She was calm, cool, certain. Without thinking, he found himself reaching for saidin. He reached for it—and struck a wall he could not see or feel, except that it kept him from the Source.

She opened herself to saidar—and her stomach sank. Saidar was there—she could feel its warmth and light—but between her and the True Source stood something, nothing, an absence that shut her away from the Source like a stone wall.

He reached for the Source, battered at that invisible stone wall, harder, harder.

Graendal formed two shields and slammed them into place, one for Aran’gar, one for Delana.

He reached for saidin—and found nothing. He had not been shielded; he would have felt it, and known how to work around or break it, given time, if it was not too strong.

She reached to embrace saidar, yet even as she did the glow surrounded the other woman, and Liandrin’s reach ran into a thick invisible wall shutting her away from the Source. It hung there like the sun, tantalizingly out of reach.

Gathering herself, she strained to reach the Source, expecting the weaves to shatter. She would at least show these women she would not be. . . . The weaves . . . stretched. The round Cairhienin woman smiled, and Nynaeve’s face darkened. The shield stretched further, further, bulging like a ball. It would not break. That was impossible. Anyone could block her from the Source if they caught her by surprise, of course, and someone weaker could hold the shield once woven, but not this much weaker. And a shield did not bend that far without breaking. It was impossible!