A Crown of Swords

In the sweltering city of Ebou Dar, where unnatural heat is one more sign of the Dark One's touch on the world, Elayne, Nynaeve, and Mat search for an artifact called the Bowl of the Winds, the only known means of restoring the broken seasons. Rand, meanwhile, moves to strike down the Forsaken Sammael, a hunt that leads into the cursed ruins of Shadar Logoth and the hungry mist that haunts them. Egwene, newly raised to lead the rebel Aes Sedai, works to bind a fractious alliance of channelers to her will. The seventh volume of The Wheel of Time covers a comparatively short span of time in close detail, and many readers mark it as the beginning of the series' slower middle stretch. Even so, it carries several long-running threads to the brink of resolution and sets pieces in motion that pay off in the books to come. Its focus is intrigue and positioning, as alliances harden and the cost of the long war presses on every front.