Spencer rode out of Tar Valon at dawn with the weight of thirteen hundred threads behind him.
Verin had received the final briefing the night before — coded instructions for continuing Tower operations, intelligence on the remaining Black Ajah cells, and a personal request to protect Nicola through whatever political chaos followed. The Brown sister had listened with her characteristic scattered attention, then said: "You've given the Tower more than anyone knows. Now go give the Dragon the same."
Siuan had provided a horse and travel papers without asking questions. The Amyrlin Seat was too focused on the captured Black Ajah interrogations and the political fallout from Rand's sky-battle declaration to worry about one departing guest.
Now the White Tower shrank behind Spencer as he rode the southern road, and every mile felt like a choice confirmed.
---
The road was busy with refugees and travelers reacting to the Dragon's declaration.
Spencer studied their threads as he rode — white, white, white, the occasional black that marked a Darkfriend, and a growing pattern of threads pulling southwest. Rand's ta'veren nature was already warping probability across the continent, drawing people toward him like iron filings toward a magnet.
That's how it works. Ta'veren don't just change events near them — they bend the whole Pattern's traffic flow.
And I'm riding with that flow instead of against it.
Thread Tracing confirmed the direction every few hours. Rand's signature blazed southwest, moving at a pace that suggested urgent travel. The post-Falme group was heading toward Tear — toward the Stone, toward Callandor, toward the next prophecy that would prove Rand was who the sky-battle had declared him to be.
Spencer pushed his horse harder.
---
At a crossroads inn that evening, Spencer wrote his first coded letter to Verin.
The cipher they'd developed was layered — obvious cover text discussing "historical research," underneath which lay operational intelligence readable only to someone who knew the key. Spencer composed carefully:
Dear Sister Verin,
The historical accounts you recommended have proven invaluable for my continuing studies. I've found particular interest in the sections discussing INSTITUTIONAL POLITICS during the Trolloc Wars — specifically how COMPETING FACTIONS sometimes created more danger than external enemies. If you encounter any sources on DEFENSIVE PREPARATIONS for such situations, please share them.
Regarding our mutual academic interest in UNUSUAL TALENTS, I hope the young student we discussed continues her training. Her potential for FUTURE CONTRIBUTIONS to scholarship remains significant.
I will write again when my travels permit. The roads south are busy with those seeking the CENTRAL DEVELOPMENTS of our era.
Your colleague, A.M.
The coded meaning was clear to anyone with the key: Elaida is dangerous. Prepare defenses. Protect Nicola. I'm heading toward Rand.
Spencer paid a trusted merchant courier triple the standard rate to carry the letter north. The communication system was slow — weeks between exchanges — but it was secure. Verin would know he'd arrived safely, and she could respond with Tower intelligence through the same channel.
---
Two days of hard riding brought Spencer to a milestone and an unexpected notification.
[LEVEL UP: Level 12 achieved. Stat increases: PER +1 (now 22), ACU +1 (now 20), RES +1 (now 19), WIL +1 (now 19). VIT +1 (now 16, Stamina max now 48). New unlock: Thread Memory — Codex auto-logs all observed threads. Review available in Inner Loom meditation space. Note: Archive now contains ~4,700 unique thread signatures from journey to date.]
Spencer nearly fell off his horse.
Thread Memory. Every thread I've ever seen, stored and searchable.
That's... that's a database. A Pattern database.
He made camp early that night, settling by a stream in a copse of willows. The meditation space — the "Inner Loom" he'd glimpsed during the Eye of the World recovery — opened more easily now. Inside, the Thread Memory manifested as a vast web of light: every thread he'd observed since Winternight, organized by time, location, and type.
Liandrin's corruption pattern, archived in perfect detail. Joiya's thread texture. Amico's shallow infection. The three Forsaken threads from the Eye. Rand's ta'veren blaze in a dozen different moments. Mat's healing progression. Perrin's wolf-gold transformation.
And beneath them all, Eldrin Cauthon's thread — the child Spencer had tried to save and failed. The severed end still visible in his archive, a permanent reminder of what Pattern-intervention cost when it went wrong.
4,700 unique threads. Every person I've passed on the road, every Aes Sedai in the Tower, every villager in Emond's Field.
The Pattern's filing system, and I have read access.
Spencer emerged from the meditation an hour later with a headache and a grin. Thread Memory changed everything. He could compare corruption patterns across multiple subjects. He could track thread evolution over time. He could identify when someone's thread shifted in ways that suggested turning or influence.
This is what Level 12 is for. Not just power growth — tool development.
The Codex is teaching me to be a better analyst.
---
The next morning, Spencer taught himself to skip stones.
It was ridiculous. The world was ending — or beginning, depending on perspective — and he stood at a stream bank throwing flat rocks at the water. Aldan's hands had no memory of this skill, and Spencer's muscle memory came from a body that no longer existed.
The first stone sank immediately. The second skipped once. The third sank. The fourth bounced twice before disappearing.
By the tenth stone, Spencer was laughing at his own incompetence.
Fun. I forgot that was still possible.
Fourteen books of prophecy and apocalypse and political maneuvering, and nobody mentioned that sometimes you can just throw rocks at a stream and feel like a person instead of a chess piece.
He packed up camp with something lighter in his chest than he'd felt since Winternight.
The road south continued, and the dragon's road was turning out to have better scenery than he'd expected.
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