Banded Dress and Black Coat

Prolouge

Darlin Sisnera, King of Tear, stood stoically in the Heart of the Stone, the former resting place of the great sword Callandor. His eyes flickered to the thin hole in the Heart itself, where Rand al'Thor had plunged the famed blade to keep it safe until his return. Now the Lord Dragon was dead four months, and the Dragon's Peace had been put in place, his final gift to the world he had saved.

Darlin was genuinely happy for the Dragon's Peace, happy that such a horrifying loss of life that was the Last Battle would not be the herald of an even greater, drawn-out loss. The loss that monarchs scrambling for power and territory would cause. And with that, his thoughts returned to the point of this day, a similar purpose: the unity of opposing forces. Tear, until the past few years, had outlawed channeling since living memory, and so was perfect neutral ground for what was to happen today. Darlin swallowed his nervousness about channeling, a product of living and governing in Tear his entire life, and focused on his guests entering the Heart of the Stone.

Facing the King of Tear to his left strode Pevara Tazanovni, Watcher of the Seals, The Flame of Tar Valon, the Amyrlin Seat, elected after the Last Battle. Accompanying her were Cadsuane Melaidhrin of the Green Ajah and Moiraine Damodred of the Blue (also Darlin's cousin-by-marriage), accompanied by their Warders.

Facing Darlin to his right strode Logain Ablar, the newly-titled Sealbreaker, the Dragon's Fang, the M'Hael of the Black Tower. Acting as his escorts were Jahar Narishma一Callandor sheathed on his back一and Androl Genhald, the two newest members of the recently formed Telamons, the elite of the Asha'man.

Both leaders of their respective Towers sat at the oak table sitting before Darlin that had been brought into the Heart for this occasion; their escorts stood behind them. Darlin flipped through the papers he had brought with him, the product of three days debate between the very pair sitting before him. He patted the papers into order and slid the document, modeled after the Dragon's Peace, to Pevara Sedai.

"Ladies first," he quipped dryly. Pevara's eyebrow slid up at the jest, but she looked over the document without comment. After several minutes, satisfied that everything was properly spelled out, Pevara Sedai signed her name on the allotted line and dripped white wax onto the paper, which she pressed with the Flame of Tar Valon. She passed the document to Logain with a wane smile. Logain reviewed it himself, taking a bit more time, before signing his own name and pressing the Dragon's Fang into black wax and handing it back to Darlin.

Darlin resisted the urge to sigh in relief, grateful at the low key reactions, and passed the document on to a clerk, who would then copy it and send those copies to every nation, as well as to Tar valon and to Caemlyn. The original draft, embossed with the irrefutable seals of the Amyrlin Seat and M'Hael, would stay in the Stone, locked away as a fail-safe should anything happen to the copies.

"And so peace begins," logain intoned, standing with a sigh of relief. Pevara Sedai nodded at his words.

"The peace my predecessor died for. My this pact, the Al'Vere Pact, promote unity between us, brothers and sisters in the One Power." Pevara held her hand out to Logain, who shook it with a small smirk.

Rand al'Thor, the Dragon Reborn, looked upon the events in the Stone of Tear with pride. The pool before him, displaying the events as if it were a window in reality, rippled as he allowed the image to fade. Rand was glad he had trusted Logain. And the new Amyrlin was an inspired choice. He believed she could break the short string of spectacular failures that had risen from the Red Ajah to the Amyrlin Seat.

Rand passed his hand over the surface of the blank, now full, leather-bound book in his hand, searing a few more sentences into the paper. He still possessed Lews Therin's memories, really his own memories, and he had no intention of letting them go to waste when they could help the world.

Rand closed the book, the Dragon's Fang emblazoned on the cover. The book contained detailed descriptions and instructions for weaves and ter'angreal that had been lost after the Age of Legends. He had founded the Black Tower as a weapon against the Shadow, an attempt to right the wrongs that the Taint had caused in the name of male channelers. It had grown into so much more than that, as it rightly should have. It had begun to blossom into something great, and he would not let that legacy crumble due to sheer inexperience.

It was time to get to work.