Cadsuane goes with Rand and company to Ebou Dar to return the sul'dam and damane they captured during the fight with Semirhage. He gives them a message to bring to Tuon: he still desires a meeting and does not blame her for the fight in Altara. As well, the Lady Arath is the forsaken, Semirhage.

She goes with Rand to Arad Doman, and stays at Lord Tallean’s manor with him. Rand asks how the interrogations of Semirhage are going. So far Cadsuane has not got much of anything from her. Rand will not allow them to torture the Forsaken, which annoys Cadsuane. She tells him as much, but he will not budge. The interrogations are beginning to grate on Cadsuane as no headway is made. However, Cadsuane’s element is dealing with problems that are apparently unsolvable. Cadsuane focuses on what would break a woman with such pride as Semirhage. With this perspective she thinks instead what would break her, being of great hubris herself, and is none too pleased with the thought.

It is revealed that Cadsuane is keeping the male Choedan Kal and will not give it to Rand.

Cadsuane is present when Rand speaks with the Aiel clan chiefs. She scolds him for speaking down to the chiefs, and reminds him of their loyalty and skill. When asked, she explains the inner workings of Arad Doman politics. She questions his decision to have the Aiel capture the members of Council of Merchants.

Later, Cadsuane and Sorilea converse about how to break Semirhage. Sorilea and Bair have a go at Semirhage and Cadsuane notices Sorilea’s condescension to the Forsaken has an effect. Sorilea asks to see the “object,” the Domination band that was found in Semirhage’s possession. Cadsuane acquiesces because of Sorilea’s earlier gift of the travelling weave. In her rooms, she uses an ornate trunk as a decoy, and instead keeps her sacred items in a dingy document box on her mirror stand. It is revealed the box is holding two very important items: the Domination band with two collars, and the Choeden Kal. She has sent the other Domination bands and Callandor to be tested by Aes Sedai, who she trusts and are retired from the affairs of the world. Cadsuane has kept one Domination Band in order to test it on a man. Sorilea understands this choice. She has tested the a’dam on herself and found no way to escape it. Then, Sorilea and Cadsuane discuss how to soften Rand as he has gotten worse since they last met.

Waiting her turn to speak with Semirhage, Cadsuane recollects her time in and away from the Tower. She chose to stay away from the Tower for such lengths of time in the past so that many would assume her dead, and seeked out men who could channel so that each time she brought one in her reputation would be exalted further. She did all of this to prepare for these final days. She muses that it will all be for not if the boy, Rand, turns to stone and shatters. Coming to her turn with the Forsaken, Cadsuane tries out her new tactic on Semirhage: humiliation. Knocking the woman down to the ground, she makes her eat her food off the floor like less than a human. She has the Aes Sedai and some maids come in to watch as she spanks Semirhage. The Forsaken cries, it worked.

Shaidar Haran releases Semirhage and all sh*t goes down. A black sister, soon to be revealed as Elza, hands her the Domination Band that was locked in Cadsuane’s document box. Presumably, Haran retrieved it as the traps Cadsuane put on the box would have been impenetrable by others.

In his rooms, Min tells Rand he needs to lighten up or he won’t make it to the Last Battle. She says Cadsuane agrees with her, and he immediately bristles thinking Cadsuane is using Min to get to him. He yells at her that she should not tell Cadsuane anything. Realizing himself, he softens saying maybe he is growing too hard.

As he does so, the collar clicks around his neck. Semirhage tortures him and has him turn on Min, strangling her. Rand uses his link with Moridin to draw on the Dark One’s power and frees himself before almost killing Min.

In the wake of this, Cadsuane finds out that Daigan has been killed and the other two sisters were only spared because their deaths would have warned their warders.She feels remorse at the loss of the kind sister, Daigan. Cadsuane was in with the Sorilea and the Wise Ones when the events of the night took place.

Cadsuane gets to Rand’s quarters and asks what happened. He has grown almost to stone and speaks without intonation or emotion. He explains that the matter has been dealt with. He then shows Narishma the weave for balefire. She reprimands him for showing Narishma this weave. Rand says it must be used to take out Forsaken or the Dark One can just reincarnate them. She argues, but he does not budge.

Cadsuane begins to talk of what to do next when he interrupts her and tells her to look under the sheets on the bed. There she finds the Domination Band and the collars. She exclaims that it is impossible. Rand says he thought so as well since she promised to have them protected and hidden, yet here they are. He knows she has been meeting with the Wise ones. He reveals that her room was searched, which enrages her, but he goes on. The box with the Choedan Kal and collars was open on the floor. Cadsuane frets that the access key was stolen, but dares not ask.

She asks him if he expects an apology, he does not. Without any more preamble, he says simply that she is to stay out of his sight or he will kill her. She tries to fight this, but he asks her if she thinks he couldn’t just simply kill her if he willed it, that he couldn’t just bend the pattern to have her die on the spot. She does not believe this is possible, but the look in his eyes makes her change her mind. Ashamed and self loathing, Cadsuane begins to leave. Making one last glance at Rand, she notices a darkness emanating from him. She hears him say to prepare the armies to leave. In the hallway, sweating, heart beating fast, Cadsuane realizes that the good-hearted boy she had first met was gone, replaced by this cold man. She has no idea what to do about it.

Keeping a distance from Rand, Cadsuane stays nearby when he goes to Bandar Eban, the capital city of Arad Doman. Rand knows she is still keeping as close as she dares. Trotting through the streets, Merise comes up to Rand and tells him he has been a fool for exiling her. He feels no remorse. He thinks Cadsuane has proven ineffective, and her failure has been punished thusly. He tells Merise as much. She says mistakes should not be punished so harshly, he says he pays for his own mistakes with every breath, and stops the conversation.

Cadsuane makes her way through the streets of Bandar Eban, on her way to the docks. She hides her face under her hood constantly. She makes her way through the city noting the disarray and destitution due to bad crops and no king. She makes it to the docks and her destination, an inn called The Wind’s Favor. Quillin, the innkeeper, knows her on sight as Mistress Shore, and comes over to speak with her as she sits. His wife, and source, knows all the gossip of the city, which is why she came. She hands him a purse of coins to tell her of the ongoings in the city.

His news is as follows: King Alsalam hasn’t been seen by any reliable source for almost half a year. Quillin’s source believed the King to be captured by the Council of Merchants, but thinks if this were true they would have revealed him by now. The people think the Aiel are the reason for the bad grain despite the fact it was bad before they arrived. There have been odd occurrences around the city of stillborn children, men dying from small falls, stones toppling buildings, and hitting women dead as they trade. The odd bit about this news is that these occurrences, which happen whenever Rand’s T’avereness encounters a place, are usually accompanied by balances of good (i.e. marriages, births, miraculous recoveries etc.), but none had. She leaves the inn with more questions than she had coming in.

Walking away from the inn, Cadsuane thinks of recent events and admits that she has bungled her handling of the boy. She thinks the collars being taken were meant to sow distrust. She momentarily questions if he is past saving, but decides he can not be or all is lost. On her walk, she encounters Rand and his entourage and hides to avoid being seen. She notices the darkness around him again and wonders at it. Rand sees her scuttle away, wondering if she thought he would not know it was her with her defining self assured posture.

Losing hope again, Cadsuane seizes on an idea. She resolutely walks in the direction of the Wise Ones. She finds them, sits and says she has failed. They nod in agreement. They tell her she has no Toh as it is Rand’s fault. She says that will be irrelevant soon, instead telling them she has a plan. She asks them if they will help. Sharing a look with the other Wise Ones, Sorilea asks what the plan is. Cadsuane is pleased and begins to explain.

Cadsuane is with Nynaeve, Merise, Flinn, and Corele when they watch a procession of ghosts outside the city walls of Bander Eban. She agrees that the Last Battle is coming soon when Corele mentions Rand believes it is. When Nynaeve defends Rand’s worry about the Seanchan to the other Aes Sedai and turns to leave, Cadsuane gives her a nod of what seems respect.

When Rand is about to destroy Graendal’s place of hiding, Natrin’s Burrow, Min asks if maybe he should ask for advice, and mentions Cadsuane. Rand says that Cadsuane held him in a box, an invisible one, but a box nonetheless, and her tongue was more painful than any rod ever taken to his skin. He chooses to use the access key to balefire the palace instead of Callandor because of what Cadsuane told him of its flaws. Min and Nynaeve watch in horror.

After, they both decide they need to go to Cadsuane and find out what her plans are. They find Cadsuane with her posse and Wise ones in the gate keepers cottage. They tell her of what happened. Cadsuane thinks Nynaeve can help, but asks her if she can be obedient, Nynaeve assents. Cadsuane sets her on the task of finding Perrin and will not tell her the whole of her plan. She says Rand will probably know where he is.

Rand wonders where Cadsuane and Nynaeve are when he announces his abandonment of Arad Doman. They are not in the mansion when he makes the announcement.

Later, having gathered Perrin’s location from Rand, Nynaeve goes to Cadsuane, who is now staying in rooms in the Stone of Tear. Before relaying her information, Nynaeve asks again why she wants to know this. Cadsuane deflects asking instead how the meeting with the borderlands went. Nynaeve tells her they went poorly in as much as they didn’t show and wouldn’t unless Rand came in range of the Guardian so as to be cut off from the source.  Rand did not take this well. Nynaeve tells them that he almost used the Choedan Kal to rain fire on them. This alarms Cadsuane and Min.

Cadsuane whispers that he will laugh again. Corele says it does not matter because Min’s vision means they are bound to win the Last Battle because her visions exceed the events of Tarmon Gai’don. Min says that is wrong because the visions are pieces of the Pattern, but if they lose there is no Pattern. Cadsuane is surprised at Min’s intuition on the matter and agrees explaining this logic holds for all prophecies.

At this, Nynaeve decides to tell Cadsuane that Perrin is located under a statue of an enormous sword, fallen to the earth as if stabbing it. Cadsuane knows of it, relaying its name: the hand of the amahn’rukane. In response, Cadsuane partially answers Nynaeve's earlier question saying they are going to this place now, not for Perrin, but someone else.

It is revealed that the person in question is Tam Al’Thor. Cadsuane had previously tried to find Rand’s father in the Two Rivers only to learn that he was with Perrin Aybara. Cadsuane tells Tam to go to Rand and emphasize that being hard will break him, that one must have a reason to do what must be done otherwise the task will be impossible. When talking to Rand, Tam reveals that Cadsuane told him to speak to him. This enrages Rand to the point of almost killing his own father.

Meanwhile, Min no longer regrets going to Cadsuane since the day at Graendal’s palace. Though initially uncomfortable telling Cadsuane of her visions, she has begun to prefer being away from Rand since he’s become so cold. Under Cadsuane’s tootalidge, Min studies Callandor and anything that might be of help to Rand in the Last Battle. She is annoyed that Cadsuane doles out her knowledge so sparingly. While reading about the blade that is not a blade, Min thinks she discovers a discrepancy and asks Cadsuane. She believes the interpretation of prophecy that speaks of three kingdoms under one banner is wrong in its calculation, and that actually the prophecy is speaking about how Rand must use Callandor. Beldeine mocks Min, but Cadsuane agrees that she is right. This is why Cadsuane believes Rand must be in a circle with two other women to use Callandor effectively. Min is discouraged since Cadsuane has already made the discovery. Cadsuane makes Beldeine apologize for her insults.

It is now that Tam barges into the room. He demands to know what Cadsuane has done to his son. He accuses her of turning Rand to the darkness that he saw in him. She responds that she only tried to teach him some manners. Insulting Tam, she says it seems to her that he learnt his bad ones from his father. She takes it that the meeting did not go well and Tam tells her that his own son almost killed him. He then goes on to insult her for her handling of Rand, and feeling disrespected, Cadsuane wraps him up in air. Nynaeve and Min try to put her off, but Tam says to not bother, he knows a bully when he sees one. This bothers her and she lets him down.

They argue about Rand’s state further, but finally he says that his son left. Min feels him gone. She tells them Rand is in Ebou Dar, and he is going to destroy it as he told the Maidens he would.

During this, Rand does go to Ebou Dar but leaves to Dragonmount when he sees the prosperity of the city under the Seanchan. He goes to think. It is here that he has an incredible self discovery that turns him away from the brief thought of destroying the entire Pattern with the Choedan Kal. This discovery ends with him becoming one with LTT and finding his reason for fighting the Last Battle: love. He destroys the Choedan Kal.

Cadsuane's methods did not directly teach Rand how to laugh or cry and were flawed in their approach. However, it was a result of her schemes that on the slopes of his grave and birthplace, Rand Al’Thor smiling, “let out a deep-throated laugh, true and pure. It had been far too long.”