The sun came up gray and cold over Emond's Field.
Spencer had spent the night alternating between fitful sleep and quiet practice — not with tools, but with his face. The expressions Aldan Maeren would make. The way a recovering carpenter might move, might speak, might hold himself when entering a room full of people who'd known him since birth.
It wasn't much. But it was something.
"You're sure about this?" His aunt — Mistress Maeren, he'd learned, though Aldan had always called her Aunt Ela — stood by the door with her arms crossed and worry carved into the lines around her mouth.
"The Luhhan chair," Spencer said. "I promised it before the fever hit. If I don't deliver, Haral will think the sickness addled my brain."
"He'd think that anyway, you going out into the cold after what you've been through."
"Then at least this way he'll have a chair to show for it."
Mistress Maeren's expression softened. The worry was still there, but something else too — pride, maybe. Approval. Aldan had been a good nephew, Spencer realized. Reliable. Hard-working. The kind of young man a village like this depended on.
Don't screw this up, he told himself. These people don't know Aldan's gone. To them, you ARE Aldan. Act like it.
"Back before midday," she said finally. "And if you feel faint, you sit down right where you are. I don't care if it's the middle of the road."
"Yes, Aunt."
He picked up the chair — lighter than he'd expected, his arms still weak from the fever — and stepped out into Emond's Field.
---
The village was preparing for Bel Tine.
Poles were going up on the green. Bunting was being strung between the buildings. Children ran past laughing, and their parents called after them with warnings that carried no real heat. It was a celebration — the first day of spring, the turn of the year, a festival that had been old before the Breaking of the World.
Spencer walked through it all with the careful steps of a man still recovering from illness, and tried not to stare at the threads.
They were there. Faint, almost invisible in the daylight, but present. Every person trailing their own luminous filament. Every building anchored by dozens of smaller connections. The Pattern was everywhere, and now that he'd seen it once, he couldn't unsee it.
Don't look directly at them, he reminded himself. That headache was a warning. Whatever this is — whatever the Pattern gave me — it's not free.
The Luhhan smithy was at the edge of the village, smoke rising from its forge chimney. Spencer set the chair down by the front door and knocked.
"Come in, come in!" Alsbet Luhhan's voice. "Door's open!"
Spencer pushed inside. The smithy was warm, the heat of the forge chasing away the winter chill. Haral Luhhan — massive, bearded, hands like shovels — looked up from his anvil with surprise.
"Aldan! Light, boy, we heard you were at death's door."
"Wisdom says I'm past it now." Spencer kept his voice mild, his expression neutral. What would Aldan say? What would a village carpenter say to the village blacksmith?
"Brought the chair," he added, gesturing toward the door. "Meant to have it done before I got sick. It's finished now."
"A few days late never hurt anyone." Haral wiped soot from his hands and examined the chair with a professional eye. "Good work. The joints are solid."
"Thank you."
"You feeling alright? You look pale."
"Lingering headaches. Wisdom said they might last a week."
Haral nodded, apparently satisfied. "Rest while you can. Bel Tine's coming — there'll be work enough then."
Spencer accepted a cup of water from Mistress Luhhan, exchanged a few more pleasantries, and escaped back into the cold air.
First test passed. Haral hadn't noticed anything wrong. Mistress Luhhan hadn't squinted at him like he was wearing a stranger's face. As far as they knew, he was just Aldan Maeren, recovering from a bad fever.
Now for the harder test.
---
The Winespring Inn sat at the heart of Emond's Field.
It was larger than the other buildings, two stories of stone and timber, with a sign that showed a spring bubbling from a rock. Inside, Spencer could hear the muffled sounds of conversation — too many people talking at once, the noise of a village gathering before a festival.
Crowds, he thought. Lots of threads in there. Lots of chances for whatever happened this morning to happen again.
He should avoid it. He should go home, rest, let his strength return. That was the smart play.
But the smart play wouldn't tell him what he needed to know.
Spencer pushed through the door.
The inn's common room was packed. Villagers sat at tables, stood by the fire, clustered around the bar. The air smelled of pipe smoke and cooking meat and the yeasty sweetness of ale. Master al'Vere — round-faced, kindly, the innkeeper and mayor both — was behind the counter, directing his staff with the easy authority of long practice.
Spencer found a seat near the back wall. The position let him see the whole room while keeping something solid behind him — a habit he'd picked up from too many airport layovers in sketchy terminals, though here it served a different purpose.
Watch. Listen. Learn.
He kept his gaze low, studying the crowd through his peripheral vision. The threads were there, faint overlays on every person, and for a few minutes he managed not to focus on them.
Then someone jostled his shoulder, and his concentration broke.
The threads erupted into full visibility.
White filaments everywhere. Dozens of them, hundreds, a web so dense it made his eyes water. The villagers were connected — to each other, to the building, to something Spencer couldn't see beyond the walls. The patterns shifted and flowed as people moved, as conversations ebbed and waved, as the great tapestry of Emond's Field rewove itself moment by moment.
Too much. His head screamed. His vision blurred. He gripped the edge of his table and tried to look away, to shut the threads out, to do anything — but they wouldn't stop.
He stood. Wrong move. The room tilted. He stumbled into someone, bounced off a table, and hit the corner of a chair with his hip hard enough to make his eyes water.
Get out. Get out now.
He made it two steps toward the door before his legs buckled.
"Easy there." A hand caught his elbow. Strong grip, calloused fingers, the smell of pipe smoke and old leather. "You alright, lad?"
Spencer blinked. The threads were fading — still there, but dimmer now, retreating to the edges of his perception. In their place stood a man with gray-streaked hair and a face like weathered granite.
Tam al'Thor.
The man who raised the Dragon Reborn. The blademaster who fought at the Blood Snow. The farmer who carried a heron-marked sword hidden in his attic.
"I'm fine," Spencer managed. His voice came out steadier than he expected. "Just — the fever. Still dizzy sometimes."
Tam studied him with eyes that missed nothing. "You're Elra Maeren's nephew, aren't you? The carpenter's apprentice."
"Aldan. Yes."
"Let's get you some air."
He didn't wait for agreement. Just guided Spencer toward the door with the unhurried efficiency of a man who'd dealt with worse problems than a dizzy villager. The cold hit Spencer's face like a splash of water, and he gulped it gratefully.
"Better?"
"Better. Thank you."
They stood by the inn's entrance while Spencer's heartbeat slowed. Tam didn't hover, didn't fuss, just waited with the patience of a man who'd learned to let things happen in their own time.
This is the man who taught Rand to handle a bow. Who gave him the foundation that held him together when the madness started eating at his mind.
"You should see the Wisdom," Tam said. "Nosebleeds after a fever can mean—"
"I'll go tomorrow." Spencer touched his lip — blood, thin and watery. He hadn't even noticed. "It's nothing serious. Just pushed myself too hard."
Tam nodded, apparently accepting this. "Bel Tine's the day after tomorrow. Rest until then. Your aunt would skin me if I let you collapse in the snow."
"She would," Spencer agreed.
A pause. Tam's gaze drifted toward the village green, where three young men were hauling another pole into position. One tall and red-haired. One grinning, tossing a coin in the air. One broad-shouldered and careful with his hands.
Spencer's breath caught.
Rand. Mat. Perrin.
The three ta'veren. The three who matter more than anyone else in this entire world.
They were thirty feet away. Close enough to see clearly. Close enough, Spencer realized, to have threads — and even with the Thread Sight faded to almost nothing, he could feel something from their direction. A weight. A pull. Like standing too close to a bonfire and feeling the heat on his skin.
"Friends of yours?" Tam asked.
"No. I mean — I know them. Everyone knows everyone here." Spencer forced himself to look away. "I should get back. Rest, like you said."
"Good man."
Spencer walked home on legs that felt like they belonged to someone else.
Which, he reminded himself, they did.
---
That night, he sat in Aldan's workroom and stared at the wall.
Facts: I have some kind of ability. Thread Sight. The Pattern is visible to me, at least sometimes.
Fact: It hurts. A lot. And it's not controllable yet.
Fact: Those three — Rand, Mat, Perrin — they feel different. Heavier. More important.
Ta'veren. The Pattern's chosen ones. People around whom probability bent, around whom events twisted, around whom the entire world would eventually revolve.
And they were right here. Right now. Before any of it started.
Spencer picked up a piece of sandpaper and began working on a scrap of wood. The motion was soothing — Aldan's body knew how to do this, even if Spencer's mind was elsewhere.
Tomorrow, he thought. Tomorrow I rest and learn more about who Aldan was. And then—
And then Bel Tine comes. And then the Shadow follows.
The sandpaper whispered against the grain. Outside, Emond's Field settled into quiet.
Spencer worked until his hands ached and the candle guttered low.
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