The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass. What was once known becomes legend, and legend fades into myth until even myth is forgotten. Yet when the Age that gave it birth comes again, the old stories sometimes return with it, though rarely in the shape men expect.
No one knew precisely when the Fourth Age had begun. Some said it had started when the last armies of the Shadow laid down their weapons. Others believed it began when the Dragon's work was finished and the Pattern settled into the shape the Wheel had chosen for the next turning. There were even those who claimed the Age began with the first child born after the Last Battle. Such arguments filled the halls of scholars and the cups of tavern storytellers, but the Wheel had no need of dates written by men. It turned regardless.
The lands that had once been called Encantadia were known by another name in the records of the Fourth Age: the Weaved Lands. The name came from the strange ways in which the people of those lands had learned to use the One Power. Unlike the world of the Third Age, where the ability to channel had been uncommon and feared in many places, nearly every people of the Weaved Lands possessed some connection to the Power. Many could sense it. Some could touch it. Only a few possessed the strength and discipline required to shape it into anything more than the simplest of weaves.
The men who could channel drew upon saidin, while women touched saidar. The two halves of the One Power were different, each demanding its own manner of surrender and control, yet together they formed the force that moved through all things. The taint that had once poisoned saidin was long gone, remembered by most only through histories of the Third Age and the scars left upon the world. The two halves could once again be used without the shadow of madness hanging over every man who touched the Source.
Those who mastered the One Power became known as Sang'gres, though the title meant different things in different kingdoms. Some were healers, some warriors, some advisers to rulers, and some served no lord at all. Their skill varied greatly. A woman capable of mending a broken bone might possess only a fraction of the strength of another who could raise a wall of stone, yet both were called channelers. The One Power had never cared for the titles men gave it.
Among the Sang'gres were a few whom the Pattern itself seemed to favor. These were the ta'veren, men and women around whom chance gathered and events bent in ways no scholar could properly explain. They were not necessarily the strongest channelers, nor were they chosen by the Wheel for any particular virtue. The Pattern simply used them when it required a change.
Five ta'veren had become guardians of the great sa'angreal of the Weaved Lands. The people called those ancient objects the Brisingr, and each was associated with one of the great kingdoms. Their origins were uncertain. Some claimed they had been fashioned during the early years of the Fourth Age. Others insisted they were older than the Last Battle, perhaps even older than the Breaking itself. Whatever their origin, each held enough of the One Power to make even the strongest channeler wary.
In the mist-covered reaches of the Manor of Tides lay Adamya, a kingdom built upon water. Its cities spread among coral reefs, mangrove forests and sheltered bays, with towers rising from the sea as naturally as trees from the earth. The Adamyans were skilled with Water and were known throughout the Weaved Lands for their healers. Their people believed that nothing remained unchanged for long, not the sea, not the land and certainly not the lives of men.
Imaw was their guardian.
He was a quiet man, already old when the Fourth Age was young, and his wisdom was spoken of almost as often as his strength in the One Power. The Brisingr of Water rested in his keeping, though Imaw seldom displayed it. He believed that power was best carried quietly, like a deep current beneath calm water.
To the south stood Sapiro, the Manor of Foundations. Its mountains dominated the surrounding plains, and the Sapiryans had built their cities from stone that seemed capable of enduring anything the world might send against them. They were warriors by tradition and builders by necessity, and their channelers were particularly skilled with Earth and Spirit. Their smiths were renowned for making weapons that could withstand years of battle without losing their edge.
Their High Lord was Armeo.
He was a warrior before he was a ruler, broad-shouldered and stubborn, with the sort of temper that made advisers choose their words carefully. He was also ta'veren, though he had never regarded the distinction as a gift. The Brisingr of Earth rested within the great halls of Sapiro, guarded by his command.
Above the others floated Lireo, the Manor of the Skies. The kingdom had been built among the clouds by generations of channelers who had learned to weave Air on a scale that would have astonished even the greatest Aes Sedai of the Third Age. Its towers and terraces rested upon enormous currents of the One Power, and from its highest balconies a person could see for leagues across the clouds.
Minea ruled Lireo.
She held the title of Amyrlin Seat, a name preserved from the ancient White Tower, though the organization she led had little resemblance to the Tower of the Third Age. She was a skilled channeler of Air and the keeper of the Brisingr of Air. Those who served her often remarked that she could remain calm during an earthquake, yet Minea herself knew how much effort that calm required.
For a time, the four kingdoms knew peace.
Then Arvak took the Brisingr of Fire.
Hathoria, the Manor of the Forge, had always been a harsh kingdom. Its mountains were rich in metal, its valleys scarred by mines, and its forges burned from dawn until long after sunset. Hathorian channelers were particularly skilled with Fire, and their smiths had learned to combine the Power with ordinary craft in ways that produced weapons and machines unlike anything seen elsewhere in the Weaved Lands.
Arvak changed the purpose of those forges.
He was a ta'veren of Hathorian blood, and ambition had taken root in him long before he claimed the Brisingr. Once he possessed it, he stopped speaking of trade and treaties. He spoke instead of order, strength and the right of Hathoria to rule the Weaved Lands.
His war began without declaration.
At dawn, Hathorian ships appeared off the coast of Adamya. The Adamyans had expected merchants or perhaps envoys. Instead, the ships opened fire with the One Power.
Arvak stood at the prow of the largest vessel, watching the first weaves strike the water. Fire poured beneath the surface, driving deeper and deeper until the sea itself began to steam.
"Let them pray to the waves," he said.
The Hathorian channelers obeyed.
The ocean did not merely grow warm. It boiled.
Steam rose in enormous clouds, hiding the sun. Coral structures cracked beneath the sudden heat, and great columns of water erupted as pockets of trapped air and steam burst beneath the reefs. Adamyan healers tried to rescue the injured while channelers fought to hold back the advancing heat, but they were outnumbered and overwhelmed.
One healer reached toward a Hathorian channeler through the boiling spray. "Please! The sea has done nothing to you. Stop this!"
The Hathorian looked at her for a moment before tightening the weave.
"The weak always complain when the strong begin to build."
The healer vanished beneath the steam.
By nightfall, much of Adamya's coast had been destroyed. The surviving Adamyans fled inland or toward the northern marshes, carrying the wounded with them. Those who had witnessed the attack later gave the weave a name that remained in the histories of the Fourth Age.
The Boiling Tide.
Arvak called it his first victory.
Sapiro was next.
The Sapiryans had time to prepare. Armeo ordered the mountain passes sealed and called every soldier who could carry a weapon. The great walls of the capital were reinforced with Earth and Spirit, and channelers worked without rest to strengthen the foundations.
For several weeks, the Hathorians could not break them.
Then Arvak arrived.
The Brisingr of Fire gave him strength enough to weave Fire through the foundations of the outer walls. Stone began to glow. The great blocks that had stood for centuries softened, then sagged beneath their own weight.
The Sapiryans fought among their collapsing fortifications.
Armeo's wife, Asnara, led the rear guard. She was High Lady of Sapiro and a capable channeler in her own right, though she had never possessed her husband's strength. Her orders were simple: hold the southern road long enough for the children and wounded to reach the mountains.
She raised a wall of stone as the Hathorian army approached.
Arvak walked toward it.
"You build with stone," he called. "But stone burns as easily as anything else."
Asnara strengthened the wall.
Arvak raised the Brisingr.
The stone began to melt.
Asnara screamed as the ground beneath her feet turned soft. She tried to escape, but the molten rock closed around her legs, then her waist. Her soldiers attempted to reach her and were forced back by the heat.
Armeo saw it from the northern heights.
He could do nothing.
When the stone finally hardened, Asnara was gone.
Arvak looked toward the distant High Lord and smiled.
"Tell him," he called, his voice carried by the Power, "that I have given his wife a monument that will outlast his kingdom."
Armeo's response was lost beneath the roar of the Cinder Rain.
For three days, Fire and Air filled the skies above Sapiro. It did not fall like ordinary flame. Burning fragments drifted upon the wind, clinging to stone and armor alike. The Sapiryans sheltered within their fortifications, but the weave found them there as surely as it had found them in the open.
When the rain finally stopped, the capital of Sapiro was blackened and silent.
The survivors fled toward Lireo.
They came in thousands.
Adamyans whose homes had disappeared beneath boiling water. Sapiryans whose mountain halls had been melted. Children who had watched their parents die. Soldiers who carried wounds they could no longer remember receiving.
Some among them had lost their ability to channel.
They were called the Spoke-less.
The name was not always spoken kindly.
Lireo accepted them nevertheless.
The refugees filled the lower tiers of the floating city, sleeping beneath stairways and in halls that had once been used for trade. The people of Lireo brought them food and blankets, but there were too many refugees and not enough of either.
In the Hall of the Winds, the surviving leaders argued over what should come next.
The chamber had been built by the first Sky-weavers. Pale stone formed its walls, while enormous open arches allowed the wind to pass freely through the hall. On most days, the air there smelled of rain.
Now it smelled of ash.
Minea sat upon the Throne of Pale Glass, the Brisingr of Air resting against her breast. Her face remained composed, but her fingers had tightened around the arms of the throne until her knuckles were white.
Armeo paced before her.
He still wore the armor in which he had watched Sapiro fall. The earth-metal plates were cracked and blackened, and soot covered the edges of his beard.
"We sit here in the clouds while Arvak burns my people," he said.
Minea watched him.
"Your people are being sheltered."
"For how long?"
"Until we can find a way to stop him."
Armeo turned sharply.
"Then stop him."
His fist struck the stone railing.
"He has killed thousands. Adamya is gone. Sapiro is gone. How many more must die before we act?"
Imaw stood near one of the pillars, leaning upon his driftwood staff. The old man's robes were stained from the journey to Lireo, and the Brisingr of Water hung against his chest.
"To answer his violence with greater violence may only strengthen the destruction," he said.
Armeo stared at him.
"Do not speak to me of balance."
His voice was quiet now, which made it more dangerous.
"My wife is dead."
Imaw lowered his head.
"I know."
"You watched Adamya burn."
"I did."
"And now you would have us wait?"
"There is a difference between patience and surrender."
Armeo stepped closer.
"Look into my eyes and tell me where patience saved Asnara."
Imaw did not answer.
Minea finally rose.
"Enough."
Both men turned toward her.
Armeo's anger had not diminished. If anything, it had become something colder.
"We have three Brisingr left," he said. "Yours. Imaw's. And mine. If we join them, we can match Arvak."
Minea's expression hardened.
"You do not know that."
"We can overwhelm him."
"We can destroy him."
Armeo nodded.
"Yes."
"And the force required may destroy Lireo with him."
"Then let it."
Minea's eyes narrowed.
Armeo stepped closer to the throne.
"Better a broken world free of Arvak than a whole world ruled by him."
"The Wheel does not ask us to break the world simply because we are angry," Imaw said.
Armeo turned on him.
"The Wheel did not watch my wife die."
"No," Imaw replied. "But you did."
The words struck harder than any shouted accusation.
Before Armeo could answer, Minea spoke.
"There is something wrong with the Hathorian weaves."
The two men looked at her.
"It is not merely strength. I have felt the Power in the places they have attacked. Their Fire leaves something behind."
"Burned land?" Armeo asked.
Minea shook her head.
"No. Something worse."
She looked toward the open arches.
"It feels like a sickness in the weave itself. I cannot name it, but it is there. Their Fire does not merely destroy. It leaves the land feeling... wrong."
Imaw's expression changed.
"Shadow?"
"I do not know."
That answer silenced them.
A young channeler hurried onto the balcony.
"Amyrlin."
Minea turned.
The girl was pale.
"What is it?"
"The horizon."
She pointed.
The council went to the balcony.
Far below, black columns were rising through the clouds.
The sound came a moment later.
A deep, rhythmic pounding that echoed between the floating towers.
Hathorian sky-skiffs.
Their dark hulls emerged from the smoke, glowing orange beneath the wings as Fire drove them upward.
Armeo's hand closed around his sword.
A voice carried across the sky.
"High Lord Armeo!"
Arvak.
The voice was amplified by the Power and reached every tower of Lireo.
"I have brought something for you."
The lead sky-skiff moved ahead of the others.
A figure stood upon its deck.
Armeo stopped.
Minea saw his face change.
Asnara.
Or what remained of her.
Her body had been preserved within a shell of translucent stone, her face still visible beneath it.
Arvak laughed.
"She looks better in the sunlight."
Armeo's scream tore through the Hall.
The first sky-skiff struck the outer platform.
The battle for Lireo had begun.
"Hold the line!" Minea shouted.
Air exploded across the platform as the Sky-weavers attacked. Hathorian channelers answered with Fire, and the two Powers collided above the clouds. Men and women were thrown from the platforms, their screams swallowed by the wind.
Armeo charged.
He fought with the fury of a man who had nothing left to lose. Earth strengthened his sword and armor, allowing him to cut through the first line of Hathorian soldiers.
"Arvak!"
The smoke parted.
Arvak stepped from the lead skiff.
He wore crimson robes, and the Brisingr of Fire hung in his hand.
"You called, High Lord."
Armeo seized saidin.
The One Power flooded through him.
His sword struck Arvak's shield with enough force to crack the marble beneath their feet.
Arvak smiled.
"Your wife fought longer."
Fire struck Armeo's thigh.
He staggered but remained standing.
He swung again.
Arvak caught the blade in a weave of Fire and sent another burst through the armor.
The earth-metal began to glow.
Armeo fell to one knee.
Still he tried to rise.
Arvak watched him for a moment, almost thoughtfully.
Then he closed his hand.
The armor became a furnace.
Armeo's scream ended abruptly.
His body fell among the broken stones.
Minea saw him die.
Before she could move, another figure stepped through the smoke.
Hagorn.
Arvak's son.
Amihan stood between him and the throne.
She was Minea's youngest sister.
"Amihan, fall back!"
The girl did not move.
She raised her hands and began to weave.
Air gathered around her in a wall of pressure.
Hagorn walked into it.
He was not as strong as his father, but the Brisingr of Fire had given the Hathorians something they had never possessed before: strength enough to overwhelm defenses that should have held.
Amihan's shield broke.
The backlash threw her backward.
Hagorn crossed the distance before she could rise.
He caught her by the throat.
"Witness the end of your lineage, Amyrlin."
Fire gathered around his hand.
Minea screamed her sister's name.
Hagorn pressed his hand against Amihan's chest.
The smell of burned silk filled the Hall.
Amihan's body went limp.
Hagorn released her.
Minea stared at her sister.
For several heartbeats, she could not hear the battle.
She could not hear the sky-skiffs.
She could not hear the screams.
She could only see Amihan lying upon the stone.
Something in Minea became very quiet.
Arvak stepped over the body.
"The Forge requires fuel," he said. "You may join her, Amyrlin, or you may kneel."
Minea looked up.
She reached for saidar.
The Power came to her.
She drew more than she had ever dared before.
Air gathered around her, but she did not use it as the Sky-weavers normally did. She drew Water as well, weaving the two together in a pattern she had never attempted.
Arvak raised the Brisingr.
Fire came roaring toward her.
Minea did not retreat.
The weave tightened.
The flames stopped.
They hung in the air between them, bright and terrible, no longer moving forward.
Arvak's smile disappeared.
Minea pushed.
The weave passed through the Fire.
Frost spread across the flames.
Arvak stared at his own hands.
Ice crawled over his arms.
He tried to break the weave, but Minea held it.
The Brisingr fell from his hand.
The frost reached his chest.
His breath became white.
For one moment he remained standing.
Then the ice took him.
Arvak fell.
The sound of his body striking the stone was almost lost beneath the battle.
Hagorn stared at his father.
He did not cry.
Slowly, he bent and picked up the Brisingr of Fire.
When he looked at Minea, there was no fear in his eyes.
Only hatred.
"You have extinguished the sun of my house."
Minea said nothing.
Hagorn tightened his grip around the sa'angreal.
"But the Forge does not die."
The remaining Hathorians began withdrawing toward the sky-skiffs.
"It remembers."
Hagorn stepped backward.
"I will return, Amyrlin. And when I do, every cloud above Lireo will carry the smoke of Hathoria."
He turned and boarded the skiff.
The fleet disappeared into the smoke.
Minea remained where she stood.
Around her lay the dead.
Armeo.
Amihan.
The Sky-weavers who had defended their city.
The refugees who had come to Lireo believing that its walls would protect them.
She looked toward the clouds.
Ash drifted upon the wind.
Minea closed her eyes.
She had won.
Yet she knew better than to mistake survival for victory.
The Wheel had turned again, and somewhere beyond the reach of any living channeler, the Pattern was already weaving the next thread.