Spencer lay on his blankets while Moiraine prepared her weave.
The Aes Sedai knelt beside him, hands raised, eyes distant with the particular focus of someone reaching for saidar. Through Thread Sight, Spencer watched the One Power gather around her — silver threads coalescing into patterns his Skill Archive recognized but couldn't replicate.
"Lie still," Moiraine said. "This will feel strange."
Strange is one word for it.
The weave descended.
Silver threads of Spirit wrapped around Spencer's consciousness — gentle at first, a protective blanket settling over his mind. He watched through Thread Sight as Moiraine's weave interacted with his Codex-altered thread, silver One Power threads meeting purple Codex threads like two languages trying to communicate.
The interaction was fascinating.
The ward held — Moiraine's Spirit weave was strong enough to deflect Ba'alzamon's probes, and the Codex didn't interfere with protection it recognized as beneficial. But the contact point created visible resonance, a shimmer where two types of power touched without merging.
Moiraine's hands paused.
"Your thread..." she said quietly. "It's not normal."
"I know."
"It responds to my weave as if it's alive. Aware." Her voice carried the particular intensity of someone encountering something unprecedented. "I've woven protection for hundreds of people. None of them felt like this."
Spencer was too tired for careful lies. The exhaustion of two sleepless nights had worn away the edges of his caution, leaving only raw truth underneath.
"I can see threads," he said. "Fate connections. The Pattern's weave. I can see where things connect and sometimes... sometimes I can push them."
Moiraine went very still.
"You can manipulate fate?"
"Not manipulate. Nudge. Sometimes Twist." Spencer's eyes stayed closed, the ward's protection settling around him like a warm blanket. "The Pattern gave me this. Or put it on me. I don't know which. I don't know why."
"How long?"
"Since Winternight. Maybe before — I didn't understand what I was seeing until the Trollocs came."
---
Moiraine's weave finished settling around his thread. The ward was complete — a protective shell that would deflect Ba'alzamon's probes without requiring Spencer's active defense.
But she didn't leave.
"You can see who serves the Shadow," she said. Not a question.
"Yes." The word came out heavy with everything it implied. "Their threads are... wrong. Corrupted. I can identify them by sight."
"That's why you could name Liandrin in Fal Dara. Why you could warn me about the Black Ajah."
"Yes."
"And the Tower — when you were with the Browns, studying your 'Talent' — what did they find?"
"Nothing they could explain. My abilities don't match any recorded Talent. I'm..." Spencer searched for words that were true without revealing everything. "I'm something new. Or something so old it's been forgotten."
Moiraine was silent for a long moment. Her thread churned with calculations Spencer couldn't fully read — weighing his partial truth against the remaining mysteries.
"Sleep," she said finally. "We'll speak more when you're rested."
---
Spencer slept.
For the first time in days, he descended into unconsciousness without fear. The ward wrapped around his consciousness like armor, deflecting the probing tendrils of Ba'alzamon's hunting without requiring Spencer's active defense.
No dreams came. No nightmares. Just the deep, restorative darkness of genuine rest.
When he woke, the sun was high and his Codex Stamina had recovered to nearly full. The particular ache of exhaustion had faded, replaced by clear-headed alertness.
[REST COMPLETE: Codex Stamina restored to 45/48. Note: External ward provided adequate dream defense. Moiraine Sedai's weave is compatible with Codex protection protocols.]
Moiraine sat nearby, watching him with an expression equal parts relief and hunger.
"Better?"
"Much." Spencer sat up, stretching muscles that had been tense for days. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet." Moiraine's voice carried weight. "You've told me what you can do. You haven't told me where it comes from."
The deeper question. The one I can't answer without revealing everything.
"I don't entirely know," Spencer said — and it was true, in a way. The Codex's origins remained mysterious even to him. The transmigration was unexplained. The Pattern's reasons for pulling him into this world were unclear.
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only answer I have." Spencer met her eyes. "I woke up one day with abilities I'd never had before. The Pattern changed something in me — or I was changed and put here for reasons I don't understand. I can see what I can see. I can do what I can do. Beyond that, I'm guessing like everyone else."
Moiraine studied him for a long moment. Her thread churned with calculations, weighing his partial truth against the remaining mysteries.
"You can identify Darkfriends by sight," she said finally.
"Yes."
"And you can push fate threads. Make small changes to the Pattern's weave."
"Small changes, yes. Nudges. Occasionally something larger, but it costs more than it's worth most of the time."
"The pool at the Eye of the World. The crack that drained it. That was you?"
She noticed that. Of course she noticed.
"I tried to strengthen something. The attempt had consequences I didn't anticipate."
"What were you trying to strengthen?"
"Rand." The admission came easier than Spencer expected. "He was channeling for the first time, fighting a Forsaken. I thought if I could stabilize his connection to the Pattern, it might make the difference."
"And did it?"
"I don't know. He won. But the pool cracked, and I nearly died from the backlash." Spencer shrugged. "Pattern-editing isn't precise. I'm learning as I go."
---
The remaining group broke camp while Spencer and Moiraine talked.
Mat loaded horses with practiced efficiency. Hurin checked the trail ahead, his nose twitching as he read violence Spencer couldn't smell. Min sat apart, watching Spencer with the particular attention of someone whose visions were rearranging themselves around new information.
Moiraine had clearly spoken to her. Or Min had seen something that confirmed what the Aes Sedai now knew.
"You've been useful," Moiraine said finally. "Your warnings about the Black Ajah, your observations about Rand's channeling. The information about the scorch-marks he's leaving on the Pattern."
"I try to help where I can."
"I believe you." Moiraine's voice carried something that might have been acceptance. "But there are still secrets you're keeping. I can see them in your thread — areas of shadow, places where the truth folds back on itself."
She can see that I'm hiding things. She just can't see what.
"Some things I can't explain," Spencer said. "Not because I won't. Because I genuinely don't have words for them."
"And some things you choose to hide."
"Yes."
Moiraine nodded slowly. "For now, that's acceptable. You've proven your value. You've given me enough truth to trust you... partially." She stood, brushing dust from her dress. "But we're approaching the Stone of Tear. Callandor waits there, and the Dragon will claim it. If there are secrets that could affect that claiming — secrets about what you know, what you've seen, what you can do — I need to hear them before we arrive."
"You will."
"I'll hold you to that."
---
The group rode east that afternoon.
Spencer's position had changed. He could feel it in the way Moiraine looked at him — no longer the suspicious investigator, but an ally with remaining questions. She knew what he could do. She didn't know where it came from or how much he knew about events yet to unfold.
Partial truth. Better than constant evasion.
She'll protect me now because I'm useful. She'll watch me because I'm mysterious.
Both of those are acceptable.
Lan fell into pace beside Spencer as they rode.
"You told her something," the Warder said without preamble.
"Enough."
"She's been trying to figure you out since Winternight."
"I know."
Lan's stone face showed nothing, but his thread carried something that might have been approval.
"Good. Secrets are useful, but too many make allies into enemies." The Warder urged his horse forward, leaving Spencer with wisdom from someone who'd spent years keeping the right secrets and revealing the necessary truths.
---
Thread Sight showed the Stone of Tear's influence before they could see the fortress itself.
The Pattern bent toward it — fate-threads curving like light around a star, probability warping toward a point of impossible density. Callandor waited in the Stone's heart, and the sa'angreal's power was visible even from a hundred miles away.
That's what we're riding toward. The place where the Dragon proves himself.
And somewhere inside or nearby, Fain is waiting. With the Horn. With the dagger. With a personal grudge.
Spencer checked the corrupted wood chip in his Inventory — the quarantined fragment of Fain's message still pulsing with Shadar Logoth sickness. A reminder that the road ahead held dangers the Pattern might not resolve on its own.
Moiraine knows what I can do now. That's an advantage.
But Fain knows what I love. That's a vulnerability.
The Stone of Tear is coming. And everything I've done since Winternight leads to what happens inside those walls.
The eastern horizon darkened as they rode, and Spencer watched the threads of fate converge on a fortress that had stood for three thousand years, waiting for a Dragon who was finally ready to claim his sword.
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