“Malden,” Perrin said.

A smoky, translucent image of himself stood outside. The image wore no coat; his bare arms bulged with muscles. He kept his beard short, but it made him look older, more intense. Did Perrin really look that imposing? A squat fortress of a man with golden eyes that seemed to glow, carrying a gleaming half-moon axe as large as a man’s head.

There was something wrong about that axe. Perrin stepped out of the smithy, passing through the shadowy version of himself. When he did, he became that image, axe heavy in his hand, work clothes vanishing and battle gear replacing it.

He took off running. Yes, this was Malden. There were Aiel in the streets. He’d lived this battle, though he was much calmer this time. Before, he’d been lost in the thrill of fighting and of seeking Faile. He stopped in the street. “This is wrong. I carried my hammer into Malden. I threw the axe away.”

A horn or a hoof, Young Bull, does it matter which one you use to hunt? Hopper was sitting in the sunlit street beside him.

“Yes. It matters. It does to me.”

And yet you use them the same way.

A pair of Shaido Aiel appeared around a corner. They were watching something to the left, something Perrin couldn’t see. He ran to attack them.

He sheared through the chin of one, then swung the spike on the axe into the chest of the other. It was a brutal, terrible attack, and all three of them ended on the ground. It took several stabs from the spike to kill the second Shaido.

Perrin stood up. He did remember killing those two Aiel, though he had done it with hammer and knife. He didn’t regret their deaths. Sometimes a man needed to fight, and that was that. Death was terrible, but that didn’t stop it from being necessary. In fact, it had been wonderful to clash with the Aiel. He’d felt like a wolf on the hunt.

When Perrin fought, he came close to becoming someone else. And that was dangerous.

He looked accusingly at Hopper, who lounged on a street corner. “Why are you making me dream this?”

Making you? Hopper asked. This is not my dream, Young Bull. Do you see my jaws on your neck, forcing you to think it?

Perrin’s axe streamed with blood. He knew what was coming next. He turned. From behind, Aram approached, murder in his eyes. Half of the former Tinker’s face was coated in blood, and it dripped from his chin, staining his red-striped coat.

Aram swung his sword for Perrin’s neck, the steel hissing in the air. Perrin stepped back. He refused to fight the boy again.

The shadowy version of himself split off, leaving the real Perrin in his blacksmith’s clothing. The shadow exchanged blows with Aram. The Prophet explained it to me…You’re really Shadowspawn…. I have to rescue the Lady Faile from you….

The shadowy Perrin changed, suddenly, into a wolf. It leaped, fur nearly as dark as that of a Shadowbrother, and ripped out Aram’s throat.