Chapter 1: An Empty Road

Rand al'Thor and his father Tam travel the Quarry Road through the Westwood toward Emond's Field, bringing brandy and cider for Bel Tine. Spring is weeks late, the cold lingers, and wolves have been driven down out of the Mountains of Mist in numbers no one alive remembers.

On the road Rand glimpses a black-cloaked rider on a black horse, his cloak unmoved by the wind. When Rand looks away and back, the rider is gone. Tam finds no tracks and suggests it was a trick of nerves, but Rand felt the figure's hatred too clearly to dismiss it.

In the village, preparations for Festival are underway. Mat Cauthon pulls Rand aside and describes the same rider watching him outside Emond's Field three days earlier—proof neither of them imagined it. At the Winespring Inn they learn from Bran al'Vere that a gleeman has arrived for Bel Tine, news that briefly lifts the mood after a grim winter.