{"id":3406,"date":"2026-02-01T21:29:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T02:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/?p=3406"},"modified":"2026-02-01T23:23:32","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T04:23:32","slug":"chapter-48-an-offer-refused","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/?p=3406","title":{"rendered":"Chapter 48: An Offer Refused"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote class=\"tldr\"><p>Rand&#8217;s group completes its journey through the Aiel Waste and arrives at Cold Rocks Hold.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Devoting any number of words to a chapter carries certain unspoken promises from the author. &#8220;I believe in these words,&#8221; perhaps. Or maybe, &#8220;I have something to say.&#8221; At bare minimum, the message ought to be, &#8220;This chapter has a reason for existence.&#8221; But this chapter isn&#8217;t just &#8220;an offer refused&#8221; &#8212; it is also a promise broken. The TL;DR proves that this chapter doesn&#8217;t really have anything to say. Movies show periods of time like this as musical montages. Why? Because nothing particularly interesting happens!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/coldrocks2-e1770005851126.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-3424\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/coldrocks2-e1770005851126-300x198.jpg?resize=300%2C198&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Aviendha faces Rand, with a fireball in the distance. Kadere (or Natael?) is whispering into Rand's ear, as Mat flirts with Isendre.\" width=\"300\" height=\"198\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/coldrocks2-e1770005851126.jpg?resize=300%2C198&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/coldrocks2-e1770005851126.jpg?resize=768%2C507&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/coldrocks2-e1770005851126.jpg?w=1024&amp;ssl=1 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Rand and Aviendha kick things off by bickering and utterly failing to reach an understanding. Aviendha channels a massive fireball that shoots off into the desert. Isendre flirts with Mat, and eventually Keille makes things weird by offering to sell Isendre to him for a gold mark. For that matter, the other members of the merchant caravan are also acting suspect. Jasin Natael is fixated on Rand&#8217;s fate and creating an epic retelling of the story of\u00a0 the Dragon Reborn. Hadnan Kadere keeps hinting to Rand that he has valuable &#8220;knowledge&#8221; to sell in exchange for total amnesty for any past or future crimes. All in all, it sounds like everyone spent eleven days in a mobile insane asylum.<\/p>\n<p>As the music fades out, Rhuarc welcomes Rand to his home: Cold Rocks Hold.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rand&#8217;s group completes its journey through the Aiel Waste and arrives at Cold Rocks Hold. Devoting any number of words to a chapter carries certain unspoken promises from the author. &#8220;I believe in these words,&#8221; perhaps. Or maybe, &#8220;I have something to say.&#8221; At bare minimum, the message ought to be, &#8220;This chapter has a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-shadow-rising","book-the-shadow-rising"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3406"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3427,"href":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3406\/revisions\/3427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}