I'm glad you managed it at last! It's such a good book, and the threads of the pattern continue to weave all the way through to A Memory of Light even from before this point.
Around this point in the books I was tired of the Amyrlin Seat being just as scared and quick to judgement as she has been, but considering how no one but the reader has full knowledge of what is going on, and even then that is still faulty, I have to agree. If all I ever got was the information...