The eve of Bel Tine dawned bright and cold.
Spencer woke early, before the sun cleared the treeline, and spent an hour doing slow stretches in the middle of Aldan's room. The fever weakness was fading. His body felt more like his own — or at least, more like something he could reliably command. The three days had given him time to learn Aldan's patterns: the way his shoulders sat, the rhythm of his breathing, the particular angle at which this body held its head when listening.
Small things. But in a village where everyone had known Aldan since birth, small things could save his life.
Today, he told himself, pulling on his boots. Today I need to see them properly. The ta'veren. Whatever's different about their threads — I need to understand it.
He'd spent yesterday recovering. Mistress Maeren had kept him close to home, feeding him broth and biscuits and the occasional pointed lecture about young men who didn't know their limits. He'd let her fuss. It gave him time to think.
Now, though, thinking wasn't enough.
---
The village green was chaos.
Bel Tine preparations had reached their peak. The poles were up, draped in ribbons that fluttered in the winter wind. Tables were being arranged for the feast. Children ran everywhere, getting underfoot and being scolded by parents too busy to chase them. Half the village seemed to have congregated in the central square, hauling supplies or shouting directions or simply standing around watching others work.
Spencer found a spot near the inn's wall — solid at his back, clear sightlines ahead — and let his vision relax.
The threads appeared.
He'd been practicing. Short bursts, a few seconds at a time, building tolerance the way you built muscle. It still hurt — a pressure behind his eyes, a throb at the base of his skull — but the pain was manageable now. Controllable.
The village green was a web of white. Mundane threads, connecting people to people, buildings to buildings, the whole tapestry of daily life woven into something almost beautiful. Spencer let his gaze drift across the crowd, cataloging shapes and densities, learning to read the pattern's grammar.
And then he saw them.
Rand, Mat, and Perrin were standing together near the main Bel Tine pole. Rand was tall, taller than Spencer had expected, with reddish hair that caught the morning light. Mat was grinning at something one of the others had said, tossing his inevitable coin. Perrin stood slightly apart, broad and quiet, arms folded across his chest.
Their threads burned gold.
Spencer's breath caught. He'd expected them to look different — the books had described ta'veren as people who warped probability around themselves, who bent the Pattern by their mere existence — but this was more than different. This was blazing. Three threads so bright they made the surrounding white look gray by comparison. The color of sunlight, of molten metal, of power waiting to be unleashed.
And they were thin. Dormant. The ta'veren nature hadn't activated yet, not fully. This was potential, not reality.
In a few days, those threads will be anchor points for the entire Pattern.
In a few weeks, the whole world will start bending around them.
Spencer pressed his back against the inn wall and forced himself to look away. The golden afterimages danced in his vision, and the headache was building again, but he had what he came for.
Ta'veren threads are gold. Visible even at this tier. That's useful.
A wagon rolled into the village square.
---
Padan Fain had the smile of a man who'd practiced it in mirrors.
Spencer watched the peddler climb down from his wagon seat, greeting villagers with the easy familiarity of long acquaintance. Fain was a regular here, the books had said — he came through the Two Rivers every spring, bringing news and trinkets from the wider world. The villagers knew him. Trusted him.
None of them knew what he was.
Spencer looked at Fain's thread and felt his stomach drop.
White underneath — the base human thread, the same as everyone else — but wrapped in something wrong. Black tendrils, thick and oily, clinging to the white like parasites. They pulsed with a rhythm that reminded Spencer of breathing, though nothing about them looked alive. It was corruption made visible. A soul being devoured from the inside.
The Dark One's touch, Spencer realized. Fain isn't just a Darkfriend. He's being remade. The Shadow is turning him into something else.
The black tendrils shifted. One of them — thicker than the others, more active — swung in Spencer's direction.
Spencer stopped breathing.
The tendril didn't point at him. Not exactly. But it quivered, like a hound catching a scent, and for one terrible moment Spencer thought it was going to reach toward him—
He stepped behind the inn's corner. Broke line of sight. Pressed his back to the cold stone and counted heartbeats.
One. Two. Three.
Nothing happened.
Four. Five. Six.
Still nothing.
Spencer let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. His hands were shaking. His Thread Sight had collapsed — he couldn't see anything now, not even the mundane white of villagers passing by — but that was probably a good thing. If that thing on Fain's thread could sense him looking...
New rule, he thought grimly. Don't stare directly at Shadow corruption.
A warning pressed at the edge of his awareness. Not words — more like a feeling, an instinct, a whisper from somewhere inside. Wrongness. Danger. Distance.
The Codex.
Spencer didn't know what to call it yet — the System, the Interface, whatever mechanism had given him Thread Sight — but something was talking to him. Giving him feedback.
Warning received, he thought back at it. Stay away from Fain. Got it.
---
He spent the next hour wandering.
The Bel Tine preparations gave him cover. He helped carry a table, held a ladder while someone hung bunting, accepted a cup of cider from a woman whose name he didn't know. All the while, his mind worked.
Fain is here. The corruption is here. The Shadow is already watching Emond's Field.
Tomorrow night, the Trollocs come.
What can I do about it?
The honest answer was: probably nothing. Spencer wasn't a fighter. He had no magic, no weapons training, no tactical experience beyond spreadsheets and simulation games. Against Trollocs — massive, bloodthirsty, remorseless — he'd be dead in seconds.
But I know they're coming. I know when, and I know roughly where.
That's worth something.
Tam al'Thor was the obvious choice. Former soldier, experienced warrior, one of the few people in the village who'd actually seen combat. If Spencer could warn him...
And tell him what? "A peddler I just saw has an evil thread wrapped around his soul, so I know monsters are coming tomorrow night"?
He'd think the fever addled my brain.
No. Direct warnings were out. He needed something subtler. Something that would make Tam — and maybe Moiraine, if he could get her attention — take precautions without Spencer having to explain how he knew.
Fain, he thought. Fain is the key.
Fain was tracking the ta'veren for the Shadow. He'd been doing it for years, though the villagers didn't know it. If Spencer could make Fain seem suspicious — plant doubts, raise questions, get people watching him—
It might not stop the attack. But it might make someone pay attention. And attention was the first step toward preparation.
---
The afternoon found Spencer near the village's edge, sitting on a fence and eating a meat pie.
The pie was good. Mutton and gravy, wrapped in a crust that crumbled at the edges. His fingers were greasy, his stomach was warm, and for just a moment, Spencer let himself enjoy it.
Real food. In a real place. Not a hospital, not a coffin, not the void that should come after death.
Just... this.
The sunset painted the western sky in shades of orange and rose. In the distance, the Winespring Water caught the light and scattered it like scattered coins. It was beautiful, Spencer realized. Genuinely, simply beautiful, in a way that spreadsheets and office buildings and late-night highways never quite managed.
Tomorrow night, some of these people are going to die.
The thought cut through his appreciation like a knife.
There are going to be Trollocs in these streets. Fades riding through the dark. Fire and screaming and blood.
And I'm sitting here eating a meat pie because I don't know what else to do.
Spencer finished the pie. Wiped his hands on his trousers. Stood up.
Alright, he thought. Enough planning. Time to act.
---
He found Tam al'Thor outside the inn, loading barrels onto a cart.
"Need a hand?" Spencer asked.
Tam looked up. "Aldan. Feeling better?"
"Much." Spencer grabbed the other end of a barrel and helped guide it into position. "Thanks for yesterday. The help, I mean."
"Nothing to thank." They lifted another barrel together. "Fevers are rough. My boy Rand had one when he was twelve — thought we might lose him."
"Rand's your son?"
"Aye." Tam's voice carried the particular warmth of a father discussing his child. "Good lad. Strong. Takes after his mother."
Kari al'Thor, Spencer thought. Died when Rand was young. Tam never really got over it.
"The peddler's here," Spencer said, keeping his voice casual. "Fain. I saw him this morning."
"Saw him too. He's staying at the inn — usual arrangement. Brings news from Baerlon, mostly. Some trinkets."
"He seemed... different this year." Spencer set down his end of the barrel and frowned, as if trying to remember something he couldn't quite place. "I don't know. Something about his eyes."
Tam paused. "Different how?"
"I can't explain it. Just a feeling." Spencer shrugged, the motion as natural as he could make it. "Probably nothing. The fever messed with my head — I've been seeing things strange ever since."
Plant the seed, he told himself. Don't water it too much. Let it grow on its own.
Tam studied him for a long moment. Those gray eyes missed nothing — the man had been a soldier, a blademaster, someone who'd lived through the kind of violence Emond's Field had never seen. He knew what it looked like when something was wrong.
"I'll keep an eye on him," Tam said finally. "Never hurts to be careful."
"I'm sure it's nothing."
"Probably is." But there was something in Tam's voice now — a thread of awareness that hadn't been there before. Suspicion, maybe. Or just the old soldier's instinct for danger.
Good, Spencer thought. That's good.
He helped Tam finish loading the cart, exchanged a few more words about Bel Tine preparations, and headed home.
---
The house was quiet when he arrived.
Mistress Maeren had gone to help with the feast preparations, leaving a note on the table and a bowl of stew warming by the fire. Spencer ate mechanically, his mind elsewhere.
Tomorrow is Winternight.
Twenty-four hours, maybe less, until the Trollocs come.
He didn't have a plan. Not a real one. He'd planted doubt about Fain, and maybe that would help, but "maybe" wasn't enough. Not when people's lives were on the line.
What else can I do?
I know the attack vectors — from the west, mostly. The Trollocs come down from the Quarry Road.
I know which houses are closest to the tree line. Which families have children.
I know Moiraine will arrive sometime tonight or early tomorrow. Lan will be with her.
I know—
He stopped.
I know a lot of things. But knowing isn't doing.
Spencer stood up. Crossed to the window. Looked out at the darkening village, at the torches being lit for the Bel Tine eve celebrations, at the people walking toward the green with laughter in their voices.
These people are going to need help tomorrow night. Real help — warnings, evacuation routes, safe places to hide.
I can give them that. Maybe not enough to save everyone. But enough to save some.
It wasn't a perfect plan. It wasn't even a good plan. But it was action, and action was better than waiting.
Spencer found paper and charcoal on Aldan's workbench. He sat down and began to sketch — not art, but maps. Emond's Field from above, as best he could remember from the books and what he'd observed. The houses nearest the western woods. The paths that connected them. The places where Trollocs might come, and the routes people might use to escape.
The candle burned low. His hand cramped. The stew went cold in its bowl.
By the time he finished, the moon was high and the village had gone quiet.
Spencer looked at his work — imperfect, incomplete, but something — and made a decision.
Tomorrow morning, I'm going to find the Wisdom. Or the Women's Circle. Someone who'll listen.
I'll tell them I had a dream. A fever-vision. Whatever they'll believe.
And then I'll show them this map.
It probably wouldn't work. They'd probably think he was crazy. But crazy was better than silent, and silent was what got people killed.
He put away the paper, banked the fire, and went to bed.
Sleep came slowly. When it finally did, Spencer dreamed of golden threads burning in the darkness, and a voice that whispered words he couldn't understand.
---
Outside, snow began to fall.
And in the village square, a peddler with oily corruption wrapped around his soul smiled at nothing and waited for his masters to arrive.
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