Caemlyn's walls rose against the dawn like something from a dream.
Spencer had seen cities before — in his old life, he'd traveled to New York, London, Tokyo, places that dwarfed anything this world could offer in sheer size and population. But Caemlyn was different. Caemlyn was beautiful in a way modern cities had forgotten how to be, all graceful towers and ancient stone, red and white banners catching the morning breeze.
This is where Rand becomes the Dragon. This is where everything changes.
The three of them stood at the edge of the approach road, road-worn and exhausted, watching the traffic flow through the Lion Gate. Merchants with laden wagons. Farmers with produce carts. Travelers on foot and horseback, flowing into the city like blood into a heart.
"We just walk in?" Mat asked. His voice was flat, emptied of energy after the night's travel. The paranoia still pulsed in his thread, but exhaustion had dulled its edge.
"We walk in," Spencer confirmed. "Look tired and harmless. Don't draw attention."
"I can manage tired," Rand muttered.
Spencer studied the gate ahead. Two guards in red-coated uniforms — the Queen's Guard, if his memory served — checking papers and asking questions of the more suspicious arrivals. Their threads were clean, professional, the white of men doing a job rather than hunting prey.
But they're looking for something. Asking too many questions. Slowing the line.
The Darkfriend network reached into Caemlyn. Of course it did. And after last night's escape from Four Kings, word would be traveling. Three young men. One tall with red hair. Heading east.
We need to get through without being memorable.
Spencer waited until a merchant caravan approached the gate — twelve wagons, forty people, enough confusion to mask three more bodies. Then he reached for the Codex.
[WEAVE INTERVENTION: Tier 1 Nudge — Initiating]
The senior guard had been about to look in their direction. Spencer's Nudge caught him at the moment of decision, redirecting his attention toward a merchant who'd started arguing about inspection fees. The guard's thread flickered, bent, and his gaze slid past Spencer and his companions without registering them.
[Nudge successful. Stamina: 22/30 → 14/30. Duration: ~8 seconds.]
"Go," Spencer murmured. "Now. Stay with the caravan."
They walked through the Lion Gate amid a crowd of merchants' servants, unremarkable and unnoticed, and Caemlyn swallowed them whole.
---
The city was overwhelming.
Spencer's Thread Sight struggled to process the density of fate-threads packed into every street and square. Thousands of lives, tens of thousands, each one a strand in a tapestry so complex it made his head ache. He could pick out individual threads if he focused — merchants, beggars, guards, servants — but the overall effect was like staring into the sun.
Too much. Too many. Scale back.
He narrowed his focus, limiting Thread Sight to immediate threats: black corruption, the silver-blue of channelers, anything that pulsed with unusual intensity. The noise dimmed to a manageable level.
"Do you know where we're going?" Rand asked.
"The Queen's Blessing. An inn in the New City." Spencer navigated by memory, matching street layouts to the map he'd built from reading the books. "The innkeeper is a friend to travelers. He knew Thom."
Mat's head came up at the mention of Thom. "Thom's alive?"
"I think so." I know so. I saw his thread still burning when we fled Whitebridge. "The innkeeper will have news."
They walked through streets that grew progressively nicer as they moved from the Outer City toward the New. Spencer noted the divisions — poor and rich, old and new, the careful stratification that kept Caemlyn's social order intact. Red banners on some buildings, white on others. Political factions, if he remembered correctly. Something about the succession.
Not my problem right now. Getting Mat to safety is the priority.
The Queen's Blessing appeared around a corner — a three-story inn with a sign showing a crowned woman bestowing gifts on kneeling supplicants. The building looked prosperous and well-maintained, exactly the kind of place that attracted quality clientele.
Spencer pushed through the door and found exactly what he'd hoped for.
---
Master Basel Gill was a round man with thinning hair and shrewd eyes that assessed the three of them in a single glance. His thread was clean — warm white shot through with the comfortable gold of honest business dealings — and his expression shifted from professional caution to genuine welcome when Rand mentioned Thom Merrilin's name.
"Thom sent you? Light, I haven't seen that old troublemaker in years." Gill ushered them toward a private table, snapping fingers at a serving girl. "Food and drink for three, Calie, and be quick about it. These lads look like they've been walking through the Blight itself."
"Just the Caemlyn Road," Spencer said. "Though some days it felt similar."
"Ha! I can believe it. Darkfriends on every corner these days, or so the rumors say. A man can barely do business without worrying about who's watching." Gill settled his bulk into a chair across from them. "Now. What brings friends of Thom to my establishment? And where is the old goat? Didn't travel with you?"
"He stayed behind," Rand said quietly. "In Whitebridge. There was trouble."
Gill's expression sobered. "Trouble with a capital T, from the look of you. Thom always did have a talent for finding the worst kind. Is he...?"
"Alive, I think." Spencer cut in before Rand could speculate. "We had to leave quickly. He covered our escape."
"That sounds like Thom." Gill shook his head, something sad and fond in his eyes. "Always the grand gesture, never the sensible retreat. Well. You're safe here, at least. Any friend of Thom Merrilin is welcome under my roof."
The food arrived — bread, cheese, cold meat, ale that tasted better than anything Spencer had drunk since leaving Emond's Field. He ate mechanically, watching Mat devour three portions without pausing, the corruption-driven hunger still present despite everything.
"My friend is sick," Spencer said quietly, once Mat was too focused on eating to listen. "Something happened on the road. He needs... he needs healing that I can't provide."
Gill's eyes flicked to Mat, then back to Spencer. The innkeeper was smarter than he looked — Spencer could see the calculation happening, the assessment of what kind of sickness made a man eat like a starving wolf while his eyes held shadows that didn't belong there.
"I know a herbalist," Gill said carefully. "Good woman. Discreet. She can look at your friend, see what's to be done."
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet. Some sicknesses..." Gill trailed off, glancing at Mat again. "Some sicknesses need more than herbs."
I know. That's what I'm afraid of.
---
The room was small and clean, with a narrow bed, a washstand, and a window overlooking the stable yard.
Spencer locked the door. Checked the corners. Confirmed through Thread Sight that no one was listening, no black-threaded figures lurking in adjacent rooms.
Then he sat on the bed, put his face in his hands, and let himself fall apart.
The tears came without warning — two weeks of terror and exhaustion and impossible responsibility flooding out in silent, shaking waves. He cried for Eldrin Cauthon, the girl he'd killed trying to save. For Thom, bleeding alone in Whitebridge. For Mat, whose friendship had curdled into paranoid distrust. For the highway where it had rained, the car that had spun, the life that had ended so a carpenter could wake up in a world of monsters.
I don't know what I'm doing. I'm pretending to be competent, pretending to have answers, and people keep following me because I sound like I know what's happening.
But I don't. I'm just a man who read some books, stumbling through a story that's become real.
The tears lasted two minutes. Maybe three. Then Spencer wiped his face, straightened his shoulders, and locked the grief back in its compartment.
There would be time for breakdown later. Right now, Mat needed him functional.
He lay down on the hard mattress, pulled the scratchy blanket over himself, and fell into sleep so deep it felt like dying.
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