Nothing happens. It’s hundreds of pages of setup. It’s more okay now, when the whole series is out and you can just scoot right on into the next book to find out actual things that happen, but when it came out, people had been waiting years to find out answers to the many many questions we had about what was going to happen in all these great plots that we cared about very deeply. Very little happened in Winter’s Heart, either, but at least it ended with the Cleansing. But CoT had nothing. Perrin buys grain. For several chapters. At the time, I was honestly so frustrated that I gave up on the series entirely for several years. I didn’t even read KoD until a couple of years after it had come out, and I only read it then because I was deeply bored and there wasn’t anything else at the tiny library by my house. Obviously, I’m very glad that I did, haha! But yeah, a lot of people’s memories are really colored by that experience.
Saidin is cleansed at the end of Winter’s Heart. The majority of Crossroads is other characters sensing the cleansing because so much Power was being used and going, “What is happening over there?”I thought the cleansing of Saidin was crossroads? and Winter's Heart Rand learns how to cleanse saidin? perhaps I am remembering wrong, but I could have swore that I loved Crossroads because Rand cleansed saidin in it and it was an awesome moment... its been many many years though, so perhaps I do indeed remember wrong.
And by the time we get to the fourth or fifth plotline reacting to that, I for one are sick of hearing about it and want to just move on with it already...Saidin is cleansed at the end of Winter’s Heart. The majority of Crossroads is other characters sensing the cleansing because so much Power was being used and going, “What is happening over there?”
Now, I am onto the gathering storm.