**spoilers contained**

Two months after the White Tower was broken we are eased back into the book with Elaida the Misfit Amyrlin and end with Rahvin, one of the DNC meeting with some of the other bumbling members and we hear comments about the great missing member Demandred (he who never appears).  Though Rahvin has infiltrated Caemlyn and turned the queen to his slave so he’s not as entirely without hope as the others.

Lews Therin starts to bleed through Rand’s mind and Rand’s general distrust of Aes Sedai is growing.  Rand’s connection to the Aiel Maidens continues despite his peculiar way of insulting them and his relationship with Aviendha continues to get more complicated.  One of the subtle little hints early in this book is the “fat little man” angreal that is a clear reference to Buddha and a subtle foreshadowing by Jordan.  Also we learn about Balefire, something we’ve seen used a couple times already without really understanding.  We get hints to how extremely dangerous it is and that it can quite literally unmake time.  From this point on Balefire is the nuclear weapon of the series.

Egwene trains under the Wise Ones of the Aiel which is more of an eye in to their culture than anything else, though it does remind us yet again that Corporal punishment is a balm to all bad vices (until you’re the one with the rod).  She also still seems to think she can take on every challenge on her own without input from others and that everyone else is wrong. 

Nyneave and Elayne get captured.  Again.

Padan Fain finally gets his dagger back and his relationship to other darkfriends seems murky and unclear.

We get a nice aside into the changes that occur to an Aes Sedai who has been stilled, such as the fact that it frees them from the three oaths (one of the first hints of the fallibility of the rods of dominion).

Rand accidentally walks in on Aviendha whilst she’s naked.  They then use magic to travel to the other side of the world and have sex.  Yeah, you read that right.  This starts Rand’s stumbling insistence that he and Aviendha should get married, but more importantly begins one of the few polyamorous relationships in popular fiction. 

Do I need to mention that Moghedien captured Nyneave… again?  Well she did. However this time it was in the dream world and incidentally led to one of the best moments of the book, Birgitte, a hero of the Horn tied to the Wheel of Time gets knocked into the real world!  We still have no idea how this affects her attachment to the wheel and while she’s dying from the trauma Elayne (in a rare moment of clarity) bonds her as her warder thus saving her life.

Rand wins a decisive blow against the rebel Aeil and afterwards has kingdoms laid at his feet as Cairhien swears fealty to him.

Min and Elayne meet and Min confides in Elayne that she is one of two women that she will have to share Rand with (little do they know that he was presently shacking up with the third).  Speaking of Rand, he gets two letters, one from each half of the broken White Tower (Elaida’s plan seems to be a crueler take on her predecessor’s plan).

Here’s the moment where one of the forsaken actually pulls off something pretty evil. Lanfear skins the person who told her Rand knocked boots with someone else.  She’s in a rage and Rand is unwilling to do what needs to be done to snuff her out simply because she’s a woman.  Enter Moiraine who catleaps on to Lanfear and they tumble into the twisted red doorway that leads to the other world and that sucker explodes.

That moment shapes much of Rand’s future as it both made Moiraine the one Aes Sedai he could trust implicitly and removed her from the story.  This was a shocking moment when I first read it and I thought it was pretty amazing of Jordan to kill off such a prominent hero. But this is the WoT, and as we all know, heroes never really die. 

This is important because Rand attacks the Sun Palace and attacks Rahvin.  Rahvin is prepared for him and manages to kill Mat, Aviendha and Asmodean.  Rand proceeds to hunt down Rahvin traveling back and forth between Tel’aran’rhiod and the real world until he balefires him with as much power as he can muster.  Thus Rahvin’s thread is burned from the pattern back in time enough to bring Mat, Aviendha and Asmodean back to life. Just for the record Rand has now brought Mat back to life twice, once at Rhuidean and once at the Sun Palace.  All in all, Mat is not dead.

However, in the closing moments of the book Asmodean is murdered, creating the great mystery of “who killed Asmodean?”  This was something that is not flatly stated until Towers of Midnight, but Jordan did give some very small hidden clues that allow you to deduce it a few books prior.  Most amusing is that Jordan only dragged out the answer because the fans took up and ran with the mystery.  When he first wrote it he never thought it was going to be that big a deal.  He certainly had fun with it while he could.  I think Sanderson's more blunt reveal was reflective of him never really feeling much of a connection to the murder mystery.