The Path of Daggers recap

With the Bowl of the Winds worked, the seasons begin to right themselves, and the scattered friends press their separate campaigns. Elayne, Nynaeve, and Aviendha make for Caemlyn, where Elayne begins the hard fight to claim the throne of Andor that is hers by blood. Egwene, the rebel Amyrlin, out-maneuvers the older sisters of her Hall, forces them to declare open war on the usurper Elaida, and starts moving her army toward the White Tower by the recovered art of Traveling. Rand turns to throw back the Seanchan, who have taken Ebou Dar and are driving inland, and in the battle he wields the flawed crystal sword Callandor without a circle to control it; the fight becomes a chaotic, costly victory that nearly makes him slaughter his own men and leaves him deeply shaken. Perrin, sent to bring a fanatical self-styled Prophet of the Dragon to heel, suffers a devastating blow when his wife Faile is seized by the renegade Shaido Aiel. And at the book's close, a group of Rand's own Asha'man turn on him, attacking the Dragon Reborn with the Power in a treacherous ambush he barely survives.

Rand al'Thor, a shepherd of the Two Rivers, was named the Dragon Reborn after he first channeled the One Power: the champion prophesied to fight the Dark One and, because he wields the tainted male Power, fated to go mad. Over the books that followed he was proclaimed the Dragon before the world at Falme, drew the crystal sword Callandor from the Stone of Tear, was accepted by the Aiel as their Car'a'carn, and came to rule Cairhien, Tear, Andor, and finally Illian, where he was crowned king. He destroyed several of the Forsaken - Rahvin at Caemlyn and Sammael in the ruins of Shadar Logoth - and gathered men who can channel into a private army, the Asha'man. The Aes Sedai Moiraine, who first set him on his path, sacrificed herself to remove a Forsaken; Rand survived a kidnapping by treacherous sisters, freed at the Battle of Dumai's Wells, after which some Aes Sedai swore fealty to him. Mat became a gifted battle commander before being caught in the Seanchan assault on Ebou Dar; Perrin wed Faile and was made lord of the Two Rivers; Nynaeve married Lan and learned to Heal the once-incurable severing of the gift; Elayne prepared to claim Andor's throne; and Egwene was raised Amyrlin of the rebel Aes Sedai, proving far shrewder than her elders. The Bowl of the Winds was used to break the Dark One's unnatural, killing heat. As this book opens the Seanchan press inland, Rand carries two wounds that will not heal, and the taint on saidin drives him steadily toward the edge of madness.

The book ends with victories that feel like defeats. The Bowl of the Winds has mended the ruined weather, but every triumph curdles. Rand hurls back the Seanchan advance, yet only by using the flawed sword Callandor without the circle of channelers needed to control it; the battle turns into a haze of slaughter in which he nearly kills his own soldiers, and he comes away sickened and more afraid than ever of what he is becoming, the intruding voice in his head and the two unhealing wounds always with him. Egwene has consolidated real power over the rebel Aes Sedai, forcing her Hall to declare open war on Elaida and setting her army in motion toward Tar Valon. Elayne has reached Caemlyn to begin her long struggle for the Lion Throne of Andor. But Perrin's mission collapses into catastrophe: the renegade Shaido Aiel raid his camp and carry off his wife, Faile, along with others, beginning a captivity that will consume him. And at his manor near Cairhien, a handful of Rand's own Asha'man, secretly turned against him, attack the Dragon Reborn with the Power; Rand survives the ambush, but the traitors escape, and he can no longer trust even the men he made. The Seanchan remain a rising threat, the Shadow's servants are everywhere, and Rand's grip on both his empire and his own mind is slipping.