The Dragon Reborn

What's inside (8 sections)

1. After Falme
2. Perrin and the falcon
3. Mat and his luck
4. The girls and the Black Ajah
5. The Stone of Tear
6. What holds up and what sags
7. Key takeaways
8. FAQ

I picked this one up right after the Falme ending because I had to know what happened next. The second book had closed with Rand proclaimed in the sky and the Horn blown, and I expected the third book to stay glued to him. It does not. That threw me at first. Rand walks off the page for long stretches here, and Perrin and Mat carry most of the weight. Once I stopped waiting for Rand to come back and settled in with the others, I started enjoying the shape of it. This is the book where the series stops being about three farm boys together and starts being about three separate lives pulling toward the same place.

The edition I read is the one most people cite, published in 1991 by Tor Books, about 624 pages in the hardback, third in The Wheel of Time after The Eye of the World and The Great Hunt.

After Falme

Winter has set in. Trade has slowed. Rumors run faster than horses.

Word has spread that the Dragon has been proclaimed at Falme, and every peddler tells it different. Some say he called down lightning. Some say dead heroes fought beside him. Moiraine knows the truth is both simpler and harder. Rand is alive, hurt, and gone. He slipped away because he does not want to be leashed by prophecy or by Aes Sedai plans, and he has fixed on one idea. If he takes Callandor, the crystal sword held inside the Stone of Tear, then no one can deny who he is. Prophecy says the Stone will never fall until the Dragon wields that sword. So he means to walk into the strongest fortress in the world and pull it out.

Moiraine, Lan, and Perrin set out after him. Loial goes with them. The mood in this group is tired and short tempered. Perrin still thinks of Rand as his friend from home, not as a figure from old songs. Moiraine treats the whole chase as urgent duty, and she keeps back more than she tells. Lan watches everyone and says little.

Dreams turn ugly early. Rand is attacked in his sleep by a presence he knows as Ba'alzamon, and Perrin begins to dream with wolves again. Hopper is dead in the waking world, killed at Falme, but he runs in the wolf dream and warns Perrin to stay away. Perrin does not listen well. He has never wanted the wolf side of himself, the sharp smell and yellow eyes and anger that rises too fast, yet he keeps needing it to track and to stay alive.

One of my favorite small touches in these opening chapters is how ordinary travel feels dangerous again. Inns are full of Whitecloaks asking questions. Roads are watched. A man with yellow eyes gets noticed.

Perrin and the falcon

Perrin gets the largest share of this book, which surprised me in a good way. He has always been the quiet one, the blacksmith who thinks before he swings. Here he has to lead when he would rather follow.

On the road the party picks up two travelers who change the tone completely. One is Zarine Bashere, a young Hunter of the Horn from Saldaea who calls herself Faile, which means falcon in the Old Tongue. She is sharp, proud, quick to argue, and she decides Perrin is worth following whether he likes it or not. The other is Gaul, an Aiel warrior found locked in a cage by villagers who fear him. Perrin frees him, and Gaul repays that debt by staying close with spear and dry humor.

Faile and Perrin fight almost from the start. She pushes him about acting like a lord when he insists he is only a blacksmith. He pushes back about her rushing into trouble. I rolled my eyes a few times, I admit it. Their quarrels repeat. Still, there is warmth under it. She sees that Perrin tries to protect everyone around him, and he sees that she is braver than her boasts.

The Whitecloaks press in around them. Dain Bornhald now commands in the area, and he believes the Two Rivers folk murdered his father at Falme. He wants blood for it. His men take Perrin and Faile at one point, and for a stretch I was genuinely worried Jordan would let that thread end badly. The camp scenes show how the Children of the Light have curdled. Questions are asked with fists. A man named Ordeith whispers in Bornhald's ear, thin and smiling and wrong in a way that made my skin crawl. If you paid attention in the last book, you will guess who he really is before Perrin does.

Wolves save them more than once. So does Moiraine, in a way that scared me. When the party is run down by Darkhounds, blind eyeless killers of the Shadow, she destroys them with balefire. The book explains that balefire burns a thread out of the Pattern backward, so the thing you kill never quite did what it just did. It is forbidden because careless use can unravel the world. Moiraine uses it anyway to save her people, and Lan looks sick afterward. That scene stuck with me longer than any sword fight.

Perrin also meets Lanfear without knowing her at first. She comes to him in dreams as a beautiful woman, then in the flesh as Selene, offering praise and warnings. She claims she can teach Rand to control his power and that Perrin should bring him to her. Perrin refuses her, which takes more nerve than it sounds, because she is one of the Forsaken and the air bends around her. I liked that Perrin, the least flashy of the friends, is the one who tells her no to her face.

By the end of his thread Perrin has accepted two things he hated. He is tied to wolves whether he wants it or not. And he cares for Faile enough to chase her into danger instead of sending her away.

Mat and his luck

Mat starts this book in bad shape and ends it as my favorite part.

After blowing the Horn at Falme, he is brought to Tar Valon because the link to the Shadar Logoth dagger is still eating him. The Aes Sedai heal him, or mostly heal him. What is left are holes in his memory and pieces of other lives rattling around inside. He speaks the Old Tongue when pressed. He remembers battles he never fought, banners and cavalry moves from dead kingdoms like Manetheren. He does not know what to do with any of it, so he does what Mat always does. He tries to leave.

Tar Valon will not let him go easily. The Amyrlin Seat herself, Siuan Sanche, keeps him close, tests him, questions him. Mat answers with jokes and dice. His luck has grown strange and strong. He wins throw after throw, even when the odds should bury him. The Tower Gamblers learn to avoid his table. I laughed out loud at one stretch where he keeps trying to lose enough to get out of town and keeps winning instead.

Siuan gives him a sealed letter and orders him to carry it to Caemlyn, to Queen Morgase. It is meant to get him out of the way and to put eyes where she needs them. Mat takes the road with his purse full of won coin and his head full of half remembered songs.

In Caemlyn he runs into Thom Merrilin, the gleeman we thought dead back in Whitebridge. Thom is alive, older, limping, working with political scraps and tavern gossip. Their scenes together are easy and sad at once. Thom sees Mat is sick in a way dice cannot fix. Mat sees Thom is grieving a lost apprentice from Cairhien. Neither says it straight.

Mat also crosses paths with Galad and Gawyn and with murder. A man named Comar tries to kill him in an alley, and only luck and a quick knife save him. That attempt convinces Mat that his letter matters more than he was told, and that someone in the Tower lies. He decides to follow the girls to Tear instead of sitting safe in Caemlyn. It is a selfish decision that turns generous. He complains the whole way, which is very Mat, and keeps walking toward trouble anyway.

There is a lot of fun here, but there is pain too. Mat remembers dying in other men's skins. He wakes shouting in a language no one around him speaks. His humor covers fear that he is losing himself. I thought Jordan handled that better here than in the last book, where Mat felt mostly prickly. Here he feels young and scared and stubborn.

The girls and the Black Ajah

Egwene, Nynaeve, and Elayne get the grimmest job in this book. Thirteen sisters of the Black Ajah, the secret servants of the Shadow inside the White Tower, have fled with stolen dream tools and other objects of power. Liandrin led them out. The Amyrlin cannot chase them openly without tearing the Tower apart, so she sends the three girls in secret to hunt them to Tear.

First they have to survive the Tower itself. Egwene is raised to Accepted, the rank between novice and full sister, and must pass through the silver arches. Inside she lives three possible lives. In one she marries Rand and watches him turn cold. In one she is trapped by the Seanchan again. In one she serves as Amyrlin and must send friends to die. The test nearly breaks her, and it shows what Egwene fears most is not pain but being useless while people she loves suffer. I found those chapters slow in places, with a lot of Tower custom and new names, but the arch scenes earned their length.

Nynaeve still cannot channel unless she is angry, which the book keeps using for both comedy and cost. Her block frustrates her teachers and frightens her. Elayne, Daughter-Heir of Andor, is steadier, strong in the Power and quick with people. The three read as real friends here. They cover for each other, snap at each other, then close ranks.

In Tear they work with Juilin Sandar, a thief catcher with a bamboo staff and a strict code about contracts. He thinks they hired him to find thieves. He slowly realizes they are hunting something worse. I grew fond of him. He complains, charges extra, and stays.

Their hunt leads into the Stone itself through back doors and servant passages. They mean to spy and steal back what was taken. Instead they are caught. The Black sisters inside, including Joiya and Amico, drug them and lock them in cells meant to hold channelers. Those prison chapters are short but grim. Egwene tries to reach the dream world to call for help and finds it watched. Nynaeve rages against her own limits. Elayne keeps them calm by planning the next door, the next guard, the next chance.

If the Seanchan captivity in the last book was about breaking Egwene from outside, this captivity is about the Tower breaking from inside. Sisters who swore to serve all have sold themselves. That betrayal hangs over every scene and makes the rescue matter more when it comes.

The Stone of Tear

All roads run to Tear, a city on the Sea that lives off trade and pride. The Tairens call their great fortress the Stone, built with the Power in the early days and never taken. High Lords play their own version of the Game of Houses, full of oaths and knives and Points of pride about sleeves and hats that I never fully tracked. Honestly I skimmed some of that. The important part is simple. A Forsaken named Be'lal rules there behind the face of High Lord Samon, and he wants Callandor for himself.

Callandor sits in the Heart of the Stone, a crystal sword thrust point down into the floor, glowing, waiting. Only the true Dragon can take it. Be'lal means to let Rand come close, then bend him or kill him and seize the sword in the confusion. Dreams push Rand faster. Ba'alzamon taunts him night after night, showing him friends in danger, calling him Lews Therin, telling him he will serve or die. Lanfear whispers the opposite, that with her teaching he can master saidin and live. Rand trusts neither voice fully, which may be the smartest thing he does in the whole book.

Moiraine understands what is coming better than anyone. She has spent years shaping events toward this test, and she is willing to pay for it. She walks into the Heart beside Lan with no show of fear. Perrin comes by another path with Faile and Gaul and Loial, bloody from Whitecloaks and Darkhounds. Mat comes by a third path, through alleys and dice games and a roof chase, knife in his sleeve, looking for the girls he swore he would leave alone.

The ending moves fast after so much travel. Mat finds Egwene, Nynaeve, and Elayne in their cells and gets them out with more nerve than skill. He kills a Gray Man, one of the Shadow's assassins who passes unseen, and takes a wound for it. The girls free themselves enough to strike back at their captors. Elsewhere in the Stone, Rand faces Be'lal, who tries to force him to take Callandor and then yield it. Moiraine strikes first with balefire and burns Be'lal out of the world before he can finish his weave. Then Rand turns to Ba'alzamon, takes up Callandor at last, and fights him in the Heart while the fortress shakes. He kills him, or what wears his face, with the crystal blade.

The Stone falls without siege. Tairen defenders drop their weapons on the stairs. Lords who swore it could never happen kneel. Moiraine raises the Dragon banner over the Heart and names Rand true. After three books of denial and running, he stops running. He holds the sword and accepts the name in front of witnesses. I got chills despite knowing it had to happen. Prophecy on the page can feel flat, but this one lands because we watched the cost pile up to reach it.

What holds up and what sags

The split focus is both the strength and the drag here. Giving Perrin and Mat room lets them grow past sidekick roles. Perrin learns to act instead of brood. Mat turns funny cowardice into real courage. The girls get scary work that pays off their training. Rand stays distant, almost a rumor, which makes his return hit harder. I admired that choice even when I missed him.

The pace wobbles in the middle. Travel takes many chapters. New Aes Sedai and High Lords arrive with names I mixed up, and some political talk in Tear circles without biting. Perrin and Faile bicker past the point I enjoyed. Nynaeve tugs her braid and snaps so often that the tic wears thin. Readers who dislike repeated misunderstanding between men and women will feel it here too. Jordan writes attraction as argument a lot, and not every exchange charms.

Still, the high points are very high. The healing in Tar Valon, the Accepted test, the Darkhound attack and that flash of balefire, Juilin stalking Tear alleys with his staff, Mat dicing his way out of trouble, and the fall of the Stone all stayed with me. The book closes the early arc cleanly. The Horn is blown, the banner is raised, the sword is held. If you came for farm folk swept into legend, you now have a Dragon who admits it, friends who chose him anyway, and enemies who know his name. I turned the last page and reached for the next book without pause.

FAQ

Is The Dragon Reborn the third Wheel of Time book?

Yes, it follows The Eye of the World and The Great Hunt. It was published in 1991 by Tor Books and ends with Rand holding Callandor in the Stone of Tear.

Why is Rand barely in the book?

He runs to Tear alone to claim Callandor, so most chapters follow Perrin, Mat, Egwene, Nynaeve, and Elayne as they chase him there.

Does the Stone of Tear fall?

Yes. Rand takes Callandor in the Heart, Be'lal dies, and the Tairens yield to the Dragon Reborn.