Hates that she knew all this time and never said a word.
“What do you want?” Liandrin demands, her voice rough, desperate to regain footing in a battle she’s already lost.
Moiraine finally turns, her blue eyes softer than they have any right to be.
“Nothing,” she says.
Liandrin’s voice cracks as she shouts, each word like a blade aimed straight at Moiraine’s heart.
“You know nothing! Nothing!” she yells, her chest heaving with fury. “You’ve always been this way, Moiraine. Always thinking you’re above everyone. Always keeping everyone out—afraid that if anyone sees you for who you really are, they’ll be disgusted by how self-serving you really are.”
Moiraine’s face hardens, her jaw tight, but she doesn’t interrupt. She doesn’t defend herself. And that… that makes Liandrin’s fury boil over.
“Blue suits you, you know,” she sneers, stepping closer, closing the distance between them with each biting word. “A conniving spy through and through. Does your dog of a warder know this?” She sneers, the words like venom. “How, no matter how much you try to distance yourself from the royal blood you are, you’ll always end up with blood on your hands?”
Moiraine flinches, Liandrin sees it. It’s there, in her eyes. The weight of history. The weight of truths too ugly to say.
Liandrin steps back, her breath ragged, her chest rising and falling. She wants to hurt her, wants to break her. But what’s worse is that she can see it—the flicker of recognition in Moiraine’s eyes, the tightness in her throat, the way her hands tremble ever so slightly.
The truth is a thing you can never outrun.
“I see you,” Liandrin spits, her voice low and dangerous. “I see through your little games, your petty justifications. The world doesn’t revolve around you, Moiraine, no matter how much you want it to.”
Moiraine’s gaze softens for a heartbeat. There’s something in her eyes, something almost… sad.
“I’m not the one you’re angry at, Liandrin,” she says quietly, her voice a far cry from the fury Liandrin’s throwing at her. “You’ve been angry at yourself all this time.”
The words cut deeper than any of the others, and Liandrin’s hands curl into fists, nails biting into her palms. Moiraine doesn’t flinch. “You don’t need to fight me anymore. I’m not your enemy.”
Liandrin scoffs bitterly. Everyone who knows her truth is an enemy to her, and Moiraine doesn’t know that even with their history, protecting her son is more important to her.
But even as the words leave her mouth, even as the bitterness rises in her throat, something in her starts to crumble. “I can’t let you leave.”
Before Moiraine could counter her attack, Liandrin embraces the One Power and weaves and wraps the brunette, keeping her hands bound, her body slammed against the wall. “Liandrin! Stop this. How could you-”
Liandrin holds the weave and moves to her, “Tell me Moiraine, did you ever love me or was it just pity?”
Moiraine struggles through the shield, “Stop this now!” only for liandrin to tighten it.
“Why, princess?” Liandrin mocks, her voice dripping with venom, “You used to love being bound.”
The words hang in the air, a sharp echo of their shared history, laced with a bitterness that only Liandrin can taste fully. She watches as Moiraine’s expression falters, her eyes fluttering closed.
Then, something soft betrays Moiraine, her breath catches, and a single tear slips down her cheek. The sigh that follows is a break in everything Moiraine has built, a fracture in the Red Ajah that Liandrin can almost feel.
Killing someone who deserves it, these things have always been easy for Liandrin . Cold, clean, efficient. A life ended is nothing compared to the weight of this. The truth, the pain that Moiraine carries now, it’s different. This will be one of the hardest things Liandrin has ever had to do.
Liandrin moves closer, closing the space between them until she can feel Moiraine’s ragged breaths, a slow, uneven rhythm against her skin. It’s almost too close.
She needs to know.
And she lets go of the weave. For the first time in ages, the power slips from her control—freedom, vulnerability. She cups Moiraine’s face gently, her fingers brushing across the skin she once knew so well.
“Tell me,” Liandrin whispers, her voice strained but steady, “I want to know. The truth, Moiraine. Please.”
Her chest aches, the words leaving her with an urgency she can’t ignore. She needs to know.
Moiraine’s eyes flutter open, pain flashing behind the carefully crafted mask, but it’s too late. The walls are crumbling. And in the silence that follows, Moiraine whimpers.
Her hands, those hands that once held her so carefully, so tenderly are back again, as if they never left. The softness Liandrin had craved, the closeness that used to be so familiar.
And with that softness, with that admission, Moiraine breaks.
“Before her,” Moiraine whispers, her voice thin with the weight of years. “There was you.”
Liandrin’s breath catches, and she’s frozen.
“The only way you can hurt me,” she whispers, “is because I let you in.”
And in that moment, Liandrin understands, Moiraine’s surrender is not to the power, not to the truth of what’s happened, but to her.
She has always been the one to tear at Moiraine’s defenses. Always the one to demand more, to push for answers that Moiraine never wanted to give.
The truth, as always, comes with a price.
But now, now that the walls are down, lines were crossed and truth unraveled, and regrets flowed through her as kisses Moiraine, and felt the lips responding to her decades of yearning. She let herself succumb to the moment, to when she claimed what used to be hers until she drew back a little, seeing her weave of compulsion enter through Moiraine. The woman in front of her doesn’t have time to react.
“When anyone asks where you’ve been, you’ll tell them you went to the inn where your companions are. You’ll forget what happened here and meeting my son, you’ll forget paying someone to look into me. Now go. Go to the inn, Moiraine.” She backs away, watches as Moiraine walks away.
One of the many perks of being found by Lord Ishamael was the things he had taught her, the knowledge and power that had molded her into something far more dangerous than a simple Aes Sedai. Under his guidance, she'd learned things others could only dream of.
When she entered her son’s room again, she weaves a thread of compulsion but her boy, her son, pleads with her.
The weave of compulsion rises within her, instinctual, cold. She pulls it tighter, threading it around his mind, but something in his gaze, something in the raw emotion spilling from his eyes thatt stops her.
Her heart clenches. No, she thinks. Not this.
Liandrin trembles, her hands shaking as she lowers them. The compulsion falters. Her son doesn’t know the weight she carries, doesn’t understand the battle within her, but he sees the cracks in her resolve. He knows enough to push through.
"Please, mother," he pleads again, almost broken. "I just want to remember her... to remember who she was to me."
Oh, how hard it must be for him to just finish the sentence it but he did anyway. She gives in and touches his face, “You’re safe now, my boy. You’re safe,” she whispers as tears pool her eyes. Her gaze shifts, unfocused, to the shelf in the corner of the room. The collection of trinkets, odd little things Aludran had gathered over the years, sits there. He had always been so careful with them, so protective of each small, silly thing he said he found.
Her tears fall now, silent and heavy, the betrayal of her own hands too much for her to bear. She has kept him safe from so many things. But not this. Never this.
“I’m sorry, my love," she whispers, barely audible, a confession meant only for herself.