Tam was in his bed at the inn, still recovering from the Thakan'dar poison.
Spencer had to talk his way past Nynaeve — who guarded the wounded with the fierce protectiveness of a mother wolf — but eventually the Wisdom let him through with a sharp warning about not tiring the patient.
"Aldan." Tam's voice was weak but steady. The black corruption was gone from his thread, burned away by Moiraine's Healing, but the effort of fighting it had left him hollowed out. "Come to check on an old man?"
"Come to ask a favor." Spencer pulled a stool close to the bed. "The Aes Sedai is leaving tomorrow. Taking Rand and the others north. She's offered to bring me too — to have my impressions examined at the White Tower."
Tam's eyes sharpened despite his exhaustion. "Your impressions."
"The ones that told me where the Trollocs were coming from. The ones that warned me about Fain." Spencer kept his voice low, conscious of Nynaeve somewhere nearby. "Moiraine thinks I might have a Talent. She wants to test it."
"And you want my blessing?"
"I want your endorsement. If you tell her I'm worth bringing — if you vouch for what I did last night — she'll be more likely to say yes."
Tam studied him for a long moment. Spencer felt the weight of that gaze and remembered that this man had fought at the Blood Snow, had carried a heron-marked blade through wars that shaped nations, had raised the Dragon Reborn with steady hands and quiet wisdom.
"You warned me about Fain," Tam said slowly. "Before any of this started. And last night, you called out a flanking move I never would have seen in time."
"Yes."
"You've got something, Aldan. I don't know what, but it's real." Tam's hand found Spencer's wrist with surprising strength. "But I need to know — why do you want to go? Really."
Because your son is the Dragon Reborn, and he's going to need every ally he can get. Because the Last Battle is coming, and I have knowledge that could tip the scales. Because I can't save anyone if I stay in a village where nothing important happens.
"Because I'm tired of feeling useless," Spencer said instead. "Because I have this thing inside me that tells me when danger is coming, and I want to understand it. And because..." He hesitated, letting the silence build. "Because I think something terrible is coming. Bigger than Winternight. And I'd rather run toward it than hide from it."
Tam's grip tightened, then released.
"I'll talk to the Aes Sedai," he said. "You've earned that much."
---
The conversation happened that afternoon.
Spencer wasn't present, but he saw the aftermath: Moiraine emerging from Tam's room with a thoughtful expression, Lan trailing behind her with his customary stone-faced vigilance. They conferred briefly near the inn's entrance, voices too low to hear, and then Moiraine found Spencer.
"Tam al'Thor speaks highly of you," she said. "He believes your impressions saved his life."
"I was just in the right place."
"Few people are in the right place as consistently as you were last night." Moiraine's tone was dry, almost amused. "Very well. You may accompany us. But understand — this journey will be dangerous. The Shadow is hunting the three boys, and anyone traveling with them becomes a target."
I know. I've read all fourteen books.
"I understand."
"Do you?" Her dark eyes held his, searching. "This is not an adventure, Aldan Maeren. People will die before we reach Tar Valon. Perhaps people in our own company. Are you prepared for that?"
I already killed someone. A child. With my own power and my own arrogance.
"Yes," Spencer said. "I'm prepared."
Moiraine studied him for another long moment, then nodded.
"We leave at dusk. Be ready."
---
The departure was quiet.
No fanfare, no crowds of well-wishers. Just a small group of riders gathering at the village edge as the sun sank toward the Westwood: Moiraine on her white mare, Lan on his warder's stallion, and behind them the three ta'veren — Rand rigid with suppressed emotion, Mat cracking nervous jokes, Perrin silent and watchful.
Egwene had insisted on coming. Spencer hadn't expected that — in his memory of the books, she'd been a surprise addition — but her thread blazed with determination, gold-tinged white that marked her as someone the Pattern had plans for.
And Thom Merrilin was there too, the gleeman with his patched cloak and knowing eyes. His thread was interesting — white shot through with threads of other colors, like a rope woven from multiple strands. A man with a complicated past.
Spencer mounted the borrowed horse with all the grace of a sack of flour falling upstairs. The animal — a placid bay mare named Cloud, because apparently someone in Emond's Field had a sense of irony — shifted beneath him with the patient resignation of a creature that knew its rider was hopeless.
"First time on a horse?" Mat asked, grinning.
"First time on THIS horse." Spencer adjusted the unfamiliar saddle and tried to remember which end of the reins did what. "We'll figure each other out."
"If you say so." Mat's grin widened. "I'll ride behind you, in case you fall off. Somebody should be there to laugh."
"Thanks. I feel so supported."
But Spencer was smiling too, despite everything. There was something about Mat Cauthon — the easy humor, the reflexive irreverence — that made it hard to stay grim. Even with Winternight's dead barely cold in their graves.
---
The Two Rivers fell away behind them.
Spencer let himself feel it — the strange lightness of leaving a place that had never really been home. Emond's Field had been Aldan Maeren's village, not Spencer Kessler's. The people there had known a young carpenter who no longer existed.
I'm leaving ghosts behind. Aldan's ghost. Eldrin Cauthon's ghost. The ghost of whoever I might have been if I'd stayed.
Good riddance.
The thought was cold, and Spencer didn't fight it. Warmth was a luxury he couldn't afford right now. Every mile north brought them closer to Shadar Logoth, to the Ways, to encounters that would test everything he knew and everything he could do.
He needed to be sharp. He needed to be ready.
The Thread Sight flickered at the edges of his vision, showing him the fate-lines of his companions: three golden threads burning bright, silver-blue Moiraine, gray-green Lan, complicated Thom, determined Egwene, and his own strange shimmer — white touched with gold that wasn't quite ta'veren.
I wonder what I look like to Min. When we reach Baerlon, she'll see something. She always sees something.
What will she see in me?
The road stretched north, and Spencer rode into an uncertain future with borrowed skills and stolen knowledge and the memory of a child's thread shredding in his grip.
Behind them, Emond's Field began the long work of rebuilding.
Ahead, the Shadow waited.
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