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him. Dockson looked up and smiled. Stocky without being fat, he had short dark hair and still wore his customary half beard. "Hello, Vin." "How was Terris?" she asked. "Cold," Dockson replied. "I'm glad to be back. Though I wish I hadn't arrived to find that army here." "Either way, we're glad you've returned, Dockson," Elend said. "The kingdom practically fell apart without you." "That hardly seems the case," Dockson said, closing his ledger and setting it on the stack. "All things—and armies—considered, it looks like the royal bureaucracy held together fairly well in my absence. You hardly need me anymore!" "Nonsense!" Elend said. Vin leaned against the door, eyeing the two men as they continued their discussion. They maintained their air of forced joviality. Both were dedicated to making the new kingdom work, even if it meant pretending that they liked each other. Dockson pointed at places in the ledgers, talking about finances and what he'd discovered in the outlying villages under Elend's control. Vin sighed, glancing across the room. Sunlight streamed through the room's stained-glass rose window, throwing colors across the ledgers and table. Even now, Vin still wasn't accustomed to the casual richness of a noble keep. The window—red and lavender—was a thing of intricate beauty. Yet, noblemen apparently found its like so commonplace that they had put this one in the keep's back rooms, in the small chamber that Elend now used as his study. As one might expect, the room was piled with stacks of books. Shelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling, but they were no match for the sheer volume of Elend's growing collection. She'd never cared much for Elend's taste in books. They were mostly political or historical works, things with topics as musty as their aged pages. Many of them had once been forbidden by the Steel Ministry, but somehow the old philosophers could make even salacious topics seem boring. "Anyway," Dockson said, finally closing his ledgers. "I have some things to do before your speech tomorrow, Your Majesty. Did Ham say there's a city defense meeting that evening as well?" Elend nodded. "Assuming I can get the Assembly to agree not to hand the city over to my father, we'll need to come up with a strategy to deal with this army. I'll send someone for you tomorrow night." "Good," Dockson said. With that, he nodded to Elend, winked at Vin, then made his way from the cluttered room. As Dockson shut the door, Elend sighed, then relaxed back in his oversized plush chair. Vin walked forward. "He really is a good man, Elend." "Oh, I realize he is. Being a good man doesn't always make one likable, however." "He's nice, too," Vin said. "Sturdy, calm, stable. The crew relied on him." Even though Dockson wasn't an Allomancer, he had been Kelsier's right-hand man. "He doesn't like me, Vin," Elend said. "It's. . .very hard to get along with someone who looks at me like that." "You're not giving him a fair chance," Vin complained, stopping beside Elend's chair. He looked
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up at her, smiling wanly, his vest unbuttoned, his hair an absolute mess. "Hum. . ." he said idly, taking her hand. "I really like that shirt. Red looks good on you." Vin rolled her eyes, letting him gently pull her into the chair and kiss her. There was a passion to the kiss—a need, perhaps, for something stable. Vin responded, feeling herself relax as she pulled up against him. A few minutes later, she sighed, feeling much better snuggled into the chair beside him. He pulled her close, leaning the chair back into the window's sunlight. He smiled and glanced at her. "That's a. . .new perfume you're wearing." Vin snorted, putting her head against his chest. "It's not perfume, Elend. It's dog." "Ah, good," Elend said. "I was worried that you'd departed from your senses. Now, is there any particular reason why you smell like dog?" "I went to the market and bought one, then carried it back and fed it to OreSeur, so it can be his new body." Elend paused. "Why, Vin. That's brilliant! Nobody will suspect a dog to be a spy. I wonder if anyone's ever thought of that before. . .." "Someone must have," Vin said. "I mean, it makes such sense. I suspect those who thought of it, however, didn't share the knowledge." "Good point," Elend said, relaxing back. Yet, from as close as they were, she could still feel a tension in him. Tomorrow's speech, Vin thought. He's worried about it. "I must say, however," Elend said idly, "that I find it a bit disappointing that you're not wearing dog-scented perfume. With your social station, I could see some of the local noblewomen trying to imitate you. That could be amusing indeed." She leaned up, looking at his smirking face. "You know, Elend—sometimes it's bloody difficult to tell when you're teasing, and when you're just being dense." "That makes me more mysterious, right?" "Something like that," she said, snuggling up against him again. "Now, see, you don't understand how clever that is of me," he said. "If people can't tell when I'm being an idiot and when I'm being a genius, perhaps they'll assume my blunders are brilliant political maneuverings." "As long as they don't mistake your actual brilliant moves for blunders." "That shouldn't be difficult," Elend said. "I fear I have few enough of those for people to mistake." Vin looked up with concern at the edge in his voice. He, however, smiled, shifting the topic. "So, OreSeur the dog. Will he still be able to go out with you at nights?" Vin shrugged. "I guess. I wasn't really planning on bringing him for a while." "I'd like it if you did take him," Elend said. "I worry about you out there, every night, pushing yourself so hard." "I can handle it," Vin said. "Someone needs to watch over you." "Yes," Elend said, "but who watches over you?" Kelsier. Even now, that was still her immediate reaction. She'd known him for less than a year, but that year had been the first
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in her life that she had felt protected. Kelsier was dead. She, like the rest of the world, had to live without him. "I know you were hurt when you fought those Allomancers the other night," Elend said. "It would be really nice for my psyche if I knew someone was with you." "A kandra's no bodyguard," Vin said. "I know," Elend said. "But they're incredibly loyal—I've never heard of one breaking Contract. He'll watch out for you. I worry about you, Vin. You wonder why I stay up so late, scribbling at my proposals? I can't sleep, knowing that you might be out there fighting—or, worse, lying somewhere in a street, dying because nobody was there to help you." "I take OreSeur with me sometimes." "Yes," Elend said, "but I know you find excuses to leave him behind. Kelsier bought you the services of an incredibly valuable servant. I can't understand why you work so hard to avoid him." Vin closed her eyes. "Elend. He ate Kelsier." "So?" Elend asked. "Kelsier was already dead. Besides, he himself gave that order." Vin sighed, opening her eyes. "I just. . .don't trust that thing, Elend. The creature is unnatural." "I know," Elend said. "My father always kept a kandra. But, OreSeur is something, at least. Please. Promise me you'll take him with you." "All right. But I don't think he's going to like the arrangement much either. He and I didn't get along very well even when he was playing Renoux, and I his niece." Elend shrugged. "He'll hold to his Contract. That's what is important." "He holds to the Contract," Vin said, "but only grudgingly. I swear that he enjoys frustrating me." Elend looked down at her. "Vin, kandra are excellent servants. They don't do things like that." "No, Elend," Vin said. "Sazed was an excellent servant. He enjoyed being with people, helping them. I never felt that he resented me. OreSeur may do everything I command, but he doesn't like me; he never has. I can tell." Elend sighed, rubbing her shoulder. "Don't you think you might be a little irrational? There's no real reason to hate him so." "Oh?" Vin asked. "Just like there's no reason you shouldn't get along with Dockson?" Elend paused. Then he sighed. "I guess you have a point," he said. He continued to rub Vin's shoulder as he stared upward, toward the ceiling, contemplative. "What?" Vin asked. "I'm not doing a very good job of this, am I?" "Don't be foolish," Vin said. "You're a wonderful king." "I might be a passable king, Vin, but I'm not him." "Who?" "Kelsier," Elend said quietly. "Elend, nobody expects you to be Kelsier." "Oh?" he said. "That's why Dockson doesn't like me. He hates noblemen; it's obvious in the way that he talks, the way he acts. I don't know if I really blame him, considering the life he's known. Regardless, he doesn't think I should be king. He thinks that a skaa should be in my place—or, even better, Kelsier. They all think that." "That's nonsense, Elend."
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"Really? And if Kelsier still lived, would I be king?" Vin paused. "You see? They accept me—the people, the merchants, even the noblemen. But in the back of their minds, they wish they had Kelsier instead." "I don't wish that." "Don't you?" Vin frowned. Then she sat up, turning so that she was kneeling over Elend in the reclined chair, their faces just inches apart. "Don't you ever wonder that, Elend. Kelsier was my teacher, but I didn't love him. Not like I love you." Elend stared into her eyes, then nodded. Vin kissed him deeply, then snuggled down beside him again. "Why not?" Elend eventually asked. "Well, he was old, for one thing." Elend chuckled. "I seem to recall you making fun of my age as well." "That's different," Vin said. "You're only a few years older than me—Kelsier was ancient." "Vin, thirty-eight is not ancient." "Close enough." Elend chuckled again, but she could tell that he wasn't satisfied. Why had she chosen Elend, rather than Kelsier? Kelsier had been the visionary, the hero, the Mistborn. "Kelsier was a great man," Vin said quietly as Elend began to stroke her hair. "But. . .there were things about him, Elend. Frightening things. He was intense, reckless, even a little bit cruel. Unforgiving. He'd slaughter people without guilt or concern, just because they upheld the Final Empire or worked for the Lord Ruler. "I could love him as a teacher and a friend. But I don't think I could ever love—not really love—a man like that. I don't blame him; he was of the streets, like me. When you struggle so hard for life, you grow strong—but you can grow harsh, too. His fault or not, Kelsier reminded me too much of men I. . .knew when I was younger. Kell was a far better person than they—he really could be kind, and he did sacrifice his life for the skaa. However, he was just so hard." She closed her eyes, feeling Elend's warmth. "You, Elend Venture, are a good man. A truly good man." "Good men don't become legends," he said quietly. "Good men don't need to become legends." She opened her eyes, looking up at him. "They just do what's right anyway." Elend smiled. Then he kissed the top of her head and leaned back. They lay there for a time, in a room warm with sunlight, relaxing. "He saved my life, once," Elend finally said. "Who?" Vin asked with surprise. "Kelsier?" Elend nodded. "That day after Spook and OreSeur were captured, the day Kelsier died. There was a battle in the square when Ham and some soldiers tried to free the captives." "I was there," Vin said. "Hiding with Breeze and Dox in one of the alleyways." "Really?" Elend said, sounding a bit amused. "Because I came looking for you. I thought that they'd arrested you, along with OreSeur—he was pretending to be your uncle, then. I tried to get to the cages to rescue you." "You did what? Elend, it was a battlefield in that square! There was an
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Inquisitor there, for the Lord Ruler's sake!" "I know," Elend said, smiling faintly. "See, that Inquisitor is the one who tried to kill me. It had its axe raised and everything. And then. . .Kelsier was there. He smashed into the Inquisitor, throwing it to the ground." "Probably just a coincidence," Vin said. "No," Elend said softly. "He meant it, Vin. He looked at me while he struggled with the Inquisitor, and I saw it in his eyes. I've always wondered about that moment; everyone tells me that Kelsier hated the nobility even more than Dox does." Vin paused. "He. . .started to change a little at the end, I think." "Change enough that he'd risk himself to protect a random nobleman?" "He knew that I loved you," Vin said, smiling faintly. "I guess, in the end, that proved stronger than his hatred." "I didn't realize. . ." He trailed off as Vin turned, hearing something. Footsteps approaching. She sat up, and a second later, Ham poked his head into the room. He paused when he saw Vin sitting in Elend's lap, however. "Oh," Ham said. "Sorry." "No, wait," Vin said. Ham poked his head back in, and Vin turned to Elend. "I almost forgot why I came looking for you in the first place. I got a new package from Terion today." "Another one?" Elend asked. "Vin, when are you going to give this up?" "I can't afford to," she said. "It can't be all that important, can it?" he asked. "I mean, if everybody's forgotten what that last metal does, then it must not be very powerful." "Either that," Vin said, "or it was so amazingly powerful that the Ministry worked very hard to keep it a secret." She slid off of the chair to stand up, then took the pouch and thin bar out of her pocket. She handed the bar to Elend, who sat up in his plush chair. Silvery and reflective, the metal—like the aluminum from which it was made—felt too light to be real. Any Allomancer who accidentally burned aluminum had their other metal reserves stripped away from them, leaving them powerless. Aluminum had been kept secret by the Steel Ministry; Vin had only found out about it on the night when she'd been captured by the Inquisitors, the same night she'd killed the Lord Ruler. They had never been able to figure out the proper Allomantic alloy of aluminum. Allomantic metals always came in pairs—iron and steel, tin and pewter, copper and bronze, zinc and brass. Aluminum and. . .something. Something powerful, hopefully. Her atium was gone. She needed an edge. Elend sighed, handing back the bar. "The last time you tried to burn one of those it left you sick for two days, Vin. I was terrified." "It can't kill me," Vin said. "Kelsier promised that burning a bad alloy would only make me sick." Elend shook his head. "Even Kelsier was wrong on occasion, Vin. Didn't you say that he misunderstood how bronze worked?" Vin paused. Elend's concern was so genuine that she
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felt herself being persuaded. However. . . When that army attacks, Elend is going to die. The city's skaa might survive—no ruler would be foolish enough to slaughter the people of such a productive city. The king, however, would be killed. She couldn't fight off an entire army, and she could do little to help with preparations. She did know Allomancy, however. The better she got at it, the better she'd be able to protect the man she loved. "I have to try it, Elend," she said quietly. "Clubs says that Straff won't attack for a few days—he'll need that long to rest his men from the march and scout the city for attack. That means I can't wait. If this metal does make me sick, I'll be better in time to help fight—but only if I try it now." Elend's face grew grim, but he did not forbid her. He had learned better than that. Instead, he stood. "Ham, you think this is a good idea?" Ham nodded. He was a warrior; to him, her gamble would make sense. She'd asked him to stay because she'd need someone to carry her back to her bed, should this go wrong. "All right," Elend said, turning back to Vin, looking resigned. Vin climbed into the chair, sat back, then took a pinch of the duralumin dust and swallowed it. She closed her eyes, and felt at her Allomantic reserves. The common eight were all there, well stocked. She didn't have any atium or gold, nor did she have either of their alloys. Even if she'd had atium, it was too precious to use except in an emergency—and the other three had only marginal usefulness. A new reserve appeared. Just as one had the four times before. Each time she'd burned an aluminum alloy, she'd immediately felt a blinding headache. You'd think I'd have learned. . .she thought. Gritting her teeth, she reached inside and burned the new alloy. Nothing happened. "Have you tried it yet?" Elend asked apprehensively. Vin nodded slowly. "No headache. But. . .I'm not sure if the alloy is doing anything or not." "But it's burning?" Ham asked. Vin nodded. She felt the familiar warmth from within, the tiny fire that told her that a metal was burning. She tried moving about a bit, but couldn't distinguish any change to her physical self. Finally she just looked up and shrugged. Ham frowned. "If it didn't make you sick, then you've found the right alloy. Each metal only has one valid alloy." "Or," Vin said, "that's what we've always been told." Ham nodded. "What alloy was this?" "Aluminum and copper," Vin said. "Interesting," Ham said. "You don't feel anything at all?" Vin shook her head. "You'll have to practice some more." "Looks like I'm lucky," Vin said, extinguishing the duralumin. "Terion came up with forty different alloys he thought we could try, once we had enough aluminum. This was only the fifth." "Forty?" Elend asked incredulously. "I wasn't aware that there were so many metals you could make an alloy from!"
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"You don't have to have two metals to make an alloy," Vin said absently. "Just one metal and something else. Look at steel—it's iron and carbon." "Forty. . ." Elend repeated. "And you would have tried them all?" Vin shrugged. "Seemed like a good place to start." Elend looked concerned at that thought, but didn't say anything further. Instead, he turned to Ham. "Anyway, Ham, was there something you wanted to see us about?" "Nothing important," Ham said. "I just wanted to see if Vin was up for some sparring. That army has me feeling antsy, and I figure Vin could still use some practice with the staff." Vin shrugged. "Sure. Why not?" "You want to come, El?" Ham asked. "Get in some practice?" Elend laughed. "And face one of you two? I've got my royal dignity to think of!" Vin frowned slightly, looking up at him. "You really should practice more, Elend. You barely know how to hold a sword, and you're terrible with a dueling cane." "Now, see, why would I worry about that when I have you to protect me?" Vin's concern deepened. "We can't always be around you, Elend. I'd worry a lot less if you were better at defending yourself." He just smiled and pulled her to her feet. "I'll get to it eventually, I promise. But, not today—I've got too much to think about right now. How about if I just come watch you two? Perhaps I'll pick up something by observation—which is, by the way, the preferable method of weapons training, since it doesn't involve me getting beaten up by a girl." Vin sighed, but didn't press the point further. I write this record now, pounding it into a metal slab, because I am afraid. Afraid for myself, yes—I admit to being human. If Alendi does return from the Well of Ascension, I am certain that my death will be one of his first objectives. He is not an evil man, but he is a ruthless one. That is, I think, a product of what he has been through. ELEND LEANED DOWN AGAINST THE railing, looking in at the sparring yard. Part of him did wish to go out and practice with Vin and Ham. However, the larger part of him just didn't see the point. Any assassin likely to come after me will be an Allomancer, he thought. I could train ten years and be no match for one of them. In the yard itself, Ham took a few swings with his staff, then nodded. Vin stepped up, holding her own staff, which was a good foot taller than she was. Watching the two of them, Elend couldn't help remarking on the disparity. Ham had the firm muscles and powerful build of a warrior. Vin looked even thinner than usual, wearing only a tight buttoned shirt and a pair of trousers, with no cloak to mask her size. The inequality was enhanced by Ham's next words. "We're practicing with the staff, not practicing Pushing and Pulling. Don't use anything but pewter, all right?" Vin
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nodded. It was the way they often sparred. Ham claimed that there was no substitute for training and practice, no matter how powerful an Allomancer one was. He let Vin use pewter, however, because he said the enhanced strength and dexterity was disorienting unless one was accustomed to it. The sparring field was like a courtyard. Situated in the palace barracks, it had an open-sided hallway built around it. Elend stood in this, roof overhead keeping the red sun out of his eyes. That was nice, for a light ashfall had begun, and occasional flakes of ash floated down from the sky. Elend crossed his arms on the railing. Soldiers passed occasionally in the hallway behind, bustling with activity. Some, however, paused to watch; Vin and Ham's sparring sessions were something of a welcome diversion to the palace guards. I should be working on my proposal, Elend thought. Not standing here watching Vin fight. But. . .the tension of the last few days had been so pressing that he was finding it difficult to get up the motivation to do yet another read-through of the speech. What he really needed was to just spend a few moments thinking. So, he simply watched. Vin approached Ham warily, staff held in a firm, two-handed stance. Once, Elend probably would have found trousers and shirt on a lady to be inappropriate, but he'd been around Vin too long to still be bothered by that. Ball gowns and dresses were beautiful—but there was something right about Vin in simple garb. She wore it more comfortably. Besides, he kind of liked how the tight clothing looked on her. Vin usually let others strike first, and this day was no exception. Staves rapped as Ham engaged her, and despite her size, Vin held her own. After a quick exchange, they both backed away, circling warily. "My money's on the girl." Elend turned as he noticed a form limping down the hallway toward him. Clubs stepped up beside Elend, setting a ten-boxing coin down on the railing with a snap. Elend smiled to the general, and Clubs scowled back—which was generally accepted as Clubs's version of a smile. Dockson excluded, Elend had taken quickly to the other members of Vin's crew. Clubs, however, had taken a little getting used to. The stocky man had a face like a gnarled toadstool, and he always seemed to be squinting in displeasure—an expression usually matched by his tone of voice. However, he was a gifted craftsman, not to mention an Allomancer—a Smoker, actually, though he didn't get to use his power much anymore. For the better part of a year, Clubs had acted as general of Elend's military forces. Elend didn't know where Clubs had learned to lead soldiers, but the man had a remarkable knack for it. He'd probably gotten the skill in the same place that he'd acquired the scar on his leg—a scar that produced the hobble from which Clubs drew his nickname. "They're just sparring, Clubs," Elend said. "There won't be a 'winner.'" "They'll end with a serious
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exchange," Clubs said. "They always do." Elend paused. "You're asking me to bet against Vin, you know," he noted. "That could be unhealthy." "So?" Elend smiled, pulling out a coin. Clubs still kind of intimidated him, and he didn't want to risk offending the man. "Where's that worthless nephew of mine?" Clubs asked as he watched the sparring. "Spook?" Elend asked. "He's back? How'd he get into the city?" Clubs shrugged. "He left something on my doorstep this morning." "A gift?" Clubs snorted. "It was a woodcarving from a master carpenter up in Yelva City. The note said, 'I just wanted to show you what real carpenters are up to, old man.'" Elend chuckled, but trailed off as Clubs eyed him with a discomforting stare. "Whelp was never this insolent before," Clubs muttered. "I swear, you lot have corrupted the lad." Clubs almost seemed to be smiling. Or, was he serious? Elend couldn't ever decide if the man was as crusty as he seemed, or if Elend was the butt of some elaborate joke. "How is the army doing?" Elend finally asked. "Terribly," Clubs said. "You want an army? Give me more than one year to train it. Right now, I'd barely trust those boys against a mob of old women with sticks." Great, Elend thought. "Can't do much right now, though," Clubs grumbled. "Straff is digging in some cursory fortifications, but mostly he's just resting his men. The attack will come by the end of the week." In the courtyard, Vin and Ham continued to fight. It was slow, for the moment, Ham taking time to pause and explain principles or stances. Elend and Clubs watched for a short time as the sparring gradually became more intense, the rounds taking longer, the two participants beginning to sweat as their feet kicked up puffs of ash in the packed, sooty earth. Vin gave Ham a good contest despite the ridiculous differences in strength, reach, and training, and Elend found himself smiling slightly despite himself. She was something special—Elend had realized that when he'd first seen her in the Venture ballroom, nearly two years before. He was only now coming to realize how much of an understatement "special" was. A coin snapped against the wooden railing. "My money's on Vin, too." Elend turned with surprise. The man who had spoken was a soldier who had been standing with the others watching behind. Elend frowned. "Who—" Then, Elend cut himself off. The beard was wrong, the posture too straight, but the man standing behind him was familiar. "Spook?" Elend asked incredulously. The teenage boy smiled behind an apparently fake beard. "Wasing the where of calling out." Elend's head immediately began to hurt. "Lord Ruler, don't tell me you've gone back to the dialect?" "Oh, just for the occasional nostalgic quip," Spook said with a laugh. His words bore traces of his Easterner accent; during the first few months Elend had known the boy, Spook had been utterly unintelligible. Fortunately, the boy had grown out of using his street cant, just as he'd managed to
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grow out of most of his clothing. Well over six feet tall, the sixteen-year-old young man hardly resembled the gangly boy Elend had met a year before. Spook leaned against the railing beside Elend, adopting a teenage boy's lounging posture and completely destroying his image as a soldier—which, indeed, he wasn't. "Why the costume, Spook?" Elend asked with a frown. Spook shrugged. "I'm no Mistborn. We more mundane spies have to find ways to get information without flying up to windows and listening outside." "How long you been standing there?" Clubs asked, glaring at his nephew. "Since before you got here, Uncle Grumbles," Spook said. "And, in answer to your question, I got back a couple days ago. Before Dockson, actually. I just thought I'd take a bit of a break before I went back to duty." "I don't know if you've noticed, Spook," Elend said, "but we're at war. There isn't a lot of time to take breaks." Spook shrugged. "I just didn't want you to send me away again. If there's going to be war here, I want to be around. You know, for the excitement." Clubs snorted. "And where did you get that uniform?" "Uh. . .Well. . ." Spook glanced to the side, displaying just a hint of the uncertain boy Elend had known. Clubs grumbled something about insolent boys, but Elend just laughed and clapped Spook on the shoulder. The boy looked up, smiling; though he'd been easy to ignore at first, he was proving as valuable as any of the other members of Vin's former crew. As a Tineye—a Misting who could burn tin to enhance his senses—Spook could listen to conversations from far away, not to mention notice distant details. "Anyway, welcome back," Elend said. "What's the word from the west?" Spook shook his head. "I hate to sound too much like Uncle Crusty over there, but the news isn't good. You know those rumors about the Lord Ruler's atium being in Luthadel? Well, they're back. Stronger this time." "I thought we were past that!" Elend said. Breeze and his team had spent the better part of six months spreading rumors and manipulating the warlords into believing that the atium must have been hidden in another city, since Elend hadn't found it in Luthadel. "Guess not," Spook said. "And. . .I think someone's spreading these rumors intentionally. I've been on the street long enough to sense a planted story, and this rumor smells wrong. Someone really wants the warlords to focus on you." Great, Elend thought. "You don't know where Breeze is, do you?" Spook shrugged, but he no longer seemed to be paying attention to Elend. He was watching the sparring. Elend glanced back toward Vin and Ham. As Clubs had predicted, the two had fallen into a more serious contest. There was no more instruction; there were no more quick, repetitive exchanges. They sparred in earnest, fighting in a swirling melee of staffs and dust. Ash flew around them, blown up by the wind of their attacks, and even more soldiers paused in
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the surrounding hallways to watch. Elend leaned forward. There was something intense about a duel between two Allomancers. Vin tried an attack. Ham, however, swung simultaneously, his staff blurringly quick. Somehow, Vin got her own weapon up in time, but the power of Ham's blow threw her back in a tumble. She hit the ground on one shoulder. She gave barely a grunt of pain, however, and somehow got a hand beneath her, throwing herself up to land on her feet. She skidded for a moment, retaining her balance, holding her staff up. Pewter, Elend thought. It made even a clumsy man dexterous. And, for a person normally graceful like Vin. . . Vin's eyes narrowed, her innate stubbornness showing in the set of her jaw, the displeasure in her face. She didn't like being beaten—even when her opponent was obviously stronger than she was. Elend stood up straight, intending to suggest an end to the sparring. At that moment, Vin dashed forward. Ham brought his staff up expectantly, swinging as Vin came within reach. She ducked to the side, passing within inches of the attack, then brought her weapon around and slammed it into the back of Ham's staff, throwing him off balance. Then she ducked in for the attack. Ham, however, recovered quickly. He let the force of Vin's blow spin him around, and he used the momentum to bring his staff around in a powerful blow aimed directly at Vin's chest. Elend cried out. Vin jumped. She didn't have metal to Push against, but that didn't seem to matter. She sprang a good seven feet in the air, easily cresting Ham's staff. She flipped as the swing passed beneath her, her fingers brushing the air just above the weapon, her own staff spinning in a one-handed grip. Vin landed, her staff already howling in a low swing, its tip throwing up a line of ash as it ran along the ground. It slammed into the back of Ham's legs. The blow swept Ham's feet out from beneath him, and he cried out as he fell. Vin jumped into the air again. Ham slammed to the earth on his back, and Vin landed on his chest. Then, she calmly rapped him on the forehead with the end of her staff. "I win." Ham lay, looking dazed, Vin crouching on his chest. Dust and ash settled quietly in the courtyard. "Damn. . ." Spook whispered, voicing a sentiment that seemed to be shared by the dozen or so watching soldiers. Finally, Ham chuckled. "Fine. You beat me—now, if you would, kindly get me something to drink while I try to massage some feeling back into my legs." Vin smiled, hopping off his chest and scampering away to do as requested. Ham shook his head, climbing to his feet. Despite his words, he walked with barely a limp; he'd probably have a bruise, but it wouldn't bother him for long. Pewter not only enhanced one's strength, balance, and speed, it also made one's body innately stronger. Ham could shrug off a blow
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that would have shattered Elend's legs. Ham joined them, nodding to Clubs and punching Spook lightly on the arm. Then he leaned against the railing and rubbed his left calf, cringing slightly. "I swear, Elend—sometimes sparring with that girl is like trying to fight with a gust of wind. She's never where I think she'll be." "How did she do that, Ham?" Elend asked. "The jump, I mean. That leap seemed inhuman, even for an Allomancer." "Used steel, didn't she?" Spook said. Ham shook his head. "No, I doubt it." "Then how?" Elend asked. "Allomancers draw strength from their metals," Ham said, sighing and putting his foot down. "Some can squeeze out more than others—but the real power comes from the metal itself, not the person's body." Elend paused. "So?" "So," Ham said, "an Allomancer doesn't have to be physically strong to be incredibly powerful. If Vin were a Feruchemist, it would be different—if you ever see Sazed increase his strength, his muscles will grow larger. But with Allomancy, all the strength comes directly from the metal. "Now, most Thugs—myself included—figure that making their bodies strong will only add to their power. After all, a muscular man burning pewter will be that much stronger than a regular man of the same Allomantic power." Ham rubbed his chin, eyeing the passage Vin had left through. "But. . .well, I'm beginning to think that there might be another way. Vin's a thin little thing, but when she burns pewter, she grows several times stronger than any normal warrior. She packs all that strength into a small body, and doesn't have to bother with the weight of massive muscles. She's like. . .an insect. Far stronger than her mass or her body would indicate. So, when she jumps, she can jump." "But you're still stronger than she is," Spook said. Ham nodded. "And I can make use of that—assuming I can ever hit her. That's getting harder and harder to do." Vin finally returned, carrying a jug of chilled juice—apparently she'd decided to go all the way to the keep, rather than grabbing some of the warm ale kept on hand in the courtyard. She handed a flagon to Ham, and had thought to bring cups for Elend and Clubs. "Hey!" Spook said as she poured. "What about me?" "That beard looks silly on you," Vin said as she poured. "So I don't get anything to drink?" "No." Spook paused. "Vin, you're a strange girl." Vin rolled her eyes; then she glanced toward the water barrel in the corner of the courtyard. One of the tin cups lying beside it lurched into the air, shooting across the courtyard. Vin stuck her hand out, catching it with a slapping sound, then set it on the railing before Spook. "Happy?" "I will be once you pour me something to drink," Spook said as Clubs grunted, taking a slurp from his own cup. The old general then reached over, sliding two of the coins off the railing and pocketing them. "Hey, that's right!" Spook said. "You owe me,
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El. Pay up." Elend lowered his cup. "I never agreed to the bet." "You paid Uncle Irritable. Why not me?" Elend paused, then sighed, pulling out a ten-boxing coin and setting it beside Spook's. The boy smiled, plucking both up in a smooth street-thief gesture. "Thanks for winning the bout, Vin," he said with a wink. Vin frowned at Elend. "You bet against me?" Elend laughed, leaning across the railing to kiss her. "I didn't mean it. Clubs bullied me." Clubs snorted at that comment, downed the rest of his juice, then held out his cup for a refill. When Vin didn't respond, he turned to Spook and gave the boy a telling scowl. Finally, Spook sighed, picking up the jug to refill the cup. Vin was still regarding Elend with dissatisfaction. "I'd be careful, Elend," Ham said with a chuckle. "She can hit pretty hard. . .." Elend nodded. "I should know better than to antagonize her when there are weapons lying around, eh?" "Tell me about it," Ham said. Vin sniffed at that comment, rounding the railing so that she could stand next to Elend. Elend put his arm around her, and as he did, he caught a bare flash of envy in Spook's eyes. Elend suspected that the boy'd had a crush on Vin for some time—but, well, Elend couldn't really blame him for that. Spook shook his head. "I've got to find myself a woman." "Well, that beard isn't going to help," Vin said. "It's just a disguise, Vin," Spook said. "El, I don't suppose you could give me a title or something?" Elend smiled. "I don't think that will matter, Spook." "It worked for you." "Oh, I don't know," Elend said. "Somehow, I think Vin fell in love with me despite my title, rather than because of it." "But you had others before her," Spook said. "Noble girls." "A couple," Elend admitted. "Though Vin has a habit of killing off her competition," Ham quipped. Elend laughed. "Now, see, she only did that once. And I think Shan deserved it—she was, after all, trying to assassinate me at the time." He looked down fondly, eyeing Vin. "Though, I do have to admit, Vin is a bit hard on other women. With her around, everybody else looks bland by comparison." Spook rolled his eyes. "It's more interesting when she kills them off." Ham chuckled, letting Spook pour him some more juice. "Lord Ruler only knows what she'd do to you if you ever tried to leave her, Elend." Vin stiffened immediately, pulling him a little tighter. She'd been abandoned far too many times. Even after what they'd been through, even after his proposal of marriage, Elend had to keep promising Vin that he wasn't going to leave her. Time to change the topic, Elend thought, the joviality of the moment fading. "Well," he said, "I think I'm going to go visit the kitchens and get something to eat. You coming, Vin?" Vin glanced at the sky—likely checking to see how soon it would grow dark. Finally, she nodded. "I'll
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come," Spook said. "No you won't," Clubs said, grabbing the boy by the back of the neck. "You're going to stay right here and explain exactly where you got one of my soldiers' uniforms." Elend chuckled, leading Vin away. Truth be told, even with the slightly sour end of conversation, he felt better for having come to watch the sparring. It was strange how the members of Kelsier's crew could laugh and make light, even during the most terrible of situations. They had a way of making him forget about his problems. Perhaps that was a holdover from the Survivor. Kelsier had, apparently, insisted on laughing, no matter how bad the situation. It had been a form of rebellion to him. None of that made the problems go away. They still faced an army several times larger than their own, in a city that they could barely defend. Yet, if anyone could survive such a situation, it would be Kelsier's crew. Later that night, having filled her stomach at Elend's insistence, Vin made her way with Elend to her rooms. There, sitting on the floor, was a perfect replica of the wolfhound she had bought earlier. It eyed her, then bowed its head. "Welcome back, Mistress," the kandra said in a growling, muffled voice. Elend whistled appreciatively, and Vin walked in a circle around the creature. Each hair appeared to have been placed perfectly. If it hadn't spoken, one would never have been able to tell it wasn't the original dog. "How do you manage the voice?" Elend asked curiously. "A voice box is a construction of flesh, not bone, Your Majesty," OreSeur said. "Older kandra learn to manipulate their bodies, not just replicate them. I still need to digest a person's corpse to memorize and re-create their exact features. However, I can improvise some things." Vin nodded. "Is that why making this body took you so much longer than you'd said?" "No, Mistress," OreSeur said. "The hair. I'm sorry I didn't warn you—placing fur like this takes a great deal of precision and effort." "Actually, you did mention it," Vin said, waving her hand. "What do you think of the body, OreSeur?" Elend asked. "Honestly, Your Majesty?" "Of course." "It is offensive and degrading," OreSeur said. Vin raised an eyebrow. That's forward of you, Renoux, she thought. Feeling a little belligerent today, are we? He glanced at her, and she tried—unsuccessfully—to read his canine expression. "But," Elend said, "you'll wear the body anyway, right?" "Of course, Your Majesty," OreSeur said. "I would die before breaking the Contract. It is life." Elend nodded to Vin, as if he'd just made a major point. Anyone can claim loyalty, Vin thought. If someone has a "Contract" to ensure their honor, then all the better. That makes the surprise more poignant when they do turn on you. Elend was obviously waiting for something. Vin sighed. "OreSeur, we'll be spending more time together in the future." "If that is what you wish, Mistress." "I'm not sure if it is or not," Vin said. "But it's going
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to happen anyway. How well can you move about in that body?" "Well enough, Mistress." "Come on," she said, "let's see if you can keep up." I am also afraid, however, that all I have known—that my story—will be forgotten. I am afraid for the world that is to come. Afraid that my plans will fail. Afraid of a doom worse, even, than the Deepness. SAZED NEVER THOUGHT HE'D HAVE reason to appreciate dirt floors. However, they proved remarkably useful in writing instruction. He drew several words in the dirt with a long stick, giving his half-dozen students a model. They proceeded to scribble their own copies, rewriting the words several times. Even after living among various groups of rural skaa for a year, Sazed was still surprised by their meager resources. There wasn't a single piece of chalk in the entire village, let alone ink or paper. Half the children ran around naked, and the only shelters were the hovels—long, one-room structures with patchy roofs. The skaa had farming tools, fortunately, but no manner of bows or slings for hunting. Sazed had led a scavenging mission up to the plantation's abandoned manor. The leavings had been meager. He'd suggested that the village elders relocate their people to the manor itself for the winter, but he doubted they would do so. They had visited the manor with apprehension, and many hadn't been willing to leave Sazed's side. The place reminded them of lords—and lords reminded them of pain. His students continued to scribble. He had spent quite a bit of effort explaining to the elders why writing was so important. Finally, they had chosen him some students—partially, Sazed was sure, just to appease him. He shook his head slowly as he watched them write. There was no passion in their learning. They came because they were ordered, and because "Master Terrisman" willed it, not because of any real desire for education. During the days before the Collapse, Sazed had often imagined what the world would be like once the Lord Ruler was gone. He had pictured the Keepers emerging, bringing forgotten knowledge and truths to an excited, thankful populace. He'd imagined teaching before a warm hearth at night, telling stories to an eager audience. He'd never paused to consider a village, stripped of its working men, whose people were too exhausted at night to bother with tales from the past. He'd never imagined a people who seemed more annoyed by his presence than thankful. You must be patient with them, Sazed told himself sternly. His dreams now seemed like hubris. The Keepers who had come before him, the hundreds who had died keeping their knowledge safe and quiet, had never expected praise or accolades. They had performed their great task with solemn anonymity. Sazed stood up and inspected his students' writings. They were getting better—they could recognize all of the letters. It wasn't much, but it was a start. He nodded to the group, dismissing them to help prepare the evening meal. They bowed, then scattered. Sazed followed them out, then realized
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how dim the sky was; he had probably kept his students too late. He shook his head as he strolled between the hill-like hovels. He again wore his steward's robes, with their colorful V-shaped patterns, and he had put in several of his earrings. He kept to the old ways because they were familiar, even though they were also a symbol of oppression. How would future Terris generations dress? Would a lifestyle forced upon them by the Lord Ruler become an innate part of their culture? He paused at the edge of the village, glancing down the corridor of the southern valley. It was filled with blackened soil occasionally split by brown vines or shrubs. No mist, of course; mist came only during the night. The stories had to be mistakes. The thing he'd seen had to have been a fluke. And what did it matter if it wasn't? It wasn't his duty to investigate such things. Now that the Collapse had come, he had to disperse his knowledge, not waste his time chasing after foolish stories. Keepers were no longer investigators, but instructors. He carried with him thousands of books—information about farming, about sanitation, about government, and about medicine. He needed to give these things to the skaa. That was what the Synod had decided. And yet, a part of Sazed resisted. That made him feel deeply guilty; the villagers needed his teachings, and he wished dearly to help them. However. . .he felt that he was missing something. The Lord Ruler was dead, but the story did not seem finished. Was there something he had overlooked? Something larger, even, than the Lord Ruler? Something so large, so big, that it was effectively invisible? Or, do I just want there to be something else? he wondered. I've spent most of my adult life resisting and fighting, taking risks that the other Keepers called mad. I wasn't content with feigned subservience—I had to get involved in the rebellion. Despite that rebellion's success, Sazed's brethren still hadn't forgiven him for his involvement. He knew that Vin and the others saw him as docile, but compared with other Keepers he was a wild man. A reckless, untrustworthy fool who threatened the entire order with his impatience. They had believed their duty was to wait, watching for the day when the Lord Ruler was gone. Feruchemists were too rare to risk in open rebellion. Sazed had disobeyed. Now he was having trouble living the peaceful life of a teacher. Was that because some subconscious part of him knew that the people were still in danger, or was it because he simply couldn't accept being marginalized? "Master Terrisman!" Sazed spun. The voice was terrified. Another death in the mists? he thought immediately. It was eerie how the other skaa remained inside their hovels despite the horrified voice. A few doors creaked, but nobody rushed out in alarm—or even curiosity—as the screamer dashed up to Sazed. She was one of the fieldworkers, a stout, middle-aged woman. Sazed checked his reserves as she approached; he had on his
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pewtermind for strength, of course, and a very small steel ring for speed. Suddenly, he wished he'd chosen to wear just a few more bracelets this day. "Master Terrisman!" the woman said, out of breath. "Oh, he's come back! He's come for us!" "Who?" Sazed asked. "The man who died in the mists?" "No, Master Terrisman. The Lord Ruler." Sazed found him standing just outside the village. It was already growing dark, and the woman who'd fetched Sazed had returned to her hovel in fear. Sazed could only imagine how the poor people felt—trapped by the onset of the night and its mist, yet huddled and worried at the danger that lurked outside. And an ominous danger it was. The stranger waited quietly on the worn road, wearing a black robe, standing almost as tall as Sazed himself. The man was bald, and he wore no jewelry—unless, of course, you counted the massive iron spikes that had been driven point-first through his eyes. Not the Lord Ruler. A Steel Inquisitor. Sazed still didn't understand how the creatures continued to live. The spikes were wide enough to fill the Inquisitor's entire eye sockets; the nails had destroyed the eyes, and pointed tips jutted out the back of the skull. No blood dripped from the wounds—for some reason, that made them seem more strange. Fortunately, Sazed knew this particular Inquisitor. "Marsh," Sazed said quietly as the mists began to form. "You are a very difficult person to track, Terrisman," Marsh said—and the sound of his voice shocked Sazed. It had changed, somehow, becoming more grating, more gristly. It now had a grinding quality, like that of a man with a cough. Just like the other Inquisitors Sazed had heard. "Track?" Sazed asked. "I wasn't planning on others needing to find me." "Regardless," Marsh said, turning south. "I did. You need to come with me." Sazed frowned. "What? Marsh, I have a work to do here." "Unimportant," Marsh said, turning back, focusing his eyeless gaze on Sazed. Is it me, or has he become stranger since we last met? Sazed shivered. "What is this about, Marsh?" "The Conventical of Seran is empty." Sazed paused. The Conventical was a Ministry stronghold to the south—a place where the Inquisitors and high obligators of the Lord Ruler's religion had retreated after the Collapse. "Empty?" Sazed asked. "That isn't likely, I think." "True nonetheless," Marsh said. He didn't use body language as he spoke—no gesturing, no movements of the face. "I. . ." Sazed trailed off. What kinds of information, wonders, secrets, the Conventical's libraries must hold. "You must come with me," Marsh said. "I may need help, should my brethren discover us." My brethren. Since when are the Inquisitors Marsh's "brethren"? Marsh had infiltrated their numbers as part of Kelsier's plan to overthrow the Final Empire. He was a traitor to their numbers, not their brother. Sazed hesitated. Marsh's profile looked. . .unnatural, even unnerving, in the dim light. Dangerous. Don't be foolish, Sazed chastised himself. Marsh was Kelsier's brother—the Survivor's only living relative. As an Inquisitor, Marsh
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had authority over the Steel Ministry, and many of the obligators had listened to him despite his involvement with the rebellion. He had been an invaluable resource for Elend Venture's fledgling government. "Go get your things," Marsh said. My place is here, Sazed thought. Teaching the people, not gallivanting across the countryside, chasing my own ego. And yet. . . "The mists are coming during the day," Marsh said quietly. Sazed looked up. Marsh was staring at him, the heads of his spikes shining like round disks in the last slivers of sunlight. Superstitious skaa thought that Inquisitors could read minds, though Sazed knew that was foolish. Inquisitors had the powers of Mistborn, and could therefore influence other people's emotions—but they could not read minds. "Why did you say that?" Sazed asked. "Because it is true," Marsh said. "This is not over, Sazed. It has not yet begun. The Lord Ruler. . .he was just a delay. A cog. Now that he is gone, we have little time remaining. Come with me to the Conventical—we must search it while we have the opportunity." Sazed paused, then nodded. "Let me go explain to the villagers. We can leave tonight, I think." Marsh nodded, but he didn't move as Sazed retreated to the village. He just remained, standing in the darkness, letting the mist gather around him. It all comes back to poor Alendi. I feel bad for him, and for all the things he has been forced to endure. For what he has been forced to become. VIN THREW HERSELF INTO THE mists. She soared in the night air, passing over darkened homes and streets. An occasional, furtive bob of light glowed in the mists—a guard patrol, or perhaps an unfortunate late-night traveler. Vin began to descend, and she immediately flipped a coin out before herself. She Pushed against it, her weight plunging it down into the quiet depths. As soon as it hit the street below, her Push forced her upward, and she sprang back into the air. Soft Pushes were very difficult—so each coin she Pushed against, each jump she made, threw her into the air at a terrible speed. The jumping of a Mistborn wasn't like a bird's flight. It was more like the path of a ricocheting arrow. And yet, there was a grace to it. Vin breathed deeply as she arced above the city, tasting the cool, humid air. Luthadel by day smelled of burning forges, sun-heated refuse, and fallen ash. At night, however, the mists gave the air a beautiful chill crispness—almost a cleanliness. Vin crested her jump, and she hung for just a brief moment as her momentum changed. Then she began to plummet back toward the city. Her mistcloak tassels fluttered around her, mingling with her hair. She fell with her eyes closed, remembering her first few weeks in the mist, training beneath Kelsier's relaxed—yet watchful—tutelage. He had given her this. Freedom. Despite two years as a Mistborn, she had never lost the sense of intoxicating wonder she felt when soaring through the mists. She
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burned steel with her eyes closed; the lines appeared anyway, visible as a spray of threadlike blue lines set against the blackness of her eyelids. She picked two, pointing downward behind her, and Pushed, throwing herself into an other arc. What did I ever do without this? Vin thought, opening her eyes, whipping her mistcloak behind her with a throw of the arm. Eventually, she began to fall again, and this time she didn't toss a coin. She burned pewter to strengthen her limbs, and landed with a thump on the wall surrounding Keep Venture's grounds. Her bronze showed no signs of Allomantic activity nearby, and her steel revealed no unusual patterns of metal moving toward the keep. Vin crouched on the dark wall for a few moments, right at the edge, toes curling over the lip of the stone. The rock was cool beneath her feet, and her tin made her skin far more sensitive than normal. She could tell that the wall needed to be cleaned; lichens were beginning to grow along its side, encouraged by the night's humidity, protected from the day's sun by a nearby tower. Vin remained quiet, watching a slight breeze push and churn the mists. She heard the movement on the street below before she saw it. She tensed, checking her reserves, before she was able to discern a wolfhound's shape in the shadows. She dropped a coin over the side of the wall, then leapt off. OreSeur waited as she landed quietly before him, using a quick Push on the coin to slow her descent. "You move quickly," Vin noted appreciatively. "All I had to do was round the palace grounds, Mistress." "Still, you stuck closer to me this time than you ever did before. That wolfhound's body is faster than a human one." OreSeur paused. "I suppose," he admitted. "Think you can follow me through the city?" "Probably," OreSeur said. "If you lose me, I will return to this point so you can retrieve me." Vin turned and dashed down a side street. OreSeur then took off quietly behind her, following. Let's see how well he does in a more demanding chase, she thought, burning pewter and increasing her speed. She sprinted along the cool cobbles, barefoot as always. A normal man could never have maintained such a speed. Even a trained runner couldn't have kept pace with her, for he would have quickly tired. With pewter, however, Vin could run for hours at breakneck speeds. It gave her strength, lent her an unreal sense of balance, as she shot down the dark, mist-ruled street, a flurry of cloak tassels and bare feet. OreSeur kept pace. He loped beside her in the night, breathing heavily, focused on his running. Impressive, Vin thought, then turned down an alleyway. She easily jumped the six-foot-tall fence at the back, passing into the garden of some lesser nobleman's mansion. She spun, skidding on the wet grass, and watched. OreSeur crested the top of the wooden fence, his dark, canine form dropping through the mists to land in
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the loam before Vin. He came to a stop, resting on his haunches, waiting quietly, panting. There was a look of defiance in his eyes. All right, Vin thought, pulling out a handful of coins. Follow this. She dropped a coin and threw herself backward up into the air. She spun in the mists, twisting, then Pushed herself sideways off a well spigot. She landed on a rooftop and jumped off, using another coin to Push herself over the street below. She kept going, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, using coins when necessary. She occasionally shot a glance behind, and saw a dark form struggling to keep up. He'd rarely followed her as a human; usually, she had checked in with him at specific points. Moving out in the night, jumping through the mists. . .this was the true domain of the Mistborn. Did Elend understand what he asked when he told her to bring OreSeur with her? If she stayed down on the streets, she'd expose herself. She landed on a rooftop, jarring to a sudden halt as she grabbed hold of the building's stone lip, leaning out over a street three stories below. She maintained her balance, mist swirling below her. All was silent. Well, that didn't take long, she thought. I'll just have to explain to Elend that— OreSeur's canine form thumped to the rooftop a short distance away. He padded over to her, then sat down on his haunches, waiting expectantly. Vin frowned. She'd traveled for a good ten minutes, running over rooftops with the speed of a Mistborn. "How. . .how did you get up here?" she demanded. "I jumped atop a shorter building, then used it to reach these tenements, Mistress," OreSeur said. "Then I followed you along the rooftops. They are placed so closely together that it was not difficult to jump from one to another." Vin's confusion must have shown, for OreSeur continued. "I may have been. . .hasty in my judgment of these bones, Mistress. They certainly do have an impressive sense of smell—in fact, all of their senses are quite keen. It was surprisingly easy to track you, even in the darkness." "I. . .see," Vin said. "Well, that's good." "Might I ask, Mistress, the purpose of that chase?" Vin shrugged. "I do this sort of thing every night." "It seemed like you were particularly intent on losing me. It will be very difficult to protect you if you don't let me stay near you." "Protect me?" Vin asked. "You can't even fight." "The Contract forbids me from killing a human," OreSeur said. "I could, however, go for help should you need it." Or throw me a bit of atium in a moment of danger, Vin admitted. He's right—he could be useful. Why am I so determined to leave him behind? She glanced over at OreSeur, who sat patiently, his chest puffing from exertion. She hadn't realized that kandra even needed to breathe. He ate Kelsier. "Come on," Vin said. She jumped from the building, Pushing herself off a coin. She didn't
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pause to see if OreSeur followed. As she fell, she reached for another coin, but decided not to use it. She Pushed against a passing window bracket instead. Like most Mistborn, she often used clips—the smallest denomination of coin—to jump. It was very convenient that the economy supplied a prepackaged bit of metal of an ideal size and weight for jumping and shooting. To most Mistborn, the cost of a thrown clip—or even a bag of them—was negligible. But Vin was not most Mistborn. In her younger years, a handful of clips would have seemed an amazing treasure. That much money could have meant food for weeks, if she scrimped. It also could have meant pain—even death—if the other thieves had discovered that she'd obtained such a fortune. It had been a long time since she'd gone hungry. Though she still kept a pack of dried foods in her quarters, she did so more out of habit than anxiety. She honestly wasn't sure what she thought of the changes within her. It was nice not to have to worry about basic necessities—and yet, those worries had been replaced by ones far more daunting. Worries involving the future of an entire nation. The future of. . .a people. She landed on the city wall—a structure much higher, and much better fortified, than the small wall around Keep Venture. She hopped up on the battlements, fingers seeking a hold on one of the merlons as she leaned over the edge of the wall, looking out over the army's fires. She had never met Straff Venture, but she had heard enough from Elend to be worried. She sighed, pushing back off the battlement and hopping onto the wall walk. Then she leaned back against one of the merlons. To the side, OreSeur trotted up the wall steps and approached. Once again, he went down onto his haunches, watching patiently. For better or for worse, Vin's simple life of starvation and beatings was gone. Elend's fledgling kingdom was in serious danger, and she'd burned away the last of his atium trying to keep herself alive. She'd left him exposed—not just to armies, but to any Mistborn assassin who tried to kill him. An assassin like the Watcher, perhaps? The mysterious figure who had interfered in her fight against Cett's Mistborn. What did he want? Why did he watch her, rather than Elend? Vin sighed, reaching into her coin pouch and pulling out her bar of duralumin. She still had the reserve of it within her, the bit she'd swallowed earlier. For centuries, it had been assumed that there were only ten Allomantic metals: the four base metals and their alloys, plus atium and gold. Yet, Allomantic metals always came in pairs—a base metal and an alloy. It had always bothered Vin that atium and gold were considered a pair, when neither was an alloy of the other. In the end, it had turned out that they weren't actually paired; they each had an alloy. One of these—malatium, the so-called Eleventh Metal—had eventually given Vin the clue
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she'd needed to defeat the Lord Ruler. Somehow Kelsier had found out about malatium. Sazed still hadn't been able to trace the "legends" that Kelsier had supposedly uncovered teaching of the Eleventh Metal and its power to defeat the Lord Ruler. Vin rubbed her finger on the slick surface of the duralumin bar. When Vin had last seen Sazed, he'd seemed frustrated—or, at least, as frustrated as Sazed ever grew—that he couldn't find even hints regarding Kelsier's supposed legends. Though Sazed claimed he'd left Luthadel to teach the people of the Final Empire—as was his duty as a Keeper—Vin hadn't missed the fact that Sazed had gone south. The direction in which Kelsier claimed to have discovered the Eleventh Metal. Are there rumors about this metal, too? Vin wondered, rubbing the duralumin. Ones that might tell me what it does? Each of the other metals produced an immediate, visible effect; only copper, with its ability to create a cloud that masked an Allomancer's powers from others, didn't have an obvious sensory clue to its purpose. Perhaps duralumin was similar. Could its effect be noticed only by another Allomancer, one trying to use his or her powers on Vin? It was the opposite of aluminum, which made metals disappear. Did that mean duralumin would make other metals last longer? Movement. Vin just barely caught the hint of shadowed motion. At first, a primal bit of terror rose in her: Was it the misty form, the ghost in the darkness she had seen the night before? You were just seeing things, she told herself forcefully. You were too tired. And, in truth, the glimmer of motion proved too dark—too real—to be the same ghostly image. It was him. He stood atop one of the watchtowers—not crouching, not even bothering to hide. Was he arrogant or foolish, this unknown Mistborn? Vin smiled, her apprehension turning to excitement. She prepared her metals, checking her reserves. Everything was ready. Tonight I catch you, my friend. Vin spun, throwing out a spray of coins. Either the Mistborn knew he'd been spotted, or he was ready for an attack, for he easily dodged. OreSeur hopped to his feet, spinning, and Vin whipped her belt free, dropping her metals. "Follow if you can," she whispered to the kandra, then sprang into the darkness after her prey. The Watcher shot away, bounding through the night. Vin had little experience chasing another Mistborn; her only real chance to practice had come during Kelsier's training sessions. She soon found herself struggling to keep up with the Watcher, and she felt a stab of guilt for what she had done to OreSeur earlier. She was learning firsthand how difficult it was to follow a determined Mistborn through the mists. And she didn't have the advantage of a dog's sense of smell. She did, however, have tin. It made the night clearer and enhanced her hearing. With it, she managed to follow the Watcher as he moved toward the center of the city. Eventually, he let himself drop down toward one of the central fountain
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squares. Vin fell as well, hitting the slick cobblestones with a flare of pewter, then dodging to the side as he threw out a handful of coins. Metal rang against stone in the quiet night, coins plinging against statues and cobblestones. Vin smiled as she landed on all fours; then she bounded forward, jumping with pewter-enhanced muscles and Pulling one of the coins up into her hand. Her opponent leaped backward, landing on the edge of a nearby fountain. Vin landed, then dropped her coin, using it to throw herself upward over the Watcher's head. He stooped, watching warily as she passed over him. Vin caught of one of the bronze statues at the center of the fountain itself and pulled herself to a stop atop it. She crouched on the uneven footing, looking down at her opponent. He stood balanced on one foot at the edge of the fountain, quiet and black in the churning mists. There was a. . .challenge in his posture. Can you catch me? he seemed to ask. Vin whipped her daggers out and jumped free of the statue. She Pushed herself directly toward the Watcher, using the cool bronze as an anchor. The Watcher used the statue as well, Pulling himself forward. He shot just beneath Vin, throwing up a wave of water, his incredible speed letting him skid like a stone across the fountain's still surface. As he jumped clear of the water, he Pushed himself away, shooting across the square. Vin landed on the fountain lip, chill water spraying across her. She growled, jumping after the Watcher. As he landed, he spun and whipped out his own daggers. She rolled beneath his first attack, then brought her daggers up in a two-handed double jab. The Watcher jumped quickly out of the way, his daggers sparkling and dropping beads of fountain water. He had a lithe power about him as he came to rest in a crouch. His body looked tense and sure. Capable. Vin smiled again, breathing quickly. She hadn't felt like this since. . .since those nights so long ago, when she'd sparred with Kelsier. She remained in a crouch, waiting, watching the mist curl between her and her opponent. He was of medium height, had a wiry build, and he wore no mistcloak. Why no cloak? Mistcloaks were the ubiquitous mark of her kind, a symbol of pride and security. She was too far away to distinguish his face. She thought she saw a hint of a smile, however, as he jumped backward and Pushed against another statue. The chase began again. Vin followed him through the city, flaring steel, landing on roofs and streets, Pushing herself in great arcing leaps. The two bounded through Luthadel like children on a playground—Vin trying to cut off her opponent, he cleverly managing to stay just a little bit ahead of her. He was good. Far better than any Mistborn she had known or faced, save perhaps for Kelsier. However, she'd grown greatly in skill since she'd sparred with the Survivor. Could this newcomer be
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even better? The thought thrilled her. She'd always considered Kelsier a paradigm of Allomantic ability, and it was easy to forget that he'd had his powers for only a couple of years before the Collapse. That's the same amount of time that I've been training, Vin realized as she landed in a small, cramped street. She frowned, crouching, remaining still. She'd seen the Watcher fall toward this street. Narrow and poorly maintained, the street was practically an alleyway, lined on both sides by three- and four-story buildings. There was no motion—either the Watcher had slipped away or he was hiding nearby. She burned iron, but the iron-lines revealed no motion. However, there was another way. . .. Vin pretended to still be looking around, but she turned on her bronze, flaring it, trying to pierce the coppercloud that she thought might be close. And there he was. Hiding in a room behind the mostly closed shutters of a derelict building. Now that she knew where to look, she saw the bit of metal he'd probably used to jump up to the second story, the latch he must have Pulled on to quickly close the shutters behind him. He'd probably scouted this street beforehand, always intending to lose her here. Clever, Vin thought. He couldn't have anticipated her ability to pierce copperclouds. But, attacking him now might give away that ability. Vin stood quietly, thinking of him crouching above, tensely waiting for her to move off. She smiled. Reaching inside, she examined the duralumin reserve. There was a possible way to discover if burning it created some change in the way she looked to another Mistborn. The Watcher was likely burning most of his metals, trying to determine what her next move would be. So, thinking herself incredibly clever, Vin burned the fourteenth metal. A massive explosion sounded in her ears. Vin gasped, dropping to her knees in shock. Everything grew bright around her, as if some crack of energy had illuminated the entire street. And she felt cold; frigidly, stunningly cold. She moaned, trying to make sense of the sound. It. . .it wasn't an explosion, but many explosions. A rhythmic thudding, like a drum pounding just beside her. Her heart-beat. And the breeze, loud as a howling wind. The scratchings of a dog searching for food. Someone snoring in their sleep. It was as if her hearing had been magnified a hundred times. And then. . .nothing. Vin fell backward against the cobblestones, the sudden rush of light, coldness, and sound evaporating. A form moved in the shadows nearby, but she couldn't make it out—she couldn't see in the darkness anymore. Her tin was. . . Gone, she realized, coming to. My entire store of tin has been burned away. I was. . .burning it, when I turned on the duralumin. I burned them both at once. That's the secret. The duralumin had burned away all her tin in a single, massive burst. It had made her senses amazingly acute for a very short time, but had stolen away her entire
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reserve. And, looking, she could see that her bronze and her pewter—the other metals she'd been burning at the time—were gone as well. The onrush of sensory information had been so vast that she hadn't noticed the effects of the other two. Think about it later, Vin told herself, shaking her head. She felt like she should be deafened and blinded, but she wasn't. She was just a bit stunned. The dark form moved up beside her in the mists. She didn't have time to recover; she pushed herself to her feet, stumbling. The form, it was too short to be the Watcher. It was. . . "Mistress, do you require assistance?" Vin paused as OreSeur padded up to her, then sat on his haunches. "You. . .managed to follow," Vin said. "It was not easy, Mistress," OreSeur said flatly. "Do you require assistance?" "What? No, no assistance." Vin shook her head, clearing her mind. "I guess that's one thing I didn't think of by making you a dog. You can't carry metals for me now." The kandra cocked his head, then padded over into an alleyway. He returned a moment later with something in his mouth. Her belt. He dropped it by her feet, then returned to his waiting position. Vin picked up the belt, pulling off one of her extra metal vials. "Thank you," she said slowly. "That is very. . .thoughtful of you." "I fulfill my Contract, Mistress," the kandra said. "Nothing more." Well, this is more than you've ever done before, she thought, downing a vial and feeling her reserves return. She burned tin, restoring her night vision, releasing a veil of tension from her mind; since she'd discovered her powers, she'd never had to go out at night in complete darkness. The shutters of the Watcher's room were open; he had apparently fled during her fit. Vin sighed. "Mistress!" OreSeur snapped. Vin spun. A man landed quietly behind her. He looked. . .familiar, for some reason. He had a lean face—topped with dark hair—and his head was cocked slightly in confusion. She could see the question in his eyes. Why had she fallen down? Vin smiled. "Maybe I just did it to lure you closer," she whispered—softly, yet loud enough that she knew tin-enhanced ears would hear her. The Mistborn smiled, then tipped his head to her as if in respect. "Who are you?" Vin asked, stepping forward. "An enemy," he replied, holding up a hand to ward her back. Vin paused. Mist swirled between them on the quiet street. "Why, then, did you help me fight those assassins?" "Because," he said. "I'm also insane." Vin frowned, eyeing the man. She had seen insanity before in the eyes of beggars. This man was not insane. He stood proudly, eyes controlled as he regarded her in the darkness. What kind of game is he playing? she wondered. Her instincts—a lifetime's worth of instincts—warned her to be wary. She had only just learned to trust her friends, and she wasn't about to offer the same privilege to a man
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she had met in the night. And yet, it had been over a year since she'd spoken with another Mistborn. There were conflicts within her that she couldn't explain to the others. Even Mistings, like Ham and Breeze, couldn't understand the strange dual life of a Mistborn. Part assassin, part bodyguard, part noblewoman. . .part confused, quiet girl. Did this man have similar troubles with his identity? Perhaps she could make an ally out of him, bringing a second Mistborn to the defense of the Central Dominance. Even if she couldn't, she certainly couldn't afford to fight him. A spar in the night was one thing, but if their contest grew dangerous, atium might come into play. If that happened, she'd lose. The Watcher studied her with a careful eye. "Answer something for me," he said in the mists. Vin nodded. "Did you really kill Him?" "Yes," Vin whispered. There was only one person he could mean. He nodded slowly. "Why do you play their games?" "Whose games?" The Watcher gestured into the mists, toward Keep Venture. "Those aren't games," Vin said. "It's no game when the people I love are in danger." The Watcher stood quietly, then shook his head, as if. . .disappointed. Then, he pulled something from his sash. Vin jumped back immediately. The Watcher, however, simply flipped a coin to the ground between them. It bounced a couple of times, coming to a rest on the cobbles. Then, the Watcher Pushed himself backward into the air. Vin didn't follow. She reached up, rubbing her head; she still felt like she should have a headache. "You're letting him go?" OreSeur asked. Vin nodded. "We're done for tonight. He fought well." "You sound almost respectful," the kandra said. Vin turned, frowning at the hint of disgust in the kandra's voice. OreSeur sat patiently, displaying no further emotion. She sighed, tying her belt around her waist. "We're going to need to come up with a harness or something for you," she said. "I want you to carry extra metal vials for me, like you did as a human." "A harness won't be necessary, Mistress," OreSeur said. "Oh?" OreSeur rose, padding forward. "Please get out one of your vials." Vin did as requested, pulling out a small glass vial. OreSeur stopped, then turned one shoulder toward her. As she watched, the fur parted and the flesh itself split, showing forth veins and layers of skin. Vin pulled back a bit. "There is no need to be worried, Mistress," OreSeur said. "My flesh is not like your own. I have more. . .control over it, you might say. Place the metal vial inside my shoulder." Vin did as asked. The flesh sealed around the vial, obscuring it from view. Experimentally, Vin burned iron. No blue lines appeared pointing toward the hidden vial. Metal inside of a person's stomach couldn't be affected by another Allomancer; indeed, metal piercing a body, like Inquisitor spikes or Vin's own earring, couldn't be Pushed or Pulled by someone else. Apparently, the same rule applied to metals hidden within
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a kandra. "I will deliver this to you in an emergency," OreSeur said. "Thank you," Vin said. "The Contract, Mistress. Do not give me thanks. I do only what I am required." Vin nodded slowly. "Let's go back to the palace, then," she said. "I want to check on Elend." But, let me begin at the beginning. I met Alendi first in Khlennium; he was a young lad then, and had not yet been warped by a decade spent leading armies. MARSH HAD CHANGED. THERE WAS something. . .harder about the former Seeker. Something in the way he always seemed to be staring at things Sazed couldn't see, something in his blunt responses and terse language. Of course, Marsh had always been a straightforward man. Sazed eyed his friend as the two strode down the dusty highway. They had no horses; even if Sazed had possessed one, most beasts wouldn't go near an Inquisitor. What did Spook say that Marsh's nickname was? Sazed thought to himself as they walked. Before his transformation, they used to call him. . .Ironeyes. The name that had turned out to be chillingly prophetic. Most of the others found Marsh's transformed state discomforting, and had left him isolated. Though Marsh hadn't seemed to mind the treatment, Sazed had made a special effort to befriend the man. He still didn't know if Marsh appreciated the gesture or not. They did seem to get along well; both shared an interest in scholarship and history, and both were interested in the religious climate of the Final Empire. And, he did come looking for me, Sazed thought. Of course, he did claim that he wanted help in case the Inquisitors weren't all gone from the Conventical of Seran. It was a weak excuse. Despite his powers as a Feruchemist, Sazed was no warrior. "You should be in Luthadel," Marsh said. Sazed looked up. Marsh had spoken bluntly, as usual, without preamble. "Why do you say that?" Sazed asked. "They need you there." "The rest of the Final Empire has need of me too, Marsh. I am a Keeper—one group of people should not be able to monopolize all of my time." Marsh shook his head. "These peasants, they will forget your passing. No one will forget the things that will soon happen in the Central Dominance." "You would be surprised, I think, at what men can forget. Wars and kingdoms may seem important now, but even the Final Empire proved mortal. Now that it has fallen, the Keepers have no business being involved in politics." Most would say we never had any business being involved in politics at all. Marsh turned toward him. Those eyes, sockets filled entirely with steel. Sazed did not shiver, but he felt distinctly uncomfortable. "And your friends?" Marsh asked. This touched on something more personal. Sazed looked away, thinking of Vin, and of his vow to Kelsier that he would protect her. She needs little protection now, he thought. She's grown more adept at Allomancy than even Kelsier was. And yet, Sazed knew that there were
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modes of protection that didn't relate to fighting. These things—support, counsel, kindness—were vital to every person, and most especially to Vin. So much rested on that poor girl's shoulders. "I have. . .sent help," Sazed said. "What help I can." "Not good enough," Marsh said. "The things happening in Luthadel are too important to ignore." "I am not ignoring them, Marsh," Sazed said. "I am simply performing my duty as best I can." Marsh finally turned away. "The wrong duty. You will return to Luthadel once we are finished here." Sazed opened his mouth to argue, but said nothing. What was there to say? Marsh was right. Though he had no proof, Sazed knew that there were important things happening in Luthadel—things that would require his aid to fight. Things that likely affected the future of the entire land once known as the Final Empire. So, he closed his mouth and trudged after Marsh. He would return to Luthadel, proving himself a rebel once again. Perhaps, in the end, he would realize that there was no ghostly threat facing the world—that he had simply returned because of his own selfish desire to be with his friends. In fact, he hoped that proved to be the truth. The alternative made him very uncomfortable. Alendi's height struck me the first time I saw him. Here was a man who towered over others, a man who—despite his youth and his humble clothing—demanded respect. THE ASSEMBLY HALL WAS in the former Steel Ministry Canton of Finance headquarters. It was a low-ceilinged space, more of a large lecture room than an assembly hall. There were rows of benches fanning out in front of a raised stage. On the right side of the stage, Elend had constructed a tier of seats for the Assembly members. On the left of the stage, he had constructed a single lectern for speakers. The lectern faced the Assemblymen, not the crowd. The common people were, however, encouraged to attend. Elend thought that everyone should be interested in the workings of their government; it pained him that the Assembly's weekly meetings usually had a small audience. Vin's seat was on the stage, but at the back, directly opposite the audience. From her vantage with the other bodyguards, she would look past the lectern toward the crowd. Another row of Ham's guards—in regular clothing—sat in the first row of the audience, providing a first line of protection. Elend had balked at Vin's demands to having guards both in front of the stage and behind it—he thought that bodyguards sitting right behind the speakers would be distracting. Ham and Vin, however, had insisted. If Elend was going to stand up in front of a crowd every week, Vin wanted to be certain she could keep a close eye on him—and on those watching him. Getting to her chair, therefore, required Vin to walk across the stage. Stares followed her. Some of the watching crowd were interested in the scandal; they assumed that she was Elend's mistress, and a king sleeping with his personal assassin made
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for good gossip. Others were interested in the politics; they wondered how much influence Vin had over Elend, and whether they could use her to get the king's ear. Still others were curious about the growing legends; they wondered if a girl like Vin could really have slain the Lord Ruler. Vin hurried her pace. She passed the Assemblymen and found her seat next to Ham, who—despite the formal occasion—still wore a simple vest with no shirt. Sitting next to him in her trousers and shirt, Vin didn't feel quite so out of place. Ham smiled, clapping her affectionately on the shoulder. She had to force herself not to jump at the touch. It wasn't that she disliked Ham—quite the opposite, actually. She loved him as she did all of the former members of Kelsier's band. It was just that. . .well, she had trouble explaining it, even to herself. Ham's innocent gesture made her want to squirm. It seemed to her that people shouldn't be so casual with the way that they touched others. She pushed those thoughts away. She had to learn to be like other people. Elend deserved a woman who was normal. He was already there. He nodded to Vin as he noticed her arrival, and she smiled. Then he turned back to speaking quietly with Lord Penrod, one of the noblemen in the Assembly. "Elend will be happy," Vin whispered. "Place is packed." "They're worried," Ham said quietly. "And worried people pay more attention to things like this. Can't say I'm happy—all these people make our job harder." Vin nodded, scanning the audience. The crowd was a strangely mixed one—a collection of different groups who would never have met together during the days of the Final Empire. A major part were noblemen, of course. Vin frowned, thinking of how often various members of the nobility tried to manipulate Elend, and of the promises he made to them. . .. "What's that look for?" Ham asked, nudging her. Vin eyed the Thug. Expectant eyes twinkled in his firm, rectangular face. Ham had an almost supernatural sense when it came to arguments. Vin sighed. "I don't know about this, Ham." "This?" "This," Vin said quietly, waving her hand at the Assembly. "Elend tries so hard to make everyone happy. He gives so much away—his power, his money. . .." "He just wants to see that everyone is treated fairly." "It's more than that, Ham," Vin said. "It's like he's determined to make everyone a nobleman." "Would that be such a bad thing?" "If everyone is a nobleman, then there is no such thing as a nobleman. Everyone can't be rich, and everyone can't be in charge. That's just not the way things work." "Perhaps," Ham said thoughtfully. "But, doesn't Elend have a civic duty to try and make sure justice is served?" Civic duty? Vin thought. I should have known better than to talk to Ham about something like this. . .. Vin looked down. "I just think he could see that everyone was treated well without having an
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Assembly. All they do is argue and try to take his power away. And he lets them." Ham let the discussion die, and Vin turned back to her study of the audience. It appeared that a large group of mill workers had arrived first and managed to get the best seats. Early in the Assembly's history—perhaps ten months before—the nobility had sent servants to reserve seats for them, or had bribed people to give up their places. As soon as Elend had discovered this, however, he had forbidden both practices. Other than the noblemen and the mill workers, there was a large number of the "new" class. Skaa merchants and craftsmasters, now allowed to set their own prices for their services. They were the true winners in Elend's economy. Beneath the Lord Ruler's oppressive hand, only the few most extraordinarily skilled skaa had been able to rise to positions of even moderate comfort. Without those restrictions, these same people had quickly proven to have abilities and acumen far above their noble counterparts'. They represented a faction in the Assembly at least as powerful as that of the nobility. Other skaa peppered the crowd. They looked much the same as they had before Elend's rise to power. While noblemen generally wore suits—complete with dayhats and coats—these skaa wore simple trousers. Some of them were still dirty from their day's labor, their clothing old, worn, and stained with ash. And yet. . .there was something different about them. It wasn't in their clothing, but their postures. They sat a little straighter, their heads held a little higher. And they had enough free time to attend an Assembly meeting. Elend finally stood to begin the meeting. He had let his attendants dress him this morning, and the result was attire that was almost completely free of dishevelment. His suit fit well, all the buttons were done up, and his vest was of an appropriate dark blue. His hair was even neatly styled, the short, brown curls lying flat. Normally, Elend would begin the meeting by calling on other speakers, Assemblymen who would drone on for hours about various topics like taxation rates or city sanitation. However, this day, there were more pressing matters. "Gentlemen," Elend said. "I beg your leave to depart from our usual agenda this afternoon, in the light of our current. . .state of city affairs." The group of twenty-four Assemblymen nodded, a few muttering things under their breath. Elend ignored them. He was comfortable before crowds, far more comfortable than Vin would ever be. As he unrolled his speech, Vin kept one eye on the crowd, watching for reactions or problems. "The dire nature of our situation should be quite obvious," Elend said, beginning the speech he had prepared earlier. "We face a danger that this city has never known. Invasion and siege from an outside tyrant. "We are a new nation, a kingdom founded on principles unknown during the days of the Lord Ruler. Yet, we are already a kingdom of tradition. Freedom for the skaa. Rule by our own
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choice and of our own design. Noblemen who don't have to cower before the Lord Ruler's obligators and Inquisitors. "Gentlemen, one year is not enough. We have tasted freedom, and we need time to savor it. During the last month, we have frequently discussed and argued regarding what to do should this day arrive. Obviously, we are of many minds on the issue. Therefore, I ask for a vote of solidarity. Let us promise ourselves, and these people, that we will not give this city over to a foreign power without due consideration. Let us resolve to gather more information, to seek for other avenues, and even to fight should it be deemed necessary." The speech went on, but Vin had heard it a dozen times as Elend practiced it. As he spoke, she found herself eying the crowd. She was most worried about the obligators she saw sitting in the back. They showed little reaction to the negative light in which Elend's remarks cast them. She'd never understood why Elend allowed the Steel Ministry to continue teaching. It was the last real remnant of the Lord Ruler's power. Most obligators obstinately refused to lend their knowledge of bureaucracy and administration to Elend's government, and they still regarded skaa with contempt. And yet, Elend let them remain. He maintained a strict rule that they were not allowed to incite rebellion or violence. However, he also didn't eject them from the city, as Vin had suggested. Actually, if the choice had been solely hers, she probably would have executed them. Eventually, Elend's speech drew to a close, and Vin turned her attention back to him. "Gentlemen," he said, "I make this proposal out of faith, and I make it in the names of those we represent. I ask for time. I propose that we forgo all votes regarding the future of the city until a proper royal delegation has been allowed to meet with the army outside and determine what, if any, opportunity there is for negotiations." He lowered his sheet, looking up, waiting for comments. "So," said Philen, one of the merchants on the Assembly. "You're asking us to give you the power to decide the city's fate." Philen wore his rich suit so well that an observer would never have known that he'd first put one on about a year ago. "What?" Elend asked. "I said nothing of the sort—I'm simply asking for more time. To meet with Straff." "He's rejected all of our earlier messages," said another Assemblyman. "What makes you think he'll listen now?" "We're approaching this wrong!" said one of the noble representatives. "We should be resolving to beg Straff Venture not to attack, not resolving to meet with him and chat. We need to establish quickly that we're willing to work with him. You've all seen that army. He's planning to destroy us!" "Please," Elend said, raising a hand. "Let us stay on topic!" One of the other Assemblymen—one of the skaa—spoke up, as if he hadn't heard Elend. "You say that because you're noble," he said,
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pointing at the noble Elend had interrupted. "It's easy for you to talk about working with Straff, since you've got very little to lose!" "Very little to lose?" the nobleman said. "I and all of my house could be executed for supporting Elend against his father!" "Bah," said one of the merchants. "This is all pointless. We should have hired mercenaries months ago, as I'd suggested." "And where would we have gotten the funds for that?" asked Lord Penrod, senior of the noble Assemblymen. "Taxes," the merchant said with a wave of his hand. "Gentlemen!" Elend said; then, louder, "Gentlemen!" This garnered him some small measure of attention. "We have to make a decision," Elend said. "Stay focused, if you please. What of my proposal?" "It's pointless," said Philen the merchant. "Why should we wait? Let's just invite Straff into the city and be done. He's going to take it anyway." Vin sat back as the men began to argue again. The problem was, the merchant Philen—as little as she liked him—had a point. Fighting was looking like a very unattractive option. Straff had such a large army. Would stalling really do that much good? "Look, see," Elend said, trying to get their attention again—and only partially succeeding. "Straff is my father. Maybe I could talk to him. Get him to listen? Luthadel was his home for years. Perhaps I can convince him not to attack it." "Wait," said one of the skaa representatives. "What of the food issue? Have you seen what the merchants are charging for grain? Before we worry about that army, we should talk about bringing prices down." "Always blaming us for your problems," one of the merchant Assemblymen said, pointing. And the squabbling began again. Elend slumped just slightly behind the lectern. Vin shook her head, feeling sorry for Elend as the discussion degenerated. This was what often happened at Assembly meetings; it seemed to her that they simply didn't give Elend the respect he deserved. Perhaps that was his own fault, for elevating them to his near equals. Finally, the discussion wound down, and Elend got out a piece of paper, obviously planning to record the vote on his proposal. He did not look optimistic. "All right," Elend said. "Let's vote. Please remember—giving me time will not play our hand. It will simply give me a chance to try and make my father reconsider his desire to take our city away from us." "Elend, lad," said Lord Penrod. "We all lived here during the Lord Ruler's reign. We all know what kind of man your father is. If he wants this city, he is going to take it. All we can decide, then, is how to best give up. Perhaps we can find a way for the people to retain some freedom under his rule." The group sat quietly, and for the first time nobody brought up a new squabble. A few of them turned toward Penrod, who sat with a calm, in-control expression. Vin knew little of the man. He was one of the more
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powerful noblemen who had remained in the city after the Collapse, and he was politically conservative. However, she had never heard him speak derogatively of the skaa, which was probably why he was so popular with the people. "I speak bluntly," Penrod said, "for it is the truth. We are not in a position to bargain." "I agree with Penrod," Philen said, jumping in. "If Elend wants to meet with Straff Venture, then I guess that's his right. As I understand it, kingship grants him authority to negotiate with foreign monarchs. However, we don't have to promise not to give Straff the city." "Master Philen," Lord Penrod said. "I think you misjudged my intent. I said that giving up the city was inevitable—but that we should try to gain as much from it as possible. That means at least meeting with Straff to assess his disposition. Voting to give him the city now would be to play our hand too soon." Elend looked up, looking hopeful for the first time since the discussion had first degenerated. "So, you support my proposal?" he asked. "It is an awkward way to achieve the pause I think necessary," Penrod said. "But. . .seeing as how the army is already here, then I doubt we have time for anything else. So, yes, Your Majesty. I support your proposal." Several other members of the Assembly nodded as Penrod spoke, as if giving the proposal consideration for the first time. That Penrod has too much power, Vin thought, eyes narrowing as she regarded the elderly statesman. They listen to him more than they do Elend. "Should we vote, then?" one of the other Assemblymen asked. And they did. Elend recorded votes as they moved down the line of Assemblymen. The eight noblemen—seven plus Elend—voted for the proposal, giving Penrod's opinion a great deal of weight. The eight skaa were mostly for it, and the merchants mostly against it. In the end, however, Elend got the two-thirds vote he needed. "Proposal accepted," Elend said, making the final tally, looking a bit surprised. "The Assembly divests itself of the right to surrender the city until after the king has met with Straff Venture in official parlay." Vin sat back in her seat, trying to decide what she thought of the vote. It was good that Elend had gotten his way, but the manner in which he'd achieved it bothered her. Elend finally relinquished the lectern, sitting and letting a disgruntled Philen take the lead. The merchant read a proposal calling for a vote to turn control of city food stockpiles over to the merchants. However, this time Elend himself led the dissent, and the arguing began again. Vin watched with interest. Did Elend even realize how much like the others he acted while he was arguing against their proposals? Elend and a few of the skaa Assemblymen managed to filibuster long enough that the lunch break arrived with no vote cast. The people in the audience stood, stretching, and Ham turned toward her. "Good meeting, eh?" Vin just shrugged. Ham
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chuckled. "We really have to do something about your ambivalence toward civic duty, kid." "I already overthrew one government," Vin said. "I figure that takes care of my 'civic duty' for a while." Ham smiled, though he kept a wary eye on the crowd—as did Vin. Now, with everyone moving about, would be the perfect time for an attempt on Elend's life. One person in particular caught her attention, and she frowned. "Be back in a few seconds," she said to Ham, rising. "You did the right thing, Lord Penrod," Elend said, standing beside the older nobleman, whispering quietly as break proceeded. "We need more time. You know what my father will do to this city if he takes it." Lord Penrod shook his head. "I didn't do this for you, son. I did it because I wanted to make certain that fool Philen didn't hand the city over before the nobility extracted promises from your father about our rights to title." "Now, see," Elend said, holding up a finger. "There has to be another way! The Survivor would never have given this city away without a fight." Penrod frowned, and Elend paused, quietly cursing himself. The old lord was a traditionalist—quoting the Survivor at him would have little positive effect. Many of the noblemen felt threatened by Kelsier's influence with the skaa. "Just think about it," Elend said, glancing to the side as Vin approached. She waved him away from the Assemblymen seats, and he excused himself. He crossed the stage, joining her. "What is it?" he asked quietly. "Woman at the back," Vin said quietly, eyes suspicious. "Tall one, in the blue." The woman in question wasn't hard to find; she wore a bright blue blouse and colorful red skirt. She was middle-aged, of lean build, and had her waist-length hair pulled back in a braid. She waited patiently as people moved about the room. "What about her?" Elend asked. "Terris," Vin said. Elend paused. "You're sure?" Vin nodded. "Those colors. . .that much jewelry. She's a Terriswoman for sure." "So?" "So, I've never met her," Vin said. "And she was watching you, just now." "People watch me, Vin," Elend noted. "I am the king, after all. Besides, why should you have met her?" "All of the other Terris people have come to meet me right after they enter the city," Vin said. "I killed the Lord Ruler; they see me as the one that freed their homeland. But, I don't recognize her. She hasn't ever come thank me." Elend rolled his eyes, grabbing Vin by the shoulders and turning her away from the woman. "Vin, I feel it's my gentlemanly duty to tell you something." Vin frowned. "What?" "You're gorgeous." Vin paused. "What does that have to do with anything?" "Absolutely nothing," Elend said with a smile. "I'm just trying to distract you." Slowly, Vin relaxed, smiling slightly. "I don't know if anyone's ever told you this, Vin," Elend noted, "but you can be a bit paranoid at times." She raised an eyebrow. "Oh?" "I know it's hard to
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believe, but it's true. Now, I happen to find it rather charming, but do you honestly think that a Terriswoman would try to kill me?" "Probably not," Vin admitted. "But, old habits. . ." Elend smiled. Then, he glanced back at the Assemblymen, most of whom were speaking quietly in groups. They didn't mix. Noblemen spoke with noblemen, merchants with merchants, skaa workers with other skaa workers. They seemed so fragmented, so obstinate. The simplest proposals sometimes met with arguments that could take hours. They need to give me more time! he thought. Yet, even as he thought, he realized the problem. More time for what? Penrod and Philen had accurately attacked his proposal. The truth was, the entire city was in over its head. Nobody really knew what to do about a superior invading force, least of all Elend. He just knew that they couldn't give up. Not yet. There had to be a way to fight. Vin was still looking to the side, out over the audience. Elend followed her gaze. "Still watching that Terriswoman?" Vin shook her head. "Something else. . .something odd. Is that one of Clubs's messengers?" Elend paused, turning. Indeed, several soldiers were working their way through the crowd, approaching the stage. At the back of the room, people had begun whispering and shuffling, and some were already moving quickly out of the chamber. Elend felt Vin stiffen in anxiety, and fear stabbed him. We're too late. The army has attacked. One of the soldiers finally reached the stage, and Elend rushed over. "What?" he asked. "Has Straff attacked?" The soldier frowned, looking concerned. "No, my lord." Elend sighed slightly. "What, then?" "My lord, it's a second army. It just arrived outside the city." Oddly, it was Alendi's simple ingenuousness that first led me to befriend him. I employed him as an assistant during his first months in the grand city. FOR THE SECOND TIME IN two days, Elend stood atop the Luthadel city wall, studying an army that had come to invade his kingdom. Elend squinted against the red afternoon sunlight, but he was no Tineye; he couldn't make out details about the new arrival. "Any chance they're here to help us?" Elend asked hopefully, looking toward Clubs, who stood beside him. Clubs just scowled. "They fly Cett's banner. Remember him? Guy who sent eight Allomancer assassins to kill you two days back?" Elend shivered in the chill autumn weather, glancing back out over the second army. It was making camp a good distance from Straff's army, close to the Luth-Davn Canal, which ran out the west side of the River Channerel. Vin stood at Elend's side, though Ham was off organizing things among the city guard. OreSeur, wearing the wolfhound's body, sat patiently on the wall walk beneath Vin. "How did we miss their approach?" Elend asked. "Straff," Clubs said. "This Cett came in from the same direction, and our scouts were focused on him. Straff probably knew about this other army a few days ago, but we had virtually no chance of seeing
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them." Elend nodded. "Straff is setting up a perimeter of soldiers, watching the enemy army," Vin said. "I doubt they're friendly to each other." She stood atop one of the sawtooth parapet crenels, feet positioned dangerously close to the wall's edge. "Maybe they'll attack each other," Elend said hopefully. Clubs snorted. "I doubt it. They're too evenly matched, though Straff might be a little stronger. I doubt Cett would take the chance by attacking him." "Why come, then?" Elend asked. Clubs shrugged. "Maybe he hoped he'd beat Venture to Luthadel, and get to take it first." He spoke of the event—the capture of Luthadel—as if it were a given. Elend's stomach twisted as he leaned against the battlement, looking out through a merlon. Vin and the others were thieves and skaa Allomancers—outcasts who had been hunted for most of their lives. Perhaps they were accustomed to dealing with this pressure—this fear—but Elend was not. How did they live with the lack of control, the sense of inevitability? Elend felt powerless. What could he do? Flee, and leave the city to fend for itself? That, of course, was not an option. But, confronted with not one, but two armies preparing to destroy his city and take his throne, Elend found it hard to keep his hands steady as he gripped the rough stone of the battlement. Kelsier would have found a way out of this, he thought. "There!" Vin's voice interrupted Elend's thoughts. "What's that?" Elend turned. Vin was squinting, looking toward Cett's army, using tin to see things that were invisible to Elend's mundane eyes. "Someone's leaving the army," Vin said. "Riding on horseback." "Messenger?" Clubs asked. "Maybe," Vin said. "He's riding pretty fast. . .." She began to run from one stone tooth to the next, moving along the wall. Her kandra immediately followed, padding quietly across the wall beneath her. Elend glanced at Clubs, who shrugged, and they began to follow. They caught up with Vin standing on the wall near one of the towers, watching the oncoming rider. Or, at least, Elend assumed that was what she watched—he still couldn't see what she had. Allomancy, Elend thought, shaking his head. Why couldn't he have at least ended up with one power—even one of the weaker ones, like copper or iron? Vin cursed suddenly, standing up straight. "Elend, that's Breeze!" "What!" Elend said. "Are you sure?" "Yes! He's being chased. Archers on horseback." Clubs cursed, waving to a messenger. "Send riders! Cut off his pursuit!" The messenger dashed away. Vin, however, shook her head. "They won't make it in time," she said, almost to herself. "The archers will catch him, or at least shoot him. Even I couldn't get there fast enough, not running. But, maybe. . ." Elend frowned, looking up at her. "Vin, that's way too far to jump—even for you." Vin glanced at him, smiled, then leaped off the wall. Vin readied the fourteenth metal, duralumin. She had a reserve, but she didn't burn it—not yet. I hope this works, she thought, seeking an appropriate anchor. The
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tower beside her had a reinforced iron bulwark on the top—that would work. She Pulled on the bulwark, yanking herself up to the top of the tower. She immediately jumped again, Pushing herself up and out, angling into the air away from the wall. She extinguished all of her metals except for steel and pewter. Then, still Pushing against the bulwark, she burned duralumin. A sudden force smashed against her. It was so powerful, she was certain that only an equally powerful flash of pewter held her body together. She blasted away from the keep, hurtling through the sky as if tossed by some giant, invisible god. The air rushed by so quickly that it roared, and the pressure of sudden acceleration made it difficult to think. She floundered, trying to regain control. She had, fortunately, picked her trajectory well: she was shooting right toward Breeze and his pursuers. Whatever Breeze had done, it had been enough to make someone extremely angry—for there were a full two dozen men charging after him, arrows nocked. Vin fell, her steel and pewter completely burned away in that single duralumin-fueled flash of power. She grabbed a metal vial off her belt, downing its contents. However, as she tossed the vial away, she suddenly felt an odd sense of vertigo. She wasn't accustomed to jumping during the day. It was strange to see the ground coming at her, strange not to have a mistcloak flapping behind her, strange not to have the mist. . .. The lead rider lowered his bow, taking sight at Breeze. Neither appeared to have noticed Vin, swooping down like a bird of prey above. Well, not exactly swooping. Plummeting. Suddenly snapped back to the moment, Vin burned pewter and threw a coin toward the quickly approaching ground. She Pushed against the coin, using it to slow her momentum and to nudge her to the side. She hit right between Breeze and the archers, landing with a jarring crash, throwing up dust and dirt. The archer released his arrow. Even as Vin rebounded, dirt spraying around her, she reached out and Pushed herself back into the air straight at the arrow. Then she Pushed against it. The arrowhead ripped backward—throwing out shards of wood as it split its own shaft in midair—then smacked directly into the forehead of the archer who had released it. The man toppled from his mount. Vin landed from her rebound. She reached out, Pushing against the horseshoes of the two beasts behind the leader, causing the animals to stumble. The Push threw Vin backward into the air, and cries of equine pain sounded amid the crash of bodies hitting the ground. Vin continued to Push, flying along the road just a few feet above the ground, quickly catching up with Breeze. The portly man turned in shock, obviously stunned to find Vin hanging in the air beside his galloping horse, her clothing flapping in the wind of her passage. She winked at him, then reached out and Pulled against the armor of another rider. She immediately lurched
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in the air. Her body protested the sudden shift in momentum, but she ignored the twist of pain. The man she Pulled against managed to stay in his saddle—until Vin smashed into him feet-first, throwing him backward. She landed on the black earth, the rider tumbling to the ground beside her. A short distance away, the remaining riders finally reined in their mounts, coming to an abrupt stop a few feet away. Kelsier probably would have attacked. There were a lot of them, true, but they were wearing armor and their horses were shod. Vin, however, was not Kelsier. She had delayed the riders long enough for Breeze to get away. That was enough. Vin reached out and Pushed against one of the soldiers, throwing herself backward, leaving the riders to gather their wounded. The soldiers, however, promptly pulled out stone-tipped arrows and nocked their bows. Vin hissed in frustration as the group took sight. Well, friends, she thought, I suggest that you hang on tightly. She Pushed slightly against them all, then burned duralumin. The sudden crash of force was expected—the wrench in her chest, the massive flare in her stomach, the howling wind. What she didn't expect was the effect she'd have on her anchors. The blast of power scattered men and horses, throwing them into the air like leaves in the wind. I'm going to have to be very careful with this, Vin thought, gritting her teeth and spinning herself in the air. Her steel and pewter were gone again, and she was forced to down her last metal vial. She'd have to start carrying more of those. She hit the ground running, pewter keeping her from tripping despite her terrific speed. She slowed just slightly, letting the mounted Breeze catch up to her, then increased her pace to keep up with him. She dashed like a sprinter, letting pewter's strength and balance keep her upright as she paced the tiring horse. The beast eyed her as they ran, seeming to display a hint of animal frustration to see a human matching it. They reached the city a few moments later. Breeze reined in as the doors to Iron Gate began to open, but, rather than wait, Vin simply threw down a coin and Pushed, letting her forward momentum carry her toward the walls. As the gates swung open, she Pushed against their studs, and this second Push sent her sailing straight up. She just barely crested the battlements—passing between a pair of startled soldiers—before dropping over the other side. She landed in the courtyard, steadying herself with one hand against the cool stones, as Breeze entered through the gate. Vin stood. Breeze patted his forehead with a handkerchief as he trotted his animal up beside her. He'd let his hair grow longer since she'd last seen him, and he kept it slicked back, its lower edges tickling his collar. It wasn't graying yet, though he was in his mid-forties. He wore no hat—it had probably blown free—but he had on one of his rich suits and silken vests.
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They were powdered with black ash from his hurried ride. "Ah, Vin, my dear," Breeze said, breathing almost as deeply as his horse. "I must say, that was a timely arrival on your part. Impressively flamboyant as well. I do hate to force a rescue—but, well, if one is necessary, then it might as well happen with style." Vin smiled as he climbed down from the horse—proving he was hardly the most adroit man in the square—and stablehands arrived to care for the beast. Breeze wiped his brow again as Elend, Clubs, and OreSeur scrambled down the steps to the courtyard. One of the aides must have finally found Ham, for he ran up through the courtyard. "Breeze!" Elend said, approaching and clasping arms with the shorter man. "Your Majesty," Breeze said. "You are in good health and good humor, I assume?" "Health, yes," Elend said. "Humor. . .well, there is an army crouching just outside my city." "Two armies, actually," Clubs grumbled as he hobbled up. Breeze folded up his handkerchief. "Ah, and dear Master Cladent. Optimistic as always, I see." Clubs snorted. To the side, OreSeur padded up to sit next to Vin. "And Hammond," Breeze said, eyeing Ham, who was smiling broadly. "I'd almost managed to delude myself into forgetting that you would be here when I returned." "Admit it," Ham said. "You're glad to see me." "See you, perhaps. Hear you, never. I had grown quite fond of my time spent away from your perpetual, pseudo-philosophical pratterings." Ham just smiled a little broader. "I'm glad to see you, Breeze," Elend said. "But your timing could have been a little better. I was hoping that you would be able to stop some of these armies from marching on us." "Stop them?" Breeze asked. "Now, why would I want to do that, my dear man? I did, after all, just spend three months working to get Cett to march his army down here." Elend paused, and Vin frowned to herself, standing just outside the group. Breeze looked rather pleased with himself—though that was, admittedly, rather common for him. "So. . .Lord Cett's on our side?" Elend asked hopefully. "Of course not," Breeze said. "He's here to ravage the city and steal your presumed atium supply." "You," Vin said. "You're the one who has been spreading the rumors about the Lord Ruler's atium stash, aren't you?" "Of course," Breeze said, eyeing Spook as the boy finally arrived at the gates. Elend frowned. "But. . .why?" "Look outside your walls, my dear man," Breeze said. "I knew that your father was going to march on Luthadel eventually—even my powers of persuasion wouldn't have been enough to dissuade him. So, I began spreading rumors in the Western Dominance, then made myself one of Lord Cett's advisors." Clubs grunted. "Good plan. Crazy, but good." "Crazy?" Breeze said. "My mental stability is no issue here, Clubs. The move was not crazy, but brilliant." Elend looked confused. "Not to insult your brilliance, Breeze. But. . .how exactly is bringing a hostile army to our city a
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good idea?" "It's basic negotiating strategy, my good man," Breeze explained as a packman handed him his dueling cane, taken off the horse. Breeze used it to gesture westward, toward Lord Cett's army. "When there are only two participants in a negotiation, one is generally stronger than the other. That makes things very difficult for the weaker party—which, in this case, would have been us." "Yes," Elend said, "but with three armies, we're still the weakest." "Ah," Breeze said, holding up the cane, "but those other two parties are fairly even in strength. Straff is likely stronger, but Cett has a very large force. If either of those warlords risks attacking Luthadel, his army will suffer losses—enough losses that he won't be able to defend himself from the third army. To attack us is to expose oneself." "And that makes this a standoff," Clubs said. "Exactly," Breeze said. "Trust me, Elend my boy. In this case, two large, enemy armies are far better than a single large, enemy army. In a three-way negotiation, the weakest party actually has the most power—because his allegiance added to either of the other two will choose the eventual winner." Elend frowned. "Breeze, we don't want to give our allegiance to either of these men." "I realize that," Breeze said. "However, our opponents do not. By bringing a second army in, I've given us time to think. Both warlords thought they could get here first. Now that they've arrived at the same time, they'll have to reevaluate. I'm guessing we'll end up in an extended siege. A couple of months at least." "That doesn't explain how we're going to get rid of them," Elend said. Breeze shrugged. "I got them here—you get to decide what to do with them. And I'll tell you, it was no easy task to make Cett arrive on time. He was due to come in a full five days before Venture. Fortunately, a certain. . .malady spread through camp a few days ago. Apparently, someone poisoned the main water supply and gave the entire camp diarrhea." Spook, standing behind Clubs, snickered. "Yes," Breeze said, eyeing the boy. "I thought you might appreciate that. You still an unintelligible nuisance, boy?" "Wassing the where of not," Spook said, smiling and slipping back into his Eastern street slang. Breeze snorted. "You still make more sense than Hammond, half the time," he mumbled, turning to Elend. "So, isn't anyone going to send for a carriage to drive me back to the palace? I've been Soothing you ungrateful lot for the better part of five minutes—looking as tired and pathetic as I can—and not one of you has had the good graces to pity me!" "You must be losing your touch," Vin said with a smile. Breeze was a Soother—an Allomancer who could burn brass to calm another person's emotions. A very skilled Soother—and Vin knew of none more skilled than Breeze—could dampen all of a person's emotions but a single one, effectively making them feel exactly as he wanted. "Actually," Elend said, turning and looking back
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up at the wall, "I was hoping we could go back up on the wall and study the armies some more. If you spent time with Lord Cett's force, then you could probably tell us a lot about it." "I can; I will; I am not going to climb those steps. Can't you see how tired I am, man?" Ham snorted, clapping Breeze on the shoulder—and throwing up a puff of dust. "How can you be tired? Your poor horse did all the running." "It was emotionally exhausting, Hammond," Breeze said, rapping the larger man's hand with his cane. "My departure was somewhat disagreeable." "What happened, anyway?" Vin asked. "Did Cett find out you were a spy?" Breeze looked embarrassed. "Let's just say that Lord Cett and I had a. . .falling-out." "Caught you in bed with his daughter, eh?" Ham said, earning a chuckle from the group. Breeze was anything but a ladies' man. Despite his ability to play with emotions, he had expressed no interest in romance for as long as Vin had known him. Dockson had once noted that Breeze was just too focused on himself to consider such things. Breeze simply rolled his eyes at Ham's comment. "Honestly, Hammond. I think your jokes are getting worse as you age. One too many hits on the head while sparring, I suspect." Ham smiled, and Elend sent for a couple of carriages. While they waited, Breeze launched into a narrative of his travels. Vin glanced down at OreSeur. She still hadn't found a good opportunity to tell the rest of the crew about the body change. Perhaps now that Breeze was back, Elend would hold a conference with his inner circle. That would be a good time. She had to be quiet about it, since she wanted the palace staff to think that she'd sent OreSeur away. Breeze continued his story, and Vin looked back at him, smiling. Not only was Breeze a natural orator, but he had a very subtle touch with Allomancy. She could barely feel his fingers on her emotions. Once, she had found his intrusions offensive, but she was growing to understand that touching people's emotions was simply part of who Breeze was. Just as a beautiful woman demanded attention by virtue of her face and figure, Breeze drew it by near unconscious use of his powers. Of course, that didn't make him any less a scoundrel. Getting others to do as he wished was one of Breeze's main occupations. Vin just no longer resented him for using Allomancy to do it. The carriage finally approached, and Breeze sighed in relief. As the vehicle pulled up, he eyed Vin, then nodded toward OreSeur. "What's that?" "A dog," Vin said. "Ah, blunt as ever, I see," Breeze said. "And, why is it that you now have a dog?" "I gave it to her," Elend said. "She wanted one, so I bought it for her." "And you chose a wolfhound?" Ham asked, amused. "You've fought with her before, Ham," Elend said, laughing. "What would you have given her?
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A poodle?" Ham chuckled. "No, I guess not. It fits, actually." "Though it's almost as big as she is," Clubs added, regarding her with a squinty-eyed look. Vin reached down, resting her hand on OreSeur's head. Clubs did have a point; she'd chosen a big animal, even for a wolfhound. He stood over three feet tall at the shoulder—and Vin knew from experience how heavy that body was. "Remarkably well-behaved for a wolfhound," Ham said, nodding. "You chose well, El." "Regardless," Breeze said. "Can we please return to the palace? Armies and wolfhounds are all well and good, but I believe supper is more pressing at this point." "So, why didn't we tell them about OreSeur?" Elend asked, as their carriage bumped its way back toward Keep Venture. The three of them had taken a carriage of their own, leaving the other four to follow in the other vehicle. Vin shrugged. OreSeur sat on the seat across from her and Elend, quietly watching the conversation. "I'll tell them eventually," Vin said. "A busy city square didn't seem the right place for the revelation." Elend smiled. "Keeping secrets is a hard habit to break, eh?" Vin flushed. "I'm not keeping him secret, I'm just. . ." She trailed off, looking down. "Don't feel bad, Vin," Elend said. "You lived a long time on your own, without anyone to trust. Nobody expects you to change overnight." "It hasn't been one night, Elend," she said. "It's been two years." Elend laid a hand on her knee. "You're getting better. The others talk about how much you've changed." Vin nodded. Another man would be afraid that I'm keeping secrets from him, too. Elend just tries to make me feel less guilty. He was a better man than she deserved. "Kandra," Elend said, "Vin says you do well at keeping up with her." "Yes, Your Majesty," OreSeur said. "These bones, though distasteful, are well equipped for tracking and quick movement." "And if she gets hurt?" Elend said. "Will you be able to pull her to safety?" "Not with any speed, Your Majesty. I will, however, be able to go for aid. These bones have many limitations, but I will do my best to fulfill the Contract." Elend must have caught Vin's raised eyebrow, for he chuckled. "He'll do as he says, Vin." "The Contract is everything, Mistress," OreSeur said. "It demands more than simple service. It requires diligence and devotion. It is the kandra. By serving it, we serve our people." Vin shrugged. The group fell silent, Elend pulling a book from his pocket, Vin leaning against him. OreSeur lay down, filling the entire seat opposite the humans. Eventually, the carriage rolled into the Venture courtyard, and Vin found herself looking forward to a warm bath. As they were climbing from the carriage, however, a guard rushed up to Elend. Tin allowed Vin to hear what the man said, even though he spoke before she could close the distance. "Your Majesty," the guard whispered, "our messenger reached you, then?" "No," Elend said with a frown as Vin
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walked over. The soldier gave her a look, but continued speaking; the soldiers all knew that Vin was Elend's primary bodyguard and confidant. Still, the man looked oddly concerned when he saw her. "We. . .ah, don't want to be intrusive," the soldier said. "That's why we've kept this quiet. We were just wondering if. . .everything is all right." He looked at Vin as he spoke. "What is this about?" Elend asked. The guard turned back toward the king. "The corpse in Lady Vin's room." The "corpse" was actually a skeleton. One completely picked clean, without a hint of blood—or even tissue—marring its shiny white surfaces. A good number of the bones were broken, however. "I'm sorry, Mistress," OreSeur said, speaking low enough that only she could hear. "I assumed that you were going to dispose of these." Vin nodded. The skeleton was, of course, the one OreSeur had been using before she gave him the animal body. Finding the door unlocked—Vin's usual sign that she wanted a room cleaned—the maids had entered. Vin had stashed the bones in a basket, intending to deal with them later. Apparently, the maids had decided to check and see what was in the basket, and been somewhat surprised. "It's all right, Captain," Elend said to the young guard—Captain Demoux, second-in-command of the palace guard. Despite the fact that Ham shunned uniforms, this man seemed to take great pride in keeping his own uniform very neat and smart. "You did well by keeping this quiet," Elend said. "We knew about these bones already. They aren't a reason for concern." Demoux nodded. "We figured it was something intentional." He didn't look at Vin as he spoke. Intentional, Vin thought. Great. I wonder what this man thinks I did. Few skaa knew what kandra were, and Demoux wouldn't know what to make of remains like these. "Could you dispose of these quietly for me, Captain?" Elend asked, nodding to the bones. "Of course, Your Majesty," the guard said. He probably assumes I ate the person or something, Vin thought with a sigh. Sucked the flesh right off his bones. Which, actually, wasn't that far from the truth. "Your Majesty," Demoux said. "Would you like us to dispose of the other body as well?" Vin froze. "Other one?" Elend asked slowly. The guard nodded. "When we found this skeleton, we brought in some dogs to sniff about. The dogs didn't turn up any killers, but they did find another body. Just like this one—a set of bones, completely cleaned of flesh." Vin and Elend shared a look. "Show us," Elend said. Demoux nodded, and led them out of the room, giving a few whispered orders to one of his men. The four of them—three humans and one kandra—traveled a short distance down the palace hallway, toward a less used section of visitors' chambers. Demoux dismissed a soldier standing at a particular door, then led them inside. "This body wasn't in a basket, Your Majesty," Demoux said. "It was stuffed in a back closet. We'd probably never have found
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it without the dogs—they picked up the scent pretty easily, though I can't see how. These corpses are completely clean of flesh." And there it was. Another skeleton, like the first, sitting piled beside a bureau. Elend glanced at Vin, then turned to Demoux. "Would you excuse us, Captain?" The young guard nodded, walking from the room and closing the door. "Well?" Elend said, turning to OreSeur. "I do not know where this came from," the kandra said. "But it is another kandra-eaten corpse," Vin said. "Undoubtedly, Mistress," OreSeur said. "The dogs found it because of the particular scent our digestive juices leave on recently excreted bones." Elend and Vin shared a look. "However," OreSeur said, "it is probably not what you think. This man was probably killed far from here." "What do you mean?" "They are discarded bones, Your Majesty," OreSeur said. "The bones a kandra leaves behind. . ." "After he finds a new body," Vin finished. "Yes, Mistress," OreSeur said. Vin looked at Elend, who frowned. "How long ago?" he asked. "Maybe the bones were left a year before, by my father's kandra." "Perhaps, Your Majesty," OreSeur said. But he sounded hesitant. He padded over, sniffing at the bones. Vin picked one up herself, holding it to her nose. With tin, she easily picked out a sharp scent that reminded her of bile. "It's very strong," she said, glancing at OreSeur. He nodded. "These bones haven't been here long, Your Majesty. A few hours at most. Perhaps even less." "Which means we have another kandra somewhere in the palace," Elend said, looking a bit sick. "One of my staff has been. . .eaten and replaced." "Yes, Your Majesty," OreSeur said. "There is no way to tell from these bones whom it could be, since these are the discards. The kandra would have taken the new bones, eating their flesh and wearing their clothing." Elend nodded, standing. He met Vin's eyes, and she knew he was thinking the same thing she was. It was possible that a member of the palace staff had been replaced, which would mean a slight breach in security. There was a far more dangerous possibility, however. Kandra were incomparable actors; OreSeur had imitated Lord Renoux so perfectly that even people who'd known him had been fooled. Such talent could have been used for the imitation of a maid or a servant. However, if an enemy had wanted to get a spy into Elend's closed meetings, he would need to replace a person far more important. It would be someone that we haven't seen during the last few hours, Vin thought, dropping the bone. She, Elend, and OreSeur had been on the wall for most of the afternoon and evening—ever since the end of the Assembly meeting—but the city and palace had been in chaos since the second army had arrived. The messengers had had trouble finding Ham, and she still wasn't certain where Dockson was. In fact, she hadn't seen Clubs until he'd joined her and Elend on the wall just a bit before. And
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Spook had been the last to arrive. Vin looked down at the pile of bones, feeling a sickening sense of unease. There was a very good chance that someone in their core team—a member of Kelsier's former band—was now an impostor. It wasn't until years later that I became convinced that Alendi was the Hero of Ages. Hero of Ages: the one called Rabzeen in Khlennium, the Anamnesor. Savior. A FORTRESS SAT IN THE misty murk of evening. It rested at the bottom of a large depression in the land. The steep-sided, craterlike valley was so wide that even in daylight Sazed would barely have been able to see the other side. In the oncoming darkness, obscured by mist, the far edge of the massive hole was only a deep shadow. Sazed knew very little about tactics and strategy; though his metalminds held dozens of books on the subjects, he had forgotten their contents in order to create the stored records. The little he did know told him that this fortress—the Conventical of Seran—was not very defensible. It relinquished the high ground, and the crater sides would provide an excellent location for siege engines to pelt rocks down at the walls. This fortress, however, had not been built to defend against enemy soldiers. It had been built to provide solitude. The crater made it difficult to find, for a slight rise in the land around the crater's lip made it practically invisible until one drew near. No roads or paths marked the way, and travelers would have great trouble getting down the sheer sides. The Inquisitors did not want visitors. "Well?" Marsh asked. He and Sazed stood on the crater's northern lip, before a drop of several hundred feet. Sazed tapped his vision tinmind, drawing forth some of the eyesight he had stored within it. The edges of his vision fuzzed, but things directly in front of him seemed to grow much closer. He tapped a little more sight, ignoring the nausea that came from compounding so much vision. The increased eyesight let him study the Conventical as if he stood before it. He could see each notch in the dark stone walls—flat, broad, imposing. He could discern each bit of rust on the large steel plates that hung bolted into outside stones of the wall. He could see each lichen-encrusted corner and ash-stained ledge. There were no windows. "I do not know," Sazed said slowly, releasing his vision tinmind. "It is not easy to say whether or not the fortress is inhabited. There is no motion, nor is there light. But, perhaps the Inquisitors are just hiding inside." "No," Marsh said, his stiff voice uncomfortably loud in the evening air. "They are gone." "Why would they leave? This is a place of great strength, I think. Poor defense against an army, but a great defense against the chaos of the times." Marsh shook his head. "They are gone." "How are you so certain?" "I do not know." "Where did they go, then?" Marsh looked at him, then turned and glanced over
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his shoulder. "North." "Toward Luthadel?" Sazed asked, frowning. "Among other things," Marsh said. "Come. I do not know if they will return, but we should exploit this opportunity." Sazed nodded. This was why they had come, after all. Still, a part of him hesitated. He was a man of books and genteel service. Traveling the countryside to visit villages was enough removed from his experience to be discomforting. Infiltrating the Inquisitor stronghold. . . Marsh obviously didn't care about his companion's inner struggles. The Inquisitor turned and began to walk along the rim of the crater. Sazed threw his pack over his shoulder, then followed. They eventually arrived at a cage-like contraption, obviously meant to be lowered down to the bottom by ropes and pulleys. The cage sat locked in place at the top ledge, and Marsh stopped at its side, but did not enter. "What?" Sazed asked. "The pulley system," Marsh said. "The cage is meant to be lowered by men holding it from below." Sazed nodded, realizing this was true. Marsh stepped forward and threw a lever. The cage fell. Ropes began to smoke, and pulleys squealed as the massive cage plummeted toward the chasm floor. A muted crash echoed against the rocks. If there is anyone down there, Sazed thought, they now know we're here. Marsh turned toward him, the heads of his eye-spikes glistening slightly in the failing sunlight. "Follow however you wish," he said. Then, he tied off the counterrope and began to climb down the ropes. Sazed stepped up to the platform's edge, watching Marsh shimmy down the dangling rope into the shadowed, misty abyss. Then, Sazed knelt and opened his pack. He unhooked the large metal bracers around his upper and lower arms—his core copperminds. They contained the memories of a Keeper, the stored knowledge of centuries past. He reverently placed them to the side, then pulled a pair of much smaller bracelets—one iron, one pewter—from the pack. Metalminds for a warrior. Did Marsh understand how unskilled Sazed was in this area? Amazing strength did not a warrior make. Regardless, Sazed snapped the two bracelets around his ankles. Next, he pulled out two rings—tin and copper. These he slipped on his fingers. He closed the pack and threw it over his shoulder, then picked up his core copperminds. He carefully located a good hiding place—a secluded hollow between two boulders—and slid them inside. Whatever happened below, he didn't want to risk them being taken and destroyed by the Inquisitors. In order to fill a coppermind with memories, Sazed had listened to another Keeper recite his entire collection of histories, facts, and stories. Sazed had memorized each sentence, then shoved those memories into the coppermind for later retrieval. Sazed remembered very little of the actual experience—but he could draw forth any of the books or essays he wished, placing them back into his mind, gaining the ability to recollect them as crisply as when he'd first memorized them. He just had to have the bracers on. Being without his copperminds made him anxious. He shook his
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head, walking back over to the platform. Marsh was moving very quickly down toward the chasm floor; like all Inquisitors, he had the powers of a Mistborn. Though how he had gotten those powers—and how he managed to live despite the spikes that had been driven directly through his brain—was a mystery. Marsh had never answered Sazed's questions on the subject. Sazed called down, drawing Marsh's attention, then held up his pack and dropped it. Marsh reached out, and the pack lurched, Pulled by its metals into Marsh's hand. The Inquisitor threw it over his shoulder before continuing his descent. Sazed nodded thankfully, then stepped off the platform. As he began to fall, he mentally reached into his ironmind, searching for the power he had stored therein. Filling a metalmind always had a cost: in order to store up sight, Sazed had been forced to spend weeks with poor eyesight. During that time, he had worn a tin bracelet, stowing away the excess sight for later use. Iron was a bit different from the others. It didn't store up sight, strength, endurance—or even memories. It stored something completely different: weight. This day, Sazed didn't tap the power stored inside the ironmind; that would have made him more heavy. Instead, he began to fill the ironmind, letting it suck away his weight. He felt a familiar sense of lightness—a sense that his own body wasn't pressing upon itself as forcefully. His fall slowed. The Terris philosophers had much to say on using an ironmind. They explained that the power didn't actually change a person's bulk or size—it just somehow changed the way that the ground pulled against them. Sazed's fall didn't slow because of his decrease in weight—it slowed because he suddenly had a relatively large amount of surface exposed to the wind of his fall, and a lighter body to go along with it. Regardless of the scientific reasons, Sazed didn't fall as quickly. The thin metal bracelets on his legs were the heaviest things on his body, and they kept him pointed feet-downward. He held out his arms and bent his body slightly, letting the wind push against him. His descent was not terribly slow—not like that of a leaf or a feather. However, he didn't plummet either. Instead, he fell in a controlled—almost leisurely—manner. Clothing flapping, arms outspread, he passed Marsh, who watched with a curious expression. As he approached the ground, Sazed tapped his pewtermind, drawing forth a tiny bit of strength to prepare. He hit the ground—but, because his body was so light, there was very little shock. He barely even needed to bend his knees to absorb the force of impact. He stopped filling the ironmind, released his pewter, and waited quietly for Marsh. Beside him, the carrying cage lay in shambles. Sazed noticed several broken iron shackles with discomfort. Apparently, some of those who had visited the Conventical had not come by choice. By the time Marsh neared the bottom, the mists were thick in the air. Sazed had lived with them all of his life,
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and had never before felt uncomfortable in them. Yet, now he half expected the mists to begin choking him. To kill him, as they seemed to have done to old Jed, the unfortunate farmer whose death Sazed had investigated. Marsh dropped the last ten feet or so, landing with an Allomancer's increased agility. Even after spending so much time with Mistborn, Sazed was impressed with Allomancy's gifts. Of course, he'd never been jealous of them—not really. True, Allomancy was better in a fight; but it could not expand the mind, giving one access to the dreams, hopes, and beliefs of a thousand years of culture. It could not give the knowledge to treat a wound, or help teach a poor village to use modern fertilization techniques. The metalminds of Feruchemy weren't flamboyant, but they had a far more lasting value to society. Besides, Sazed knew a few tricks with Feruchemy that were bound to surprise even the most prepared warrior. Marsh handed him the pack. "Come." Sazed nodded, shouldering the pack and following the Inquisitor across the rocky ground. Walking next to Marsh was odd, for Sazed wasn't accustomed to being around people who were as tall as he was. Terrismen were tall by nature, and Sazed even more so: his arms and legs were a bit too long for his body, a medical condition brought on by his having been castrated as a very young boy. Though the Lord Ruler was dead, Terris culture would long feel the effects of his stewardship and breeding programs—the methods by which he had tried to breed Feruchemical powers out of the Terris people. The Conventical of Seran loomed in the darkness, looking even more ominous now that Sazed stood within the crater. Marsh strode right up to the front doors, and Sazed followed behind. He wasn't afraid, not really. Fear had never been a strong motivator in Sazed's life. However, he did worry. There were so few Keepers left; if he died, that was one fewer person who could travel, restoring lost truths and teaching the people. Not that I'm doing such at the moment anyway. . .. Marsh regarded the massive steel doors. Then he threw his weight against one, obviously burning pewter to enhance his strength. Sazed joined him, pushing hard. The door did not budge. Regretting the expenditure of power, Sazed reached into his pewtermind and tapped strength. He used far more than he had when landing, and his muscles immediately increased in size. Unlike Allomancy, Feruchemy often had direct effects on a person's body. Beneath his robes, Sazed gained the bulk and build of a lifetime warrior, easily becoming twice as strong as he had been a moment earlier. With their combined effort, the two of them managed to push the door open. It did not creak. It slid slowly, but evenly, inward, exposing a long, dark hallway. Sazed released his pewtermind, reverting to his normal self. Marsh strode into the Conventical, his feet kicking up the mist that had begun to pour through the open doorway. "Marsh?" Sazed asked.
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The Inquisitor turned. "I won't be able to see inside there." "Your Feruchemy. . ." Sazed shook his head. "It can let me see better in darkness, but only if there's some light to begin with. In addition, tapping that much sight would drain my tinmind in a matter of minutes. I'll need a lantern." Marsh paused, then nodded. He turned into the darkness, quickly disappearing from Sazed's view. So, Sazed thought, Inquisitors don't need light to see. It was to be expected: the spikes filled Marsh's entire sockets, completely destroying the eyeballs. Whatever strange power allowed Inquisitors to see, it apparently worked just as well in pure darkness as it did in daylight. Marsh returned a few moments later, carrying a lamp. From the chains Sazed had seen on the descent cage, Sazed suspected that the Inquisitors had kept a sizable group of slaves and servants to attend their needs. If that was the case, where had the people gone? Had they fled? Sazed lit the lamp with a flint from his pack. The lamp's ghostly light illuminated a stark, daunting hallway. He stepped into the Conventical, holding the lamp high, and began to fill the small copper ring on his finger, the process transforming it into a coppermind. "Large rooms," he whispered, "without adornment." He didn't really need to say the words, but he'd found that speaking helped him form distinct memories. He could then place them into the coppermind. "The Inquisitors, obviously, had a fondness for steel," he continued. "This is not surprising, considering that their religion was often referred to as the Steel Ministry. The walls are hung with massive steel plates, which bear no rust, unlike the ones outside. Many of those here are not completely smooth, but instead crafted with some interesting patterns etched. . .almost buffed. . .into their surfaces." Marsh frowned, turning toward him. "What are you doing?" Sazed held up his right hand, showing the copper ring. "I must make an account of this visit. I will need to repeat this experience back to other Keepers when the opportunity presents itself. There is much to be learned from this place, I think." Marsh turned away. "You should not care about the Inquisitors. They are not worthy of your record." "It isn't a matter of worthiness, Marsh," Sazed said, holding up his lamp to study a square pillar. "Knowledge of all religions is valuable. I must make certain these things persist." Sazed regarded the pillar for a moment, then closed his eyes and formed an image of it inside his head, which he then added to the coppermind. Visual memories, however, were less useful than spoken words. Visualizations faded very quickly once taken out of a coppermind, suffering from the mind's distortion. Plus, they could not be passed to other Keepers. Marsh didn't respond to Sazed's comment about religion; he just turned and walked deeper into the building. Sazed followed at a slower pace, speaking to himself, recording the words in his coppermind. It was an interesting experience. As soon as he spoke, he
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felt the thoughts sucked from his mind, leaving behind a blank hollowness. He had difficulty remembering the specifics of what he had just been saying. However, once he was done filling his coppermind, he would be able to tap those memories later and know them with crisp clarity. "The room is tall," he said. "There are a few pillars, and they are also wrapped in steel. They are blocky and square, rather than round. I get a sense that this place was created by a people who cared little for subtlety. They ignored small details in favor of broad lines and full geometries. "As we move beyond the main entryway, this architectural theme continues. There are no paintings on the walls, nor are there wooden adornments or tile floors. Instead, there are only the long, broad hallways with their harsh lines and reflective surfaces. The floor is constructed of steel squares, each a few feet across. They are. . .cold to the touch. "It is strange not to see the tapestries, stained-glass windows, and sculpted stones that are so common in Luthadel's architecture. There are no spires or vaultings here. Just squares and rectangles. Lines. . .so many lines. Nothing here is soft. No carpet, no rugs, no windows. It is a place for people who see the world differently from ordinary men. "Marsh walked straight down this massive hallway, as if oblivious to its decor. I will follow him, then come back to record more later. He seems to be following something. . .something I cannot sense. Perhaps it is. . ." Sazed trailed off as he stepped around a bend and saw Marsh standing in the doorway of a large chamber. The lamplight flickered unevenly as Sazed's arm quivered. Marsh had found the servants. They had been dead long enough that Sazed hadn't noticed the scent until he had come close. Perhaps that was what Marsh had been following; the senses of a man burning tin could be quite acute. The Inquisitors had done their work thoroughly. These were the remnants of a slaughter. The room was large, but had only one exit, and the bodies were piled high near the back, killed by what looked like harsh sword or axe strokes. The servants had huddled up against the back wall as they died. Sazed turned away. Marsh, however, remained in the doorway. "There is a bad air about this place," he finally said. "You have only just noticed that?" Sazed asked. Marsh turned, glancing at him, demanding his gaze. "We should not spend much time here. There are stairs at the end of the hallway behind us. I will go up—that is where the Inquisitors' quarters will be. If the information I seek is here, I will find it there. You may stay, or you may descend. However, do not follow me." Sazed frowned. "Why?" "I must be alone here. I cannot explain it. I do not care if you witness Inquisitor atrocities. I just. . .do not wish to be with you when you do." Sazed lowered his
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lamp, turning its light away from the horrific scene. "Very well." Marsh turned, brushing past Sazed and disappearing into the dark hallway. And Sazed was alone. He tried not to think about that very much. He returned to the main hallway, describing the slaughter to his coppermind before giving a more detailed explanation of the architecture and the art—if, indeed, that was what the different patterns on the wall plates could be called. As he worked—his voice echoing quietly against the rigid architecture, his lamp a weak drop of light reflected in steel—his eyes were drawn toward the back of the hallway. There was a pool of darkness there. A stairwell, leading down. Even as he turned back to his description of one of the wall mounts, he knew that he would eventually find himself walking toward that darkness. It was the same as ever—the curiosity, the need to understand the unknown. This sense had driven him as a Keeper, had led him to Kelsier's company. His search for truths could never be completed, but neither could it be ignored. So, he eventually turned and approached the stairwell, his own whispering voice his only companion. "The stairs are akin to what I saw in the hallway. They are broad and expansive, like the steps leading up to a temple or palace. Except, these go down, into darkness. They are large, likely cut from stone and then lined with steel. They are tall, meant for a determined stride. "As I walk, I wonder what secrets the Inquisitors deemed worthy of hiding below the earth, in the basement of their stronghold. This entire building is a secret. What did they do here, in these massive hallways and open, empty rooms? "The stairwell ends in another large, square room. I've noticed something—there are no doors in the doorways here. Each room is open, visible to those outside. As I walk, peeking into the rooms beneath the earth, I find cavernous chambers with few furnishings. No libraries, no lounges. Several contain large metal blocks that could be altars. "There is. . .something different here in this last room, at the back of the main landing. I'm not certain what to make of it. A torture chamber, perhaps? There are tables—metal tables—set into the floor. They are bloody, though there are no corpses. Blood flakes and powders at my feet—a lot of men have died in this room, I think. There don't appear to be torture implements beyond. . . "Spikes. Like the ones in Inquisitor eyes. Massive, heavy things—like the spikes one might pound into the ground with a very large mallet. Some are tipped with blood, though I don't think I'll handle those. These other ones. . .yes, they look indistinguishable from the ones in Marsh's eyes. Yet, some are of different metals." Sazed set the spike down on a table, metal clinking against metal. He shivered, scanning the room again. A place to make new Inquisitors, perhaps? He had a sudden horrific vision of the creatures—once only several dozen in number—having swelled their ranks
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during their months sequestered in the Conventical. But that didn't seem right. They were a secretive, exclusive bunch. Where would they have found enough men worthy of joining their ranks? Why not make Inquisitors from the servants above, rather than just killing them? Sazed had always suspected that a man had to be an Allomancer to be changed into an Inquisitor. Marsh's own experience substantiated that premise: Marsh had been a Seeker, a man who could burn bronze, before his transformation. Sazed looked again at the blood, the spikes, and the tables, and decided he wasn't certain that he wanted to know how one made a new Inquisitor. Sazed was about to leave the room when his lamp revealed something at the back. Another doorway. He moved forward, trying to ignore the dried blood at his feet, and entered a chamber that didn't seem to match the rest of the Conventical's daunting architecture. It was cut directly into the stone, and it twisted down into a very small stairwell. Curious, Sazed walked down the set of worn stone steps. For the first time since entering the building, he felt cramped, and he had to stoop as he reached the bottom of the stairwell and entered a small chamber. He stood up straight, and held up his lamp to reveal. . . A wall. The room ended abruptly, and his light sparkled off the wall. It held a steel plate, like those above. This one was a good five feet across, and nearly as tall. And it bore writing. Suddenly interested, Sazed set down his pack and stepped forward, raising his lamp to read the top words on the wall. The text was in Terris. It was an old dialect, certainly, but one that Sazed could make out even without his language coppermind. His hand trembled as he read the words. I write these words in steel, for anything not set in metal cannot be trusted. I have begun to wonder if I am the only sane man remaining. Can the others not see? They have been waiting so long for their hero to come—the one spoken of in Terris prophecies—that they quickly jump between conclusions, presuming that each story and legend applies to this one man. My brethren ignore the other facts. They cannot connect the other strange things that are happening. They are deaf to my objections and blind to my discoveries. Perhaps they are right. Perhaps I am mad, or jealous, or simply daft. My name is Kwaan. Philosopher, scholar, traitor. I am the one who discovered Alendi, and I am the one who first proclaimed him to be the Hero of Ages. I am the one who started this all. And I am the one who betrayed him, for I now know that he must never be allowed to complete his quest. "Sazed." Sazed jumped, nearly dropping the lamp. Marsh stood in the doorway behind him. Imperious, discomforting, and so dark. He fit this place, with its lines and hardness. "The upstairs quarters are empty," Marsh said. "This trip
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has been a waste—my brethren took anything of use with them." "Not a waste, Marsh," Sazed said, turning back to the plate of text. He hadn't read all of it; he hadn't even gotten close. The script was written in a tight, cramped hand, its etchings coating the wall. The steel had preserved the words despite their obvious age. Sazed's heart beat a little faster. This was a fragment of text from before the Lord Ruler's reign. A fragment written by a Terris philosopher—a holy man. Despite ten centuries of searching, the Keepers had never fulfilled the original goal of their creation: they had never discovered their own Terris religion. The Lord Ruler had squelched Terris religious teachings soon after his rise to power. His persecution of the Terris people—his own people—had been the most complete of his long reign, and the Keepers had never found more than vague fragments regarding what their own people had once believed. "I have to copy this down, Marsh," Sazed said, reaching for his pack. Taking a visual memory wouldn't work—no man could stare at a wall of so much text, then remember the words. He could, perhaps, read them into his coppermind. However, he wanted a physical record, one that perfectly preserved the structure of lines and punctuation. Marsh shook his head. "We will not stay here. I do not think we should even have come." Sazed paused, looking up. Then he pulled several large sheets of paper from his pack. "Very well, then," he said. "I'll take a rubbing. That will be better anyway, I think. It will let me see the text exactly as it was written." Marsh nodded, and Sazed got out his charcoal. This discovery. . .he thought with excitement. This will be like Rashek's logbook. We are getting close! However, even as he began the rubbing—his hands moving carefully and precisely—another thought occurred to him. With a text like this in his possession, his sense of duty would no longer let him wander the villages. He had to return to the north to share what he had found, lest he die and this text be lost. He had to go to Terris. Or. . .to Luthadel. From there he could send messages north. He had a valid excuse to get back to the center of action, to see the other crewmembers again. Why did that make him feel even more guilty? When I finally had the realization—finally connected all of the signs of the Anticipation to Alendi—I was so excited. Yet, when I announced my discovery to the other Worldbringers, I was met with scorn. Oh, how I wish that I had listened to them. MIST SWIRLED AND SPUN, LIKE monochrome paints running together on a canvas. Light died in the west, and night came of age. Vin frowned. "Does it seem like the mists are coming earlier?" "Earlier?" OreSeur asked in his muffled voice. The kandra wolfhound sat next to her on the rooftop. Vin nodded. "Before, the mists didn't start to appear until after it grew dark, right?"
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"It is dark, Mistress." "But they're already here—they started to gather when the sun was barely beginning to set." "I don't see that it matters, Mistress. Perhaps the mists are simply like other weather patterns—they vary, sometimes." "Doesn't it even seem a little strange to you?" "I will think it strange if you wish me to, Mistress," OreSeur said. "That isn't what I meant." "I apologize, Mistress," OreSeur said. "Tell me what you do mean, and I will be certain to believe as commanded." Vin sighed, rubbing her brow. I wish Sazed were back. . .she thought. It was an idle wish, however. Even if Sazed were in Luthadel, he wouldn't be her steward. The Terrismen no longer called any man master. She'd have to make do with OreSeur. The kandra, at least, could provide information that Sazed could not—assuming she could get it out of him. "We need to find the impostor," Vin said. "The one who. . .replaced someone." "Yes, Mistress," OreSeur said. Vin sat back in the mists, reclining on a slanted rooftop, resting her arms back on the tiles. "Then, I need to know more about you." "Me, Mistress?" "Kandra in general. If I'm going to find this impostor, I need to know how he thinks, need to understand his motivations." "His motivations will be simple, Mistress," OreSeur said. "He will be following his Contract." "What if he's acting without a Contract?" OreSeur shook his canine head. "Kandra always have a Contract. Without one, they are not allowed to enter human society." "Never?" Vin asked. "Never." "And what if this is some kind of rogue kandra?" Vin said. "Such a thing does not exist," OreSeur said firmly. Oh? Vin thought skeptically. However, she let the matter drop. There was little reason for a kandra to infiltrate the palace on his own; it was far more likely that one of Elend's enemies had sent the creature. One of the warlords, perhaps, or maybe the obligators. Even the other nobility in the city would have had good reason to spy on Elend. "Okay," Vin said. "The kandra is a spy, sent to gather information for another human." "Yes." "But," Vin said, "if he did take the body of someone in the palace, he didn't kill them himself. Kandra can't kill humans, right?" OreSeur nodded. "We are all bound by that rule." "So, somebody snuck into the palace, murdered a member of the staff, then had their kandra take the body." She paused, trying to work through the problem. "The most dangerous possibilities—the crewmembers—should be considered first. Fortunately, since the killing happened yesterday, we can eliminate Breeze, who was outside the city at the time." OreSeur nodded. "We can eliminate Elend as well," Vin said. "He was with us on the wall yesterday." "That still leaves the majority of the crew, Mistress." Vin frowned, sitting back. She'd tried to establish solid alibis for Ham, Dockson, Clubs, and Spook. However, all of them had had at least a few hours unaccounted for. Long enough for a kandra to digest them and take
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their place. "All right," she said. "So, how do I find the impostor? How can I tell him from other people?" OreSeur sat quietly in the mists. "There has to be a way," Vin said. "His imitation can't be perfect. Would cutting him work?" OreSeur shook his head. "Kandra replicate a body perfectly, Mistress—blood, flesh, skin, and muscle. You have seen that when I split my skin." Vin sighed, standing and stepping up on the tip of the peaked rooftop. The mists were already full, and the night was quickly becoming black. She began to walk idly back and forth on the ridge, an Allomancer's balance keeping her from falling. "Perhaps I can just see who isn't acting oddly," she said. "Are most kandra as good at imitation as you are?" "Among kandra, my own skill is average. Some are worse, others are better." "But no actor is perfect," Vin said. "Kandra don't often make mistakes, Mistress," OreSeur said. "But, this is probably your best method. Be warned, however—he could be anyone. My kind are very skilled." Vin paused. It's not Elend, she told herself forcibly. He was with me all day yesterday. Except in the morning. Too long, she decided. We were on the wall for hours, and those bones were freshly expelled. Besides, I'd know if it were him. . .wouldn't I? She shook her head. "There has to be another way. Can I spot a kandra with Allomancy somehow?" OreSeur didn't answer immediately. She turned toward him in the darkness, studying his canine face. "What?" she asked. "These are not things we speak of with outsiders." Vin sighed. "Tell me anyway." "Do you command me to speak?" "I don't really care to command you in anything." "Then I may leave?" OreSeur asked. "You do not wish to command me, so our Contract is dissolved?" "That isn't what I meant," Vin said. OreSeur frowned—a strange expression to see on a dog's face. "It would be easier for me if you would try to say what you mean, Mistress." Vin gritted her teeth. "Why is it you're so hostile?" "I'm not hostile, Mistress. I am your servant, and will do as you command. That is part of the Contract." "Sure. Are you like this with all of your masters?" "With most, I am fulfilling a specific role," OreSeur said. "I have bones to imitate—a person to become, a personality to adopt. You have given me no direction; just the bones of this. . .animal." So that's it, Vin thought. Still annoyed by the dog's body. "Look, those bones don't really change anything. You are still the same person." "You do not understand. It is not who a kandra is that's important. It's who a kandra becomes. The bones he takes, the role he fulfills. None of my previous masters have asked me to do something like this." "Well, I'm not like other masters," Vin said. "Anyway, I asked you a question. Is there a way I can spot a kandra with Allomancy? And yes, I command you to speak." A flash
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of triumph shone in OreSeur's eyes, as if he enjoyed forcing her into her role. "Kandra cannot be affected by mental Allomancy, Mistress." Vin frowned. "Not at all?" "No, Mistress," OreSeur said. "You can try to Riot or Soothe our emotions, if you wish, but it will have no effect. We won't even know that you are trying to manipulate us." Like someone who is burning copper. "That's not exactly the most useful bit of information," she said, strolling past the kandra on the roof. Allomancers couldn't read minds or emotions; when they Soothed or Rioted another person, they simply had to hope that the person reacted as intended. She could "test" for a kandra by Soothing someone's emotions, perhaps. If they didn't react, that might mean they were a kandra—but it could also just mean that they were good at containing their emotions. OreSeur watched her pacing. "If it were easy to detect kandra, Mistress, then we wouldn't be worth much as impostors, would we?" "I suppose not," Vin acknowledged. However, thinking about what he'd said made her consider something else. "Can a kandra use Allomancy? If they eat an Allomancer, I mean?" OreSeur shook his head. That's another method, then, Vin thought. If I catch a member of the crew burning metals, then I know he's not the kandra. Wouldn't help with Dockson or the palace servants, but it would let her eliminate Ham and Spook. "There's something else," Vin said. "Before, when we were doing the job with Kelsier, he said that we had to keep you away from the Lord Ruler and his Inquisitors. Why was that?" OreSeur looked away. "This is not a thing we speak of." "Then I command you to speak of it." "Then I must refuse to answer," OreSeur said. "Refuse to answer?" Vin asked. "You can do that?" OreSeur nodded. "We are not required to reveal secrets about kandra nature, Mistress. It is—" "In the Contract," Vin finished, frowning. I really need to read that thing again. "Yes, Mistress. I have, perhaps, said too much already." Vin turned away from OreSeur, looking out over the city. The mists continued to spin. Vin closed her eyes, questing out with bronze, trying to feel the telltale pulse of an Allomancer burning metals nearby. OreSeur rose and padded over beside her, then settled down on his haunches again, sitting on the inclined roof. "Shouldn't you be at the meeting the king is having, Mistress?" "Perhaps later," Vin said, opening her eyes. Out beyond the city, watchfires from the armies lit the horizon. Keep Venture blazed in the night to her right, and inside of it, Elend was holding council with the others. Many of the most important men in the government, sitting together in one room. Elend would call her paranoid for insisting that she be the one who watched for spies and assassins. That was fine; he could call her whatever he wanted, as long as he stayed alive. She settled back down. She was glad Elend had decided to pick Keep Venture as his
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palace, rather than moving into Kredik Shaw, the Lord Ruler's home. Not only was Kredik Shaw too big to be properly defended, but it also reminded her of him. The Lord Ruler. She thought of the Lord Ruler often, lately—or, rather, she thought of Rashek, the man who had become the Lord Ruler. A Terrisman by birth, Rashek had killed the man who should have taken the power at the Well of Ascension and. . . And done what? They still didn't know. The Hero had been on a quest to protect the people from a danger simply known as the Deepness. So much had been lost; so much had been intentionally destroyed. Their best source of information about those days came in the form of an aged journal, written by the Hero of Ages during the days before Rashek had killed him. However, it gave precious few clues about his quest. Why do I even worry about these things? Vin thought. The Deepness is a thing a thousand years forgotten. Elend and the others are right to be concerned about more pressing events. And still, Vin found herself strangely detached from them. Perhaps that was why she found herself scouting outside. It wasn't that she didn't worry about the armies. She just felt. . .removed from the problem. Even now, as she considered the threat to Luthadel, her mind was drawn back to the Lord Ruler. You don't know what I do for mankind, he had said. I was your god, even if you couldn't see it. By killing me, you have doomed yourselves. Those were the Lord Ruler's last words, spoken as he lay dying on the floor of his own throne room. They worried her. Chilled her, even still. She needed to distract herself. "What kinds of things do you like, kandra?" she asked, turning to the creature, who still sat on the rooftop beside her. "What are your loves, your hatreds?" "I do not want to answer that." Vin frowned. "Do not want to, or do not have to?" OreSeur paused. "Do not want to, Mistress." The implication was obvious. You're going to have to command me. She almost did. However, something gave her pause, something in those eyes—inhuman though they were. Something familiar. She'd known resentment like that. She'd felt it often during her youth, when she'd served crewleaders who had lorded over their followers. In the crews, one did what one was commanded—especially if one was a small waif of a girl, without rank or means of intimidation. "If you don't wish to speak of it," Vin said, turning away from the kandra, "then I won't force you." OreSeur was silent. Vin breathed in the mist, its cool wetness tickling her throat and lungs. "Do you know what I love, kandra?" "No, Mistress." "The mists," she said, holding out her arms. "The power, the freedom." OreSeur nodded slowly. Nearby, Vin felt a faint pulsing with her bronze. Quiet, strange, unnerving. It was the same odd pulsing that she had felt atop Keep Venture a few nights
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before. She had never been brave enough to investigate it again. It's time to do something about that, she decided. "Do you know what I hate, kandra?" she whispered, falling to a crouch, checking her knives and metals. "No, Mistress." She turned, meeting OreSeur's eyes. "I hate being afraid." She knew that others thought her jumpy. Paranoid. She had lived with fear for so long that she had once seen it as something natural, like the ash, the sun, or the ground itself. Kelsier had taken that fear away. She was careful, still, but she didn't feel a constant sense of terror. The Survivor had given her a life where the ones she loved didn't beat her, had shown her something better than fear. Trust. Now that she knew of these things, she would not quickly surrender them. Not to armies, not to assassins. . . Not even to spirits. "Follow if you can," she whispered, then dropped off the rooftop to the street below. She dashed along the mist-slicked street, building momentum before she had time to lose her nerve. The source of the bronze pulses was close; it came from only one street over, in a building. Not the top, she decided. One of the darkened windows on the third floor, the shutters open. Vin dropped a coin and jumped into the air. She shot upward, angling herself by Pushing against a latch across the street. She landed in the window's pitlike opening, arms grabbing the sides of the frame. She flared tin, letting her eyes adjust to the deep darkness within the abandoned room. And it was there. Formed entirely of mists, it shifted and spun, its outline vague in the dark chamber. It had a vantage to see the rooftop where Vin and OreSeur had been talking. Ghosts don't spy on people. . .do they? Skaa didn't speak of things like spirits or the dead. It smacked too much of religion, and religion was for the nobility. To worship was death for skaa. That hadn't stopped some, of course—but thieves like Vin had been too pragmatic for such things. There was only one thing in skaa lore that this creature matched. Mistwraiths. Creatures said to steal the souls of men foolish enough to go outside at night. But, Vin now knew what mistwraiths were. They were cousins to the kandra—strange, semi-intelligent beasts who used the bones of those they ingested. They were odd, true—but hardly phantoms, and not really even that dangerous. There were no dark wraiths in the night, no haunting spirits or ghouls. Or so Kelsier had said. The thing standing in the dark room—its insubstantial form writhing in the mists—seemed a powerful counterexample. She gripped the sides of the window, fear—her old friend—returning. Run. Flee. Hide. "Why have you been watching me?" she demanded. The thing did not move. Its form seemed to draw the mists forward, and they spun slightly, as if in an air current. I can sense it with bronze. That means it's using Allomancy—and Allomancy attracts the mist. The thing stepped
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forward. Vin tensed. And then the spirit was gone. Vin paused, frowning. That was it? She had— Something grabbed her arm. Something cold, something terrible, but something very real. A pain shot through her head, moving as if from her ear and into her mind. She yelled, but cut off as her voice failed. With a quiet groan—her arm quivering and shaking—she fell backward out of the window. Her arm was still cold. She could feel it whipping in the air beside her, seeming to exude chill air. Mist passed like trailing clouds. Vin flared tin. Pain, cold, wetness, and lucidity burst into her mind, and she threw herself into a twist and flared pewter just as she hit the ground. "Mistress?" OreSeur said, darting from the shadows. Vin shook her head, pushing herself up to her knees, her palms cool against the slick cobblestones. She could still feel the trailing chill in her left arm. "Shall I go for aid?" the wolfhound asked. Vin shook her head, forcing herself into a wobbling stand. She looked upward, through swirling mists, toward the black window above. She shivered. Her shoulder was sore from where she had hit the ground, and her still bruised side throbbed, but she could feel her strength returning. She stepped away from the building, still looking up. Above her, the deep mists seemed. . .ominous. Obscuring. No, she thought forcefully. The mists are my freedom; the night is my home! This is where I belong. I haven't needed to be afraid in the night since Kelsier taught me otherwise. She couldn't lose that. She wouldn't go back to the fear. Still, she couldn't help the quick urgency in her step as she waved to OreSeur and scampered away from the building. She gave no explanation for her strange actions. He didn't ask for one. Elend set a third pile of books onto the table, and it slumped against the other two, threatening to topple the entire lot to the floor. He steadied them, then glanced up. Breeze, in a prim suit, regarded the table with amusement as he sipped his wine. Ham and Spook were playing a game of stones as they waited for the meeting to begin; Spook was winning. Dockson sat in the corner of the room, scribbling on a ledger, and Clubs sat in a deep plush chair, eyeing Elend with one of his stares. Any of these men could be an impostor, Elend thought. The thought still seemed insane to him. What was he to do? Exclude them all from his confidence? No, he needed them too much. The only option was to act normally and watch them. Vin had told him to try and spot inconsistencies in their personalities. He intended to do his best, but the reality was he wasn't sure how much he would be able to see. This was more Vin's area of expertise. He needed to worry about the armies. Thinking of her, he glanced at the stained-glass window at the back of the study, and was surprised to see
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it was dark. That late already? Elend thought. "My dear man," Breeze noted. "When you told us you needed to 'go and gather a few important references,' you might have warned us that you were planning to be gone for two full hours." "Yes, well," Elend said, "I kind of lost track of time. . .." "For two hours?" Elend nodded sheepishly. "There were books involved." Breeze shook his head. "If the fate of the Central Dominance weren't at stake—and if it weren't so fantastically enjoyable to watch Hammond lose an entire month's earnings to the boy there—I'd have left an hour ago." "Yes, well, we can get started now," Elend said. Ham chuckled, standing up. "Actually, it's kind of like the old days. Kell always arrived late, too—and he liked to hold his meetings at night. Mistborn hours." Spook smiled, his coin pouch bulging. We still use boxings—Lord Ruler imperials—as our coinage, Elend thought. We'll have to do something about that. "I miss the charcoal board, though," Spook said. "I certainly don't," Breeze replied. "Kell had atrocious handwriting." "Absolutely atrocious," Ham said with a smile, sitting. "You have to admit, though—it was distinctive." Breeze raised an eyebrow. "It was that, I suppose." Kelsier, the Survivor of Hathsin, Elend thought. Even his handwriting is legendary. "Regardless," he said, "I think perhaps we should get to work. We've still got two armies waiting out there. We're not leaving tonight until we have a plan to deal with them!" The crewmembers shared looks. "Actually, Your Majesty," Dockson said, "we've already worked on that problem for a bit." "Oh?" Elend asked, surprised. Well, I guess I did leave them alone for a couple of hours. "Let me hear it, then." Dockson stood, pulling his chair a bit closer to join the rest of the group, and Ham began to speak. "Here's the thing, El," Ham said. "With two armies here, we don't have to worry about an immediate attack. But, we're still in serious danger. This will probably turn into an extended siege as each army tries to outlast the other." "They'll try to starve us out," Clubs said. "Weaken us, and their enemies, before attacking." "And," Ham continued, "that puts us in a bind—because we can't last very long. The city is already on the edge of starvation—and the enemy kings are probably aware of that fact." "What are you saying?" Elend asked slowly. "We have to make an alliance with one of those armies, Your Majesty," Dockson said. "They both know it. Alone, they can't reliably defeat one another. With our help, however, the balance will be tipped." "They'll hem us in," Ham said. "Keep us blockaded until we get desperate enough to side with one of them. Eventually, we'll have to do so—either that, or let our people starve." "The decision comes down to this," Breeze said. "We can't outlast the others, so we have to choose which of those men we want to take over the city. And, I would suggest making our decision quickly as opposed to waiting while our
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supplies run out." Elend stood quietly. "By making a deal with one of those armies, we'll essentially be giving away our kingdom." "True," Breeze said, tapping the side of his cup. "However, what I gained us by bringing a second army is bargaining power. You see, at least we are in a position to demand something in exchange for our kingdom." "What good is that?" Elend asked. "We still lose." "It's better than nothing," Breeze said. "I think that we might be able to persuade Cett to leave you as a provisional leader in Luthadel. He doesn't like the Central Dominance; he finds it barren and flat." "Provisional leader of the city," Elend said with a frown. "That is somewhat different from king of the Central Dominance." "True," Dockson said. "But, every emperor needs good men to administrate the cities under their rule. You wouldn't be king, but you—and our armies—would live through the next few months, and Luthadel wouldn't be pillaged." Ham, Breeze, and Dockson all sat resolutely, looking him in the eye. Elend glanced down at his pile of books, thinking of his research and study. Worthless. How long had the crew known that there was only one course of action? The crew seemed to take Elend's silence as assent. "Cett really is the best choice, then?" Dockson asked. "Perhaps Straff would be more likely to make an agreement with Elend—they are, after all, family." Oh, he'd make an agreement, Elend thought. And he'd break it the moment it was convenient. But. . .the alternative? Give the city over to this Cett? What would happen to this land, this people, if he were in charge? "Cett is best, I think," Breeze said. "He is very willing to let others rule, as long as he gets his glory and his coins. The problem is going to be that atium. Cett thinks it is here, and if he doesn't find it. . ." "We just let him search the city," Ham said. Breeze nodded. "You'd have to persuade him that I misled him about the atium—and that shouldn't be too hard, considering what he thinks of me. Which is another small matter—you'll have to convince him that I've been dealt with. Perhaps he'd believe that I was executed as soon as Elend found out I had raised an army against him." The others nodded. "Breeze?" Elend asked. "How does Lord Cett treat the skaa in his lands?" Breeze paused, then glanced away. "Not well, I'm afraid." "Now, see," Elend said. "I think we need to consider how to best protect our people. I mean, if we give everything over to Cett, then we'd save my skin—but at the cost of the entire skaa population of the dominance!" Dockson shook his head. "Elend, it's not a betrayal. Not if this is the only way." "That's easy to say," Elend said. "But I'm the one who'd have to bear the guilty conscience for doing such a thing. I'm not saying that we should throw out your suggestion, but I do have a few ideas
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that we might talk about. . .." The others shared looks. As usual, Clubs and Spook remained quiet during proceedings; Clubs only spoke when he felt it absolutely necessary, and Spook tended to stay on the periphery of the conversations. Finally, Breeze, Ham, and Dockson looked back at Elend. "This is your country, Your Majesty," Dockson said carefully. "We're simply here to give advice." Very good advice, his tone implied. "Yes, well," Elend said, quickly selecting a book. In his haste, he knocked over one of the stacks, sending a clatter of books across the table and landing a volume in Breeze's lap. "Sorry," Elend said, as Breeze rolled his eyes and sat the book back up on the table. Elend pulled open his own book. "Now, this volume had some very interesting things to say about the movement and arrangement of troop bodies—" "Uh, El?" Ham asked, frowning. "That looks like a book on shipping grain." "I know," Elend said. "There weren't a lot of books about warfare in the library. I guess that's what we get for a thousand years without any wars. However, this book does mention how much grain it took to keep the various garrisons in the Final Empire stocked. Do you have any idea how much food an army needs?" "You have a point," Clubs said, nodding. "Usually, it's a blasted pain to keep soldiers fed; we often had supply problems fighting on the frontier, and we were only small bands, sent to quell the occasional rebellion." Elend nodded. Clubs didn't often speak of his past fighting in the Lord Ruler's army—and the crew didn't often ask him about it. "Anyway," Elend said, "I'll bet both Cett and my father are unaccustomed to moving large bodies of men. There will be supply problems, especially for Cett, since he marched so hastily." "Maybe not," Clubs said. "Both armies have secured canal routes into Luthadel. That will make it easy for them to send for more supplies." "Plus," Breeze added, "though much of Cett's land is in revolt right now, he does still hold the city of Haverfrex, which held one of the Lord Ruler's main canneries. Cett has a remarkable amount of food a short canal trip away." "Then, we disrupt the canals," Elend said. "We find a way to stop those supplies from coming. Canals make resupply quick, but also vulnerable, since we know exactly which route it will take. And, if we can take away their food, perhaps they'll be forced to turn around and march home." "Either that," Breeze said, "or they'll just decide to risk attacking Luthadel." Elend paused. "That's a possibility," he said. "But, well, I've been researching how to hold the city as well." He reached across the table, picking up a book. "Now, this is Jendellah's City Management in the Modern Era. He mentions how difficult Luthadel is to police because of its extreme size and large number of skaa slums. He suggests using roving bands of city watchmen. I think we could adapt his methods to use in a
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battle—our wall is too long to defend in detail, but if we had mobile bands of troops that could respond to—" "Your Majesty," Dockson interrupted. "Hum? Yes?" "We've got a troop of boys and men who have barely a year's training, and we're facing not one overwhelming force, but two. We can't win this battle by force." "Oh, yes," Elend said. "Of course. I was just saying that if we did have to fight, I have some strategies. . .." "If we fight, we lose," Clubs said. "We'll probably lose anyway." Elend paused for a moment. "Yes, well, I just. . ." "Attacking the canal routes is a good idea, though," Dockson said. "We can do that covertly, perhaps hire some of the bandits in the area to attack supply barges. It probably won't be enough to send Cett or Straff home, but we could make them more desperate to make alliances with us." Breeze nodded. "Cett's already worried about instability back in his home dominance. We should send him a preliminary messenger, let him know we're interested in an alliance. That way, as soon as his supply problems begin, he'll think of us." "We could even send him a letter explaining Breeze's execution," Dockson said, "as a sign of good faith. That—" Elend cleared his throat. The others paused. "I, uh, wasn't finished yet," Elend said. "I apologize, Your Majesty," Dockson said. Elend took a deep breath. "You're right—we can't afford to fight those armies. But, I think we need to find a way to get them to fight each other." "A pleasant sentiment, my dear man," Breeze said. "But getting those two to attack one another isn't as simple as persuading Spook over there to refill my wine." He turned, holding out his empty cup. Spook paused, then sighed, rising to fetch the wine bottle. "Well, yes," Elend said. "But, while there aren't a lot of books on warfare, there are a lot about politics. Breeze, you said the other day that being the weakest party in a three-way stalemate gives us power." "Exactly," Breeze said. "We can tip the battle for either of the two larger sides." "Yes," Elend said, opening a book. "Now that there are three parties involved, it's not warfare—it's politics. This is just like a contest between houses. And in house politicking, even the most powerful houses can't stand without allies. The small houses are weak individually, but they are strong when considered as a group. "We're like one of those small houses. If we want to make any gains, we're going to have to get our enemies to forget about us—or, at least, make them think us inconsequential. If they both assume that they have the better of us—that they can use us to defeat the other army, then turn on us at their leisure—then they'll leave us alone and concentrate on each other." Ham rubbed his chin. "You're talking about playing both sides, Elend. It's a dangerous position to put ourselves in." Breeze nodded. "We'd have to switch our allegiance to whichever side
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seems weaker at the moment, keep them snapping at each other. And there's no guarantee that the winner between the two would be weakened enough for us to defeat." "Not to mention our food problems," Dockson said. "What you propose would take time, Your Majesty. Time during which we'd be under siege, our supplies dwindling. It's autumn right now. Winter will soon be upon us." "It will be tough," Elend agreed. "And risky. But, I think we can do it. We make them both think we're allied with them, but we hold back our support. We encourage them against one another, and we wear away at their supplies and morale, pushing them into a conflict. When the dust settles, the surviving army might just be weak enough for us to beat." Breeze looked thoughtful. "It has style," he admitted. "And, it does kind of sound fun." Dockson smiled. "You only say that because it involves making someone else do our work for us." Breeze shrugged. "Manipulation works so well on a personal level, I don't see why it wouldn't be an equally viable national policy." "That's actually how most rulership works," Ham mused. "What is a government but an institutionalized method of making sure somebody else does all the work?" "Uh, the plan?" Elend asked. "I don't know, El," Ham said, getting back on topic. "It sounds like one of Kell's plans—foolhardy, brave, and a little insane." He sounded as if he were surprised to hear Elend propose such a measure. I can be as foolhardy as any man, Elend thought indignantly, then paused. Did he really want to follow that line of thought? "We could get ourselves into some serious trouble," Dockson said. "If either side decides it's tired of our games. . ." "They'll destroy us," Elend said. "But. . .well, gentlemen, you're gamblers. You can't tell me that this plan doesn't appeal to you more than simply bowing before Lord Cett." Ham shared a look with Breeze, and they seemed to be considering the idea. Dockson rolled his eyes, but seemed like he was objecting simply out of habit. No, they didn't want to take the safe way out. These were the men who had challenged the Lord Ruler, men who had made their livelihood scamming noblemen. In some ways, they were very careful; they could be precise in their attention to detail, cautious in covering their tracks and protecting their interests. But when it came time to gamble for the big prize, they were often willing. No, not willing. Eager. Great, Elend thought. I've filled my inner council with a bunch of thrill-seeking masochists. Even worse, I've decided to join them. But, what else could he do? "We could at least consider it," Breeze said. "It does sound exciting." "Now, see, I didn't suggest this because it was exciting, Breeze," Elend said. "I spent my youth trying to plan how I would make a better city of Luthadel once I became leader of my house. I'm not going to throw away those dreams at the first sign of
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opposition." "What about the Assembly?" Ham said. "That's the best part," Elend said. "They voted in my proposal at the meeting two days back. They can't open the city gates to any invader until I meet with my father in parlay." The crew sat quietly for a few moments. Finally, Ham turned to Elend, shaking his head. "I really don't know, El. It sounds appealing. We actually discussed a few more daring plans like this while we were waiting for you. But. . ." "But what?" Elend asked. "A plan like this depends a lot on you, my dear man," Breeze said, sipping his wine. "You'd have to be the one to meet with the kings—the one to persuade them both that we're on their side. No offense, but you're new to scamming. It's difficult to agree to a daring plan that puts a newcomer in as the linchpin member of the team." "I can do this," Elend said. "Really." Ham glanced at Breeze, then both glanced at Clubs. The gnarled general shrugged. "If the kid wants to try it, then let him." Ham sighed, then looked back. "I guess I agree. As long as you're up to this, El." "I think I am," Elend said, covering his nervousness. "I just know we can't give up, not easily. Maybe this won't work—maybe, after a couple months of being besieged, we'll just end up giving away the city anyway. However, that gives us a couple of months during which something could happen. It's worth the risk to wait, rather than fold. Wait, and plan." "All right, then," Dockson said. "Give us some time to come up with some ideas and options, Your Majesty. We'll meet again in a few days to talk about specifics." "All right," Elend said. "Sounds good. Now, if we can move on to other matters, I'd like to mention—" A knock came at the door. At Elend's call, Captain Demoux pushed open the door, looking a little embarrassed. "Your Majesty?" he said. "I apologize, but. . .I think we caught someone listening in on your meeting." "What?" Elend said. "Who?" Demoux turned to the side, waving in a pair of his guards. The woman they led into the room was vaguely familiar to Elend. Tall, like most Terris, she wore a bright-colored, but utilitarian, dress. Her ears were stretched downward, the lobes elongated to accommodate numerous earrings. "I recognize you," Elend said. "From the Assembly hall a few days ago. You were watching me." The woman didn't answer. She looked over the room's occupants, standing stiffly—even haughtily—despite her bound wrists. Elend had never actually met a Terriswoman before; he'd only met stewards, eunuchs trained from birth to work as manservants. For some reason, Elend had expected a Terriswoman to seem a bit more servile. "She was hiding in the next room over," Demoux said. "I'm sorry, Your Majesty. I don't know how she got past us. We found her listening against the wall, though I doubt she heard anything. I mean, those walls are made of stone." Elend met
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the woman's eyes. Older—perhaps fifty—she wasn't beautiful, but neither was she homely. She was sturdy, with a straightforward, rectangular face. Her stare was calm and firm, and it made Elend uncomfortable to hold it for long. "So, what did you expect to overhear, woman?" Elend asked. The Terriswoman ignored the comment. She turned to the others, and spoke in a lightly accented voice. "I would speak with the king alone. The rest of you are excused." Ham smiled. "Well, at least she's got nerve." Dockson addressed the Terriswoman. "What makes you think that we would leave our king alone with you?" "His Majesty and I have things to discuss," the woman said in a businesslike manner, as if oblivious of—or unconcerned about—her status as a prisoner. "You needn't be worried about his safety; I'm certain that the young Mistborn hiding outside the window will be more than enough to deal with me." Elend glanced to the side, toward the small ventilation window beside the more massive stained-glass one. How would the Terriswoman have known that Vin was watching? Her ears would have to be extraordinarily keen. Keen enough, perhaps, to listen in on the meeting through a stone wall? Elend turned back to the newcomer. "You're a Keeper." She nodded. "Did Sazed send you?" "It is because of him that I am here," she said. "But I was not 'sent.'" "Ham, it's all right," Elend said slowly. "You can go." "Are you sure?" Ham asked, frowning. "Leave me bound, if you wish," the woman said. If she really is a Feruchemist, that won't be much of a hindrance, Elend thought. Of course, if she really is a Feruchemist—a Keeper, like Sazed—I shouldn't have anything to fear from her. Theoretically. The others shuffled from the room, their postures indicating what they thought of Elend's decision. Though they were no longer thieves by profession, Elend suspected that they—like Vin—would always bear the effects of their upbringing. "We'll be just outside, El," Ham—the last one out—said, then pulled the door shut. And yet, any who know me will realize that there was no chance I would give up so easily. Once I find something to investigate, I become dogged in my pursuit. THE TERRISWOMAN SNAPPED HER BONDS, and the ropes dropped to the floor. "Uh, Vin?" Elend said, beginning to wonder about the logic of meeting with this woman. "Perhaps it's time you came in." "She's not actually there," the Terriswoman said offhandedly, walking forward. "She left a few minutes ago to do her rounds. That is why I let myself be caught." "Um, I see," Elend said. "I'll be calling for the guards now." "Don't be a fool," the Terriswoman said. "If I wanted to kill you, I could do it before the others got back in. Now be quiet for a moment." Elend stood uncomfortably as the tall woman walked around the table in a slow circle, studying him as a merchant might inspect a piece of furniture up for auction. Finally she stopped, placing her hands on her hips. "Stand up straight,"
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she commanded. "Excuse me?" "You're slouching," the woman said. "A king must maintain an air of dignity at all times, even when with his friends." Elend frowned. "Now, while I appreciate advice, I don't—" "No," the woman said. "Don't hedge. Command." "Excuse me?" Elend said again. The woman stepped forward, placing a hand on his shoulder and pressing his back firmly to improve his posture. She stepped back, then nodded slightly to herself. "Now, see," Elend said. "I don't—" "No," the woman interrupted. "You must be stronger in the way that you speak. Presentation—words, actions, postures—will determine how people judge you and react to you. If you start every sentence with softness and uncertainty, you will seem soft and uncertain. Be forceful!" "What is going on here?" Elend demanded, exasperated. "There," the woman said. "Finally." "You said that you know Sazed?" Elend asked, resisting the urge to slouch back into his earlier posture. "He is an acquaintance," the woman said. "My name is Tindwyl; I am, as you have guessed, a Keeper of Terris." She tapped her foot for a moment, then shook her head. "Sazed warned me about your slovenly appearance, but I honestly assumed that no king could have such a poor sense of self-presentation." "Slovenly?" Elend asked. "Excuse me?" "Stop saying that," Tindwyl snapped. "Don't ask questions; say what you mean. If you object, object—don't leave your words up to my interpretation." "Yes, well, while this is fascinating," Elend said, walking toward the door, "I'd rather avoid further insults this evening. If you'll excuse me. . ." "Your people think you are a fool, Elend Venture," Tindwyl said quietly. Elend paused. "The Assembly—a body you yourself organized—ignores your authority. The skaa are convinced that you won't be able to protect them. Even your own council of friends makes their plans in your absence, assuming your input to be no great loss." Elend closed his eyes, taking a slow, deep breath. "You have good ideas, Elend Venture," Tindwyl said. "Regal ideas. However, you are not a king. A man can only lead when others accept him as their leader, and he has only as much authority as his subjects give to him. All of the brilliant ideas in the world cannot save your kingdom if no one will listen to them." Elend turned. "This last year I've read every pertinent book on leadership and governance in the four libraries." Tindwyl raised an eyebrow. "Then, I suspect that you spent a great deal of time in your room that you should have been out, being seen by your people and learning to be a ruler." "Books have great value," Elend said. "Actions have greater value." "And where am I to learn the proper actions?" "From me." Elend paused. "You may know that every Keeper has an area of special interest," Tindwyl said. "While we all memorize the same store of information, one person can only study and understand a limited amount of that store. Our mutual friend Sazed spends his time on religions." "And your specialty?" "Biographies," she said. "I have
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studied the lives of generals, kings, and emperors whose names you have never heard. Understanding theories of politics and leadership, Elend Venture, is not the same as understanding the lives of men who lived such principles." "And. . .you can teach me to emulate those men?" "Perhaps," Tindwyl said. "I haven't yet decided whether or not you're a hopeless case. But, I am here, so I will do what I can. A few months ago, I received a letter from Sazed, explaining your predicament. He did not ask me to come to train you—but, then, Sazed is perhaps another man who could learn to be more forceful." Elend nodded slowly, meeting the Terriswoman's eyes. "Will you accept my instruction, then?" she asked. Elend thought for a moment. If she's anywhere near as useful as Sazed, then. . .well, I could certainly use some help at this. "I will," he said. Tindwyl nodded. "Sazed also mentioned your humility. It could be an asset—assuming you don't let it get in the way. Now, I believe that your Mistborn has returned." Elend turned toward the side window. The shutter swung open, allowing mist to begin streaming into the room and revealing a crouching, cloaked form. "How did you know I was here?" Vin asked quietly. Tindwyl smiled—the first such expression Elend had seen on her face. "Sazed mentioned you as well, child. You and I should speak soon in private, I think." Vin slipped into the room, drawing mist in behind her, then closed the shutter. She didn't bother to hide her hostility or mistrust as she put herself between Elend and Tindwyl. "Why are you here?" Vin demanded. Tindwyl smiled again. "It took your king there several minutes to get to that question, and here you ask it after a few bare moments. You are an interesting couple, I think." Vin's eyes narrowed. "Regardless, I should withdraw," Tindwyl said. "We shall speak again, I assume, Your Majesty?" "Yes, of course," Elend said. "Um. . .is there anything I should begin practicing?" "Yes," Tindwyl said, walking to the door. "Stop saying 'um.'" "Right." Ham poked his head in the door as soon as Tindwyl opened it. He immediately noticed her discarded bonds. He didn't say anything, however; he likely assumed that Elend had freed her. "I think we're done for the night, everyone," Elend said. "Ham, would you see that Mistress Tindwyl is given quarters in the palace? She's a friend of Sazed's." Ham shrugged. "All right, then." He nodded to Vin, then withdrew. Tindwyl did not bid them good night as she left. Vin frowned, then glanced at Elend. He seemed. . .distracted. "I don't like her," she said. Elend smiled, stacking up the books on his table. "You don't like anyone when you first meet them, Vin." "I liked you." "Thereby demonstrating that you are a terrible judge of character." Vin paused, then smiled. She walked over and began picking through the books. They weren't typical Elend fare—far more practical than the kinds of things he usually read. "How did it go tonight?"
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she asked. "I didn't have much time to listen." Elend sighed. He turned, sitting down on the table, looking up at the massive rose window at the back of the room. It was dark, its colors only hinted as reflections in the black glass. "It went well, I suppose." "I told you they'd like your plan. It's the sort of thing they'll find challenging." "I suppose," Elend said. Vin frowned. "All right," she said, hopping up to stand on the table. She sat down beside him. "What is it? Is it something that woman said? What did she want, anyway?" "Just to pass on some knowledge," he said. "You know how Keepers are, always wanting an ear to listen to their lessons." "I suppose," Vin said slowly. She hadn't ever seen Elend depressed, but he did get discouraged. He had so many ideas, so many plans and hopes, that she sometimes wondered how he kept them all straight. She would have said that he lacked focus; Reen had always said that focus kept a thief alive. Elend's dreams, however, were so much a part of who he was. She doubted he could discard them. She didn't think she would want him to, for they were part of what she loved about him. "They agreed to the plan, Vin," Elend said, still looking up at the window. "They even seemed excited, like you said they'd be. It's just. . .I can't help thinking that their suggestion was far more rational than mine. They wanted to side with one of the armies, giving it our support in exchange for leaving me as a subjugated ruler in Luthadel." "That would be giving up," Vin said. "Sometimes, giving up is better than failing. I just committed my city to an extended siege. That will mean hunger, perhaps starvation, before this is over with." Vin put a hand on his shoulder, watching him uncertainly. Usually, he was the one who reassured her. "It's still a better way," she said. "The others probably just suggested a weaker plan because they thought you wouldn't go along with something more daring." "No," Elend said. "They weren't pandering to me, Vin. They really thought that making a strategic alliance was a good, safe plan." He paused, then looked at her. "Since when did that group represent the reasonable side of my government?" "They've had to grow," Vin said. "They can't be the men they once were, not with this much responsibility." Elend turned back toward the window. "I'll tell you what worries me, Vin. I'm worried that their plan wasn't reasonable—perhaps it itself was a bit foolhardy. Perhaps making an alliance would have been a difficult enough task. If that's the case, then what I'm proposing is just downright ludicrous." Vin squeezed his shoulder. "We fought the Lord Ruler." "You had Kelsier then." "Not that again." "I'm sorry," Elend said. "But, really, Vin. Maybe my plan to try and hold on to the government is just arrogance. What was it you told me about your childhood? When you were in the
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thieving crews, and everyone was bigger, stronger, and meaner than you, what did you do? Did you stand up to the leaders?" Memories flashed in her mind. Memories of hiding, of keeping her eyes down, of weakness. "That was then," she said. "You can't let others beat on you forever. That's what Kelsier taught me—that's why we fought the Lord Ruler. That's why the skaa rebellion fought the Final Empire all those years, even when there was no chance of winning. Reen taught me that the rebels were fools. But Reen is dead now—and so is the Final Empire. And. . ." She leaned down, catching Elend's eyes. "You can't give up the city, Elend," she said quietly. "I don't think I'd like what that would do to you." Elend paused, then smiled slowly. "You can be very wise sometimes, Vin." "You think that?" He nodded. "Well," she said, "then obviously you're as poor a judge of character as I am." Elend laughed, putting his arm around her, hugging her against his side. "So, I assume the patrol tonight was uneventful?" The mist spirit. Her fall. The chill she could still feel—if only faintly remembered—in her forearm. "It was," she said. The last time she'd told him of the mist spirit, he'd immediately thought she'd been seeing things. "See," Elend said, "you should have come to the meeting; I would have liked to have had you here." She said nothing. They sat for a few minutes, looking up at the dark window. There was an odd beauty to it; the colors weren't visible because of the lack of back light, and she could instead focus on the patterns of glass. Chips, slivers, slices, and plates woven together within a framework of metal. "Elend?" she finally said. "I'm worried." "I'd be concerned if you weren't," he said. "Those armies have me so worried that I can barely think straight." "No," Vin said. "Not about that. I'm worried about other things." "Like what?" "Well. . .I've been thinking about what the Lord Ruler said, right before I killed him. Do you remember?" Elend nodded. He hadn't been there, but she'd told him. "He talked about what he'd done for mankind," Vin said. "He saved us, the stories say. From the Deepness." Elend nodded. "But," Vin said, "what was the Deepness? You were a nobleman—religion wasn't forbidden to you. What did the Ministry teach about the Deepness and the Lord Ruler?" Elend shrugged. "Not much, really. Religion wasn't forbidden, but it wasn't encouraged either. There was something proprietary about the Ministry, an air that implied they would take care of religious things—that we didn't need to worry ourselves." "But they did teach you about some things, right?" Elend nodded. "Mostly, they talked about why the nobility were privileged and the skaa cursed. I guess they wanted us to understand how fortunate we were—though honestly, I always found the teachings a little disturbing. See, they claimed that we were noble because our ancestors supported the Lord Ruler before the Ascension. But, that means that we were
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privileged because of what other people had done. Not really fair, eh?" Vin shrugged. "Fair as anything else, I guess." "But, didn't you get angry?" Elend said. "Didn't it frustrate you that the nobility had so much while you had so little?" "I didn't think about it," Vin said. "The nobility had a lot, so we could take it from them. Why should I care how they got it? Sometimes, when I had food, other thieves beat me and took it. What did it matter how I got my food? It was still taken from me." Elend paused. "You know, sometimes I wonder what the political theorists I've read would say if they met you. I have a feeling they'd throw up their hands in frustration." She poked him in the side. "Enough politics. Tell me about the Deepness." "Well, I think it was a creature of some sort—a dark and evil thing that nearly destroyed the world. The Lord Ruler traveled to the Well of Ascension, where he was given the power to defeat the Deepness and unite mankind. There are several statues in the city depicting the event." Vin frowned. "Yes, but they never really show what the Deepness looked like. It's depicted as a twisted lump at the Lord Ruler's feet." "Well, the last person who actually saw the Deepness died a year ago, so I guess we'll have to make do with the statues." "Unless it comes back," Vin said quietly. Elend frowned, looking at her again. "Is that what this is about, Vin?" His face softened slightly. "Two armies aren't enough? You have to worry about the fate of the world as well?" Vin glanced down sheepishly, and Elend laughed, pulling her close. "Ah, Vin. I know you're a bit paranoid—honestly, considering our situation, I'm starting to feel the same—but I think this is one problem you don't have to worry about. I haven't heard any reports of monstrous incarnations of evil rampaging across the land." Vin nodded, and Elend leaned back a bit, obviously assuming that he'd answered her question. The Hero of Ages traveled to the Well of Ascension to defeat the Deepness, she thought. But the prophecies all said that the Hero shouldn't take the Well's power for himself. He was supposed to give it, trust in the power itself to destroy the Deepness. Rashek didn't do that—he took the power for himself. Wouldn't that mean that the Deepness was never defeated? Why, then, wasn't the world destroyed? "The red sun and brown plants," Vin said. "Did the Deepness do that?" "Still thinking about that?" Elend frowned. "Red sun and brown plants? What other colors would they be?" "Kelsier said that the sun was once yellow, and plants were green." "That's an odd image." "Sazed agrees with Kelsier," Vin said. "The legends all say that during the early days of the Lord Ruler, the sun changed colors, and ash began to fall from the skies." "Well," Elend said, "I guess the Deepness could have had something to do with it. I don't know, honestly."
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He sat musingly for a few moments. "Green plants? Why not purple or blue? So odd. . .." The Hero of Ages traveled north, to the Well of Ascension, Vin thought again. She turned slightly, her eyes drawn toward the Terris mountains so far away. Was it still up there? The Well of Ascension? "Did you have any luck getting information out of OreSeur?" Elend asked. "Anything to help us find the spy?" Vin shrugged. "He told me that kandra can't use Allomancy." "So, you can find our impostor that way?" Elend said, perking up. "Maybe," Vin said. "I can test Spook and Ham, at least. Regular people will be more difficult—though kandra can't be Soothed, so maybe that will let me find the spy." "That sounds promising," Elend said. Vin nodded. The thief in her, the paranoid girl that Elend always teased, itched to use Allomancy on him—to test him, to see if he reacted to her Pushes and Pulls. She stopped herself. This one man she would trust. The others she would test, but she would not question Elend. In a way, she'd rather trust him and be wrong than deal with the worry of mistrust. I finally understand, she thought with a start. Kelsier. I understand what it was like for you with Mare. I won't make your same mistake. Elend was looking at her. "What?" she asked. "You're smiling," he said. "Do I get to hear the joke?" She hugged him. "No," she said simply. Elend smiled. "All right then. You can test Spook and Ham, but I'm pretty sure the impostor isn't one of the crew—I talked to them all today, and they were all themselves. We need to search the palace staff." He doesn't know how good kandra can be. The enemy kandra had probably studied his victim for months and months, learning and memorizing their every mannerism. "I've spoken to Ham and Demoux," Elend said. "As members of the palace guard, they know about the bones—and Ham was able to guess what they were. Hopefully, they can sort through the staff with minimal disturbance and locate the impostor." Vin's senses itched at how trusting Elend was. No, she thought. Let him assume the best. He has enough to worry about. Besides, perhaps the kandra is imitating someone outside our core team. Elend can search that avenue. And, if the impostor is a member of the crew. . .Well, that's the sort of situation where my paranoia comes in handy. "Anyway," Elend said, standing. "I have a few things to check on before it gets too late." Vin nodded. He gave her a long kiss, then left. She sat on the table for a few moments longer, not looking at the massive rose window, but at the smaller window to the side, which she'd left slightly open. It stood, a doorway into the night. Mist churned in the blackness, tentatively sending tendrils into the room, evaporating quietly in the warmth. "I will not fear you," Vin whispered. "And I will find your secret." She climbed off
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the table and slipped out the window, back out to meet with OreSeur and do another check of the palace grounds. I had determined that Alendi was the Hero of Ages, and I intended to prove it. I should have bowed before the will of the others; I shouldn't have insisted on traveling with Alendi to witness his journeys. It was inevitable that Alendi himself would find out what I believed him to be. ON THE EIGHTH DAY OUT of the Conventical, Sazed awoke to find himself alone. He stood, pushing off his blanket and the light film of ash that had fallen during the night. Marsh's place beneath the tree's canopy was empty, though a patch of bare earth indicated where the Inquisitor had slept. Sazed stood, following Marsh's footsteps out into the harsh red sunlight. The ash was deeper here, without the cover of trees, and there was also more wind blowing it into drifts. Sazed regarded the windswept landscape. There was no further sign of Marsh. Sazed returned to camp. The trees here—in the middle of the Eastern Dominance—rose twisted and knotted, but they had shelflike, overlapping branches, thick with brown needles. These provided decent shelter, though the ash seemed capable of infiltrating any sanctuary. Sazed made a simple soup for breakfast. Marsh did not return. Sazed washed his brown travel robes in a nearby stream. Marsh did not return. Sazed sewed a rent in his sleeve, oiled his walking boots, and shaved his head. Marsh did not return. Sazed got out the rubbing he'd made in the Conventical, transcribed a few words, then forced himself to put the sheet away—he worried about blurring the words by opening it too often or by getting ash on it. Better to wait until he could have a proper desk and clean room. Marsh did not return. Finally, Sazed left. He couldn't define the sense of urgency that he felt—part excitement to share what he had learned, part desire to see how Vin and the young king Elend Venture were handling events in Luthadel. Marsh knew the way. He would catch up. Sazed raised his hand, shading his eyes against the red sunlight, looking down from his hilltop vantage. There was a slight darkness on the horizon, to the east of the main road. He tapped his geography coppermind, seeking out descriptions of the Eastern Dominance. The knowledge swelled his mind, blessing him with recollection. The darkness was a village named Urbene. He searched through one of his indexes, looking for the right gazetteer. The index was growing fuzzy, its information difficult to remember—which meant that he'd switched it from coppermind to memory and back too many times. Knowledge inside a coppermind would remain pristine, but anything inside his head—even for only a few moments—would decay. He'd have to re-memorize the index later. He found what he was looking for, and dumped the right memories into his head. The gazetteer listed Urbene as "picturesque," which probably meant that some important nobleman had decided to make his manor there. The listing said that
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the skaa of Urbene were herdsmen. Sazed scribbled a note to himself, then redeposited the gazetteer's memories. Reading the note told him what he had just forgotten. Like the index, the gazetteer memories had inevitably decayed slightly during their stay in his head. Fortunately, he had a second set of copperminds hidden back up in Terris, and would use those to pass his knowledge on to another Keeper. His current copperminds were for everyday use. Unapplied knowledge benefited no one. He shouldered his pack. A visit to the village would do him some good, even if it slowed him down. His stomach agreed with the decision. It was unlikely the peasants would have much in the way of food, but perhaps they would be able to provide something other than broth. Besides, they might have news of events at Luthadel. He hiked down the short hill, taking the smaller, eastern fork in the road. Once, there had been little travel in the Final Empire. The Lord Ruler had forbidden skaa to leave their indentured lands, and only thieves and rebels had dared disobey. Still, most of the nobility had made their livings by trading, so a village such as this one might be accustomed to visitors. Sazed began to notice the oddities immediately. Goats roamed the countryside along the road, unwatched. Sazed paused, then dug a coppermind from his pack. He searched through it as he walked. One book on husbandry claimed that herdsmen sometimes left their flocks alone to graze. Yet, the unwatched animals made him nervous. He quickened his pace. Just to the south, the skaa starve, he thought. Yet here, livestock is so plentiful that nobody can be spared to keep it safe from bandits or predators? The small village appeared in the distance. Sazed could almost convince himself that the lack of activity—the lack of movement in the streets, the derelict doors and shutters swinging in the breeze—was due to his approach. Perhaps the people were so scared that they were hiding. Or, perhaps they simply were all out. Tending flocks. . .. Sazed stopped. A shift in the wind brought a telltale scent from the village. The skaa weren't hiding, and they hadn't fled. It was the scent of rotting bodies. Suddenly urgent, Sazed pulled out a small ring—a scent tinmind—and slipped it on his thumb. The smell on the wind, it didn't seem like that of a slaughter. It was a mustier, dirtier smell. A smell not only of death, but of corruption, unwashed bodies, and waste. He reversed the use of the tinmind, filling it instead of tapping it, and his ability to smell grew very weak—keeping him from gagging. He continued on, carefully entering the village proper. Like most skaa villages, Urbene was organized simply. It had a group of ten large hovels built in a loose circle with a well at the center. The buildings were wood, and for thatching they used the same needle-bearing branches from the trees he'd seen. Overseers' huts, along with a fine nobleman's manor, stood a little farther
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up the valley. If it hadn't been for the smell—and the sense of haunted emptiness—Sazed might have agreed with his gazetteer's description of Urbene. For skaa residences, the hovels looked well maintained, and the village lay in a quiet hollow amid the rising landscape. It wasn't until he got a little closer that he found the first bodies. They lay scattered around the doorway to the nearest hovel, about a half-dozen of them. Sazed approached carefully, but could quickly see that the corpses were at least several days old. He knelt beside the first one, that of a woman, and could see no visible cause of death. The others were the same. Nervous, Sazed forced himself to reach up and pull open the door to the hovel. The stench from inside was so strong that he could smell it through his tinmind. The hovel, like most, was only a single chamber. It was filled with bodies. Most lay wrapped in thin blankets; some sat with backs pressed up against the walls, rotting heads hanging limply from their necks. They had gaunt, nearly fleshless bodies with withered limbs and protruding ribs. Haunted, unseeing eyes sat in desiccated faces. These people had died of starvation and dehydration. Sazed stumbled from the hovel, head bowed. He didn't expect to find anything different in the other buildings, but he checked anyway. He saw the same scene repeated again and again. Woundless corpses on the ground outside; many more bodies huddled inside. Flies buzzing about in swarms, covering faces. In several of the buildings he found gnawed human bones at the center of the room. He stumbled out of the final hovel, breathing deeply through his mouth. Dozens of people, over a hundred total, dead for no obvious reason. What possibly could have caused so many of them to simply sit, hidden in their houses, while they ran out of food and water? How could they have starved when there were beasts running free? And what had killed those that he'd found outside, lying in the ash? They didn't seem as emaciated as the ones inside, though from the level of decomposition, it was difficult to tell. I must be mistaken about the starvation, Sazed told himself. It must have been a plague of some sort, a disease. That is a much more logical explanation. He searched through his medical coppermind. Surely there were diseases that could strike quickly, leaving their victims weakened. And the survivors must have fled. Leaving behind their loved ones. Not taking any of the animals from their pastures. . .. Sazed frowned. At that moment, he thought he heard something. He spun, drawing auditory power from his hearing tinmind. The sounds were there—the sound of breathing, the sound of movement, coming from one of the hovels he'd visited. He dashed forward, throwing open the door, looking again on the sorry dead. The corpses lay where they had been before. Sazed studied them very carefully, this time watching until he found the one whose chest was moving. By the forgotten gods. . .Sazed
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thought. The man didn't need to work hard to feign death. His hair had fallen out, and his eyes were sunken into his face. Though he didn't look particularly starved, Sazed must have missed seeing him because of his dirty, almost corpselike body. Sazed stepped toward the man. "I am a friend," he said quietly. The man remained motionless. Sazed frowned as he walked forward and laid a hand on the man's shoulder. The man's eyes snapped open, and he cried out, jumping to his feet. Dazed and frenzied, he scrambled over corpses, moving to the back of the room. He huddled down, staring at Sazed. "Please," Sazed said, setting down his pack. "You mustn't be afraid." The only food he had besides broth spices was a few handfuls of meal, but he pulled some out. "I have food." The man shook his head. "There is no food," he whispered. "We ate it all. Except. . .the food." His eyes darted toward the center of the room. Toward the bones Sazed had noticed earlier. Uncooked, gnawed on, placed in a pile beneath a ragged cloth, as if to hide them. "I didn't eat the food," the man whispered. "I know," Sazed said, taking a step forward. "But, there is other food. Outside." "Can't go outside." "Why not?" The man paused, then looked down. "Mist." Sazed glanced toward the doorway. The sun was nearing the horizon, but wouldn't set for another hour or so. There was no mist. Not now, anyway. Sazed felt a chill. He slowly turned back toward the man. "Mist. . .during the day?" The man nodded. "And it stayed?" Sazed asked. "It didn't go away after a few hours?" The man shook his head. "Days. Weeks. All mist." Lord Ruler! Sazed thought, then caught himself. It had been a long time since he'd sworn by that creature's name, even in his thoughts. But for the mist to come during the day, then to stay—if this man were to be believed—for weeks. . .Sazed could imagine the skaa, frightened in their hovels, a thousand years of terror, tradition, and superstition keeping them from venturing outside. But to remain inside until they starved? Even their fear of the mist, deep-seated though it was, wouldn't have been enough to make them starve themselves to death, would it? "Why didn't you leave?" Sazed asked quietly. "Some did," the man said, nodding as if to himself. "Jell. You know what happened to him." Sazed frowned. "Dead?" "Taken by the mist. Oh, how he shook. Was a bull-headed one, you know. Old Jell. Oh, how he shook. How he writhed when it took him." Sazed closed his eyes. The corpses I found outside the doors. "Some got away," the man said. Sazed snapped his eyes open. "What?" The crazed villager nodded again. "Some got away, you know. They called to us, after leaving the village. Said it was all right. It didn't take them. Don't know why. It killed others, though. Some, it shook to the ground, but they got up later. Some it killed."
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"The mist let some survive, but it killed others?" The man didn't answer. He'd sat down, and now he lay back, staring unfocused at the ceiling. "Please," Sazed said. "You must answer me. Who did it kill and who did it let pass? What is the connection?" The man turned toward him. "Time for food," he said, then rose. He wandered over to a corpse, then pulled on an arm, ripping the rotted meat free. It was easy to see why he hadn't starved to death like the others. Sazed pushed aside nausea, striding across the room and grabbing the man's arm as he raised the near fleshless bone to his lips. The man froze, then looked up at Sazed. "It's not mine!" he yelped, dropping the bone and running to the back of the room. Sazed stood for a moment. I must hurry. I must get to Luthadel. There is more wrong with this world than bandits and armies. The wild man watched with a feral sort of terror as Sazed picked up his pack, then paused and set it down again. He pulled out his largest pewtermind. He fastened the wide metal bracer to his forearm, then turned and walked toward the villager. "No!" the man screamed, trying to dash to the side. Sazed tapped the pewtermind, pulling out a burst of strength. He felt his muscles enlarge, his robes growing tight. He snatched the villager as the man ran passed, then held him out, far enough away that the man couldn't do either of them much harm. Then he carried the man outside of the building. The man stopped struggling as soon as they emerged into the sunlight. He looked up, as if seeing the sun for the first time. Sazed set him down, then released his pewtermind. The man knelt, looking up at the sun, then turned to Sazed. "The Lord Ruler. . .why did he abandon us? Why did he go?" "The Lord Ruler was a tyrant." The man shook his head. "He loved us. He ruled us. Now that he's gone, the mists can kill us. They hate us." Then, surprisingly adroit, the man leaped to his feet and scrambled down the pathway out of the village. Sazed took a step forward, but paused. What would he do? Pull the man all the way to Luthadel? There was water in the well and there were animals to eat. Sazed could only hope that the poor wretch would be able to manage. Sighing, Sazed returned to the hovel and retrieved his pack. On his way out, he paused, then pulled out one of his steelminds. Steel held one of the very most difficult attributes to store up: physical speed. He had spent months filling this particular steelmind in preparation for the possibility that someday he might need to run somewhere very, very quickly. He put it on now. Yes, he was the one who fueled the rumors after that. I could never have done what he himself did, convincing and persuading the world that he was indeed
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the Hero. I don't know if he himself believed it, but he made others think that he must be the one. VIN RARELY USED HER QUARTERS. Elend had assigned her spacious rooms—which was, perhaps, part of the problem. She'd spent her childhood sleeping in nooks, lairs, or alleys. Having three separate chambers was a bit daunting. It didn't really matter, however. During her time awake she was with either Elend or the mists. Her rooms existed for her to sleep in. Or, in this case, for her to make a mess in. She sat on the floor in the center of her main chamber. Elend's steward, concerned that Vin didn't have any furniture, had insisted on decorating her rooms. This morning, Vin had pushed some of this aside, bunching up rugs and chairs on one side so that she could sit on the cool stones with her book. It was the first real book she had ever owned, though it was just a collection of pages bound loosely at one side. That suited her just fine; the simple binding had made the book that much easier to pull apart. She sat amid stacks of paper. It was amazing how many pages there were in the book, once she had separated them. Vin sat next to one pile, looking over its contents. She shook her head, then crawled over to another pile. She leafed through the pages, eventually selecting one. Sometimes I wonder if I'm going mad, the words read. Perhaps it is due to the pressure of knowing that I must somehow bear the burden of an entire world. Perhaps it is caused by the death I have seen, the friends I have lost. The friends I have been forced to kill. Either way, I sometimes see shadows following me. Dark creatures that I don't understand, nor do I wish to understand. They are, perhaps, some figment of my overtaxed mind? Vin sat for a moment, rereading the paragraphs. Then she moved the sheet over to another pile. OreSeur lay on the side of the room, head on paws, eyeing her. "Mistress," he said as she set down the page, "I have been watching you work for the last two hours, and will admit that I am thoroughly confused. What is the point of all this?" Vin crawled over to another stack of pages. "I thought you didn't care how I spent my time." "I don't," OreSeur said. "But I do get bored." "And annoyed, apparently." "I like to understand what is going on around me." Vin shrugged, gesturing toward the stacks of paper. "This is the Lord Ruler's logbook. Well, actually, it's not the logbook of the Lord Ruler we knew, but the logbook of the man who should have been the Lord Ruler." "Should have been?" OreSeur asked. "You mean he should have conquered the world, but didn't?" "No," Vin said. "I mean he should have been the one who took the power at the Well of Ascension. This man, the man who wrote this book—we don't actually know his
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name—was some kind of prophesied hero. Or. . .everyone thought he was. Anyway, the man who became the Lord Ruler—Rashek—was this hero's packman. Don't you remember us talking about this, back when you were imitating Renoux?" OreSeur nodded. "I recall you briefly mentioning it." "Well, this is the book Kelsier and I found when we infiltrated the Lord Ruler's palace. We thought it was written by the Lord Ruler, but it turns out it was written by the man the Lord Ruler killed, the man whose place he took." "Yes, Mistress," OreSeur said. "Now, why exactly are you tearing it to pieces?" "I'm not," Vin said. "I just took off the binding so I could move the pages around. It helps me think." "I. . .see," OreSeur said. "And, what exactly are you looking for? The Lord Ruler is dead, Mistress. Last I checked, you killed him." What am I looking for? Vin thought, picking up another page. Ghosts in the mist. She read the words on this page slowly. It isn't a shadow. This dark thing that follows me, the thing that only I can see—it isn't really a shadow. It is blackish and translucent, but it doesn't have a shadowlike solid outline. It's insubstantial—wispy and formless. Like it's made out of black fog. Or mist, perhaps. Vin lowered the page. It watched him, too, she thought. She remembered reading the words over a year before, thinking that the Hero must have started to go mad. With all the pressures on him, who would have been surprised? Now, however, she thought she understood the nameless logbook author better. She knew he was not the Lord Ruler, and could see him for what he might have been. Uncertain of his place in the world, but forced into important events. Determined to do the best he could. Idealistic, in a way. And the mist spirit had chased him. What did it mean? What did seeing it imply for her? She crawled over to another pile of pages. She'd spent the morning scanning through the logbook for clues about the mist creature. However, she was having trouble digging out much beyond these two, familiar passages. She made piles of pages that mentioned anything strange or supernatural. She made a small pile with pages that referenced the mist spirit. She also had a special pile for references to the Deepness. This last one, ironically, was both the largest and least informative of the group. The logbook author had a habit of mentioning the Deepness, but not saying much about it. The Deepness was dangerous, that much was clear. It had ravaged the land, slaying thousands. The monster had sown chaos wherever it stepped, bringing destruction and fear, but the armies of mankind had been unable to defeat it. Only the Terris prophecies and the Hero of Ages had offered any hope. If only he had been more specific! Vin thought with frustration, riffling papers. However, the tone of the logbook really was more melancholy than it was informative. It was something that the Hero had
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written for himself, to stay sane, to let him put his fears and hopes down on paper. Elend said he wrote for similar reasons, sometimes. To Vin, it seemed a silly method of dealing with problems. With a sigh, she turned to the last stack of papers—the one with pages she had yet to study. She lay down on the stone floor and began to read, searching for useful information. It took time. Not only was she a slow reader, but her mind kept wandering. She'd read the logbook before—and, oddly, hints and phrases from it reminded her of where she'd been at the time. Two years and a world away in Fellise, still recovering from her near death at the hands of a Steel Inquisitor, she'd been forced to spend her days pretending to be Valette Renoux, a young, inexperienced country noblewoman. Back then, she still hadn't believed in Kelsier's plan to overthrow the Final Empire. She'd stayed with the crew because she valued the strange things they offered her—friendship, trust, and lessons in Allomancy—not because she accepted their goals. She would never have guessed where that would lead her. To balls and parties, to actually growing—just a bit—to become the noblewoman she had pretended to be. But that had been a farce, a few months of make-believe. She forced her thoughts away from the frilly clothing and the dances. She needed to focus on practical matters. And. . .is this practical? she thought idly, setting a page in one of the stacks. Studying things I barely comprehend, fearing a threat nobody else even cares to notice? She sighed, folding her arms under her chin as she lay on her stomach. What was she really worried about? That the Deepness would return? All she had were a few phantom visions in the mist—things that could, as Elend implied, have easily been fabricated by her overworked mind. More important was another question. Assuming that the Deepness was real, what did she expect to do about it? She was no hero, general, or leader. Oh, Kelsier, she thought, picking up another page. We could use you now. Kelsier had been a man beyond convention. . .a man who had somehow been able to defy reality. He'd thought that by giving his life to overthrow the Lord Ruler, he would secure freedom for the skaa. But, what if his sacrifice had opened the way for a greater danger, something so destructive that the Lord Ruler's oppression was a preferable alternative? She finally finished the page, then placed it in the stack of those that contained no useful information. Then she paused. She couldn't even remember what she'd just read. She sighed, picking the page back up, looking at it again. How did Elend do it? He could study the same books over and over again. But, for Vin, it was hard to— She paused. I must assume that I am not mad, the words said. I cannot, with any rational sense of confidence, continue my quest if I do not believe this. The thing
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following me must, therefore, be real. She sat up. She only vaguely remembered this section of the logbook. The book was organized like a diary, with sequential—but dateless—entries. It had a tendency to ramble, and the Hero had been fond of droning on about his insecurities. This section had been particularly dry. But there, in the middle of his complaining, was a tidbit of information. I believe that it would kill me, if it could, the text continued. There is an evil feel to the thing of shadow and fog, and my skin recoils at its touch. Yet, it seems limited in what it can do, especially to me. It can affect this world, however. The knife it placed in Fedik's chest proves that much. I'm still not certain which was more traumatic for him—the wound itself, or seeing the thing that did it to him. Rashek whispers that I stabbed Fedik myself, for only Fedik and I can give witness to that night's events. However, I must make a decision. I must determine that I am not mad. The alternative is to admit that it was I who held that knife. Somehow, knowing Rashek's opinion on the matter makes it much easier for me to believe the opposite. The next page continued on about Rashek, and the next several entries contained no mention of the mist spirit. However, Vin found even these few paragraphs exciting. He made a decision, she thought. I have to make the same one. She'd never worried that she was mad, but she had sensed some logic in Elend's words. Now she rejected them. The mist spirit was not some delusion brought on by a mixture of stress and memories of the logbook. It was real. That didn't mean the Deepness was returning, nor did it mean that Luthadel was in any sort of supernatural danger. Both, however, were possibilities. She set this page with the two others that contained concrete information about the mist spirit, then turned back to her studies, determined to pay closer attention to her reading. The armies were digging in. Elend watched from atop the wall as his plan, vague though it was, began to take form. Straff was making a defensive perimeter to the north, holding the canal route back a relatively short distance to Urteau, his home city and capital. Cett was digging in to the west of the city, holding the Luth-Davn Canal, which ran back to his cannery in Haverfrex. A cannery. That was something Elend wished he had in the city. The technology was newer—perhaps fifty years old—but he'd read of it. The scholars had considered its main use that of providing easily carried supplies for soldiers fighting at the fringes of the empire. They hadn't considered stockpiles for sieges—particularly in Luthadel. But, then, who would have? Even as Elend watched, patrols began to move out from the separate armies. Some moved to watch the boundaries between the two forces, but others moved to secure other canal routes, bridges across the River Channerel, and roads leading away
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from Luthadel. In a remarkably short time, the city felt completely surrounded. Cut off from the world, and the rest of Elend's small kingdom. No more moving in or out. The armies were counting on disease, starvation, and other weakening factors to bring Elend to his knees. The siege of Luthadel had begun. That's a good thing, he told himself. For this plan to work, they have to think me desperate. They have to be so sure that I'm willing to side with them, that they don't consider that I might be working with their enemies, too. As Elend watched, he noticed someone climbing up the steps to the wall. Clubs. The general hobbled over to Elend, who had been standing alone. "Congratulations," Clubs said. "Looks like you now have a full-blown siege on your hands." "Good." "It'll give us a little breathing room, I guess," Clubs said. Then he eyed Elend with one of his gnarled looks. "You'd better be up to this, kid." "I know," Elend whispered. "You've made yourself the focal point," Clubs said. "The Assembly can't break this siege until you meet officially with Straff, and the kings aren't likely to meet with anyone on the crew other than yourself. This is all about you. Useful place for a king to be, I suppose. If he's a good one." Clubs fell silent. Elend stood, looking out over the separate armies. The words spoken to him by Tindwyl the Terriswoman still bothered him. You are a fool, Elend Venture. . .. So far, neither of the kings had responded to Elend's requests for a meeting—though the crew was sure that they soon would. His enemies would wait, to make Elend sweat a bit. The Assembly had just called another meeting, probably to try and bully him into releasing them from their earlier proposal. Elend had found a convenient reason to skip the meeting. He looked at Clubs. "And am I a good king, Clubs? In your opinion." The general glanced at him, and Elend saw a harsh wisdom in his eyes. "I've known worse leaders," he said. "But I've also known a hell of a lot better." Elend nodded slowly. "I want to be good at this, Clubs. Nobody else is going to look after the skaa like they deserve. Cett, Straff. They'd just make slaves of the people again. I. . .I want to be more than my ideas, though. I want to—need to—be a man that others can look to." Clubs shrugged. "My experience has been that the man is usually made by the situation. Kelsier was a selfish dandy until the Pits nearly broke him." He glanced at Elend. "Will this siege be your Pits of Hathsin, Elend Venture?" "I don't know," he said honestly. "Then we'll have to wait and see, I guess. For now, someone wants to speak with you." He turned, nodding down toward the street some forty feet below, where a tall, feminine figure stood in colorful Terris robes. "She told me to send you down," Clubs said. He paused, then glanced
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at Elend. "It isn't often you meet someone who feels like they can order me around. And a Terriswoman at that. I thought those Terris were all docile and kindly." Elend smiled. "I guess Sazed spoiled us." Clubs snorted. "So much for a thousand years of breeding, eh?" Elend nodded. "You sure she's safe?" Clubs asked. "Yes," Elend said. "Her story checks out—Vin brought in several of the Terris people from the city, and they knew and recognized Tindwyl. She's apparently a fairly important person back in her homeland." Plus, she had performed Feruchemy for him, growing stronger to free her hands. That meant she wasn't a kandra. All of it together meant that she was trustworthy enough; even Vin admitted that, even if she continued to dislike the Terriswoman. Clubs nodded to him, and Elend took a deep breath. Then he walked down the stairs to meet Tindwyl for another round of lessons. "Today, we will do something about your clothing," Tindwyl said, closing the door to Elend's study. A plump seamstress with bowl-cut white hair waited inside, standing respectfully with a group of youthful assistants. Elend glanced down at his clothing. It actually wasn't bad. The suit coat and vest fit fairly well. The trousers weren't as stiff as those favored by imperial nobility, but he was the king now; shouldn't he be able to set the trends? "I don't see what's wrong with it," he said. He held up a hand as Tindwyl began to speak. "I know it's not quite as formal as what other men like to wear, but it suits me." "It's disgraceful," Tindwyl said. "Now, I hardly see—" "Don't argue with me." "But, see, the other day you said that—" "Kings don't argue, Elend Venture," Tindwyl said firmly. "They command. And, part of your ability to command comes from your bearing. Slovenly clothing invites other slovenly habits—such as your posture, which I've already mentioned, I believe." Elend sighed, rolling his eyes as Tindwyl snapped her fingers. The seamstress and her assistants started unpacking a pair of large trunks. "This isn't necessary," Elend said. "I already have some suits that fit more snugly; I wear them on formal occasions." "You're not going to wear suits anymore," Tindwyl said. "Excuse me?" Tindwyl eyed him with a commanding stare, and Elend sighed. "Explain yourself!" he said, trying to sound commanding. Tindwyl nodded. "You have maintained the dress code preferred by the nobility sanctioned by the Final Emperor. In some respects, this was a good idea—it gave you a connection to the former government, and made you seem less of a deviant. Now, however, you are in a different position. Your people are in danger, and the time for simple diplomacy is over. You are at war. Your dress should reflect that." The seamstress selected a particular costume, then brought it over to Elend while the assistants set up a changing screen. Elend hesitantly accepted the costume. It was stiff and white, and the front of the jacket appeared to button all the way up to a rigid collar.
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All and all, it looked like. . . "A uniform," he said, frowning. "Indeed," Tindwyl said. "You want your people to believe that you can protect them? Well, a king isn't simply a lawmaker—he's a general. It is time you began to act like you deserve your title, Elend Venture." "I'm no warrior," Elend said. "This uniform is a lie." "The first point we will soon change," Tindwyl said. "The second is not true. You command the armies of the Central Dominance. That makes you a military man whether or not you know how to swing a sword. Now, go change." Elend acceded with a shrug. He walked around the changing screen, pushed aside a stack of books to make room, then began to change. The white trousers fit snugly and fell straight around the calves. While there was a shirt, it was completely obscured by the large, stiff jacket—which had military shoulder fittings. It had an array of buttons—all of which, he noticed, were wood instead of metal—as well as a strange shieldlike design over the right breast. It seemed to have some sort of arrow, or perhaps spear, emblazoned in it. Stiffness, cut, and design considered, Elend was surprised how well the uniform fit. "It's sized quite well," he noted, putting on the belt, then pulling down the bottom of the jacket, which came all the way to his hips. "We got your measurements from your tailor," Tindwyl said. Elend stepped around the changing screen, and several assistants approached. One politely motioned for him to step into a pair of shiny black boots, and the other attached a white cape to fastenings at his shoulders. The final assistant handed him a polished hardwood dueling cane and sheath. Elend hooked it onto the belt, then pulled it through a slit in the jacket so it hung outside; that much, at least, he had done before. "Good," Tindwyl said, looking him up and down. "Once you learn to stand up straight, that will be a decent improvement. Now, sit." Elend opened his mouth to object, but thought better of it. He sat down, and an assistant approached to attach a sheet around his shoulders. She then pulled out a pair of shears. "Now, wait," Elend said. "I see where this is going." "Then voice an objection," Tindwyl said. "Don't be vague!" "All right, then," Elend said. "I like my hair." "Short hair is easier to care for than long hair," Tindwyl said. "And you have proven that you cannot be trusted in the area of personal grooming." "You aren't cutting my hair," Elend said firmly. Tindwyl paused, then nodded. The apprentice backed away, and Elend stood, pulling off the sheet. The seamstress produced a large mirror, and Elend walked forward to inspect himself. And froze. The difference was surprising. All his life, he'd seen himself as a scholar and socialite, but also as just a bit of a fool. He was Elend—the friendly, comfortable man with the funny ideas. Easy to dismiss, perhaps, but difficult to hate. The man he saw now
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was no dandy of the court. He was a serious man—a formal man. A man to be taken seriously. The uniform made him want to stand up straighter, to rest one hand on the dueling cane. His hair—slightly curled, long on the top and sides, and blown loose by the wind atop the city wall—didn't fit. Elend turned. "All right," he said. "Cut it." Tindwyl smiled, then nodded for him to sit. He did so, waiting quietly while the assistant worked. When he stood again, his head matched the suit. It wasn't extremely short, not like Ham's hair, but it was neat and precise. One of the assistants approached and handed him a loop of silver-painted wood. He turned to Tindwyl, frowning. "A crown?" he asked. "Nothing ostentatious," Tindwyl said. "This is a more subtle era than some of those gone by. The crown isn't a symbol of your wealth, but of your authority. You will wear it from now on, whether you are in private or in public." "The Lord Ruler didn't wear a crown." "The Lord Ruler didn't need to remind people that he was in charge," Tindwyl said. Elend paused, then slipped on the crown. It bore no gemstones or ornamentation; it was just a simple coronet. As he might have expected, it fit perfectly. He turned back toward Tindwyl, who waved for the seamstress to pack up and leave. "You have six uniforms like this one waiting for you in your rooms," Tindwyl said. "Until this siege is over, you will wear nothing else. If you want variety, change the color of the cape." Elend nodded. Behind him, the seamstress and her assistants slipped out the door. "Thank you," he told Tindwyl. "I was hesitant at first, but you are right. This makes a difference." "Enough of one to deceive people for now, at least," Tindwyl said. "Deceive people?" "Of course. You didn't think that this was it, did you?" "Well. . ." Tindwyl raised an eyebrow. "A few lessons, and you think you're through? We've barely begun. You are still a fool, Elend Venture—you just don't look like one anymore. Hopefully, our charade will begin reversing some of the damage you've done to your reputation. However, it is going to take a lot more training before I'll actually trust you to interact with people and not embarrass yourself." Elend flushed. "What do you—" He paused. "Tell me what you plan to teach me, then." "Well, you need to learn how to walk, for one thing." "Something's wrong with the way I walk?" "By the forgotten gods, yes!" Tindwyl said, sounding amused, though no smile marred her lips. "And your speech patterns still need work. Beyond that, of course, there is your inability to handle weapons." "I've had some training," Elend said. "Ask Vin—I rescued her from the Lord Ruler's palace the night of the Collapse!" "I know," Tindwyl said. "And, from what I've heard, it was a miracle you survived. Fortunately, the girl was there to do the actual fighting. You apparently rely on her quite a
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bit for that sort of thing." "She's Mistborn." "That is no excuse for your slovenly lack of skill," Tindwyl said. "You cannot always rely on your woman to protect you. Not only is it embarrassing, but your people—your soldiers—will expect you to be able to fight with them. I doubt you will ever be the type of leader who can lead a charge against the enemy, but you should at least be able to handle yourself if your position gets attacked." "So, you want me to begin sparring with Vin and Ham during their training sessions?" "Goodness, no! Can't you imagine how terrible it would be for morale if the men saw you being beaten up in public?" Tindwyl shook her head. "No, we'll have you trained discreetly by a dueling master. Given a few months, we should have you competent with the cane and the sword. Hopefully, this little siege of yours will last that long before the fighting starts." Elend flushed again. "You keep talking down to me. It's like I'm not even king in your eyes—like you see me as some kind of placeholder." Tindwyl didn't answer, but her eyes glinted with satisfaction. You said it, not I, her expression seemed to say. Elend flushed more deeply. "You can, perhaps, learn to be a king, Elend Venture," Tindwyl said. "Until then, you'll just have to learn to fake it." Elend's angry response was cut off by a knock at the door. Elend gritted his teeth, turning. "Come in." The door swung open. "There's news," Captain Demoux said, his youthful face excited as he entered. "I—" He froze. Elend cocked his head. "Yes?" "I. . .uh. . ." Demoux paused, looked Elend over again before continuing. "Ham sent me, Your Majesty. He says that a messenger from one of the kings has arrived." "Really?" Elend said. "From Lord Cett?" "No, Your Majesty. The messenger is from your father." Elend frowned. "Well, tell Ham I'll be there in a moment." "Yes, Your Majesty," Demoux said, retreating. "Uh, I like the new uniform, Your Majesty." "Thank you, Demoux," Elend said. "Do you, by chance, know where Lady Vin is? I haven't seen her all day." "I think she's in her quarters, Your Majesty." Her quarters? She never stays there. Is she sick? "Do you want me to summon her?" Demoux asked. "No, thank you," Elend said. "I'll get her. Tell Ham to make the messenger comfortable." Demoux nodded, then withdrew. Elend turned to Tindwyl, who was smiling to herself with a look of satisfaction. Elend brushed by her, walking over to grab his notebook. "I'm going to learn to do more than just 'fake' being king, Tindwyl." "We'll see." Elend shot a glance at the middle-aged Terriswoman in her robes and jewelry. "Practice expressions like that one," Tindwyl noted, "and you just might do it." "Is that all it is, then?" Elend asked. "Expressions and costumes? Is that what makes a king?" "Of course not." Elend stopped by the door, turning back. "Then, what does? What do you think makes a man
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a good king, Tindwyl of Terris?" "Trust," Tindwyl said, looking him in the eyes. "A good king is one who is trusted by his people—and one who deserves that trust." Elend paused, then nodded. Good answer, he acknowledged, then pulled open the door and rushed out to find Vin. If only the Terris religion, and belief in the Anticipation, hadn't spread beyond our people. THE PILES OF PAPER SEEMED to multiply as Vin found more and more ideas in the logbook that she wanted to isolate and remember. What were the prophecies about the Hero of Ages? How did the logbook author know where to go, and what did he think he'd have to do when he got there? Eventually, lying amid the mess—overlapping piles turned in odd directions to keep them separate—Vin acknowledged a distasteful fact. She was going to have to take notes. With a sigh, she rose and crossed the room, stepping carefully over several stacks and approaching the room's desk. She'd never used it before; in fact, she'd complained about it to Elend. What need did she have of a writing desk? So she'd thought. She selected a pen, then pulled out a little jar of ink, remembering the days when Reen had taught her to write. He'd quickly grown frustrated with her scratchings, complaining about the cost of ink and paper. He'd taught her to read so that she could decipher contracts and imitate a noblewoman, but he'd thought that writing was less useful. In general, Vin shared this opinion. Apparently, however, writing had uses even if one wasn't a scribe. Elend was always scribbling notes and memos to himself; she'd often been impressed by how quickly he could write. How did he make the letters come so easily? She grabbed a couple of blank sheets of paper and walked back over to her sorted piles. She sat down with crossed legs and unscrewed the top of the ink bottle. "Mistress," OreSeur noted, still lying with his paws before him, "you do realize that you just left the writing desk behind to sit on the floor." Vin looked up. "And?" "The purpose of a writing desk is, well, writing." "But my papers are all over here." "Papers can be moved, I believe. If they prove too heavy, you could always burn pewter to give yourself more strength." Vin eyed his amused face as she inked the nib of her pen. Well, at least he's displaying something other than his dislike of me. "The floor is more comfortable." "If you say so, Mistress, I will believe it to be true." She paused, trying to determine if he was still mocking her or not. Blasted dog's face, she thought. Too hard to read. With a sigh, she leaned down and began to write out the first word. She had to make each line precisely so that the ink didn't smudge, and she had to pause often to sound out words and find the right letters. She'd barely written a couple of sentences before a knock came at her door.
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She looked up with a frown. Who was bothering her? "Come in," she called. She heard a door open in the other room, and Elend's voice called out. "Vin?" "In here," she said, turning back to her writing. "Why did you knock?" "Well, you might have been changing," he said, entering. "So?" Vin asked. Elend chuckled. "Two years, and privacy is still a strange concept to you." Vin looked up. "Well, I did—" For just the briefest flash of a moment, she thought he was someone else. Her instincts kicked in before her brain, and she reflexively dropped the pen, jumping up and flaring pewter. Then she stopped. "That much of a change, eh?" Elend asked, holding out his arms so she could get a better look at his costume. Vin put a hand to her chest, so shocked that she stepped right on one of her stacks. It was Elend, but it wasn't. The brilliant white costume, with its sharp lines and firm figure, looked so different from his normal loose jacket and trousers. He seemed more commanding. More regal. "You cut your hair," she said, walking around him slowly, studying the costume. "Tindwyl's idea," he said. "What do you think?" "Less for people to grab on to in a fight," Vin said. Elend smiled. "Is that all you think about?" "No," Vin said absently, reaching up to tug his cape. It came free easily, and she nodded approvingly. Mistcloaks were the same; Elend wouldn't have to worry about someone grabbing his cape in a fight. She stepped back, arms folded. "Does this mean I can cut my hair, too?" Elend paused just briefly. "You're always free to do what you want, Vin. But, I kind of think it's pretty longer." It stays, then. "Anyway," Elend said. "You approve?" "Definitely," Vin said. "You look like a king." Though, she suspected a part of her would miss the tangle-haired, disheveled Elend. There had been something. . .endearing about that mixture of earnest competence and distracted inattention. "Good," Elend said. "Because I think we're going to need the advantage. A messenger just. . ." He trailed off, looking over her stacks of paper. "Vin? Were you doing research?" Vin flushed. "I was just looking through the logbook, trying to find references to the Deepness." "You were!" Elend stepped forward excitedly. To her chagrin, he quickly located the paper with her fledgling notes on it. He held the paper up, then looked over at her. "Did you write this?" "Yes," she said. "Your penmanship is beautiful," he said, sounding a bit surprised. "Why didn't you tell me you could write like this?" "Didn't you say something about a messenger?" Elend put the sheet back down, looking oddly like a proud parent. "Right. A messenger from my father's army has arrived. I'm making him wait for a bit—it didn't seem wise to appear too eager. But, we should probably go meet with him." Vin nodded, waving to OreSeur. The kandra rose and padded to her side, and the three of them left her quarters. That
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was one nice thing about books and notes. They could always wait for another time. They found the messenger waiting in the third-floor Venture atrium. Vin and Elend walked in, and she stopped immediately. It was him. The Watcher. Elend stepped forward to meet the man, and Vin grabbed his arm. "Wait," she hissed quietly. Elend turned, confused. If that man has atium, Vin thought with a stab of panic, Elend is dead. We're all dead. The Watcher stood quietly. He didn't look much like a messenger or courier. He wore all black, even a pair of black gloves. He wore trousers and a silken shirt, with no cloak or cape. She remembered that face. It was him. But. . .she thought, if he'd wanted to kill Elend, he could have done so already. The thought frightened her, yet she had to admit it was true. "What?" Elend asked, standing in the doorway with her. "Be careful," she whispered. "This is no simple messenger. That man is Mistborn." Elend paused, frowning. He turned back toward the Watcher, who stood quietly, clasping his hands behind his back, looking confident. Yes, he was Mistborn; only a man such as he could walk into an enemy palace, completely surrounded by guards, and not be the slightest bit unsettled. "All right," Elend said, finally stepping into the room. "Straff's man. You bring a message for me?" "Not just a message, Your Majesty," the Watcher said. "My name is Zane, and I am something of an. . .ambassador. Your father was very pleased to receive your invitation for an alliance. He's glad that you are finally seeing reason." Vin studied the Watcher, this "Zane." What was his game? Why come himself? Why reveal who he was? Elend nodded, keeping a distance from Zane. "Two armies," Elend said, "camped outside my door. . .well, that's not the kind of thing I can ignore. I'd like to meet with my father and discuss possibilities for the future." "I think he would enjoy that," Zane said. "It has been some time since he saw you, and he has long regretted your falling-out. You are, after all, his only son." "It's been hard on both of us," Elend said. "Perhaps we could set up a tent in which to meet outside the city?" "I'm afraid that won't be possible," Zane said. "His Majesty rightly fears assassins. If you wish to speak with him, he'd be happy to host you at his tent in the Venture camp." Elend frowned. "Now, I don't think that makes much sense. If he fears assassins, shouldn't I?" "I'm certain he could protect you in his own camp, Your Majesty," Zane said. "You have nothing to fear from Cett's assassins there." "I. . .see," Elend said. "I'm afraid that His Majesty was quite firm on this point," Zane said. "You are the one who is eager for an alliance—if you wish a meeting, you will have to come to him." Elend glanced at Vin. She continued to watch Zane. The man met her eyes, and spoke. "I
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have heard reports of the beautiful Mistborn who accompanies the Venture heir. She who slew the Lord Ruler, and was trained by the Survivor himself." There was silence in the room for a moment. Elend finally spoke. "Tell my father that I will consider his offer." Zane finally turned away from Vin. "His Majesty was hoping for us to set a date and time, Your Majesty." "I will send another message when I have made my decision," Elend said. "Very well," Zane said, bowing slightly, though he used the move to catch Vin's eyes once again. Then he nodded once to Elend, and let the guards escort him away. In the cold mist of early evening, Vin waited on the short wall of Keep Venture, OreSeur sitting at her side. The mists were quiet. Her thoughts were far less serene. Who else would he work for? she thought. Of course he's one of Straff's men. That explained many things. It had been quite a while since their last encounter; Vin had begun to think that she wouldn't see the Watcher again. Would they spar again, then? Vin tried to suppress her eagerness, tried to tell herself that she simply wanted to find this Watcher because of the threat he posed. But, the thrill of another fight in the mists—another chance to test her abilities against a Mistborn—made her tense with anticipation. She didn't know him, and she certainly didn't trust him. That only made the prospect of a fight all the more exciting. "Why are we waiting here, Mistress?" OreSeur asked. "We're just on patrol," Vin said. "Watching for assassins or spies. Just like every night." "Do you command me to believe you, Mistress?" Vin shot him a flat stare. "Believe as you wish, kandra." "Very well," OreSeur said. "Why did you not tell the king that you've been sparring with this Zane?" Vin turned back toward the dark mists. "Assassins and Allomancers are my concern, not Elend's. No need to worry him yet—he has enough troubles at the moment." OreSeur sat back on his haunches. "I see." "You don't believe I'm right?" "I believe as I wish," OreSeur said. "Isn't that what you just commanded me, Mistress?" "Whatever," Vin said. Her bronze was on, and she had to try very hard not to think about the mist spirit. She could feel it waiting in the darkness to her right. She didn't look toward it. The logbook never did mention what became of that spirit. It nearly killed one of the Hero's companions. After that, there was barely a mention of it. Problems for another night, she thought as another source of Allomancy appeared to her bronze senses. A stronger, more familiar source. Zane. Vin hopped up onto the battlements, nodded farewell to OreSeur, then jumped out into the night. Mist twisted in the sky, different breezes forming silent streams of white, like rivers in the air. Vin skimmed them, burst through them, and rode them like a bouncing stone cast upon the waters. She quickly reached the place where she and
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Zane had last parted, the lonely abandoned street. He waited in the center, still wearing black. Vin dropped to the cobbles before him in a flurry of mistcloak tassels. She stood up straight. He never wears a cloak. Why is that? The two stood opposite one another for a few silent moments. Zane had to know of her questions, but he offered no introduction, greeting, or explanation. Eventually, he reached into a pocket and pulled out a coin. He tossed it to the street between them, and it bounced—metal ringing against stone—and came to a stop. He jumped into the air. Vin did likewise, both Pushing against the coin. Their separate weights nearly canceled each other out, and they shot up and back, like the two arms of a "V." Zane spun, throwing a coin behind him. It slammed against the side of a building and he Pushed, throwing himself toward Vin. Suddenly, she felt a force slam against her coin pouch, threatening to toss her back down to the ground. What is the game tonight, Zane? she thought even as she yanked the tie on her pouch, dropping it free from her belt. She Pushed against it, and it shot downward, forced by her weight. When it hit the ground, Vin had the better upward force: she was Pushing against the pouch from directly above, while Zane was only pushing from the side. Vin lurched upward, streaking past Zane in the cool night air, then threw her weight against the coins in his own pocket. Zane began to drop. However, he grabbed the coins—keeping them from ripping free—and Pushed down on her pouch. He froze in the air—Vin Pushing him from above, his own Push forcing him upward. And, because he stopped, Vin's Push suddenly threw her backward. Vin let go of Zane and allowed herself to drop. Zane, however, didn't let himself fall. He Pushed himself back up into the air, then began to bound away, never letting his feet touch rooftops or cobblestones. He tried to force me to the ground, Vin thought. First one to fall loses, is that it? Still tumbling, Vin spun herself in the air. She retrieved her coin pouch with a careful Pull, then threw it down toward the ground and Pushed herself upward. She Pulled the pouch back into her hand even as she flew, then jumped after Zane, Pushing recklessly through the night, trying to catch up. In the darkness, Luthadel seemed cleaner than it did during the day. She couldn't see the ash-stained buildings, the dark refineries, the haze of smoke from the forges. Around her, the empty keeps of the old high nobility watched like silent monoliths. Some of the majestic buildings had been given to lesser nobles, and others had become government buildings. The rest—after being plundered at Elend's command—lay unused, their stained-glass windows dark, their vaultings, statues, and murals ignored. Vin wasn't certain if Zane purposely headed to Keep Hasting, or if she simply caught up to him there. Either way, the enormous structure loomed as Zane noticed
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her proximity and turned, throwing a handful of coins at her. Vin Pushed against them tentatively. Sure enough, as soon as she touched them, Zane flared steel and Pushed harder. If she'd been Pushing hard, the force of his attack would have thrown her backward. As it was, she was able to deflect the coins to her sides. Zane immediately Pushed against her coin pouch again, throwing himself upward along one of Keep Hasting's walls. Vin was ready for this move as well. Flaring pewter, she grabbed the pouch in a two-handed grip and ripped it in half. Coins sprayed beneath her, shooting toward the ground under the force of Zane's Push. She selected one and Pushed herself, gaining lift as soon as it hit the ground. She spun, facing upward, her tin-enhanced ears hearing a shower of metal hit the stones far below. She'd still have access to the coins, but she didn't have to carry them on her body. She shot up toward Zane, one of the keep's outer towers looming in the mists to her left. Keep Hasting was one of the finest in the city. It had a large tower at the center—tall, imposing, wide—with a ballroom at the very top. It also had six smaller towers rising equidistant around the central structure, each one connected to it by a thick wall. It was an elegant, majestic building. Somehow, she suspected that Zane had sought it out for that reason. Vin watched him now, his Push losing power as he got too far from the coin anchor below. He spun directly above her, a dark figure against a shifting sky of mist, still well below the top of the wall. Vin yanked sharply on several coins below, Pulling them into the air in case she needed them. Zane plummeted toward her. Vin reflexively Pushed against the coins in his pocket, then realized that was probably what he'd wanted: it gave him lift while forcing her down. She let go as she fell, and she soon passed the group of coins she'd Pulled into the air. She Pulled on one, bringing it into her hand, then Pushed on another, sending it sideways into the wall. Vin shot to the side. Zane whooshed by her in the air, his passing churning the mists. He soon bobbed back up—probably using a coin from below—and flung a double handful of coins straight at her. Vin spun, again deflecting the coins. They shot around her, and she heard several pling against something in the mists behind her. Another wall. She and Zane were sparring between a pair of the keep's outer towers; there was an angled wall to either side of them, with the central tower just a short distance in front of them. They were fighting near the tip of an open-bottomed triangle of stone walls. Zane shot toward her. Vin reached out to throw her weight against him, but realized with a start that he was no longer carrying any coins. He was Pushing on something behind him, though—the same coin
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Vin had slammed against the wall with her weight. She Pushed herself upward, trying to get out of the way, but he angled upward as well. Zane crashed into her, and they began to fall. As they spun together, Zane grabbed her by the upper arms, holding his face close to hers. He didn't seem angry, or even very forceful. He just seemed calm. "This is what we are, Vin," he said quietly. Wind and mist whipped around them as they fell, the tassels of Vin's mistcloak writhing in the air around Zane. "Why do you play their games? Why do you let them control you?" Vin placed her hand lightly against Zane's chest, then Pushed on the coin that had been in her palm. The force of the Push lurched her free of his grip, flipping him up and backward. She caught herself just a few feet from the ground, Pushing against fallen coins, throwing herself upward again. She passed Zane in the night, and saw a smile on his face as he fell. Vin reached downward, locking on to the blue lines extending toward the ground far below, then flared iron and Pulled against all of them at once. Blue lines zipped around her, the coins rising and rising shooting past the surprised Zane. She Pulled a few choice coins into her hands. Let's see if you can stay in the air now, Vin thought with a smile, Pushing outward, spraying the other coins away into the night. Zane continued to fall. Vin began to fall as well. She threw a coin to each side, then Pushed. The coins shot into the mists, flying toward the stone walls to either side. Coins slapped against stone, and Vin lurched to a halt in the air. She Pushed hard, holding herself in place, anticipating a Pull from below. If he pulls, I Pull, too, she thought. We both fall, and I keep the coins between us in the air. He'll hit the ground first. A coin shot past her in the air. What! Where did he get that! She'd been sure that she'd Pushed away every coin below. The coin arced upward, through the mists, trailing a blue line visible to her Allomancer's eyes. It crested the top of the wall to her right. Vin glanced down just in time to see Zane slow, then lurch upward—Pulling on the coin that was now held in place atop the wall by the stone railing. He passed her with a self-satisfied look on his face. Show-off. Vin let go of the coin to her left while still Pushing to her right. She lurched to the left, nearly colliding with the wall before she threw another coin at it. She Pushed on this one, throwing herself upward and to the right. Another coin sent her back upward to the left, and she continued to bounce between the walls, back and forth, until she crested the top. She smiled as she twisted in the air. Zane—hovering in the air above the wall's top—nodded appreciatively as she
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passed. She noticed that he'd grabbed a few of her discarded coins. Time for a little attack myself, Vin thought. She slammed a Push against the coins in Zane's hand, and they shot her upward. However, Zane was still Pushing against the coin on the wall top below, and so he didn't fall. Instead he hung in the air between the two forces—his own Push forcing him upward, Vin's Push forcing him downward. Vin heard him grunt in exertion, and she Pushed harder. She was so focused, however, that she barely saw him open his other hand and Push a coin up toward her. She reached out to Push against it, but fortunately his aim was off, and the coin missed her by a few inches. Or perhaps it didn't. Immediately, the coin zipped back downward and hit her in the back. Zane Pulled on it forcefully, and the bit of metal dug into Vin's skin. She gasped, flaring pewter to keep the coin from cutting through her. Zane didn't relent. Vin gritted her teeth, but he weighed much more than she did. She inched down toward him in the night, her Push straining to keep the two of them apart, the coin digging painfully into her back. Never get into a raw Pushing match, Vin, Kelsier had warned her. You don't weigh enough—you'll lose every time. She stopped Pushing on the coin in Zane's hand. Immediately, she fell, Pulled by the coin on her back. She Pushed on it slightly, giving herself a little leverage, then threw her final coin to the side. It hit at the last moment, and Vin's Push scooted her out from between Zane and his coin. Zane's coin snapped him in the chest, and he grunted: he had obviously been trying to get Vin to collide with him again. Vin smiled, then Pulled against the coin in Zane's hand. Give him what he wants, I guess. He turned just in time to see her slam feet-first into him. Vin spun, feeling him crumple beneath her. She exulted in the victory, spinning in the air above the wall walk. Then she noticed something: several faint lines of blue disappearing into the distance. Zane had pushed all of their coins away. Desperately, Vin grabbed one of the coins and Pulled it back. Too late, however. She searched frantically for a closer source of metal, but all was stone or wood. Disoriented, she hit the stone wall walk, tumbling amid her mistcloak until she came to a halt beside the wall's stone railing. She shook her head and flared tin, clearing her vision with a flash of pain and other senses. Surely Zane hadn't fared better. He must have fallen as— Zane hung a few feet away. He'd found a coin—Vin couldn't fathom how—and was Pushing against it below him. However, he didn't shoot away. He hovered above the wall top, just a few feet in the air, still in a half tumble from Vin's kick. As Vin watched, Zane rotated slowly in the air, hand outstretched beneath him,
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twisting like a skilled acrobat on a pole. There was a look of intense concentration on his face, and his muscles—all of them, arms, face, chest—were taut. He turned in the air until he was facing her. Vin watched with awe. It was possible to Push just slightly against a coin, regulating the amount of force with which one was thrown backward. It was incredibly difficult, however—so difficult that even Kelsier had struggled with it. Most of the time, Mistborn simply used short bursts. When Vin fell, for instance, she slowed herself by throwing a coin and Pushing against it briefly—but powerfully—to counteract her momentum. She'd never seen an Allomancer with as much control as Zane. His ability to push slightly against that coin would be of little use in a fight; it obviously took too much concentration. Yet, there was a grace to it, a beauty to his movements that implied something Vin herself had felt. Allomancy wasn't just about fighting and killing. It was about skill and grace. It was something beautiful. Zane rotated until he was upright, standing in a gentleman's posture. Then he dropped to the wall walk, his feet slapping quietly against the stones. He regarded Vin—who still lay on the stones—with a look that lacked contempt. "You are very skilled," he said. "And quite powerful." He was tall, impressive. Like. . .Kelsier. "Why did you come to the palace today?" she asked, climbing to her feet. "To see how they treated you. Tell me, Vin. What is it about Mistborn that makes us—despite our powers—so willing to act as slaves to others?" "Slaves?" Vin said. "I'm no slave." Zane shook his head. "They use you, Vin." "Sometimes it's good to be useful." "Those words are spoken of insecurity." Vin paused; then she eyed him. "Where did you get that coin, at the end? There were none nearby." Zane smiled, then opened his mouth and pulled out a coin. He dropped it to the stones with a pling. Vin opened her eyes wide. Metal inside a person's body can't be affected by another Allomancer. . .. That's such an easy trick! Why didn't I think of it? Why didn't Kelsier think of it? Zane shook his head. "We don't belong with them, Vin. We don't belong in their world. We belong here, in the mists." "I belong with those who love me," Vin said. "Love you?" Zane asked quietly. "Tell me. Do they understand you, Vin? Can they understand you? And, can a man love something he doesn't understand?" He watched her for a moment. When she didn't respond, he nodded to her slightly, then Pushed against the coin he had dropped moments before, throwing himself back into the mists. Vin let him go. His words held more weight than he probably understood. We don't belong in their world. . .. He couldn't know that she'd been pondering her place, wondering whether she was noblewoman, assassin, or something else. Zane's words, then, meant something important. He felt himself to be an outsider. A little like herself. It
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was a weakness in him, certainly. Perhaps she could turn him against Straff—his willingness to spar with her, his willingness to reveal himself, hinted at that much. She breathed in deeply of the cool, mist air, her heart still beating quickly from the exchange. She felt tired, yet alive, from fighting someone who might actually be better than she was. Standing in the mists atop the wall of an abandoned keep, she decided something. She had to keep sparring with Zane. If only the Deepness hadn't come when it did, providing a threat that drove men to desperation both in action and belief. "KILL HIM," GOD WHISPERED. Zane hung quietly in the mists, looking through Elend Venture's open balcony doors. The mists swirled around him, obscuring him from the king's view. "You should kill him," God said again. In a way, Zane hated Elend, though he had never met the man before today. Elend was everything that Zane should have been. Favored. Privileged. Pampered. He was Zane's enemy, a block in the road to domination, the thing that was keeping Straff—and therefore Zane—from ruling the Central Dominance. But he was also Zane's brother. Zane let himself drop through the mists, falling silently to the ground outside Keep Venture. He Pulled his anchors up into his hand—three small bars he had been pushing on to hold himself in place. Vin would be returning soon, and he didn't want to be near the keep when she did. She had a strange ability to know where he was; her senses were far more keen than any Allomancer he had ever known or fought. Of course, she had been trained by the Survivor himself. I would have liked to have known him, Zane thought as he moved quietly across the courtyard. He was a man who understood the power of being Mistborn. A man who didn't let others control him. A man who did what had to be done, no matter how ruthless it seemed. Or so the rumors said. Zane paused beside the outer keep wall, below a buttress. He stooped, removing a cobblestone, and found the message left there by his spy inside Elend's palace. Zane retrieved it, replaced the cobblestone, then dropped a coin and launched himself out into the night. Zane did not slink. Nor did he creep, skulk, or cower. In fact, he didn't even like to hide. So, he approached the Venture army camp with a determined stride. It seemed to him that Mistborn spent too much of their existence hiding. True, anonymity offered some limited freedom. However, his experience had been that it bound them more than it freed them. It let them be controlled, and it let society pretend that they didn't exist. Zane strode toward a guard post, where two soldiers sat beside a large fire. He shook his head; they were virtually useless, blinded by the firelight. Normal men feared the mists, and that made them less valuable. That wasn't arrogance; it was a simple fact. Allomancers were more useful, and therefore more valuable, than normal
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men. That was why Zane had Tineyes watching in the darkness as well. These regular soldiers were more a formality than anything else. "Kill them," God commanded as Zane walked up to the guard post. Zane ignored the voice, though it was growing more and more difficult to do so. "Halt!" one of the guards said, lowering a spear. "Who is that?" Zane Pushed the spear offhandedly, flipping up the tip. "Who else would it be?" he snapped, walking into the firelight. "Lord Zane!" the other soldier said. "Summon the king," Zane said, passing the guard post. "Tell him to meet me in the command tent." "But, my lord," the guard said. "The hour is late. His Majesty is probably. . ." Zane turned, giving the guard a flat stare. The mists swirled between them. Zane didn't even have to use emotional Allomancy on the soldier; the man simply saluted, then rushed off into the night to do as commanded. Zane strode through the camp. He wore no uniform or mistcloak, but soldiers stopped and saluted as he passed. This was the way it should be. They knew him, knew what he was, knew to respect him. And yet, a part of him acknowledged that if Straff hadn't kept his bastard son hidden, Zane might not be the powerful weapon that he was today. That secrecy had forced Zane to live a life of near squalor while his half brother, Elend, had been privileged. But it also meant that Straff had been able to keep Zane hidden for most of his life. Even still, while rumors were growing about the existence of Straff's Mistborn, few realized that Zane was Straff's son. Plus, living a harsh life had taught Zane to survive on his own. He had become hard, and powerful. Things he suspected Elend would never understand. Unfortunately, one side effect of his childhood was that it had apparently driven him mad. "Kill him," God whispered as Zane passed another guard. The voice spoke every time he saw a person—it was Zane's quiet, constant companion. He understood that he was insane. It hadn't really been all that hard to determine, all things considered. Normal people did not hear voices. Zane did. He found insanity no excuse, however, for irrational behavior. Some men were blind, others had poor tempers. Still others heard voices. It was all the same, in the end. A man was defined not by his flaws, but by how he overcame them. And so, Zane ignored the voice. He killed when he wanted to, not when it commanded. In his estimation, he was actually quite lucky. Other madmen saw visions, or couldn't distinguish their delusions from reality. Zane, at least, could control himself. For the most part. He Pushed on the metal clasps on the flaps of the command tent. The flaps flipped backward, opening for him as the soldiers to either side saluted. Zane ducked inside. "My lord!" said the nightwatch officer of command. "Kill him," God said. "He's really not that important." "Paper," Zane ordered, walking to the
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room's large table. The officer scrambled to comply, grabbing a stack of sheets. Zane Pulled on the nib of a pen, flipping it across the room to his waiting hand. The officer brought the ink. "These are troop concentrations and night patrols," Zane said, scribbling down some numbers and diagrams on the paper. "I observed them tonight, while I was in Luthadel." "Very good, my lord," the soldier said. "We appreciate your help." Zane paused. Then he slowly continued to write. "Soldier, you are not my superior. You aren't even my equal. I am not 'helping' you. I am seeing to the needs of my army. Do you understand?" "Of course, my lord." "Good," Zane said, finishing his notes and handing the paper to the soldier. "Now, leave—or I'll do as a friend has suggested and ram this pen through your throat." The soldier accepted the paper, then quickly withdrew. Zane waited impatiently. Straff did not arrive. Finally, Zane cursed quietly and Pushed open the tent flaps and strode out. Straff's tent was a blazing red beacon in the night, well lit by numerous lanterns. Zane passed the guards, who knew better than to bother him, and entered the king's tent. Straff was having a late dinner. He was a tall man, brown of hair like both his sons—the two important ones, at least. He had fine nobleman's hands, which he used to eat with finesse. He didn't react as Zane entered. "You're late," Straff said. "Kill him," God said. Zane clinched his fists. This command from the voice was the hardest to ignore. "Yes," he said. "I'm late." "What happened tonight?" Straff asked. Zane glanced at the servants. "We should do this in the command tent." Straff continued to sip his soup, staying where he was, implying that Zane had no power to order him about. It was frustrating, but not unexpected. Zane had used virtually the same tactic on the nightwatch officer just moments before. He had learned from the best. Finally, Zane sighed, taking a seat. He rested his arms on the table, idly spinning a dinner knife as he watched his father eat. A servant approached to ask Zane if he wanted a meal, but he waved the man away. "Kill Straff," God commanded. "You should be in his place. You are stronger than he is. You are more competent." But I'm not as sane, Zane thought. "Well?" Straff asked. "Do they have the Lord Ruler's atium or not?" "I'm not sure," Zane said. "Does the girl trust you?" Straff asked. "She's beginning to," Zane said. "I did see her use atium, that once, fighting Cett's assassins." Straff nodded thoughtfully. He really was competent; because of him, the Northern Dominance had avoided the chaos that prevailed in the rest of the Final Empire. Straff's skaa remained under control, his noblemen quelled. True, he had been forced to execute a number of people to prove that he was in charge. But, he did what needed to be done. That was one attribute in a man that Zane respected above
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all others. Especially since he had trouble displaying it himself. "Kill him!" God yelled. "You hate him! He kept you in squalor, forcing you to fight for your survival as a child." He made me strong, Zane thought. "Then use that strength to kill him!" Zane grabbed the carving knife off the table. Straff looked up from his meal, then flinched just slightly as Zane sliced the flesh of his own arm. He cut a long gash into the top of his forearm, drawing blood. The pain helped him resist the voice. Straff watched for a moment, then waved for a servant to bring Zane a towel so he wouldn't get blood on the rug. "You need to get her to use atium again," Straff said. "Elend may have been able to gather one or two beads. We'll only know the truth if she runs out." He paused, turning back to his meal. "Actually, what you need to do is get her to tell you where the stash is hidden, if they even have it." Zane sat, watching the blood seep from the gash on his forearm. "She's more capable than you think, Father." Straff raised an eyebrow. "Don't tell me you believe those stories, Zane? The lies about her and the Lord Ruler?" "How do you know they are lies?" "Because of Elend," Straff said. "That boy is a fool; he only controls Luthadel because every nobleman with half a wit in his head fled the city. If that girl were powerful enough to defeat the Lord Ruler, I sincerely doubt that your brother could ever have gained her loyalty." Zane cut another slice in his arm. He didn't cut deeply enough to do any real damage, and the pain worked as it usually did. Straff finally turned from his meal, masking a look of discomfort. A small, twisted piece of Zane took pleasure from seeing that look in his father's eyes. Perhaps it was a side effect of his insanity. "Anyway," Straff said, "did you meet with Elend?" Zane nodded. He turned to a serving girl. "Tea," he said, waving his uncut arm. "Elend was surprised. He wanted to meet with you, but he obviously didn't like the idea of coming into your camp. I doubt he'll come." "Perhaps," Straff said. "But, don't underestimate the boy's foolishness. Either way, perhaps now he understands how our relationship will proceed." So much posturing, Zane thought. By sending this message, Straff took a stand: he wouldn't be ordered about, or even inconvenienced, on Elend's behalf. Being forced into a siege inconvenienced you, though, Zane thought with a smile. What Straff would have liked to do was attack directly, taking the city without parlay or negotiations. The arrival of the second army made that impossible. Attack now, and Straff would be defeated by Cett. That meant waiting, waiting in a siege, until Elend saw reason and joined with his father willingly. But, waiting was something Straff disliked. Zane didn't mind as much. It would give him more time to spar with the girl. He
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smiled. As the tea arrived, Zane closed his eyes, then burned tin to enhance his senses. His wounds burst to life, minor pains becoming great, shocking him to wakefulness. There was a part of all this he wasn't telling Straff. She is coming to trust me, he thought. And there's something else about her. She's like me. Perhaps. . .she could understand me. Perhaps she could save me. He sighed, opening his eyes and using the towel to clean his arm. His insanity frightened him sometimes. But, it seemed weaker around Vin. That was all he had to go on for the moment. He accepted his tea from the serving girl—long braid, firm chest, homely features—and took a sip of the hot cinnamon. Straff raised his own cup, then hesitated, sniffing delicately. He eyed Zane. "Poisoned tea, Zane?" Zane said nothing. "Birchbane, too," Straff noted. "That's a depressingly unoriginal move for you." Zane said nothing. Straff made a cutting motion. The girl looked up with terror as one of Straff's guards stepped toward her. She glanced at Zane, expecting some sort of aid, but he just looked away. She yelled pathetically as the guard pulled her off to be executed. She wanted the chance to kill him, he thought. I told her it probably wouldn't work. Straff just shook his head. Though not a full Mistborn, the king was a Tineye. Still, even for one with such an ability, sniffing birchbane amid the cinnamon was an impressive feat. "Zane, Zane. . ." Straff said. "What would you do if you actually managed to kill me?" If I actually wanted to kill you, Zane thought, I'd use that knife, not poison. But, he let Straff think what he wished. The king expected assassination attempts. So Zane provided them. Straff held something up—a small bead of atium. "I was going to give you this, Zane. But I see that we'll have to wait. You need to get over these foolish attempts on my life. If you were ever to succeed, where would you get your atium?" Straff didn't understand, of course. He thought that atium was like a drug, and assumed that Mistborn relished using it. Therefore, he thought he could control Zane with it. Zane let the man continue in his misapprehension, never explaining that he had his own personal stockpile of the metal. That, however, brought him to face the real question that dominated his life. God's whispers were returning, now that the pain was fading. And, of all the people the voice whispered about, Straff Venture was the one who most deserved to die. "Why?" God asked. "Why won't you kill him?" Zane looked down at his feet. Because he's my father, he thought, finally admitting his weakness. Other men did what they had to. They were stronger than Zane. "You're insane, Zane," Straff said. Zane looked up. "Do you really think you could conquer the empire yourself, if you were to kill me? Considering your. . .particular malady, do you think you could run even a city?" Zane looked away.
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