Egwene dreams of a long line of women who wore Great Serpent rings that are collared by the Seanchan. So, there has to be a battle where a significant number of Aes Sedai are captured and the Seanchan must be victorious in that battle in order to carry away captives and use their talents later. Egwene in the same dream sees the chained Aes Sedai being forced to call lightning against the White Tower. I am assuming that this means thatthey are attempting to either breach the walls of Tar Valon or have entered the city proper and are actually trying to gain entrance into the White Tower. Remember that the White Tower is as far east as you can go without going over the Dragonwall. So, for this to happen the Seanchan will havecross almost the entire continent to have at the Tower(unless one of the captured Aes Sedai knows how to travel). This trek will obviously cause each ruler whose land is crossed to attempt to stop the Seanchan. Now, we know that Rand is the new ruler of most of the southeastern territory and judging from the synopsis of book 8 and its cover it appears that Rand gathers his forces todo battle with the Seanchan. We have a prophecy that Rand and other male channelers are hurling lightning and fire in Cairhien. Since Rand is the ruler there we have to assume that he is fighting some invasion of his territory(TarValon is just above Cairhien). Now another dream has Matt vanishing and Rand wearing rags, a rough cloak, and a bandage over his eyes. This could verywell be the result of Rand's first defeat. Of course there are many other reasons this could happen but I thought that it might be time for Rand to experience a bloody nose before he either beats the Seanchan and a treaty of some sort is signed or until Mat binds the Nine Moons to Rand.