In Amadicia, Pedron Niall interrogates a Whitecloak officer about the fall of Falme and the newly proclaimed Dragon Reborn, then orders Jaichim Carridin to ensure the false Dragon is kept alive for his own purposes. Carridin returns to his quarters only to find a Myrddraal waiting with contradictory orders from the Dark One - to kill Rand al'Thor, with the threat of murdering Carridin's family should he fail. The prologue lays bare the tangled web of competing interests that will define the hunt for the Dragon Reborn.
Perrin stands watch in the Mountains of Mist, uneasy for reasons he cannot name, guarding the remote camp where the Dragon Reborn shelters with a handful of Shienaran soldiers. A Tinker woman named Leya arrives bearing news for Moiraine, and Perrin escorts her back through the snow to the camp where the Dragon's banner ripples in the wind. The chapter establishes the small, hunted company that has gathered around Rand in the wilderness.
Rand and Moiraine argue bitterly about the Dragonsworn fighting and dying in his name on Almoth Plain, a situation neither can control. Min confides to Perrin that she has seen a violent death around the Tinker woman Leya, and Loial muses on the strange fortune of knowing three ta'veren at once. When Perrin follows Rand to a secluded valley, Rand accidentally unleashes an earthquake through saidin, revealing just how little control he has over the tainted male half of the Source.
The camp recovers from Rand's earthquake while Moiraine shares troubling news from Almoth Plain - Whitecloaks massing in unusual numbers and three tall, light-eyed youths found dead under mysterious circumstances. She warns that Rand's uncontrolled channelling was a beacon to any Fade within miles, and a sense of something waiting settles over the camp. Perrin finds himself describing the feeling before he can stop himself, and Moiraine agrees with his instinct.
Perrin dreams of a sinister inn where a man and then a breathtakingly beautiful woman each offer him a drink and speak of destiny, both of which he refuses. He glimpses three men arguing on a stone bridge before a fireball engulfs them, and then finds himself among redstone columns staring at a crystal sword he somehow knows is called Callandor. The wolves finally break through to warn him - the Twisted Ones are coming - and he wakes to the reality of a Trolloc attack.
Trollocs pour into the mountain camp under cover of darkness, and Perrin throws himself into the battle with his axe, the wolf inside him taking over as he fights alongside the arriving wolf pack. Leya stumbles from Moiraine's hut and is killed by a Fade before Perrin can reach her, fulfilling Min's grim viewing. Rand confesses that he tried and failed to channel against the Trollocs, and Moiraine exhausts herself Healing his reopened wound from Falme.
The camp wakes to discover that Rand has vanished in the night, leaving behind a cryptic message about his dreams. Moiraine pieces together from Perrin's dream of Callandor and the shared dreams of nearly every man in the camp that Rand is heading for the Stone of Tear. She sends Uno and the Shienarans to Ghealdan, dispatches Min to carry word to the Amyrlin Seat, and asks Perrin and Loial to ride with her in pursuit of the Dragon Reborn.
Moiraine drives the small company hard through the Mountains of Mist and into Ghealdan, chasing Rand's trail with Lan scouting ahead. Despite their speed, they find no sign of Rand, and Perrin discovers he cannot maintain his resolve to defy Moiraine, finding himself carrying out her every request. The journey remains uneventful until they reach the town of Jarra near the Amadician border.
In Jarra, the party finds a town still reeling from an impossible burst of weddings and Whitecloak chaos - the unmistakable signs of a ta'veren passing through. Perrin learns from the innkeeper's man that Rand stayed half the night before fleeing into the darkness as though pursued by the Dark One himself. More troubling still, Moiraine takes Perrin to see a man named Noam who has lost himself entirely to the wolf within, a fate that Perrin now knows could one day be his own.
Perrin seeks Moiraine's counsel about the wolves and she warns him to be careful in both the waking world and his dreams, for wolves live partly in the World of Dreams. That night he enters a wolfdream where Hopper guides him, and he encounters a man who dies horribly and a raven-haired woman in white who demands he leave before he ruins things beyond imagining. In a separate scene, Rand crouches alone in a forest, learning to kill the hunting dogs sent after him with the One Power, growing more dangerous with each passing day.
Egwene and her travel-worn company approach Tar Valon carrying the desperately ill Mat on a stretcher, racing to reach the White Tower before the Shadar Logoth dagger claims his life. A band of Whitecloaks blocks their path and threatens to drag them before the Questioners, but Egwene, Elayne and Nynaeve lose patience and scatter the soldiers with the One Power. Their leader reveals himself as Dain Bornhald, son of the commander killed at Falme, and Verin warns them that the real danger begins once they reach the Tower.
The company crosses the bridges into Tar Valon and enters the White Tower, where bearers whisk Mat away for Healing and the Mistress of Novices, Sheriam, greets the returning runaways with cold displeasure. Verin instructs Sheriam to lock Egwene, Elayne and Nynaeve in their rooms and forbids them to speak to anyone until the Amyrlin sends for them. Hurin departs for Shienar to report on Falme, and the three young women are left to wait in anxious silence.
The Amyrlin Seat receives Verin in private, learning that Rand has proclaimed himself the Dragon Reborn at Falme and that the two other false Dragons fell the moment he did so. Verin hands over the Horn of Valere, revealing that Mat sounded it and is now bound to it until death, and warns that the boy lies dying in the Tower from the Shadar Logoth taint. Siuan sets aside the Seanchan threat as a matter for another day and turns her attention to what must be done with the three young women who ran from the Tower.
Egwene, Elayne and Nynaeve are summoned before the Amyrlin Seat, who sentences them to switching and hard labour in the kitchens while publicly raising Egwene and Elayne to Accepted. Siuan warns them that their connection to Liandrin, who fled the Tower with twelve other Black Ajah sisters after committing murder, must remain secret at all costs. She dismisses Elayne to the Mistress of Novices and keeps Egwene and Nynaeve behind for a private conversation.
Behind closed doors, the Amyrlin reveals to Egwene and Nynaeve the true reason for their lenient treatment - she wants them to hunt for any Black Ajah sisters who may have stayed behind in the Tower. Despite their protests that they are no match for fully trained Aes Sedai, Siuan presses them to accept, giving them a letter bearing her personal authority for use in emergencies. Verin will supply them with whatever information the Tower has gathered on the thirteen sisters who fled.
A crossbow bolt streaks past Egwene's ear in the novice quarters, and Nynaeve manages to bind the assassin with Air - only to find him already dead, a dagger in his back. Sheriam identifies the corpse as a Gray Man, one of the soulless assassins of the Dark One who are nearly impossible to detect. When Egwene returns to retrieve the crossbow bolt, it has vanished, and Nynaeve observes that Sheriam never thought to ask who stabbed the Gray Man.
Galad and Gawyn visit the Accepted quarters to demand answers about where their sister has been for months, and Nynaeve bluffs them into leaving by threatening to report them for entering without permission. Once the brothers are gone, Nynaeve decides to bring Elayne into the Black Ajah hunt despite the Amyrlin's wishes. She also declares her intention to try to Heal Mat herself, convinced the Amyrlin may let him die rather than risk his escape.
Elaida corners the three young women and questions them sharply about their disappearance and about Rand al'Thor, guessing shrewdly that he must be ta'veren. Before she can press further, Sheriam arrives and leads them deep into the Tower to witness a group of Aes Sedai attempt to Heal Mat. The chapter ends with Elaida's shrewd observations hanging in the air, a warning that not all threats come from the Black Ajah.
The Amyrlin and a circle of Aes Sedai link together and use a powerful sa'angreal to sever Mat's bond to the Shadar Logoth dagger in a harrowing procedure that nearly kills him. Mat speaks in the Old Tongue as the evil is drawn from him, ordering soldiers about in the ancient language of Manetheren. The dagger is sealed away in a metal box and the Amyrlin warns that only time will tell whether he survives.
Mat wakes alone in a rich chamber, ravenously hungry and confused, piecing together fragments of memory from his illness alongside vivid recollections of commanding the Heart Guard of ancient Manetheren. He devours a plate of food meant for four men and slowly realises he is in Tar Valon, Healed at last, though the Aes Sedai may have plans for him that have nothing to do with letting him go. He begins plotting his escape.