Robert Jordan - Winters Heart: Book Nine of The Wheel of Time

Praise for
T HE W HEEL OF T IME

The battle scenes have the breathless urgency of firsthand experience, and the... evil laced into the forces of good, the dangers latent in any promised salvation, the sense of the unavoidable onslaught of unpredictable events bear the marks of American national experience during the last three decades.

The New York Times

His writing is distinguished... by the richness of its fabric, with all the charm and naivet of the Brothers Grimm, and the social/moral commentary of Huxleys Brave New World. With his well-fleshed-out characters, dark imagery, comic relief, vivid landscapes, and a fascinating sense of timelessness, Jordan has created a complex literature with a language and reality all its own.

Brewster Milton Robertson, BookPage

Throughout Jordans preeminent high-fantasy saga... the characters (minor as well as major), the world, and the source of powers have remained remarkably rich and consistentno mean feat.... Amid all the Sturm and Drang, however, is a finely tuned comic strain that both leavens the story and adds to its development. A major fantasy epic.

Booklist

Truth is not only stranger, its richer than fiction, but Jordans fictional universe approaches the variety and complexity of the real.... Plotlines [are] strummed with resonating long-wave rhythms something like Beethovens Eroica.

Robert Knox, MPG Newspapers

Adventure and mystery and dark things that move in the nighta combination of Robin Hood and Stephen King that is hard to resist. Furthermore, Jordan makes the reader put down the book regretting the wait for the next title in the series.

Milwaukee Sentinel

The Wheel of Time [is] rapidly becoming the definitive American fantasy saga. It is a fantasy tale seldom equaled and still less often surpassed in English.

Chicago Sun-Times

In the decades since J. R. R. Tolkiens Lord of the Rings trilogy was published, many fantasy writers have tried to capture the spirit of that seminal work. While many have been able to imitate the style, develop a similarly swift and complex plot, and create convincing characters, none had captured the spirit of small men and mighty, struggling against a force of overwhelming evil. Robert Jordan has.

Ottawa Citizen

Magic and pacing and detail and human involvement, with a certain subtlety of presentation and a grand central vision. Robert Jordan... is a lot of writer!

Piers Anthony

Jordan has a powerful vision of good and evilbut what strikes me as most pleasureable... is all the fascinating people moving through a rich and interesting world.

Orson Scott Card

Jordan can always be counted on to ground his dizzying intrigues in solid chunks of cultural detail, and here he rises to the occasion, with chapters as dense as Spenserian stanzas with symbols and rituals.... He manipulates the disorder of his narrative to credibly convey a sense of an embattled world on the verge of self-destruction, and he entertainingly juxtaposes the courtly civility of his villains with the precarious chaos they cause.

Publishers Weekly

Jordan continues to utilize his towering imagination to construct plots of incredible ingenuity and develop themes hidden, sometimes quite deeply, in earlier installments. As ever, Jordan writes intelligently and lyricallyone of the most literary exponents of the genre.

SFX magazine

Jordans bestselling high fantasy series carries on... colossal, dauntingly complex storytelling.... The narrative employs elements of realism rare in high fantasy.

Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Jordans characters [are] fleshed out with the strengths and weaknesses of real men and women.... Invokes the end-of-the-world milieu of Stephen Kings The Stand.

The Post and Courier (Charleston, SC)

Jordan writes with the stark vision of light and darkness, and sometimes childlike sense of wonder, that permeates J. R. R. Tolkiens works. His style is undebatably his own.

The Pittsburgh Press

Jordans multivolume epic continues to live up to its high ambitions. Complex plotting, an array of strong characters, lavish detail, and a panoramic scope make this series a feast for fantasy aficionados.... Richly detailed and vividly imagined.

Library Journal

Jordans writing is clear and his vision is fascinating, as are the philosophies which run his characters. And speaking of characters, a more interesting bunch I would be hard put to name.

Science Fiction Review

The complex philosophy behind The Wheel of Time series is expounded so simply the reader often gives a start of surprise at returning to the real world. Rands adventures are not finished and neither is this thinking persons fantasy series.

Brunswick Sentinel (Australia)

Robert Jordan can write one hell of a story.... [He] keeps the suspense acute and the surprises and invention beautifully paced. Compelling. An exhilarating experience.

Isaac Asimovs Science Fiction Magazine

[The Wheel of Time is] a work of genuine and often stirring imagination.

Kirkus Reviews

For those who like to keep themselves in a fantasy world, its hard to beat the complex, detailed world created here.

Locus

Jordan has not merely put old wine into new bottles: he has clothed old bones with new flesh.

Chicago Sun-Times

T HE W HEEL OF T IME

by Robert Jordan

The Eye of the World
The Great Hunt
The Dragon Reborn
The Shadow Rising
The Fires of Heaven
Lord of Chaos
A Crown of Swords
The Path of Daggers
Winters Heart
Crossroads of Twilight
Knife of Dreams

by Robert Jordan
and Brandon Sanderson

The Gathering Storm

ROBERT JORDAN

A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK
NEW YORK

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously.

WINTERS HEART

Copyright 2000 by The Bandersnatch Group, Inc.

The phrases The Wheel of Time and The Dragon Reborn, and the snake-wheel symbol, are trademarks of Robert Jordan.

All rights reserved.

Frontispiece by TK
Maps by Ellisa Mitchell
Interior art by Matthew C. Nielsen and Ellisa Mitchell

A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010

www.tor-forge.com

Tor is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

ISBN 978-1-4299-6068-7

First Edition: November 2000
First E-book Edition: June 2010

Manufactured in the United States of America

0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Always for Harriet.
Always.

The seals that hold back night shall weaken,
and in the heart of winter shall winters heart be born
amid the wailing of lamentations and the gnashing of teeth,
for winters heart shall ride a black horse,
and the name of it is Death.

from The Karaethon Cycle:
The Prophecies of the Dragon

Three lanterns cast a flickering light, more than enough to illuminate the small room with its stark white walls and ceiling, but Seaine kept her eyes fixed on the heavy wooden door. Illogical, she knew; foolish in a Sitter for the White. The weave of