The camp materialized through the trees like a memory made solid.
Spencer's Thread Sight had guided him for two days — following the blazing beacon of Rand's ta'veren signature through forests and farmland toward this clearing off the main road. Now he emerged from the tree line and found himself facing a circle of familiar faces around a morning fire.
Mat looked up first. His grin spread slowly, the particular warmth of someone greeting an unexpected friend. "Blood and ashes. The carpenter survived the Tower."
"Barely." Spencer dismounted, his legs protesting after days of hard riding. "The Aes Sedai are very thorough in their examinations."
Loial rose from his seat, his great hands spreading in welcome. "Aldan! I had hoped we would meet again. There is so much to discuss — the patterns of events since Falme have been most remarkable for my book."
Lan nodded once, his face unreadable as always. The Warder's thread showed approval beneath the granite exterior — Spencer had made it this far without getting killed, which apparently met some minimal standard.
And Rand.
Rand stood apart from the others, watching Spencer with eyes that held something new. The weight of Falme. The memory of channeling against Ba'alzamon in the sky above a city. The knowledge that the whole world had seen him declared Dragon Reborn.
His thread blazed gold-white, brighter than Spencer had ever seen it. The ta'veren nature that had always been impressive now burned like a small sun — destiny concentrated into a single point of impossible brilliance.
"Aldan." Rand's voice carried authority that hadn't been there before. Not arrogance — authority. The voice of someone who'd accepted responsibility he'd never wanted. "You came from Tar Valon."
"I did."
"To warn me about something?"
"Partly. Mostly to help where I can."
Rand nodded slowly, as if measuring Spencer's words against some internal scale. "We're going to Tear. The Stone. Callandor waits there, and prophecy says the Dragon Reborn will take it."
It wasn't a request for input. It wasn't even an announcement. It was a statement of fact, delivered with the certainty of someone who'd stopped questioning his destiny and started acting on it.
The boy who left Emond's Field is becoming something else. Something I helped create when I Nudged his thread at the Eye.
I hope it's something the world can survive.
---
Hurin smelled Spencer before they were formally introduced.
The thief-catcher — lean, weathered, with the particular focus of someone whose Talent had defined his entire life — had been tending horses at the camp's edge. When Spencer approached to stable his own mount, Hurin went rigid.
"There's something about you, my lord." The words came out cautious, almost apologetic. "Not violence. I'd know violence — it's my Gift. But something... sideways. Like looking at a picture hung wrong on a wall."
Another Talent detecting me. Like Perrin's wolves. Like Min's visions.
The more sensitive someone is to the Pattern, the more they notice I don't fit.
"I've been told that before," Spencer said carefully. "Some people's abilities react strangely to me."
"That's one way to put it." Hurin stepped back, not hostile but clearly unsettled. "I mean no offense, my lord. It's just... you smell like a wound in the world that's trying to heal."
A wound in the world that's trying to heal.
That's actually a pretty accurate description.
Spencer nodded and led his horse to the picket line, adding Hurin's assessment to the growing list of Talent-wielders who'd noticed his anomaly.
---
Min intercepted Spencer at the campfire that evening.
She was smaller than Spencer had imagined from the books — dark-haired, sharp-featured, with the quick movements of someone accustomed to watching from corners. Her thread pulsed with the particular resonance of Pattern-sight, similar to Nicola's ta'veren-perception but focused differently.
"We met in Baerlon," she said without preamble. "I saw images around you then. They've changed."
"Changed how?"
"Bigger. More... layered." Min's eyes weren't quite focused on Spencer's face — she was looking at something beyond the physical. "And some of them aren't yours. They're images of other people, other futures, all tangled up with you like you're a crossroads instead of a person."
She can see how many threads connect to me. How many lives my presence affects.
In Baerlon, I was new. Now I've touched dozens of important threads.
And she can read that in her visions.
"Is that bad?"
Min shrugged, the motion somehow conveying both uncertainty and acceptance. "I don't know what it means. I never know what the images mean until they happen. But you're important now, in ways you weren't before. The Pattern is paying attention to you."
The Pattern is paying attention.
That's either very good or very bad, and there's no way to know which until it's too late.
---
Moiraine found Spencer after dinner.
They walked away from the campfire, far enough for privacy, close enough that Thread Sight could still read the group's threads. The Aes Sedai's ageless face showed nothing, but her thread carried the particular intensity of someone who'd been waiting for an opportunity.
"You spent a month in the Tower," she said. "You were examined by Brown scholars studying unusual Talents. What did they find?"
Spencer had prepared for this question. The answer had to be truthful — Moiraine would detect obvious lies — while hiding the things that couldn't be explained.
"They found my abilities unprecedented. No known Talent in Tower records matches what I can do." True. "They documented their observations and filed reports with the Hall." Also true. "The conclusions were inconclusive — they don't have a framework for understanding how I perceive the Pattern." Equally true.
Moiraine's expression suggested she'd expected exactly this answer and found it unsatisfying.
"You've been hiding things since Winternight, Aldan. I've been patient because your abilities have proven useful. But we're approaching the Stone of Tear, where prophecy will be tested and the Dragon will claim Callandor. I need to know what you are before we arrive."
"Before the Stone. You said that last time."
"And now the deadline approaches." Moiraine's voice carried steel beneath silk. "The full truth, Spencer. Not the half-truths you've been feeding me. Not the convenient mysteries. Everything."
She called me Spencer. Not Aldan.
She's been listening. She's been watching. She knows my original name isn't the one I'm using.
How much else does she know?
"I'll tell you what I can," Spencer said. "Before Tear. As much as I'm able to explain."
"Not what you can. What is." Moiraine held his gaze with the particular intensity that made Aes Sedai terrifying. "The full truth. Or we have a problem that not even your unusual Talents will solve."
She walked away, leaving Spencer with the weight of an ultimatum that was running out of extensions.
---
Mat dealt cards after Moiraine's departure.
Spencer joined the game and lost badly — Mat's luck was supernatural, enhanced by whatever the dagger and Horn had done to him — but losing at cards to a friend beat winning at espionage alone.
"You look like someone kicked your dog," Mat observed, dealing another hand.
"Just thinking about roads ahead."
"Don't. Never helped anyone." Mat's grin was genuine, unforced, the particular warmth of someone who refused to take anything too seriously. "We survived Shadar Logoth. We survived the Ways. We survived a bloody battle with the Dark One himself. What's a road to Tear compared to that?"
He doesn't know about Fain's message. He doesn't know the Shadow is hunting us specifically.
Maybe that's for the best. Mat's luck works better when he's not thinking too hard about danger.
"Deal me in again," Spencer said. "I've got copper to lose."
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