The Wheel of Kin: A Daughter's Journey

Root yourself

The tents of the Aiel camp were silent beneath the stars.

Elara stirred in the dark.

The fabric roof above her shifted with the wind, the night air cool against her damp skin. Her body still ached—every joint, every muscle—but it was her mind that felt frayed, like threads of her soul had been unraveled and rewoven out of order.

Her eyes blinked open slowly.

A lantern glowed low in the corner, casting soft shadows. And beside her, seated quietly with her hands folded in her lap, sat Moiraine.

Her mother hadn't moved for hours.

She sat like stone—still in her blue robe, though the hem was dusty and the sleeves creased. Her hair had been let down, loose around her shoulders, and there was something almost human in the way her eyes traced Elara's breathing.

Elara shifted slightly in the cot, groaning under the weight of her own bones.

"You've been asleep for two days," Moiraine said quietly. "We were beginning to worry."

"I'm fine," Elara muttered.

Moiraine's lips tightened, just slightly. "You don't look fine."

"I've felt worse," Elara said. 

Moiraine didn't reply to that.

A silence stretched between them—long and soft and sharp. It wasn't empty. It was full of questions.

Moiraine finally spoke again, her voice more hesitant this time. "You were in the Rings for longer than any of us. What did you see?"

Elara turned her head and stared up at the roof.

More silence.

"Elara."

She didn't answer.

Moiraine reached out, gently brushing hair from her daughter's brow.

Elara closed her eyes. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Even to me?"

"Especially to you."

Moiraine withdrew her hand slowly, and for a long time neither of them spoke.

Then Elara's gaze shifted—just slightly—to the edge of Moiraine's robe.

Tucked beneath it, mostly hidden, was a glint of pale crystal.

The sakarern sphere. Ancient. Unknown.

Stolen from the city.

Elara's voice was flat, but her words cut deep. "Do you want to know how to use that?"

Moiraine's head snapped toward her, the mask of Aes Sedai composure slipping just enough to show surprise.

Elara sat up, slowly, carefully, her limbs stiff and her face pale in the firelight. She didn't look at her mother.

"Come," she whispered, pulling the blanket off her legs. "We'll need to go far from the tents."

Moiraine hesitated—just for a breath—then stood.

She tucked the sphere deeper into her robe and followed.

❃ 

The desert was quiet.

The morning had not yet come, but the sky had begun to lighten—shifting from star-black to pale indigo. The horizon glowed faintly like a secret about to be spoken.