The Wheel of Kin: A Daughter's Journey

You'll never be alone, I'll be with you from dusk till dawn

Moiraine gasped, her eyes flying open in the dark. The flame beside her had gone out, but her chest was still warm with the dream.

Beside her, Egwene sat up quickly, her face pale and unreadable. She didn't speak. She simply gathered her things, gave Moiraine one lingering look, and slipped out into the canyon's night.

Moiraine lay back, her hand pressed to her chest.

She could still feel the weight of a baby in her arms.

And the ghost of a kiss on her lips.

❃

Meanwhile Elara's dream coalesced around her slowly.

She stood on a barren plain of shimmering white sand under a sky that pulsed like it had a heartbeat. The edges of the world bent and rippled with every breath she took. Tel'aran'rhiod was never still, not when emotions ran high. And hers were volcanic.

She had come here searching for answers. But she knew who she would find.

The shadows at the edge of the plain thickened, and from them emerged a figure like a wisp of smoke given form—Lanfear.

Draped in flowing silks blacker than night, her silver-blonde hair gleaming like a blade, she stepped forward with that effortless, feline grace. A smirk tugged at her lips.

"I was begining to think you were hiding from me," Lanfear said.

Elara stood her ground, fists clenched.

"I'm not hiding," she said coldly. "I just needed time. Time to understand what you are."

Lanfear tilted her head, amused. "And have you?"

"I've seen you," Elara said. Her voice shook, but it wasn't with fear. It was fury. "In the Rings. I saw what you did in the Age of Legends. I saw the day you created the Bore. I saw the light shatter as the Dark One's touch bled into the world."

Lanfear's smile faded just slightly. "So, it showed you our past," she murmured. "And what else?"

Elara stepped closer, her words like knives. "I saw the future too. I saw you kill Moiraine. I saw her fall. Her blood on your hands. My mother."

For a heartbeat, the dream wavered. The sand at Lanfear's feet cracked.

"Elara," Lanfear said softly, her tone almost... mournful. "You don't understand what you've seen. The visions in the Rings show possibilities, not certainties."

"I understand perfectly," Elara snapped. "You always choose power. No matter the age, no matter the life, you choose it over everything. Over love. Over me."

Something flickered in Lanfear's eyes—something wounded, but also dangerous.

"You think you know me?" she whispered. "Because of dreams and half-truths shown by cursed ter'angreal?"

"I know enough!" Elara shouted, her voice shaking the dream itself. "I know that you've twisted every good thing inside you into something selfish. I felt it. In the lab. That day you created the Bore—there was a moment, just one, where you hesitated. You could have walked away."

Lanfear turned her face away. "I did what no one else dared. I reached for something greater."

"You reached for destruction!" Elara cried. "And you're still doing it. You keep telling yourself you're different from the others. That you're not like Ishamael or Rahvin. But you are."

Silence stretched between them.

Elara's voice dropped, aching now. "You could change. I saw that too."