The innkeeper's smile was perfect.
Too perfect. Warm eyes, welcoming gesture, the practiced hospitality of a man who'd spent decades making travelers feel at home. Spencer's Thread Sight cut through the performance like a knife through silk — the man's fate-thread was shot through with black corruption, pulsing with the oily darkness of Shadow-service.
Darkfriend. Running an inn on the main road to Caemlyn. Of course.
"Three travelers, looking road-worn and hungry!" The innkeeper spread his arms wide. "Come in, come in. The Dancing Cartman has the best mutton stew in Four Kings, and I'll not hear argument on the matter."
Spencer stepped through the door first, positioning himself to scan the common room. Thread Sight mapped the space in heartbeats: two more black-threaded figures in the kitchen, visible through a serving window. A third near the back door, pretending to sweep. The regular patrons — five of them, scattered at tables — showed clean white threads, oblivious to the predators among them.
Three Darkfriends minimum. Probably more I can't see. They've been waiting for us.
"Corner table," Spencer said quietly to Rand. "Near the front window."
Rand nodded, steering Mat toward the indicated spot. Mat moved with the sullen resistance that had become his default state, his corruption-darkened thread pulsing with paranoid energy that hadn't dimmed since the knife incident at the farmer's barn.
They hadn't talked about it. There was nothing to say that wouldn't make things worse.
---
The stew arrived with bread and ale, carried by a serving girl whose thread was mercifully clean. Spencer ate mechanically, keeping his attention split between the food and the Darkfriends' movements.
The one in the kitchen is talking to someone out of sight. The sweeper has moved closer to the back door. The innkeeper keeps glancing toward the stairs.
They're positioning. Waiting for something.
"We should go," Spencer said quietly.
Rand looked up from his bowl. "We just sat down."
"I know. But we need to leave. Now."
Mat's hand stopped halfway to his mouth. His thread flared with sudden, vicious suspicion. "Why? What do you see that we don't?"
"Mat—"
"You're always seeing things. Always steering us places. Always knowing which way to go and which way not to." Mat's voice was rising, drawing attention from nearby tables. "Maybe you're leading us into traps, not away from them."
"Keep your voice down."
"Don't tell me what to do." Mat pushed back from the table, and Spencer caught the glint of metal — Thom's spare knife, the one Mat had been carrying since Whitebridge. "I'm tired of following you blind. I'm tired of you taking my things and pretending you didn't."
The coin. He's still thinking about the coin.
Spencer stayed very still. His hands remained flat on the table, visible and unthreatening. "Mat. I'm your friend. I've been your friend since the Draghkar night, when I pulled you back from the cliff."
"Friends don't steal from friends."
"I didn't steal anything."
"Then where's my coin?" Mat's corruption-thread pulsed darker, feeding on the confrontation. "The one I had in my pocket before Shadar Logoth? The lucky one that kept me safe?"
The lucky one that was killing you. The one that's sitting in my Codex Inventory right now, quarantined because its corruption would have eaten your soul.
"You probably lost it during the escape. The city was chaos."
"Liar." Mat's knuckles whitened around the knife handle. "I can see it in your face. You took it."
Rand grabbed Mat's arm. "Mat, stop. This isn't the time—"
"Get off me!"
The common room had gone quiet. Spencer could feel the innkeeper's attention like a physical weight — black thread pulsing with predatory interest, watching the conflict with the patience of a spider whose web had just caught something struggling.
He's letting this play out. Letting us tear ourselves apart before he makes his move.
The thugs are in position. Back door blocked. Kitchen exit closed.
We're out of time.
"Rand," Spencer said, keeping his voice level despite his racing heart. "We need to leave through the front. Right now. Don't ask questions."
"I'm not going anywhere with you," Mat snarled.
"Then stay here and die." Spencer stood, slowly, hands still visible. "There are three Darkfriends in this building. The innkeeper, two in the kitchen, one at the back door. They've been waiting for us since we walked in."
Mat's thread flickered with something other than paranoia — a flash of the old Mat, the one who could recognize danger when it was explained clearly. "How do you—"
"The same way I always know. Now move."
---
The innkeeper blocked their path to the door.
"Leaving so soon?" His smile hadn't changed, but something had shifted behind his eyes — the mask slipping, the predator showing through. "But you've barely touched your meals. And the rooms upstairs are quite comfortable."
"We'll find other accommodations," Spencer said.
"I'm afraid I must insist." The innkeeper's hand moved toward his belt. "My masters are very interested in three young men matching your description. Particularly the tall one with the red hair."
Rand. They want Rand.
The back door burst open. The sweeper and one of the kitchen Darkfriends rushed in, clubs in hand. The innkeeper drew a knife — longer than Thom's spare, wickedly curved.
Spencer had about two seconds to come up with a plan.
He didn't need to.
Rand's thread blazed white-gold, brighter than Spencer had ever seen it. The air tasted of lightning. Something crackled at the edge of perception, building toward release—
The roof exploded.
---
Spencer had known Rand would channel at Four Kings. He'd read the scene a dozen times, knew the lightning would come, knew the inn would burn. But knowing and experiencing were different things.
The thunder was deafening. The flash left spots in Spencer's vision that took seconds to clear. The roof above them simply ceased to exist, replaced by smoke and flame and the screams of people who'd been too close to the strike point.
The innkeeper was down — alive, Spencer's Thread Sight confirmed, but unconscious from the blast. The Darkfriend thugs had scattered, one on fire, the other fleeing through the shattered back door.
"MOVE!" Spencer grabbed Mat's arm — the knife was gone, lost in the chaos — and pulled him toward the front wall, which now had a convenient hole where a window used to be. "RAND, COME ON!"
Rand stood frozen, staring at his hands. His thread was dimming, the blazing white-gold fading back to its normal golden glow, but his face held the expression of a man who'd just watched himself do something impossible.
"I didn't... I don't know how..."
"Later!" Spencer shoved Rand toward the hole. "Move now, think later!"
They ran.
---
Two miles outside Four Kings, Spencer finally let them stop.
His lungs burned. His legs ached. Glass cuts from the window stung on his arms, shallow but persistent. Behind them, a column of smoke rose from the burning inn — visible for miles, a beacon announcing their escape route to anyone who cared to follow.
Have to keep moving. Can't stay here.
But Rand had collapsed against a milestone, and Mat was watching Spencer with eyes that held more fear than suspicion for the first time in days.
"What was that?" Mat whispered. "In the inn. The lightning. Rand, what did you do?"
Rand shook his head, hands trembling. "I don't know. I felt... something building. Like pressure behind my eyes. And then it just..." He gestured vaguely toward the smoke. "I don't know."
Spencer pressed his palms against the cool stone of the milestone and forced himself to breathe. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. The way his father had taught him, a lifetime ago, a world away.
Rand channeled. First time. Unconsciously, instinctively, in response to threat.
This is where it starts. This is where the Dragon Reborn begins his journey toward madness or glory.
And I'm standing right next to him.
"We need to keep moving," Spencer said. "Caemlyn is close. We can make it by dawn if we push."
"I almost killed those people." Rand's voice cracked. "I could have killed us."
"But you didn't. You saved us." Spencer met Rand's eyes — gray-blue, terrified, searching for reassurance that Spencer wasn't sure he could honestly provide. "Whatever that was, it got us out alive. We can figure out the rest later."
Mat hadn't spoken since his question. His thread had settled into something quieter — the paranoia still present, but muted, shocked into temporary silence by the impossibility of what he'd witnessed.
The knife. He pulled a knife on me.
And now he's looking at me like he's not sure if I'm the enemy or the only thing standing between him and whatever Rand just became.
Rand pushed himself off the milestone. His legs were unsteady, but his thread had stabilized — golden and strong, the thread of a boy who would one day carry the weight of the world.
"Caemlyn," Rand said. "Let's go."
They walked through the night, three boys and a column of smoke behind them, and Spencer tried not to think about the look in Mat's eyes when the knife had come out.
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