The Gathering Storm: Chapter 36
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Chapter Icon: Wheel and Serpent
Outline
Verin and Mat agree she will transport the band to Caemlyn but Mat need to wait thirty days and read a letter she will give him then decide whether or not to follow the instructions or not. Fortuona personally sends the bloodknives to their mission in the White Tower.
Summary
Mat's Point of View:
Setting: Outside Trustair
Characters: Mat, Talmanes, Thom, Verin
Verin tells Mat of how she came to Trustair. He realises her mannerisms are exaggerated and that she is not as unaware of the world as she pretends. She tells him he is probably the strongest ta'veren in centuries. He asks about Rand and she says he is mad, but that it is not the taint and saidin is clean. After leaving Rand, she had intended to go to Tar Valon and stopped at an inn in a village on the way. She had intended to learn the room well enough to Travel from it the next day, but was forced to switch when the roof began to leak. She wasn't able to learn the next room either, as the inn burned down. This continued for days until she decided that she wouldn't try and learn a place and Travel from it, instead taking a caravan to Cairhien. This didn't work either as the owner got a tip that he could better sell his goods in Murandy and changed course, forgetting to tell her. At this, she decided to skim, but before weaving the gateway, she and Tomas were speaking of Trustair and she accidentally ended up opening the gateway there instead. She tells him that the Forsaken have ordered him and Perrin killed and that he is in great danger, showing him a picture of himself that has been passed around. She offers him a deal. She will move him and the band directly to Caemlyn, but after ten days, he must read a letter she gives him and follow the instructions. He refuses and they compromise, he will wait thirty days, then read the letter and choose whether or not to follow.
Fortuona's Point of View:
Setting: The Tarasin Palace
Fortuona kisses the bloodknives and blesses them before they leave on the raid. She tells the assembled nobles that this will turn the Dragon Reborn against them, whereas before, they were against him, and the two are very different.
