Nynaeve took his hand, her grip firm. "You've spent your life paying your parents' debts, Lan. You died a dozen times over for the Seven Towers. Now, you have to do the hardest thing a soldier can do." "What is that?"
For twenty years, he had been a ghost. He was the King of a country that lived only in the memories of old men and the songs of bards. Malkier was a name for a grave, and Lan was its chief mourner. He had expected to die with his sword in his hand, a final, bloody punctuation mark at the end of a tragedy. But the world had not ended. 125015
Lan looked back toward the horizon where the sun was beginning to break through the perpetual gloom. For the first time in his life, he didn't see a battlefield. He saw the faint outlines of where the towers would rise again—not as fortresses, but as homes. Nynaeve took his hand, her grip firm
"You have to plant a garden," she said, a small, fierce smile playing on her lips. "The war is over. The duty of the sword is done. Now comes the duty of the hearth." Now, you have to do the hardest thing a soldier can do
"I spent my life avenging what could not be defended," Lan said, his voice like grinding stone. "I made peace with my death a long time ago. I do not know how to live with a crown that isn't made of thorns."
"The border willIt was Nynaeve. She didn't approach him with the caution one might show a warrior; she stepped into his space, her presence a grounding force that pulled him back from the edge of the abyss.