Rand was gone before dawn.
Spencer woke to the empty bed across the room, the blankets thrown back carelessly, and he knew immediately where the young man had gone. The restlessness that had been building in Rand for two days — pacing the inn, staring out windows toward the Palace, talking about the procession route — had finally found its outlet.
He's going to climb the wall. He's going to meet Elayne.
And I can't stop him without explaining how I know.
Spencer dressed quickly and slipped out of the Queen's Blessing, following the pull of Rand's golden thread through Caemlyn's pre-dawn streets. The city was just beginning to wake — bakers firing their ovens, servants hurrying to early duties, the occasional drunk stumbling home from a night's entertainment. None of them paid attention to the young man moving purposefully toward the Palace district.
The thread led him to the outer wall of the Royal Palace, where crowds were already gathering for another day of gawking at Logain's cage. Spencer positioned himself across the street, finding a market stall that sold apples and dried fish and offered a clear sightline to the garden wall.
There.
Rand was climbing. The young man moved with the unconscious grace of someone who'd spent years scrambling up barns and into haylofts — hand over hand, finding holds that Spencer's city-trained eyes could barely perceive. His golden thread blazed against the gray stone, a beacon announcing his presence to anyone with the Sight to see it.
[Thread Sight: Maximum focus. Range extending. Stamina drain: Active.]
Spencer pushed his awareness outward, following Rand's thread over the wall and into the garden beyond. The strain was immediate — his temples throbbed, his vision narrowed to a tunnel of fate-lines and stone. But he could see. Barely, at the edge of his range, he could see what was happening on the other side.
---
Three new threads appeared in the garden.
The first was silver-gold, bright and clear, pulsing with the warmth of genuine kindness and the steel of someone raised to rule. Elayne. The Daughter-Heir. Spencer recognized the signature from his knowledge of the books — a girl who would become one of the most powerful queens in the world, and who would love Rand al'Thor through madness and war and the end of an Age.
The second was steel-blue, disciplined and controlled, the thread of a warrior in training. Gawyn. Her brother. Less important to the immediate story, but destined for tragedy of his own.
The third was luminous white, almost painfully bright, the thread of someone whose beauty and honor were so absolute they bordered on the inhuman. Galad. Half-brother to the other two. A man who would become a Whitecloak commander and cause problems Spencer couldn't fully remember.
He watched through Thread Sight as Rand's golden thread contacted Elayne's silver-gold.
The moment of contact was visible — a spark, a twining, the beginning of a fate-bond that would reshape both their lives. Red-gold potential bloomed between them, the color of romantic destiny forming in real time. Spencer had read about Rand and Elayne's relationship, had known it would happen, but watching it form through the Pattern's own language was something else entirely.
This is how fate works. This is how the Pattern binds people together.
And I'm watching it happen like a voyeur at a wedding.
A fourth thread approached.
---
Elaida's thread was white shot through with crimson — the colors of the Red Ajah, of women who hunted male channelers and severed them from the Source. Spencer had glimpsed similar signatures on the Aes Sedai escorting Logain, but Elaida's was different. Stronger. More intense. The thread of someone who believed absolutely in her own righteousness.
She moved toward Rand with predatory purpose.
The Foretelling. This is when she touches him and—
The world exploded with light.
---
Spencer had never seen a Foretelling before.
The prophecy-thread erupted from Elaida like a geyser — blue-white energy shooting upward into the Pattern, connecting the garden to something vast and timeless that existed outside normal perception. The pillar of light was invisible to everyone but Spencer, a column of pure future blazing through the present moment.
Fragments reached him across the distance. Not words — the Foretelling wasn't that clear — but impressions. Dragon. Pain. World-breaking. Necessity. The weight of prophecy bearing down on a boy who didn't understand what he was, delivered through a woman who would spend years trying to control or destroy him.
Spencer's nose began to bleed.
The strain of watching through Thread Sight at maximum range, combined with the overwhelming intensity of the Foretelling's energy, pushed his abilities past their comfortable limits. Blood dripped onto his shirt, warm and copper-tasting, and his vision swam with afterimages of blue-white fire.
[WARNING: Stamina critical. Thread Sight degrading. Recommend immediate rest.]
Spencer pulled back, letting the vision collapse, letting the garden become just a wall again. He wiped his nose on his sleeve and tried to look like a man who'd merely been standing in the sun too long.
Prophecy. I just watched prophecy happen.
And it looked like the sky was speaking.
---
The apple vendor gave Spencer a suspicious look when he bought fruit with shaking hands.
"You alright there, friend? Looking a bit pale."
"Long night," Spencer managed. "Too much wine."
"Ah." The vendor's suspicion transformed into knowing sympathy. "Caemlyn wine'll do that. Try the hair of the dog — there's a tavern two streets over that opens early."
Spencer took the apple and walked to a bench where he could watch the Palace wall without drawing attention. The fruit was crisp and sweet, and he ate it slowly, forcing himself to take normal bites despite the adrenaline still coursing through his system.
Elaida knows now. Or she knows something — the Foretelling gives her fragments, not clarity.
But she knows Rand is important. She'll remember him.
Another thread of danger. Another enemy who'll be hunting him.
The bench was uncomfortable, worn smooth by countless sitters before him. Spencer shifted, trying to find a position that didn't aggravate the persistent ache in his lower back — a gift from too many nights sleeping on hard ground and harder floors. His body was still adjusting to this world's lack of modern conveniences.
No painkillers. No heating pads. No memory foam mattresses.
Just endless walking and sleeping rough and trying not to die.
He finished the apple and watched the wall, waiting for Rand to reappear.
---
Rand dropped over the Palace wall an hour later.
His thread was brighter than before — energized by the encounter, by Elayne's warmth, by whatever had passed between them in the garden. His face held the dazed expression of a man who'd just discovered that princesses were real and one of them had smiled at him.
Spencer intercepted him two blocks from the Palace.
"You went over the wall," Spencer said, falling into step beside him.
Rand started, then relaxed when he recognized Spencer. "You followed me?"
"I worried. You've been staring at that wall for two days."
"I met someone." Rand's voice held wonder and confusion in equal measure. "A girl. Red-gold hair, like sunset. She was kind. She didn't care that I was a stranger, or that I'd climbed over her garden wall like a thief."
Elayne. The woman you'll love. The mother of your children. The queen who'll rule Andor when you're gone.
"Sounds like quite a girl," Spencer said.
"She was." Rand's thread pulsed with the red-gold of new connection, fate-bonds forming that would reshape both their lives. "There was an Aes Sedai there too. She... she touched me. Said something strange."
"Strange how?"
"I don't know. Like she was speaking to someone else. Like she was seeing something I couldn't see." Rand shook his head, the confusion deepening. "She called me dangerous. Then the guards came and I had to run."
The Foretelling. She saw the Dragon Reborn standing in front of her, and the Pattern told her exactly how much destruction he would cause.
And now she'll spend years trying to prevent what she saw, making it worse with every attempt.
Spencer said nothing. There was nothing safe to say.
They walked back to the Queen's Blessing in silence, and Spencer tried not to think about the pillar of blue-white light that still burned in his memory.
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