Don't read Crossroads of Twilight and New Spring. Gotcha. Thanks for the warning
I understand why the characters don't trust, well I do and I don't. She's Aes Sedai, yes, but I haven't a full grasp of what that means. All I've managed to really understand so far (and again, like 400 pages into the first book) is that their kinda like the Jedi, so they're all different kinds of people, they're a select few that can touch the One Power and the guys are really bad at it. There is that distrust there, that stems from...well that I don't know either. I'm sure it will reveal itself in time. You're right about how he builds everything up, I know its all coming, honest, I'm just impatient and must know immediately. I'm looking forward to where the politics get explained and the whole picture is displayed. I do like how he's done that, there's clearly a lot going on but we're only allowed to know that they're on the run because, for whatever reason, the Dark One is after one of them. A build like that is a good story.
I just found it interesting that there is that contrast between the narrator and the characters. Every book I've read, the narrator reflects the main character(s) feelings on a situation, a trustworthy/untrustworthy character or whatever. I've never seen it where it's really been the opposite. It makes you think more about what everyone is thinking, or not thinking, but it almost has made it confusing for me. I think that's just me as a reader, I have this tendency to want everything explained to me, I have a lot of nagging questions where I'm at now and they're distracting me from whats going on. You don't get the insight into the characters right away that you do in a lot of books.