The Hero of Ages

14

SPOOK FLARED TIN.

He let it burn within him – burn brightly, burn powerfully. He never turned it off anymore. He just left it on, letting it roar, a fire within him. Tin was one of the slowest-burning of metals, and it wasn’t difficult to obtain in the amounts necessary for Allomancy.

He moved down the silent street. Even with Kelsier’s now-famous proclamations that the skaa need not fear the mists, few people went out at night. For, at night, the mists came. Deep and mysterious, dark and omnipresent, the mists were one of the great constants of the Final Empire. They came every night. Thicker than a simple fog, they swirled in definite patterns – almost as if the different banks, streams, and fronts of mist were living things. Almost playful, yet enigmatic.

To Spook, however, they were barely an obstruction anymore. He’d always been told not to flare his tin too much; he’d been warned not to become dependent upon it. It would do dangerous things to his body, people said. And, the truth was, they were right. He had flared his tin nonstop for a year straight – never letting up, keeping his body in a constant state of super-heightened senses – and it had changed him. He worried that the changes would, indeed, be dangerous.

But he needed them, for the people of Urteau needed him.

Stars blazed in the sky above him like a million tiny suns. They shone through the mists, which had – during the last year – become diaphanous and weak. At first, Spook had thought the world itself was changing. Then he had realized that it was just his perception. Somehow, by flaring tin for so long, he had permanently enhanced his senses to a point far beyond what other Allomancers could attain.

He’d almost stopped. The flared tin had begun as a reaction to Clubs’s death. He still felt terrible about the way he’d escaped Luthadel, leaving his uncle to die. During those first few weeks, Spook had flared his metals as almost a penance – he’d wanted to feel everything around him, take it all in, even though it was painful. Perhaps because it was painful.

But then he’d started to change, and that had worried him. But, the crew always talked about how hard Vin pushed herself. She rarely slept, using pewter to keep herself awake and alert. Spook didn’t know how that worked – he was no Mistborn, and could only burn one metal – but he figured that if burning his one metal could give him an advantage, he’d better take it. Because they were going to need every advantage they could get.

The starlight was like daylight to him. During the actual day, he had to wear a cloth tied across his eyes to protect them, and even then going outside was sometimes blinding. His skin had become so sensitive that each pebble in the ground – each crack, each flake of stone – felt like a knife jabbing him through the soles of his shoes. The chill spring air seemed freezing, and he wore a thick cloak.

However, he had concluded that these nuisances were small prices to pay for the opportunity to become… whatever it was he had become. As he moved down the street, he could hear people shuffling and turning in their beds, even through their walls. He could sense a footstep from yards away. He could see on a dark night as no other human ever had.

Perhaps he’d find a way to become useful to the others. Always before, he’d been the least important member of the crew. The dismissible boy who ran errands or kept watch while the others made plans. He didn’t resent them for that – they’d been right to give him such simple duties. Because of his street dialect, he’d been difficult to understand, and while all the other members of the crew had been hand-picked by Kelsier, Spook had joined by default since he was Clubs’s nephew.

Spook sighed, shoving his hands in his trouser pockets as he walked down the too-bright street. He could feel each and every thread in the fabric.

Dangerous things were happening, he knew that: the way the mists lingered during the day, the way the ground shook as if it were a sleeping man, periodically suffering a terrible dream. Spook worried he wouldn’t be of much help in the critical days to come. A little over a year before, his uncle had died after Spook fled the city. Spook had run out of fear, but also out of a knowledge of his own impotence. He wouldn’t have been able to help during the siege.

He didn’t want to be in that position again. He wanted to be able to help, somehow. He wouldn’t run into the woods, hiding while the world ended around him. Elend and Vin had sent him to Urteau to gather as much information as he could about the Citizen and his government there, and so Spook intended to do his best. If that meant pushing his body beyond what was safe, so be it.

He approached a large intersection. He looked both ways down the intersecting streets – the view clear as day to his eyes. I may not be Mistborn, and I may not be emperor, he thought. But I’m something. Something new. Something Kelsier would be proud of.

Maybe this time I can help.

He saw no motion in either direction, so he slipped onto the street and moved to the north. It felt strange, sometimes, slinking quietly along a street that seemed brightly lit. Yet, he knew that to others it would be dark, with only starlight to see by, the mist blocking and obscuring as ever. Tin helped an Allomancer pierce the mists, and Spook’s increasingly sensitive eyes were even better at this. He brushed through the mists, barely noticing them.

He heard the patrol long before he saw it. How could someone not hear that clanking of armor, not feel that clatter of feet on the cobblestones? He froze, standing with his back to the earthen wall bordering the street, watching for the patrol.

They bore a torch – to Spook’s enhanced eyes, it looked like a blazing beacon of near-blinding brilliance. The torch marked them as fools. Its light wouldn’t help – just the reverse. The light reflected off the mists, enveloping the guards in a little bubble of light that ruined their night vision.

Spook stayed where he was, motionless. The patrol clanked forward, moving down the street. They passed within a few feet of him, but didn’t notice him standing there. There was something… invigorating about being able to watch, feeling at once completely exposed and perfectly unseen. It made him wonder why the new Urteau government even bothered with patrols. Of course, the government’s skaa officials would have very little experience with the mists.

As the guard patrol disappeared around a corner – bearing their glaring torch with them – Spook turned back to his task. The Citizen would be meeting with his aides this night, if his schedule held. Spook intended to listen in on that conversation. He moved carefully down the street.

No city could compare with Luthadel in sheer size, but Urteau made a respectable effort. As the hereditary home of the Venture line, it had once been a much more important – and well-maintained – city than it was now. That decline had begun even before the death of the Lord Ruler. The most obvious sign of that was the roadway Spook now walked on. Once, the city had been crisscrossed with canals that had functioned as watery streets. Those canals had gone dry some time ago, leaving the city crossed by deep, dusty troughs that grew muddy when it rained. Rather than filling them in, the people had simply begun to use the empty bottoms as roads.

The street Spook now used had once been a wide waterway capable of accommodating even large barges. Ten-foot-high walls rose on either side of the sunken street, and buildings loomed above, built up against the lip of the canal. Nobody had been able to give Spook a definite, or consistent, answer as to why the canals had emptied – some blamed earthquakes, others blamed droughts. The fact remained, however, that in the hundred years since the canals had lost their water, nobody had found an economical way to refill them.

And so, Spook continued down the “street,” feeling like he was walking in a deep slot. Numerous ladders – and the occasional ramp or flight of stairs – led up to the sidewalks and the buildings above, but few people ever walked up there. The streetslots – as the city’s residents called them – had simply become normal.

Spook caught a scent of smoke as he walked. He glanced up, and noted a gap in the horizon of buildings. Recently, a building on this street had been burned to the ground. The house of a nobleman. His sense of smell, like his other senses, was incredibly sensitive. So it was possible that he was smelling smoke from long ago, when buildings had burned during the initial rampages following Straff Venture’s death. And yet, the scent seemed too strong for that. Too recent.

Spook hurried on. Urteau was dying slowly, decaying, and a lot of the blame could be placed on its ruler, the Citizen. Long ago, Elend had given a speech to the people of Luthadel. It had been the night when the Lord Ruler had died, the night of Kelsier’s rebellion. Spook remembered Elend’s words well, for the man had spoken of hatred, rebellion, and the dangers associated with them. He’d warned that if the people founded their new government on hatred and bloodshed, it would consume itself with fear, jealousy, and chaos.

Spook had been in that audience, listening. He now saw that Elend was right. The skaa of Urteau had overthrown their noble rulers, and – in a way – Spook was proud of them for doing so. He felt a growing fondness for the city, partially because of how devoutly they tried to follow what the Survivor had taught. Yet, their rebellion hadn’t stopped with the ousting of the nobility. As Elend had predicted, the city had become a place of fear and death.

The question was not why it had happened, but how to stop it.

For now, that wasn’t Spook’s job. He was just supposed to gather information. Only familiarity – gained during weeks spent investigating the city – let him know when he was getting close, for it was frustratingly difficult to keep track of where one was down in the streetslots. At first, he had tried to stay out of them, slipping through smaller alleyways above. Unfortunately, the slots networked the entire city, and he’d wasted so much time going up and down that he’d eventually realized that the slots really were the only viable way of getting around.

Unless one were Mistborn, of course. Unfortunately, Spook couldn’t hop from building to building on lines of Allomantic power. He was stuck in the slots. He made the best of it.

He picked a ladder and swung onto it, climbing up. Though he wore leather gloves, he could feel the grain of the wood. Up top, there was a small sidewalk running along the streetslot. An alleyway extended ahead of him, leading into a cluster of houses. A building at the end of the small street was his goal, but he did not move toward it. Instead, he waited quietly, searching for the signs he knew were there. Sure enough, he caught a rustling motion in a window a few buildings down. His ears caught the sound of footsteps in another building. The street ahead of him was being watched.

Spook turned aside. While the sentries were very careful to watch the alleyway, they unintentionally left another avenue open: their own buildings. Spook crept to the right, moving on feet that could feel each pebble beneath them, listening with ears that could hear a man’s increased breathing as he spotted something unusual. He rounded the outside of a building, turning away from the watchful eyes, and entering a dead-end alleyway on the other side. There, he lay a hand against the wall of the building.

There were vibrations inside the room; it was occupied, so he moved on. The next room alerted him immediately, as he heard whispered voices inside. The third room, however, gave him nothing. No vibrations of motion. No whispers. Not even the muted thudding of a heartbeat – something he could sometimes hear, if the air were still enough. Taking a deep breath, Spook quietly worked open the window lock and slipped inside.

It was a sleeping chamber, empty as he’d anticipated. He’d never come through this particular room before. His heart thumped as he closed the shutters, then slipped across the floor. Despite the near-total darkness, he had no trouble seeing in the room. It barely seemed dim to him.

Outside the room, he found a more familiar hallway. He easily snuck past two guard rooms, where men watched the street outside. There was a thrill in doing these infiltrations. Spook was in one of the Citizen’s own guardhouses, steps away from large numbers of armed soldiers. They should have taken care to guard their own building better.

He crept up the stairs, making his way to a small, rarely used room on the third floor. He checked for vibrations, then slipped inside. The austere chamber was piled with a mound of extra bedrolls and a dusty stack of uniforms. Spook smiled as he moved across the floor, stepping carefully and quietly, his highly sensitive toes able to feel loose, squeaky, or warped boards. He sat down on the windowsill itself, confident that nobody outside would be able to see well enough to spot him.

The Citizen’s house lay a few yards away. Quellion decried ostentation, and had chosen for his headquarters a structure of modest size. It had probably once been a minor nobleman’s home, and had only a small yard, which Spook could easily see into from his vantage. The building itself glowed, light streaking from every crack and window. It was as if the building were filled with some awesome power, and on the verge of bursting.

But, then, that was just the way that Spook’s overflared tin made him see any building that had lights on inside.

Spook leaned back, legs up on the windowsill, back against the frame. The window contained neither glass nor shutters, though there were nail holes on the side of the wood, indicating that there had once been something there. The reason the shutters had been removed didn’t matter to Spook – the lack of them meant that this room was unlikely to be entered at night. Mists had already claimed the room, though they were so faint to Spook’s eyes that he had had trouble seeing them.

For a while, nothing happened. The building and grounds below remained silent and still in the night air. Eventually, however, she appeared.

Spook perked up, watching the young woman leave the house and enter the garden. She had on a light brown skaa’s dress – a garment she somehow wore with striking elegance. Her hair was darker than the dress, but not by much. Spook had seen very few people with her shade of deep auburn hair – at least, few people who had been able to keep it clean of ash and soot.

Everyone in the city knew of Beldre, the Citizen’s sister, though few had ever seen her. She was said to be beautiful – and in this case, the rumors were true. However, nobody had ever mentioned her sadness. With his tin flared so high, Spook felt like he was standing next to her. He could see her deep, sorrowful eyes, reflecting light from the shining building behind her.

There was a bench in the yard. It sat before a small shrub. It was the only plant left in the garden; the rest had been torn up and plowed under, leaving behind blackish brown earth. From what Spook had heard, the Citizen had declared that ornamental gardens were of the nobility. He claimed that such places had only been possible through the sweat of skaa slaves – just another way the nobility had achieved high levels of luxury by creating equally high levels of work for their servants.

When the people of Urteau had whitewashed the city’s murals and shattered its stained-glass windows, they had also torn up all the ornamental gardens.

Beldre sat down on her bench, hands held motionless in her lap, looking down at the sad shrub. Spook tried to convince himself that she wasn’t the reason why he made certain to always sneak in and listen to the Citizen’s evening conferences, and he was mostly successful. These were some of the best spying opportunities Spook got. Being able to see Beldre was simply a bonus. Not that he cared that much, of course. He didn’t even know her.

He thought that even as he sat there, staring down at her, wishing he had some way to talk to her.

But, this wasn’t the time for that. Beldre’s exile to the garden meant that her brother’s meeting was about to start. He always kept her near, but apparently didn’t want her hearing state secrets. Unfortunately for him, his window opened toward Spook’s vantage point. No normal man – not even an ordinary Tineye or Mistborn – could have heard what was being said inside. But Spook wasn’t, by any stretched definition of the word, normal.

I won’t be useless anymore, he thought with determination as he listened for words spoken in confidence. They passed through the walls, across the short space, and arrived at his ears.

“All right, Olid,” said a voice. “What news?” The voice was, by now, familiar to Spook. Quellion, the Citizen of Urteau.

“Elend Venture has conquered another city,” said a second voice – Olid, the foreign minister.

“Where?” Quellion demanded. “What city?”

“An unimportant one,” Olid said. “To the south. Barely five thousand people.”

“It makes no sense,” said a third voice. “He immediately abandoned the city, taking its populace with him.”

“But he got another koloss army, somehow,” Olid added.

Good, Spook thought. The fourth storage cavern was theirs. Luthadel wouldn’t starve for a while yet. That only left two to secure – the one here in Urteau, and the last one, wherever that turned out to be.

“A tyrant needs no real reason for what he does,” Quellion said. He was a young man, but not foolish. At times, he sounded like other men Spook had known. Wise men. The difference, then, was one of extremity.

Or, perhaps, timing?

“A tyrant simply conquers for the thrill of control,” Quellion continued. “Venture isn’t satisfied with the lands he’s taken – he never will be. He’ll just keep on conquering. Until he comes for us.”

The room fell silent.

“He’s reportedly sending an ambassador to Urteau,” the third voice said. “A member of the Survivor’s own crew.”

Spook perked up.

Quellion snorted. “One of the liars? Coming here?”

“To offer us a treaty, the rumors say,” Olid said.

“So?” Quellion asked. “Why do you mention this, Olid? Do you think we should make a pact with the tyrant?”

“We can’t fight him, Quellion,” Olid said.

“The Survivor couldn’t fight the Lord Ruler,” Quellion said. “But he did anyway. He died, but still won, giving the skaa courage to rebel and overthrow the nobility.”

“Until that bastard Venture took control,” the third voice said.

The room fell silent again.

“We can’t give in to Venture,” Quellion finally said. “I will not hand this city to a nobleman, not after what the Survivor did for us. Of all the Final Empire, only Urteau achieved Kelsier’s goal of a skaa-ruled nation. Only we burned the homes of the nobility. Only we cleansed our town of them and their society. Only we obeyed. The Survivor will watch over us.”

Spook shivered quietly. It felt very strange to be hearing men he didn’t know speak of Kelsier in such tones. Spook had walked with Kelsier, learned from Kelsier. What right did these men have to speak as if they had known the man who had become their Survivor?

The conversation turned to matters more mundane. They discussed new laws that would forbid certain kinds of clothing once favored by the nobility, and then made a decision to give more funding to the genealogical survey committee. They needed to root out any in the city who were hiding noble parentage. Spook took notes so he could pass them on to the others. However, he had trouble keeping his eyes from trailing back down to the young woman in the garden.

What brings her such sorrow? he wondered. A part of him wanted to ask – to be brash, as the Survivor would have been, and hop down to demand of this solemn, solitary girl why she stared at that plant with such melancholy. In fact, he found himself moving to stand before he caught himself.

He might be unique, he might be powerful, but – as he had to remind himself again – he was no Mistborn. His was the way of silence and stealth.

So, he settled back. Content, for the moment, to lean down and watch her, feeling that somehow – despite their distance, despite his ignorance – he understood that feeling in her eyes.

15

THE MISTS BURNED. Bright, flaring, lit by the red sunlight, they seemed a fire that enveloped her.

Mist during the day was unnatural. But even the nightmists didn’t seem to be Vin’s anymore. Once, they had shadowed and protected her. Now she found them increasingly alien. When she used Allomancy it seemed that the mists pulled away from her slightly – like a wild beast shying away from a bright light.

She stood alone before the camp, which was silent despite the fact that the sun had risen hours ago. So far, Elend continued to keep his army protected from the mists by ordering them to remain in their tents. Ham argued that exposing them wasn’t necessary, but Vin’s instinct said that Elend would stick to his plan to order his soldiers into the mist. They needed to be immune.

Why? Vin thought, looking up through the sunlit mists. Why have you changed? What is different? The mists danced around her, moving in their usual, strange pattern of shifting streams and swirls. It seemed to Vin that they began to move more rapidly. Quivering. Vibrating.

The sun seemed to grow hotter, and the mists finally retreated, vanishing like water evaporating on a warming pan. The sunlight hit her like a wave, and Vin turned, watching the mists go, their death like an echoing scream.

They’re not natural, Vin thought as guards called the all clear. The camp immediately began to shift and move, men striding from tents, going about the morning’s activity with a flair of urgency. Vin stood at the head of the camp, dirt road beneath her feet, motionless canal to her right. Both seemed more real now that the mists were gone.

She had asked Sazed and Elend their opinions of the mists – whether they were natural or… something else. And both men, like the scholars they were, had quoted theories to support both sides of the argument. Sazed, at least, had eventually made a decision – he’d come down on the side of the mists being natural.

Even the way that the mists choke some people, leaving others alive, could be explained, Lady Vin, he had explained. After all, insect stings kill some people, while barely bothering others.

Vin wasn’t that interested in theories and arguments. She had spent most of her life thinking of the mists like any other weather pattern. Reen and the other thieves had mostly scoffed at tales that made the mists out to be supernatural. Yet, as Vin had become an Allomancer, she had grown to know the mists. She felt them, a sense that seemed to have grown even more potent on the day she’d touched the power of the Well of Ascension.

They disappeared too quickly. When they burned away in the sunlight, they withdrew like a person fleeing for safety. Like… a man who used all of his strength fighting, then finally gave up to retreat. In addition, the mists didn’t appear indoors. A simple tent was enough to protect the men inside. It was as if the mists somehow understood that they were excluded, unwelcome.

Vin glanced back toward the sun, glowing like a scarlet ember behind the dark haze of the upper atmosphere. She wished TenSoon were there, so she could talk to him about her worries. She missed the kandra a great deal, more than she’d ever assumed that she would. His simple frankness had been a good match to her own. She still didn’t know what had happened to him after he’d returned to his people; she’d tried to find another kandra to deliver a message for her, but the creatures had become very scarce lately.

She sighed and turned, walking quietly back into camp.

It was impressive how quickly the men managed to get the army moving. They spent the mornings sequestered inside their tents, caring for armor and weapons, the cooks preparing what they could. By the time Vin had crossed a short distance, cooking fires had burst alight, and tents began to collapse, soldiers working quickly to prepare for departure.

As she passed, some of the men saluted. Others bowed their heads in reverence. Still others glanced away, looking uncertain. Vin didn’t blame them. Even she wasn’t sure what her place was in the army. As Elend’s wife, she was technically their empress, though she wore no royal garb. To many, she was a religious figure, the Heir of the Survivor. She didn’t really want that title either.

She found Elend and Ham conversing outside of the imperial tent, which was in an early stage of disassembly. Though they stood out in the open, their mannerisms completely nonchalant, Vin was immediately struck by how far the two men were standing from the workers, as if Elend and Ham didn’t want the men to hear. Burning tin, she could make out what they were saying long before she reached them.

“Ham,” Elend said quietly, “you know I’m right. We can’t keep doing this. The further we penetrate into the Western Dominance, the more daylight we’ll lose to the mists.”

Ham shook his head. “You’d really stand by and watch your own soldiers die, El?”

Elend’s face grew hard, and he met Vin’s eyes as she joined them. “We can’t afford to wait out the mists every morning.”

“Even if it saves lives?” Ham asked.

“Slowing down costs lives,” Elend said. “Each hour we spend out here brings the mists closer to the Central Dominance. We’re planning to be at siege for some time, Ham – and that means we need to get to Fadrex as soon as possible.”

Ham glanced at Vin, looking for support. She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Ham. Elend is right. We can’t have our entire army dependent upon the whims of the mists. We’d be exposed – if someone attacked us in the morning, our men would either have to respond and get struck down by the mists, or hide in their tents and wait.”

Ham frowned, then excused himself, tromping through the fallen ash to help a group of soldiers pack away their tents. Vin stepped up beside Elend, watching the large soldier go.

“Kelsier was wrong about him,” she finally said.

“Who?” Elend asked. “Ham?”

Vin nodded. “At the end – after Kelsier died – we found a last note from him. He said that he’d chosen the members of the crew to be leaders in his new government. Breeze to be an ambassador, Dockson to be a bureaucrat, and Ham to be a general. The other two fit their roles perfectly, but Ham…”

“He gets too involved,” Elend said. “He has to know each man he commands personally or it makes him uncomfortable. And, when he knows them all that well, he grows attached.”

Vin nodded quietly, watching Ham begin to laugh and work with the soldiers.

“Listen to us,” Elend said, “callously talking about the lives of those who follow us. Perhaps it would be better to grow attached, like Ham. Maybe then I wouldn’t be so quick to order people to their deaths.”

Vin glanced at Elend, concerned at the bitterness in his voice. He smiled, trying to cover it up, then glanced away. “You need to do something with that koloss of yours. He’s been poking around the camp, scaring the men.”

Vin frowned. As soon as she thought of the creature, she became aware of where it was – near the edge of the camp. It was always under her command, but she could only take direct, full control of it when she concentrated. Otherwise, it would follow her general orders – staying in the area, not killing anything.

“I should go make sure the barges are ready to move,” Elend said. He glanced at her, and when she didn’t indicate that she’d go with him, he gave her a quick kiss, then departed.

Vin moved through the camp again. Most of the tents were down and stowed, and the soldiers were making quick work of their food. She passed out of the perimeter, and found Human sitting quietly, ash drifting slightly against his legs. He watched the camp with red eyes, his face broken by the ripped skin which hung from his right eye down to the corner of his mouth.

“Human,” she said, folding her arms.

He looked over at her, then stood, ash falling from his eleven-foot, overly muscled blue figure. Even with the number of creatures she’d killed, even knowing she controlled this one completely, Vin had a moment of reflexive fear as she stood before the massive beast with its tightly stretched skin and bleeding rips.

“Why did you come to camp?” she said, shaking off her panic.

“I am human,” he said with his slow, deliberate tone.

“You’re koloss,” she said. “You know that.”

“I should have a house,” Human said. “Like those.”

“Those are tents, not houses,” Vin said. “You can’t come to camp like this. You have to stay with the other koloss.”

Human turned, glancing toward the south, where the koloss army waited, separate from the humans. They remained under Elend’s control, twenty thousand in number, now that they’d picked up the ten thousand that had been waiting with the main bulk of the army. It made more sense to leave them under Elend’s control, since – in terms of raw power – he was a much stronger Allomancer than Vin.

Human looked back at Vin. “Why?”

“Why do you have to stay with the others?” Vin asked. “Because you make the people in the camp uncomfortable.”

“Then they should attack me,” Human said.

“That’s why you’re not a human,” Vin said. “We don’t attack people just because they make us uncomfortable.”

“No,” Human said. “You make us kill them instead.”

Vin paused, cocking her head. Human, however, just looked away, staring at the human camp again. His beady red eyes made his face hard to read, but Vin almost sensed a… longing in his expression.

“You’re one of us,” Human said.

Vin looked up. “Me?”

“You’re like us,” he said. “Not like them.”

“Why do you say that?” Vin asked.

Human looked down at her. “Mist,” he said.

Vin felt a momentary chill, though she had no real idea why. “What do you mean?”

Human didn’t respond.

“Human,” she said, trying another tactic. “What do you think of the mists?”

“They come at night.”

Vin nodded. “Yes, but what do you think of them. Your people. Do they fear the mists? Does it ever kill them?”

“Swords kill,” Human said. “Rain doesn’t kill. Ash doesn’t kill. Mist doesn’t kill.”

Fairly good logic, Vin thought. A year ago, I would have agreed with it. She was about to give up on the line of reasoning, but Human continued.

“I hate it,” he said.

Vin paused.

“I hate it because it hates me,” Human said. He looked at her. “You feel it.”

“Yes,” Vin said, surprising herself. “I do.”

Human regarded her, a line of blood trailing out of the ripped skin near his eye, running stark down his blue skin, mixing with flakes of ash. Finally, he nodded, as if giving approval to her honest reply.

Vin shivered. The mist isn’t alive, she thought. It can’t hate me. I’m imagining things.

But… once, years ago, she had drawn upon the mists. When fighting the Lord Ruler, she had somehow gained a power over them. It had been as if she’d used the mist itself to fuel her Allomancy instead of metals. It was only with that power that she’d been able to defeat the Lord Ruler.

That had been a long time ago, and she’d never been able to replicate the event. She’d tried time and again over the years, and after so many failures, she was beginning to think that she must have been mistaken. Certainly, in more recent times, the mists had been unfriendly. She tried to keep telling herself that there was nothing supernatural about it, but she knew that wasn’t true. What of the mist spirit, the thing that had tried to kill Elend – and then had saved him by showing her how to make him into an Allomancer? It was real, of that she was certain, even if she hadn’t seen it in over a year.

What of the hesitance she felt toward the mists, the way they pulled away from her? The way they stayed out of buildings, and the way they killed. It all seemed to point to what Human had said. The mists – the Deepness – hated her. And, finally, she acknowledged what she had been resisting for so long.

The mists were her enemy.

16

SPOOK AWOKE TO DARKNESS.

That was happening less and less frequently lately. He could feel the blindfold on his face, tied tightly across his eyes and over his ears. It dug into his overly sensitive skin, but it was far better than the alternative. Starlight was as bright as the sun to his eyes, and footsteps in the hallway outside his room could sound like thunderclaps. Even with the thick cloth, even with his ears plugged with wax, even with the shutters drawn tight and hung with a cloth, it was sometimes hard for him to sleep.

The muffling was dangerous. It left him vulnerable. And yet, lack of sleep would be even more dangerous. Perhaps the things he’d done to his body by burning tin would kill him. Yet, the more time he spent among the people of Urteau, the more he felt they were going to need his help to survive the dangers that were coming. He needed an edge. He worried that he’d made the wrong decision, but at least he’d made a decision. He would continue as he had, and hope that it was enough.

He groaned quietly, sitting up, taking off the cloth and pulling the wax from his ears. The room was dark, but even the faint light creeping through the shutters – their gaps stuffed with cloth – was enough for him to see by.

Tin flared comfortably in his stomach. His reserve was nearly gone, burned away during the night. His body now used it as instinctively as it drew breath or blinked. He had heard that Thugs could burn pewter to heal their bodies even if they were unconscious from their wounds. The body understood what it needed.

He reached into a small pail beside his bed, pulling out a small handful of tin dust. He’d brought a lot with him from Luthadel, and augmented this by buying more through the underground. Fortunately, tin was relatively cheap. He dumped his handful into a mug on his nightstand, then moved to the door. The room was small and cramped, but he didn’t have to share it with anyone. That made it lavish by skaa standards.

He squeezed his eyes shut, then pulled open the door. The luminosity of a sunlit hallway crashed against him. He gritted his teeth against the light, intense despite his shut eyelids, and felt about on the ground. He found the jug of fresh water – drawn from the well for him by the inn’s servants – and pulled it inside, then shut the door.

He blinked, walking across the room to fill his mug. He drank it, washing down the tin. It would be enough for the entire day. He took an extra handful and stuffed it into a pouch, just in case.

A few minutes later he was dressed and ready. He sat down on the bed, closing his eyes, preparing for the day. If the Citizen’s spies were to be believed, other members of Elend’s team were on their way to Urteau. They were probably under orders to secure the storage cache and quell the rebellion; Spook would need to learn as much as he could before they arrived.

He sat, going over plans, thinking to himself. He could feel feet thumping in the rooms around him – the wooden structure seemed to shake and tremble like some enormous hive filled with bustling workers. Outside, he could hear voices calling, yelling, speaking. Bells rang faintly. It was early yet, barely past noon, but the mists would be gone – Urteau got about six or seven hours of mistless daylight, making it a place where crops could still grow and man could still thrive.

Normally, Spook would have slept through the hours of daylight. However, there were things he needed to do. He opened his eyes, then reached to his night-stand, picking up a pair of spectacles. They had been specially crafted, at his request, to hold lenses that made no corrections to his vision. They were just filled with regular glass.

He put these on, then retied the cloth around his head, covering the front and sides of the lenses. Even with his heightened senses, he couldn’t see through his own eyelids. However, with the spectacles on, he could open his eyes and wear the cloth at the same time. He felt his way to the window, then he pulled off the blanket and threw open the shutters.

Hot – nearly scalding – sunlight bathed him. The cloth bit into the skin of his head. But he could see. The cloth blocked just enough light to keep him from being blinded, yet was translucent enough to allow vision. It was like the mists, actually – the cloth was nearly invisible to him, for his eyes were enhanced beyond the point of reason. His mind just filtered out the cloth’s interference.

Spook nodded to himself, then picked up his dueling cane and made his way from the room.

“I know you’re a quiet one,” Durn said, rapping softly on the ground in front of him with a pair of sticks. “But even you have to admit that this is better than living under the lords.”

Spook sat in a streetslot, back to the stone wall that had sustained the canal, head bowed slightly. Marketpit was the widest of the streetslots of Urteau. Once, it had been a waterway so broad that three boats abreast could moor in its center while leaving room on both sides for the passage of others in either direction. Now it had become a central boulevard for the city, which also made it a prime location for tradesmen and beggars.

Beggars like Spook and Durn. They sat at the very side of the slot, buildings looming like fortress walls above. Few of the passers paid any attention to the ragged men. Nobody paused to notice that one of them seemed to be watching the crowd carefully, despite the dark cloth over his eyes, while the other spoke far too articulately to have been educated in the gutter.

Spook didn’t respond to Durn’s question. In his youth, the way he spoke – with a thick accent, language littered with slang – had marked him, made people dismiss him. Even now, he didn’t have a glib tongue or charming manner like Kelsier’s. So, instead, Spook just tried to say as little as possible. Less chance of getting himself into trouble that way.

Oddly, instead of finding him easier to dismiss when he didn’t talk, it seemed that people paid more attention to him. Durn continued to pound out his rhythm, like a street performer with no audience. It was too soft against the earthen floor for anyone to hear – unless one were Spook.

Durn’s rhythm was perfect. Any minstrel would have envied him.

“I mean, look at the market,” Durn continued. “Under the Lord Ruler, most skaa could never engage openly in commerce. We have something beautiful here. Skaa ruling skaa. We’re happy.”

Spook could see the market. It seemed to him that if the people were truly happy, they’d wear smiles, rather than downcast looks. They’d be shopping and browsing, rather than quickly picking out what they wanted, then moving on. Plus, if the city were the happy utopia it was supposed to be, there wouldn’t be a need for the dozens of soldiers who watched the crowd. Spook shook his head. Everybody wore nearly the exact same clothing – colors and styles dictated by the Citizen’s orders. Even begging was heavily regulated. Men would soon arrive to count Spook’s offerings, tally how much he had earned, then take the Citizen’s cut.

“Look,” Durn said, “do you see anyone being beaten or killed on the street? Surely that’s worth a few strictures.”

“The deaths happen in quiet alleys now,” Spook said softly. “At least the Lord Ruler killed us openly.”

Durn frowned, sitting back, thumping the ground with his sticks. It was a complex pattern. Spook could feel the vibrations through the ground, and found them soothing. Did the people know the talent they passed, quietly beating the ground they walked upon? Durn could have been a master musician. Unfortunately, under the Lord Ruler, skaa didn’t play music. And under the Citizen… well, it generally wasn’t good to draw attention to yourself, no matter what the method.

“There it is,” Durn said suddenly. “As promised.”

Spook glanced up. Through the mutters, the sounds, the flashes of color and the powerful scents of refuse, people, and goods for sale, Spook saw a group of prisoners, being escorted by soldiers in brown. Sometimes, the flood of sensation was almost overwhelming to him. However, as he’d once told Vin, burning tin wasn’t about what one could sense, but about what one could ignore. And he had learned very well to focus on the senses he needed, shunting aside that which would distract.

The market goers made way for the group of soldiers and their prisoners. The people bowed their heads, watching solemnly.

“You still want to follow?” Durn asked.

Spook stood.

Durn nodded, then stood and grabbed Spook by the shoulder. He knew that Spook could really see – or, at least, Spook assumed that Durn was observant enough to have noticed that fact. They both maintained the act, however. It was common among beggars to adopt a guise of being afflicted in an attempt to elicit more coins. Durn himself walked with a masterful false limp, and had his hair pulled out in sickly patches. Yet, Spook could smell soap on the man’s skin and fine wine on his breath. He was a thief lord; there were few more powerful in the city. Yet, he was clever enough with his disguises that he could walk about on the streets unnoticed.

They weren’t the only ones following the soldiers and their prisoners. Skaa wearing the approved gray trailed the group like ghosts – a quiet, shuffling mass in the falling ash. The soldiers walked to a ramp leading out of the streetslots, guiding the people into a wealthier section of the town, where some of the canals had been filled in and cobbled.

Soon, the dead spots began to appear. Charred scars – ruins that had once been homes. The smell of smoke was almost overpowering to Spook, and he had to start breathing through his mouth. They didn’t have to walk very far before arriving at their destination. The Citizen himself was in attendance. He rode no horse – those had all been shipped to the farms, for only crass noblemen were too good to walk the ground on their own feet. He did, however, wear red.

“What’s that he’s wearing?” Spook whispered as Durn led him around the side of the crowd. The Citizen and his retinue stood on the steps of a particularly grand mansion, and the skaa were clustering around. Durn led Spook to a place where a group of toughs had muscled themselves an exclusive piece of the street with a good vantage of the Citizen. They nodded to Durn, letting him pass without comment.

“What do you mean?” Durn asked. “The Citizen is wearing what he always does – skaa trousers and a work shirt.”

“They’re red,” Spook whispered. “That’s not an approved color.”

“As of this morning it is. Government officers can wear it. That way, they stand out, and people in need can find them. Or, at least, that’s the official explanation.”

Spook frowned. However, something else caught his attention.

She was there.

It was natural, of course – she accompanied her brother wherever he went. He was particularly worried for her safety, and seldom let her out of his sight. She wore the same look as always, eyes sorrowful within a frame of auburn hair.

“Sad group today,” Durn said, and at first Spook thought he was referring to Beldre. However, Durn was nodding toward the group of prisoners. They looked just like the rest of the people in the city – gray clothing, ash-stained faces, subservient postures. The Citizen, however, stepped forward to explain the differences.

“One of the first proclamations this government made,” he announced, “was one of solidarity. We are a skaa people. The ‘noblemen’ chosen by the Lord Ruler oppressed us for ten centuries. Urteau, we decided, would become a place of freedom. A place like the Survivor himself prophesied would come.”

“You’ve got the count?” Durn whispered to Spook.

Spook nodded. “Ten,” he said, counting the prisoners. “The ones we expected. You’re not earning your coin, Durn.”

“Watch.”

“These,” the Citizen said, bald scalp shining in the red sunlight as he pointed at the prisoners. “These didn’t heed our warning. They knew, as all of you know, that any nobleman who stayed in this city would forfeit his life! This is our will – all of our will.

“But, like all of their kind, these were too arrogant to listen. They tried to hide. But, they think themselves above us. They always will. That exposes them.”

He paused, then spoke again. “And that is why we do what we must.”

He waved his soldiers forward. They shoved the prisoners up the steps. Spook could smell the oil on the air as the soldiers opened the house’s doors and pushed the people in. Then, the soldiers barred the door from the outside and took up a perimeter. Each soldier lit a torch and threw it on the building. It didn’t take superhuman senses to feel the heat that soon blazed to life, and the crowd shied back – revolted and frightened, but fascinated.

The windows had been boarded shut. Spook could see fingers trying to pry the wood free, could hear people screaming. He could hear them thumping against the locked door, trying to break their way out, crying in terror.

He longed to do something. Yet, even with tin, he couldn’t fight an entire squad of soldiers on his own. Elend and Vin had sent him to gather information, not play their hand. Still, he cringed, calling himself a coward as he turned away from the burning building.

“This should not be,” Spook whispered harshly.

“They were noblemen,” Durn said.

“No they weren’t! Their parents might have been, but these were skaa. Normal people, Durn.”

“They have noble blood.”

“So do we all, if you look back far enough,” Spook said.

Durn shook his head. “This is the way it has to be. This is the Survivor–”

“Do not speak his name in association with this barbarity,” Spook hissed.

Durn was quiet for a moment, the only sounds that of the flames and those dying inside them. Finally, he spoke. “I know it’s hard to see, and perhaps the Citizen is too eager. But… I heard him speak once. The Survivor. This is the sort of thing he taught. Death to the noblemen; rule by the skaa. If you’d heard him, you’d understand. Sometimes, you have to destroy something in order to build something better.”

Spook closed his eyes. Heat from the fire seemed to be searing his skin. He had heard Kelsier speak to crowds of skaa. And, Kelsier had said the things that Durn now referred to. Then, the Survivor had been a voice of hope, of spirit. His same words repeated now, however, became words of hatred and destruction. Spook felt sick.

“Again, Durn,” he said, looking up, feeling particularly harsh, “I don’t pay you to spout Citizen propaganda at me. Tell me why I’m here, or you’ll get no further coin from me.”

The large beggar turned, meeting Spook’s eyes behind the cloth. “Count the skulls,” he said quietly. With that, Durn took his hand off Spook’s shoulder and retreated into the crowd.

Spook didn’t follow. The scents of smoke and burning flesh were growing too powerful for him. He turned, pushing his way through the crowd, seeking fresh air. He stumbled up against a building, breathing deeply, feeling the rough grain of its wood press against his side. It seemed to him that the falling flakes of ash were a part of the pyre behind, bits of death cast upon the wind.

He heard voices. Spook turned, noting that the Citizen and his guards had moved away from the fire. Quellion was addressing the crowd, encouraging them to be vigilant. Spook watched for a time, and finally the crowd began to leave, trailing the Citizen as he moved back toward the market pit.

He’s punished them, now he needs to bless them. Often, especially after executions, the Citizen visited the people personally, moving between stalls in the market, shaking hands and giving encouragement.

Spook took off down a side street. He soon passed out of the wealthier section of town, arriving at a place where the street fell away before him. He chose a place where the retaining wall had collapsed, forming a slope down into the dry canal, then hopped down, skidding his way to the bottom. He pulled up the hood of his cloak, obscuring his covered eyes, and made his way through the busy street with the dexterity of one who had grown up a street urchin.

Even taking a more roundabout route, he arrived at Marketpit before the Citizen and his retinue. Spook watched through the raining ash as the man moved down a broad ramp of earth, trailed by a following that numbered in the hundreds.

You want to be him, Spook thought, crouching beside a merchant’s stall. Kelsier died to bring this people hope, and now you think to steal his legacy.

This man was no Kelsier. This man wasn’t even worthy to utter the Survivor’s name.

The Citizen moved about, maintaining a paternal air, speaking to the people of the market. He touched them on the shoulders, shook hands, and smiled benevolently. “The Survivor would be proud of you.” Spook could hear his voice even over the noise of the crowd. “The ash that falls is a sign from him – it represents the fall of the empire, the ashes of tyranny. From those ashes we will make a new nation! One ruled by skaa.”

Spook edged forward, putting down the top of his hood and feeling before himself with his hands, as if he were blind. He carried his dueling cane across his back, in a strap obscured by the folds of his baggy gray shirt. He was more than capable when it came to moving through crowds. While Vin had always worked hard to remain obscure and unseen, Spook had managed to achieve both things without ever trying. In fact, he’d often tried the opposite. He’d dreamed of being a man like Kelsier – for even before he’d met the Survivor, Spook had heard stories of the man. The greatest skaa thief of their time – a man bold enough to try to rob the Lord Ruler himself.

And yet, try as he might, Spook had never been able to distinguish himself. It was just too easy to ignore yet another ash-faced boy, especially if you couldn’t understand his thick Eastern slang. It had taken actually meeting Kelsier – seeing how he could move people by talking – to finally convince Spook to abandon his dialect. That was when Spook had begun to understand that there was a power in words.

Spook subtly moved his way toward the front of the crowd watching the Citizen. He got jostled and shoved, but nobody cried out against him. A blind man who had gotten caught up in the press of people was easy to ignore – and what was ignored could get where it wasn’t supposed to. With some careful positioning, Spook soon placed himself at the front of the group, barely an arm’s length from the Citizen.

The man smelled of smoke.

“I understand, good woman,” the Citizen was saying as he held an elderly woman’s hands. “But your grandson is needed where he is, working the fields. Without him and his kind, we would not be able to eat! A nation ruled by skaa also has to be one worked by skaa.”

“But… can’t he come back, even for a bit?” the woman asked.

“In time, good woman,” the Citizen said. “In time.” His crimson uniform made him the only splash of color on the street, and Spook found himself staring. He tore his eyes away and continued to maneuver, for the Citizen was not his goal.

Beldre stood to the side, as usual. Always watching, but never interacting. The Citizen was so dynamic that his sister was easily forgotten. Spook understood that feeling quite well. He let a soldier jostle him, pushing him out of the Citizen’s way. That jostle placed Spook right next to Beldre. She smelt just faintly of perfume.

I thought that was supposed to be forbidden.

What would Kelsier have done? He’d have attacked, perhaps, killing the Citizen. Or, he’d have moved against the man in another way. Kelsier wouldn’t have let such terrible things happen – he’d have acted.

Perhaps he would have tried to make an ally out of someone trusted by the Citizen?

Spook felt his heart – always so much louder to him now – beat faster. The crowd began to move again, and he let himself get shoved up against Beldre. The guards weren’t watching – they were focused on the Citizen, keeping him safe with so many random elements around.

“Your brother,” Spook whispered in her ear, “you approve of his murders?”

She spun, and he noticed for the first time that her eyes were green. He stood in the crowd, letting it shove him away as she searched, trying to figure out who had spoken. The crowd, following her brother, carried her from Spook.

Spook waited, being jostled in the sea of elbows, for a short time. Then he began to maneuver again, pushing through the people with subtle care until he was again beside Beldre.

“You think this is any different from what the Lord Ruler did?” he whispered. “I once saw him gather up random people and execute them in the Luthadel city square.”

She spun again, finally identifying Spook among the moving crowd. He stood still, meeting her eyes despite the blindfold. People moved between them, and she was carried away.

Her mouth moved. Only someone with the enhanced senses of tin could have seen with enough detail to make out the words on her lips.

“Who are you?”

He pushed his way through the crowd one more time. The Citizen was apparently planning to make a big speech up ahead, capitalizing on the increasingly large crowd. People were bunching up around the podium that lay in the middle of the market; it was getting more difficult to move through them.

Spook reached her, but felt the crowd pulling him away again. So, he reached between a pair of bodies and grabbed her hand, pulling her wrist as he moved with the surgings of the crowd’s motion. She spun, of course, but she didn’t cry out. The crowd moved around them, and she turned to meet his blindfolded eyes through the throng.

“Who are you?” Beldre asked again. Though he was close enough to have heard her had she spoken, no sound escaped her lips. She just mouthed the words. Behind her, on the podium, her brother began to preach.

“I’m the man who will kill your brother,” Spook said softly.

Again, he had expected a reaction from her – a scream, perhaps. An accusation. His actions here had been impulsive, born from his frustration at not being able to help the people who were executed. If she did scream, he realized, it could bring his death.

Yet she remained silent, flakes of ash falling between them.

“Others have said that same thing,” she mouthed.

“Others were not me.”

“And who are you?” she asked a third time.

“The companion of a god. A man who can see whispers and feel screams.”

“A man who thinks he knows better for this people than their own chosen ruler?” she mouthed. “There will always be dissenters who balk at what must be done.”

He still had her hand. He gripped it tightly, pulling her close. The crowd crowded the podium, leaving her and Spook at their rear, like shells left on a beach by the retreating waves.

“I knew the Survivor, Beldre,” he whispered harshly. “He named me, called me friend. What you’ve done in this city would horrify him – and I’m not going to let your brother continue to pervert Kelsier’s legacy. Bring him warning, if you must. Tell Quellion that I’m coming for him.”

The Citizen had stopped speaking. Spook glanced up, looking toward the lectern. Quellion stood upon it, looking out over his crowd of followers. Looking at Spook and Beldre, standing together at the back of the crowd. Spook hadn’t realized how exposed they had become.

“You there!” the Citizen cried. “What are you doing with my sister!”

Damn! Spook thought, releasing the girl and dashing away. However, one major inconvenience of the streetslots was their high, steep walls. There were very few ways to get out of the market, and those were all being watched by members of Quellion’s security forces. At the Citizen’s shouted command, soldiers began to dash forward from their posts, wearing leather and carrying steel.

Fine, Spook thought, charging the nearest group of soldiers. If he could get through them, he could reach a ramp up, perhaps disappear into the alleys between buildings above.

Swords scraped from scabbards. Behind Spook, people cried out in shock. He reached into the ragged tears of his cloak and whipped forth his dueling cane.

And then, he was among them.

Spook wasn’t a warrior, not really. He’d trained with Ham, of course – Clubs had insisted that his nephew know how to defend himself. However, the crew’s true warriors had always been their Mistborn, Vin and Kelsier, with Ham – as a Pewterarm – providing brute force, if necessary.

Yet, Spook had spent a lot of time training, lately, and while doing so he had discovered something interesting. He had something that Vin and Kelsier could never have had: a blurring array of sensory knowledge that his body could instinctively use. He could feel disturbances in the air, sense tremors in the floor, and could know where people were simply by how close their heartbeats sounded.

He was no Mistborn, but he was still very dangerous. He felt a soft wind, and knew a sword was swinging for him. He ducked. He felt a footstep on the ground, and knew someone was attacking from the side. He stepped away. It was almost like having atium.

Sweat flew from his brow as he spun, and he cracked his dueling cane into the back of one soldier’s head. The man fell – Spook’s weapon was crafted of the finest hardwood. But, just to be certain, he brought the butt of the weapon down on the fallen man’s temple, knocking him out of the battle for good.

He heard someone grunt beside him – soft, yet telling. Spook whipped his weapon to the side and smacked it against the attacking soldier’s forearm. The bones broke, and the soldier cried out, dropping his weapon. Spook rapped him on the head. Then, Spook spun, lifting his cane to block the third soldier’s strike.

Steel met wood, and the steel won, Spook’s weapon breaking. However, it stopped the sword strike long enough for Spook to duck away and grab a fallen warrior’s sword. It was different from the swords he’d practiced with – the men of Urteau preferred long, thin blades. Still, Spook only had one soldier left – if he could cut the man down, he’d be free.

Spook’s opponent seemed to realize that he had the advantage. If Spook ran, it would expose his back to attack. However, if Spook stayed, he’d soon be overwhelmed. The soldier circled warily, trying to stall for time.

So, Spook attacked. He raised his blade, trusting in his enhanced senses to compensate for the difference in training. The soldier raised his weapon to parry as Spook swung.

Spook’s sword froze in the air.

Spook stumbled, trying to force the weapon forward, but it was strangely held in place – as if he were trying to push it through something solid, rather than air. It was as if…

Someone was Pushing against it. Allomancy. Spook glanced desperately around him, and immediately found the source of the power. The person Pushing had to be directly opposite Spook, for Allomancers could only Push away from themselves.

Quellion, the Citizen, had joined his sister. The Citizen met Spook’s gaze, and Spook could see effort in the man’s eyes as he clutched his sister, using her weight for support as he Pushed against Spook’s sword, interfering in the battle as Kelsier himself once had, long ago when visiting the caverns where his army trained.

Spook dropped the weapon, letting it fly backward out of his hands, then threw himself to the ground. He felt the draft of an enemy sword swinging overhead, narrowly missing him. His own weapon clanged to the ground a short distance from him, its ringing loud in his ears.

He didn’t have time to gather his breath; he could only push himself up to dodge the soldier’s follow-up blow. Fortunately, Spook wasn’t wearing any metal that Quellion could Push against to influence the fight any further. That was a habit that Spook was glad he’d never lost.

The only choice was to run. He couldn’t fight, not with an Allomancer interfering. He turned while the soldier prepared another swing. Then, Spook threw himself forward, getting inside the soldier’s guard. He ducked under the man’s arm and dashed to the side, hoping to run past and leave the soldier confused.

Something caught his foot.

Spook spun. At first, he assumed that Quellion was Pulling on him somehow. Then, he saw that the soldier on the ground – the first one he’d dropped – had grabbed his foot.

I hit that man in the head twice! Spook thought with frustration. There’s no way he’s still conscious!

The hand squeezed his foot, yanking Spook backward with an inhuman strength. With strength like that, the man had to be a Thug – a pewter burner, like Ham.

Spook was in serious trouble.

Spook kicked, managing to break free, then stumbled to his feet. But a Thug would have the power of pewter – he’d be able to run faster, and farther, than Spook.

Two Allomancers, counting the Citizen himself, Spook thought. Somebody isn’t as disdainful of noble blood as he claims!

The two soldiers advanced on him. Yelling in frustration – hearing his own heart thump like a pounding drum – Spook threw himself at the Thug and grappled the man, taking him by surprise. In that moment of confusion, Spook spun him around, using the Thug’s body like a shield to protect himself from the third soldier.

He hadn’t counted on the Citizen’s brutal training. Quellion always spoke of sacrifice and necessity. Apparently, this philosophy extended to his soldiers, for the man with the sword rammed his weapon straight through his friend’s back, piercing his heart and driving the weapon directly into Spook’s chest. It was a move only a man with the strength and precision of a Thug could have performed.

Three Allomancers, Spook thought, dazed, as the soldier tried to pull his sword free from two bodies. The body of the dead man was a weight that finally snapped the blade.

How did I even survive this long? They must have been trying not to reveal their powers. Trying to remain hidden from the population…

Spook stumbled backward, feeling blood on his chest. Oddly, he didn’t feel pain. His heightened senses should have made the pain so powerful that–

It hit. Everything went black.

17

ELEND RODE AT THE FRONT OF HIS MEN, astride a brilliant white stallion that had been scrubbed clean of ash. He turned his mount, looking over the ranks of nervous soldiers. They waited in the evening light, and Elend could see their terror. They had heard rumors, then had those rumors confirmed by Elend the day before. Today, his army would become immunized to the mists.

Elend rode through their ranks, General Demoux riding a roan stallion beside him. Both horses were big destriers, brought on the trip to impress more than for usefulness. Elend and the other officers would spend most of the trip riding in canal boats, rather than on horseback.

He didn’t worry about the morality of his decision to expose his forces to the mists – at least, he didn’t worry about it at that moment. Elend had learned something very important about himself: He was honest. Perhaps too honest. If he was uncertain, it would show in his face. The soldiers would sense his hesitation. So he’d learned to confine his worries and concerns to times when he was only with those closest to him. That meant Vin saw too much of his brooding. However, it left him free at other times to project confidence.

He moved quickly, letting his horse’s hooves beat a thunder for the men to hear. Occasionally, he heard captains call out for their men to be firm. Even so, Elend saw the anxiety in his soldiers’ eyes. And could he blame them? This day, the men would face an enemy that they could not fight, and could not resist. Within the hour, seven hundred of them would lay dead. About one in fifty. Not bad odds, on a grand scale – but that meant little to a man standing and feeling the mist creep around him.

The men stood their ground. Elend was proud of them. He had given those who wished it the opportunity to return to Luthadel instead of facing the mists. He still needed troops in the capital, and he’d rather not march with men unwilling to go into the mists. Almost none had gone. The vast majority had instead lined up in full ranks without having to be ordered, wearing full battle gear, armor polished and oiled, uniforms looking as clean as possible in the ash-stained wilderness. It seemed right to Elend for them to be in their armor. It made them seem as if they were going to battle – and, in a way, they were.

They trusted him. They knew that the mists were advancing toward Luthadel, and understood the importance of capturing the cities with storage caverns. They believed in Elend’s ability to do something to save their families.

Their trust made him even more determined. He reined in his horse, turning the massive beast beside a rank of soldiers. He flared pewter, making his body stronger, giving more power to his lungs, then Rioted the emotions of the men to make them braver.

“Be strong!” he shouted.

Heads turned toward him, and the clanking of armor hushed. His own voice was so loud in his ears that he had to dampen his tin. “These mists will strike down some of us. However, most of us will be untouched – and most who fall will recover! Then, none of us need fear the mists again. We cannot arrive at Fadrex City without having inoculated ourselves! If we did so, we would risk being attacked in the morning, when we are hiding in our tents. Our enemies would force us out into the mists anyway, and we would have to fight with a sixth of our men shaking on the ground from sickness!”

He turned his horse, Demoux following behind, and moved along the ranks. “I do not know why the mists kill. But I trust in the Survivor! He named himself Lord of the Mists. If some of us die, then it is his will. Stay strong!”

His reminders seemed to have some effect. The soldiers stood a little straighter, facing west, toward where the sun would soon set. Elend reined in again, sitting tall and letting himself be seen.

“They look strong, my lord,” Demoux said quietly, moving his horse up beside Elend’s. “It was a good speech.”

Elend nodded.

“My lord…” Demoux said, “did you mean what you said about the Survivor?”

“Of course I did.”

“I’m sorry, my lord,” Demoux said. “I didn’t mean to question your faith, it’s just that… well, you don’t have to keep up the charade of belief, if you don’t want to.”

“I gave my word, Demoux,” Elend said, frowning and glancing at the scarred general. “I do what I say.”

“I believe you, my lord,” Demoux said. “You are an honorable man.”

“But?”

Demoux paused. “But… if you don’t really believe in the Survivor, I don’t think he would want you speaking in his name.”

Elend opened his mouth to reprimand Demoux for his lack of respect, but stopped himself. The man spoke with honesty, from his heart. That wasn’t the kind of thing to punish.

Besides, he might have had a point. “I don’t know what I believe, Demoux,” Elend said, looking back at the field of soldiers. “Certainly not in the Lord Ruler. Sazed’s religions have been dead for centuries, and even he has stopped talking about them. It seems to me that leaves the Church of the Survivor as the only real option.”

“With all due respect, my lord,” Demoux said. “That’s not a very strong profession of faith.”

“I’m having trouble with faith lately, Demoux,” Elend said, looking up, watching flakes of ash drift through the air. “My last god was killed by the woman I eventually married – a woman you claim as a religious figure, but who spurns your devotion.”

Demoux nodded quietly.

“I don’t reject your god, Demoux,” Elend said. “I meant what I said – I think having faith in Kelsier is better than the alternatives. And, considering what’s going to be coming at us in the next few months, I’d rather believe that something – anything – is out there helping us.”

They were quiet for a few moments.

“I know that the Lady Heir objects to our worship of the Survivor, my lord,” Demoux finally said. “She knew him, as did I. What she doesn’t understand is that the Survivor has become so much more than just the man Kelsier.”

Elend frowned. “That sounds like you calculatedly made him a god, Demoux – that you believe in him as a symbol only.”

Demoux shook his head. “I’m saying that Kelsier was a man, but a man who gained something – a mantle, a portion of something eternal and immortal. When he died, he wasn’t just Kelsier, the crewleader. Don’t you think it odd that he was never Mistborn before he went to the Pits?”

“That’s the way Allomancy works, Demoux,” Elend said. “You don’t gain your powers until you Snap – until you face something traumatic, something that nearly kills you.”

“And you don’t think that Kelsier experienced those kinds of events before the Pits?” Demoux asked. “My lord, he was a thief who robbed from obligators and noblemen. He lived a very dangerous life. You think he could have avoided beatings, near-deaths, and emotional anguish?”

Elend paused.

“He gained his powers at the Pits,” Demoux said quietly, “because something else came upon him. People who knew him speak of how he was a changed man when he came back. He had purpose – he was driven to accomplish something the rest of the world thought impossible.”

Demoux shook his head. “No, my lord. Kelsier the man died in those Pits, and Kelsier the Survivor was born. He was granted great power, and great wisdom, by a force that is above us all. That is why he accomplished what he did. That is why we worship him. He still had the follies of a man, but he had the hopes of a divinity.”

Elend turned away. The rational, scholarly side of him understood exactly what was happening. Kelsier was gradually being deified, his life made more and more mystical by those who followed him. Kelsier had to be invested with heavenly power, for the Church couldn’t continue to revere a mere man.

And yet, another part of Elend was glad for the rationalization, if only because it made the story that much more believable. After all, Demoux was right. How did a man living on the streets last so long before Snapping?

Someone screamed.

Elend looked up, scanning the ranks. Men began to shuffle as the mists appeared, sprouting in the air like growing plants. He couldn’t see the soldier who had fallen. Soon, the point was moot, for others began to scream.

The sun began to be obscured, blazing red as it approached the horizon. Elend’s horse shuffled nervously. The captains ordered the men to remain steady, but Elend could still see motion. In the group before him, pockets appeared in the ranks as men randomly collapsed to the ground, like marionettes whose strings had been cut. They shook on the ground, other soldiers backing away in horror, mist moving all around.

They need me, Elend thought, grabbing his reigns, Pulling on the emotions of those around him. “Demoux, let’s ride.”

He turned his horse. Demoux did not follow.

Elend spun. “Demoux? What–”

He choked off immediately. Demoux sat in the mists, shaking horribly. Even as Elend watched, the balding soldier slipped from his saddle, collapsing to the ankle-deep ash below.

“Demoux!” Elend yelled, hopping down, feeling like a fool. He’d never thought to wonder if Demoux was susceptible – he’d just assumed that he, like Vin and the others, was already immune. Elend knelt beside Demoux, his legs in the ash, listening to soldiers scream and captains yell for order. His friend shook and twisted, gasping in pain.

And the ash continued to fall.

18

SAZED SLAPPED HIS HORSE ON THE RUMP, sending it galloping away. The beast’s hooves kicked up chunks of packed ash as it ran. Its coat had once been a keen white; now it was a rough gray. Its ribs were beginning to show – it was malnourished to the point that it was no longer reasonable to expect it to carry a rider, and they could no longer afford to spare food for it.

“Now, that’s a sad sight,” Breeze noted, standing beside Sazed on the ash-covered road. Their guard of two hundred soldiers waited quietly, watching the beast run. Sazed couldn’t help feeling that the release of their final horse was a symbol.

“You think it will be able to survive?” Breeze asked.

“I suspect that it will still be able to poke beneath the ash and find nourishment for a time,” Sazed said. “It will be difficult, however.”

Breeze grunted. “Living’s difficult work for all of us, these days. Well, I wish the creature the best of luck. Are you going to join Allrianne and me in the carriage?”

Sazed glanced over his shoulder, toward the vehicle, which had been lightened, then rigged to be pulled by soldiers. They had removed the doors and hung curtains instead, and had removed sections of the back as well. With the decreased weight and two hundred men to take turns, the vehicle wouldn’t be too much of a burden. Still, Sazed knew he would feel guilty being pulled by others. His old servant’s instincts were too strong.

“No,” Sazed said. “I shall walk for a bit. Thank you.”

Breeze nodded, walking to the carriage to sit with Allrianne, a soldier holding a parasol over his head until he was inside. Now exposed to the ash, Sazed put up the hood of his travel robe, hefted his portfolio in his arm, then strode across the black ground to the front of the line.

“Captain Goradel,” he said. “You may continue your march.”

They did so. It was a rough hike – the ash was growing thick, and it was slick and tiring to walk on. It moved and shifted beneath the feet, almost as difficult as walking on sand. As hard as the hike was, however, it wasn’t enough to distract Sazed from his troubled feelings. He had hoped that visiting the army – meeting with Elend and Vin – would give him a respite. The two were dear friends, and their affection for one another tended to bolster him. He had, after all, been the one to perform their marriage.

Yet, this meeting had left him even more troubled. Vin allowed Elend to die, he thought. And she did it because of things I taught her.

He carried the picture of a flower in his sleeve pocket, trying to make sense of his conversation with Vin. How had Sazed become the one that people came to with their problems? Couldn’t they sense that he was simply a hypocrite, capable of formulating answers that sounded good, yet incapable of following his own advice? He felt lost. He felt a weight, squeezing him, telling him to simply give up.

How easily Elend spoke of hope and humor, as if being happy were simply a decision one made. Some people assumed that it was. Once, Sazed might have agreed with them. Now, his stomach simply twisted, and he felt sick at the thought of taking pretty much any action. His thoughts were constantly invaded by doubts.

This is what religion is for, Sazed thought as he tromped through the ash at the head of the column, carrying his pack on his shoulders. It helps people through times like these.

He looked down at his portfolio. Then, he opened it and leafed through the pages as he walked. Hundreds finished, and not a single one of the religions had provided the answers he sought. Perhaps he simply knew them too well. Most of the crew had trouble worshipping Kelsier as the other skaa did, for they knew of his faults and his quirks. They knew him as a man first, and as a god second. Perhaps the religions were the same to Sazed. He knew them so well that he could see their flaws too easily.

He did not disparage the people who had followed the religions, but Sazed – so far – had found only contradiction and hypocrisy in each religion he studied. Divinity was supposed to be perfect. Divinity didn’t let its followers get slaughtered, and certainly didn’t allow the world to be destroyed by good men who were just trying to save it.

One of the remaining ones would provide an answer. There had to be truth he could discover. As his feelings of dark suffocation threatened to overwhelm him, he fell to his studies, taking out the next sheet in line and strapping it to the outside of the portfolio. He would study it as he walked, carrying the portfolio with the sheet on the bottom when he wasn’t reading, thereby keeping the ash off of it.

He’d find the answers. He dared not think what he would do if there weren’t any.

They eventually passed into the Central Dominance, entering lands where men could still struggle for food and life. Breeze and Allrianne stayed in the carriage, but Sazed was glad to walk, even if it made his religions difficult to study.

He wasn’t certain what to make of the cultivated fields. They passed scores of them – Elend had packed as many people as possible into the Central Dominance, then had ordered all of them to grow food for the coming winter. Even those skaa who had lived in the cities were well accustomed to hard work, and they quickly did as Elend ordered. Sazed wasn’t certain if the people understood just how dire their situation was, or if they were simply happy to have someone tell them what to do.

The roadside grew heaped with tall piles of ash. Each day, the skaa workers had to clear away the ash that had fallen during the night. This unending task – along with the need to carry water to most of the new, unirrigated fields – created a very labor-intensive system of agriculture.

The plants did grow, however. Sazed’s troop passed field after field, each one budding with brown plants. The sight should have brought him hope. Yet, it was difficult to look upon the sprouting stalks and not feel an even greater despair. They looked so weak and small beside the massive piles of ash. Even forgetting the mists, how was Elend going to feed an empire in these conditions? How long would it be before there was simply too much ash to move? Skaa worked the fields, their postures much as they had been during the days of the Lord Ruler. What had really changed for them?

“Look at them,” a voice said. Sazed turned to see Captain Goradel walking up beside him. Bald and rugged, the man had a good-natured disposition – a trait common in the soldiers whom Ham promoted.

“I know,” Sazed said quietly.

“Even with the ash and the mist, seeing them gives me hope.”

Sazed looked up sharply. “Really?”

“Sure,” Goradel said. “My family were farmers, Master Terrisman. We lived in Luthadel, but worked the outer fields.”

“But, you were a soldier,” Sazed said. “Weren’t you the one who led Lady Vin into the palace the night she killed the Lord Ruler?”

Goradel nodded. “Actually, I led Lord Elend into the palace to rescue Lady Vin, though she turned out to not need much help from us. Anyway, you’re right. I was a soldier in the Lord Ruler’s palace – my parents disowned me when I joined up. But, I just couldn’t face working in the fields my whole life.”

“It is arduous work.”

“No, it wasn’t that,” Goradel said. “It wasn’t the labor, it was the… hopelessness. I couldn’t stand to work all day to grow something I knew would belong to someone else. That’s why I left the fields to become a soldier, and that’s why seeing these farms gives me hope.”

Goradel nodded toward a passing field. Some of the skaa looked up, then waved as they saw Elend’s banner. “These people,” Goradel said, “they work because they want to.”

“They work because if they don’t, they will starve.”

“Sure,” Goradel said. “I guess you’re right. But they’re not working because someone will beat them if they don’t – they’re working so that their families and their friends won’t die. There’s a difference in that, to a farmer. You can see it in the way they stand.”

Sazed frowned as they walked, but said nothing further.

“Anyway, Master Terrisman,” Goradel said, “I came to suggest that we make a stop at Luthadel for supplies.”

Sazed nodded. “I suspected that we would do so. I, however, will need to leave you for a few days as you go to Luthadel. Lord Breeze can take command. I shall meet up with you on the northern highway.”

Goradel nodded, moving back to make the arrangements. He didn’t ask why Sazed wanted to leave the group, or what his destination was.

Several days later, Sazed arrived – alone – at the Pits of Hathsin. There was little to distinguish the area, now that the ash covered everything. Sazed’s feet kicked up clumps of it as he moved to the top of a hill. He looked down on the valley that contained the Pits – the place where Kelsier’s wife had been murdered. The place where the Survivor had been born.

It was now the home of the Terris people.

There were few of them remaining. They had never been a very large population, and the coming of the mists and the difficult trek down to the Central Dominance had claimed many lives. There were, perhaps, forty thousand of them left. And a good many of the men were eunuchs, like Sazed.

Sazed moved down the slope toward the valley. It had been a natural place to settle the Terris people. During the days of the Lord Ruler, hundreds of slaves had worked here, watched over by hundreds more soldiers. That had ended when Kelsier had returned to the Pits and destroyed their ability to produce atium. However, the Pits still had the buildings and infrastructure that had supported them during their working days. There was plenty of fresh water, and some shelter. The Terris people had improved on this, building other structures across the valley, making what was once the most terrifying of prison camps into a pastoral group of villages.

Even as Sazed walked down the hillside, he could see people brushing away the ash from the ground, letting the natural plant life poke through to provide grazing for the animals. The scrub that formed the dominant foliage in the Central Dominance was a resilient, hardy group of plants, and they were adapted to ash, and didn’t need as much water as farm crops. That meant that the Terris people actually had easier lives than most. They were herdsman, as they had been even during the centuries before the Lord Ruler’s Ascension. A hearty, short-legged breed of sheep mulled about on the hills, chewing down the uncovered stalks of scrub.

The Terris people, Sazed thought, living lives easier than most. What a strange world it has become.

His approach soon attracted attention. Children ran for their parents, and heads poked from shacks. Sheep began to gather around Sazed as he walked, as if hoping that he had come bearing treats of some sort.

Several aged men rushed up the hillside, moving as quickly as their gnarled limbs would allow. They – like Sazed – still wore their steward’s robes. And, like Sazed, they kept them cleaned of ash, showing the colorful V-shaped patterns that ran down the fronts. Those patterns had once indicated the noble house that the steward served.

“Lord Sazed!” one of the men said eagerly.

“Your Majesty!” said another.

Your Majesty. “Please,” Sazed said, raising his hands. “Do not call me that.”

The two aged stewards glanced at each other. “Please, Master Keeper. Let us get you something warm to eat.”

19

“GET UP!”

Everything was dark.

“Get up!”

Spook opened his eyes. Everything seemed so dull, so muted. He could barely see. The world was a dark blur. And… he felt numb. Dead. Why couldn’t he feel?

“Spook, you need to get up!”

The voice, at least, was clear. Yet, everything else felt muddy. He couldn’t quite manage to think. He blinked, groaning quietly. What was wrong with him? His spectacles and cloth were gone. That should have left him free to see, but everything was so dark.

He was out of tin.

There was nothing burning in his stomach. The familiar flame, a comforting candle within, was no longer there. It had been his companion for over a year, always there. He’d feared what he was doing, but had never let it die. And now it was gone.

That was why everything seemed so dull. Was this really how other people lived? How he used to live? He could barely see – the sharp, rich detail he’d grown accustomed to was gone. The vibrant colors and crisp lines. Instead, everything was bland and vague.

His ears felt clogged. His nose… he couldn’t smell the boards beneath him, couldn’t tell the species of wood by scent. He couldn’t smell the bodies that had passed. He couldn’t feel the thumpings of people moving about in other rooms.

And… he was in a room. He shook his head, sitting up, trying to think. Immediately, a pain in his shoulder made him gasp. The wound had not been cared for. He remembered the sword piercing him near the shoulder. That was not a wound one recovered from easily – indeed, his left arm didn’t seem to work right, one of the reasons he was having so much trouble rising.

“You’ve lost a lot of blood,” the voice said. “You’ll die soon, even if the flames don’t take you. Don’t bother to look for the pouch of tin at your belt – they took that.”

“Flames?” Spook croaked, blinking. How did people survive in a world that was this dark?

“Can’t you feel them, Spook? They’re near.”

There was a light nearby, down a hallway. Spook shook his head, trying to clear his mind. I’m in a house, he thought. A nice one. A nobleman’s house.

And they’re burning it down.

This, finally, gave him motivation to stand, though he immediately dropped again, his body too weak – his mind too fuzzy – to keep him on his feet.

“Don’t walk,” the voice said. Where had he heard that voice before? He trusted it. “Crawl,” it said.

Spook did as commanded, crawling forward.

“No, not toward the flames! You have to get out, so you can punish those who did this to you. Think, Spook!”

“Window,” Spook croaked, turning to the side, crawling toward one of them.

“Boarded shut,” the voice said. “You saw this before, from the outside. There’s only one way to survive. You have to listen to me.”

Spook nodded dully.

“Go out the room’s other door. Crawl toward the stairs leading to the second floor.”

Spook did so, forcing himself to keep moving. His arms were so numb they felt like weights tied to his shoulders. He’d been flaring tin so long that normal senses just didn’t seem to work for him anymore. He found the stairs, though he was coughing by the time he got there. That would be because of the smoke, a part of his mind told him. It was probably a good thing he was crawling.

He could feel the heat as he climbed. The flames seemed to be chasing him, claiming the room behind him as he moved up the stairs, still dizzy. He reached the top, then slipped on his own blood, slumping against the side of the wall, groaning.

“Get up!” the voice said.

Where have I heard that voice before? he thought again. Why do I want to do what it says? It was so close. He’d have it, if his mind weren’t so muddled. Yet, he obeyed, forcing himself to his hands and knees again.

“Second room on the left,” the voice commanded.

Spook crawled without thinking. Flames crept up the stairs, flickering across the walls. His nose was weak, like his other senses, but he suspected that the house had been soaked with oil. It made for a faster, more dramatic burn that way.

“Stop. This is the room.”

Spook turned left, crawling into the room. It was a study, well furnished. The thieves in the city complained that ransacking places like this one wasn’t worth the effort. The Citizen forbade ostentation, and so expensive furniture couldn’t be sold, even on the black market. Nobody wanted to be caught owning luxuries, lest they end up burning to death in one of the Citizen’s executions.

“Spook!”

Spook had heard of those executions. He’d never seen one. He’d paid Durn to keep an eye out for the next one. Spook’s coin would get him advance warning, as well as a good position to watch the building burn down. Plus, Durn promised he had another tidbit, something Spook would be interested in. Something worth the coin he’d paid.

Count the skulls.

“Spook!”

Spook opened his eyes. He’d fallen to the floor and begun to drift off. Flames were already burning the ceiling. The building was dying. There was no way Spook would get out, not in his current condition.

“Go to the desk,” the voice commanded.

“I’m dead,” Spook whispered.

“No you’re not. Go to the desk.”

Spook turned his head, looking at the flames. A figure stood in them, a dark silhouette. The walls dripped, bubbled, and hissed, their plaster and paints blackening. Yet, this shadow of a person didn’t seem to mind the fire. That figure seemed familiar. Tall. Commanding.

“You…?” Spook whispered.

“Go to the desk!”

Spook rolled to his knees. He crawled, dragging his useless arm, moving to the side of the desk.

“Right drawer.”

Spook pulled it open, then leaned against the side, slumping. Something was inside.

Vials?

He reached for them eagerly. They were the kinds of vials used by Allomancers to store metal shavings. With trembling fingers, Spook picked one up, then it slipped free of his numb fingers. It shattered. He stared at the liquid that had been inside – an alcohol solution that would keep the metal flakes from corroding, as well as help the Allomancer drink them down.

“Spook!” the voice said.

Dully, Spook took another vial. He worked off the stopper with his teeth, feeling the fires blaze around him. The far wall was nearly gone. The fires crept toward him.

He drank the contents of the vial, then searched inside of himself, seeking tin. But there was none. Spook cried out in despair, dropping the vial. It had contained no tin. How would that have saved him anyway? It would have made him feel the flames, and his wound, more acutely.

“Spook!” the voice commanded. “Burn it!”

“There is no tin!” Spook yelled.

“Not tin! The man who owned this house was no Tineye!”

Not tin. Spook blinked. Then – reaching within himself – he found something completely unexpected. Something he’d never thought to ever see, something that shouldn’t have existed.

A new metal reserve. He burned it.

His body flared with strength. His trembling arms became steady. His weakness seemed to flee, cast aside like darkness before the rising sun. He felt tension and power, and his muscles grew taut with anticipation.

“Stand!”

His head snapped up. He leaped to his feet, and this time the dizziness was gone. His mind still felt numb, but something was clear to him. Only one metal could have changed his body, making it strong enough to work despite his terrible wound and blood loss.

Spook was burning pewter.

The figure stood in the flames, dark, hard to make out. “I’ve given you the blessing of pewter, Spook,” the voice said. “Use it to escape this place. You can break through the boards on the far side of that hallway, escape out onto the roof of the building nearby. The soldiers won’t be watching for you – they’re too busy controlling the fire so it doesn’t spread.”

Spook nodded. The heat didn’t bother him anymore. “Thank you.”

The figure stepped forward, becoming more than just a silhouette. Flames played against the man’s firm face, and Spook’s suspicions were confirmed. There was a reason he’d trusted that voice, a reason why he’d done what it had said.

He’d do whatever this man commanded.

“I didn’t give you pewter just so you could live, Spook,” Kelsier said, pointing. “I gave it to you so you could get revenge. Now, go!”

20

TENSOON SAT IN HIS CAGE.

The cage’s very existence was an insult. Kandra were not like men – even if he were not imprisoned, TenSoon would not have run or tried to escape. He had come willingly to his fate.

And yet, they locked him up. He wasn’t certain where they had gotten the cage – it certainly wasn’t something kandra normally would need. Still, the Seconds had found it and erected it in one of the main caverns of the Homeland. It was made of iron plates and hard steel bars with a strong wire mesh stretched across all four faces to keep him from reducing his body to base muscles and wriggling through. It was another insult.

TenSoon sat inside, naked on the cold iron floor. Had he accomplished anything other than his own condemnation? Had his words in the Trustwarren been of any value at all?

Outside his cage, the caverns glowed with the light of cultivated mosses, and kandra went about their duties. Many stopped, studying him. This was the purpose of the long delay between his judgment and sentencing. The Second Generationers didn’t need weeks to ponder what they were going to do to him. However, TenSoon had forced them to let him speak his mind, and the Seconds wanted to make certain he was properly punished. They put him on display, like some human in the stocks. In all the history of the kandra people, no other had ever been treated in such a way. His name would be a byword of shame for centuries.

But we won’t last centuries, he thought angrily. That was what my speech was all about.

But, he hadn’t given it very well. How could he explain to the people what he felt? That their traditions were coming to a focus, that their lives – which had been stable for so long – were in drastic need of change?

What happened above? Did Vin go to the Well of Ascension? What of Ruin, and Preservation? The gods of the kandra people were at war again, and the only ones who knew of them were pretending that nothing was happening.

Outside his cage, the other kandra lived their lives. Some trained the members of the newer generations – he could see Elevenths moving along, little more than blobs with some glistening bones. The transformation from mistwraith to kandra was a difficult one. Once given a Blessing, the mistwraith would lose most of its instincts as it gained sentience, and would have to relearn how to form muscles and bodies. It was a process that took many, many years.

Other adult kandra went about food preparation. They would stew a mixture of algae and fungi inside stone pits, not unlike the one in which TenSoon would spend eternity. Despite his former hatred of mankind, TenSoon had always found the opportunity to enjoy outside food – particularly aged meat – a very tempting consolation for going out on a Contract.

Now, he barely had enough to drink, let alone enough to eat. He sighed, looking through the bars at the vast cavern. The caves of the Homeland were enormous, far too large for the kandra to fill. But, that was what many of his people liked about them. After spending years in a Contract – serving a master’s whims, often for decades at a time – a place that offered the option of solitude was quite precious.

Solitude, TenSoon thought. I’ll have plenty of that, soon enough. Contemplating an eternity in prison made him a little less annoyed with the people who came to gawk at him. They would be the last of his people he ever saw. He recognized many of them. The Fourths and Fifths came to spit at the ground before him, showing their devotion to the Seconds. The Sixths and the Sevenths – who made up the bulk of the Contract fillers – came to pity him and shake their heads for a friend fallen. The Eighths and Ninths came out of curiosity, amazed that one so aged could have fallen so far.

And then he saw a particularly familiar face amidst the watching groups. TenSoon turned aside, ashamed, as MeLaan approached, pain showing in those overly large eyes of hers.

“TenSoon?” a whisper soon came.

“Go away, MeLaan,” he said quietly, his back to the bars, which only let him look out at another group of kandra, watching him from the other side.

“TenSoon…” she repeated.

“You need not see me like this, MeLaan. Please go.”

“They shouldn’t be able to do this to you,” she said, and he could hear the anger in her voice. “You’re nearly as old as they, and far more wise.”

“They are the Second Generation,” TenSoon said. “They are chosen by those of the First. They lead us.”

“They don’t have to lead us.”

“MeLaan!” he said, finally turning toward her. Most of the gawkers stayed back, as if TenSoon’s crime were a disease they could catch. MeLaan crouched alone beside his cage, her True Body of spindly wooden bones making her look unnaturally slim.

“You could challenge them,” MeLaan said quietly.

“What do you think we are?” TenSoon asked. “Humans, with their rebellions and upheavals? We are kandra. We are of Preservation. We follow order.”

“You still bow before them?” MeLaan hissed, pressing her thin face up against the bars. “After what you said – with what is happening above?”

TenSoon paused. “Above?”

“You were right, TenSoon,” she said. “Ash cloaks the land in a mantle of black. The mists come during the day, killing both crops and people. Men march to war. Ruin has returned.”

TenSoon closed his eyes. “They will do something,” he finally said. “The First Generation.”

“They are old,” MeLaan said. “Old, forgetful, impotent.”

TenSoon opened his eyes. “You have changed much.”

She smiled. “They should never have given children of a new generation to be raised by a Third. There are many of us, the younger ones, who would fight. The Seconds can’t rule forever. What can we do, TenSoon? How can we help you?”

Oh, child, he thought. You don’t think that they know about you?

Those of the Second Generation were not fools. They might be lazy, but they were old and crafty – TenSoon understood this, for he knew each of them quite well. They would have kandra listening, waiting to see what was said at his cage. A kandra of the Fourth or Fifth Generation who had the Blessing of Awareness could stand a distance away, and still hear every word being spoken at his cage.

TenSoon was kandra. He had returned to receive his punishment because that was right. It was more than honor, more than Contract. It was who he was.

And yet, if the things MeLaan had said were true…

Ruin has returned.

“How can you just sit here?” MeLaan said. “You’re stronger than they are, TenSoon.”

TenSoon shook his head. “I broke Contract, MeLaan.”

“For a higher good.”

At least I convinced her.

“Is it true, TenSoon?” she asked very quietly.

“What?”

“OreSeur. He had the Blessing of Potency. You must have inherited it, when you killed him. Yet, they didn’t find it on your body when they took you. So, what did you do with it? Can I fetch it for you? Bring it, so that you can fight?”

“I will not fight my own people, MeLaan,” TenSoon said. “I am kandra.”

“Someone must lead us!” she hissed.

That statement, at least, was true. But, it wasn’t TenSoon’s right. Nor, really, was it the right of the Second Generation – or even the First Generation. It was the right of the one who had created them. That one was dead. But, another had taken his place.

MeLaan was silent for a time, still kneeling beside his cage. Perhaps she waited for him to offer encouragement, or perhaps to become the leader she sought. He didn’t speak.

“So, you just came to die,” she finally said.

“To explain what I’ve discovered. What I’ve felt.”

“And then what? You come, proclaim dread news, then leave us to solve the problems on our own?”

“That’s not fair, MeLaan,” he said. “I came to be the best kandra I know how.”

“Then fight!”

He shook his head.

“It’s true then,” she said. “The others of my generation, they said that you were broken by that last master of yours. The man Zane.”

“He did not break me,” TenSoon said.

“Oh?” MeLaan said. “And why did you return to the Homeland in that… body you were using?”

“The dog’s bones?” TenSoon said. “Those weren’t given to me by Zane, but by Vin.”

“So she broke you.”

TenSoon exhaled quietly. How could he explain? On one hand, it seemed ironic to him that MeLaan – who intentionally wore a True Body that was inhuman – would find his use of a dog’s body so distasteful. Yet, he could understand. It had taken him quite some time to appreciate the advantages of those bones.

He paused.

But, no. He had not come to bring revolution. He had come to explain, to serve the interests of his people. He would do that by accepting his punishment, as a kandra should.

And yet…

There was a chance. A slim one. He wasn’t even certain he wanted to escape, but if there was an opportunity… “Those bones I wore,” TenSoon found himself saying. “You know where they are?”

MeLaan frowned. “No. Why would you want them?”

TenSoon shook his head. “I don’t,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “They were disgraceful! I was made to wear them for over a year, forced into the humiliating role of a dog. I would have discarded them, but I had no corpse to ingest and take, so I had to return here wearing that horrid body.”

“You’re avoiding the real issue, TenSoon.”

“There is no real issue, MeLaan,” he said, turning away from her. Whether or not his plan worked, he didn’t want the Seconds punishing her for associating with him. “I will not rebel against my people. Please, if you truly wish to help me, just let me be.”

MeLaan hissed quietly, and he heard her stand. “You were once the greatest of us.”

TenSoon sighed as she left. No, MeLaan. I was never great. Up until recently, I was the most orthodox of my generation, a conservative distinguished only by his hatred of humans. Now, I’ve become the greatest criminal in the history of our people, but I did it mostly by accident.

That isn’t greatness. That’s just foolishness.

21

DEMOUX SURVIVED.

He was one of the larger group, the fifteen percent who grew sick, but did not die. Vin sat atop the cabin of her narrowboat, arm resting on a wooden ledge, idly fingering her mother’s earring – which, as always, she wore in her ear. Koloss brutes trudged along the towpath, dragging the barges and boats down the canal. Many of the barges still carried supplies – tents, foodstuffs, pure water. Several had been emptied, however, their contents carried on the backs of the surviving soldiers, making room for the wounded.

Vin turned away from the barges, looking toward the front of the narrowboat. Elend stood at the prow, as usual, staring west. He did not brood. He looked like a king, standing straight-backed, staring determinedly toward his goal. He looked so different now from the man he had once been, with his full beard, his longer hair, his uniforms that had been scrubbed white. They were growing worn. Not ragged… they were still clean and sharp, as white as things could get in the current state of the world. They were just no longer new. They were the uniforms of a man who had been at war for two years straight.

Vin knew him well enough to sense that all was not well. However, she also knew him well enough to sense that he didn’t want to talk about it for the moment.

She stood and stepped down, burning pewter unconsciously to heighten her balance. She slid a book off a bench beside the boat’s edge, and settled down quietly. Elend would talk to her eventually – he always did. For the moment, she had something else to engage her.

She opened the book to the marked page and reread a particular paragraph. The Deepness must be destroyed, the words said. I have seen it, and I have felt it. This name we give it is too weak a word, I think. Yes, it is deep and unfathomable, but it is also terrible. Many do not realize that it is sentient, but I have sensed its mind, such as it is, the few times I have confronted it directly.

She eyed the page for a moment, sitting back on her bench. Beside her, the canal waters passed, covered with a froth of floating ash.

The book was Alendi’s logbook. It had been written a thousand years before by a man who had thought himself to be the Hero of Ages. Alendi hadn’t completed his quest; he had been killed by one of his servants – Rashek – who had then taken the power at the Well of Ascension and become the Lord Ruler.

Alendi’s story was frighteningly close to Vin’s own. She had also assumed herself to be the Hero of Ages. She had traveled to the Well, and had been betrayed. She, however, hadn’t been betrayed by one of her servants – but instead by the force imprisoned within the Well. That force was, she assumed, behind the prophecies about the Hero of Ages in the first place.

Why do I keep coming back to this paragraph? she thought, eyeing it again. Perhaps it was because of what Human had said to her – that the mists hated her. She had felt that hatred herself, and it appeared that Alendi had felt the same thing.

But, could she even trust the logbook’s words? The force she had released, the thing she called Ruin, had proven that it could change things in the world. Small things, yet important ones. Like the text of a book, which was why Elend’s officers were now instructed to send all messages via memorized words or letters etched into metal.

Regardless, if there had been any clues to be gained by reading the logbook, Ruin would have removed them long ago. Vin felt as if she’d been led by the nose for the last three years, pulled by invisible strings. She had thought she was having revelations and making great discoveries, but all she’d really been doing was following Ruin’s bidding.

Yet, Ruin is not omnipotent, Vin thought. If it were, there would have been no fight. It wouldn’t have needed to trick me into releasing it.

It cannot know my thoughts.…

Even that knowledge was frustrating. What good were her thoughts? Always before, she’d had Sazed, Elend, or TenSoon to talk with about problems like this. This wasn’t a task for Vin; she was no scholar. Yet, Sazed had turned his back on his studies, TenSoon had returned to his people, and Elend was far too busy lately to worry about anything but his army and its politics. That left Vin. And she still found reading and scholarship to be stuffy and boring.

Yet, she was also becoming more and more comfortable with the idea of doing what was necessary, even if she found it distasteful. She was no longer just her own person. She belonged to the New Empire. She had been its knife – now it was time to try a different role.

I have to do it, she thought, sitting in the red sunlight. There is a puzzle here – something to be solved. What was it Kelsier liked to say?

There’s always another secret.

She remembered Kelsier, standing boldly before a small group of thieves, proclaiming that they would overthrow the Lord Ruler and free the empire. We’re thieves, he’d said. And we’re extraordinarily good ones. We can rob the unrobbable and fool the unfoolable. We know how to take an incredibly large task and break it down to manageable pieces, then deal with each of those pieces.

That day, when he’d written up the team’s goals and plans on a small board, Vin had been amazed by how possible he had made an impossible task seem. That day, a little bit of her had begun to believe that Kelsier could overthrow the Final Empire.

All right, Vin thought. I’ll begin like Kelsier did, by listing the things that I know for certain.

There had been a power at the Well of Ascension, so that much about the stories was true. There had also been something alive, imprisoned in or near the Well. It had tricked Vin into using the power to destroy its bonds. Maybe she could have used that power to destroy Ruin instead, but she’d given it up.

She sat thoughtfully, tapping her finger against the back of the logbook. She could still remember wisps of what it had felt like to hold that power. It had awed her, yet at the same time felt natural and right. In fact, while she held it, everything had felt natural. The workings of the world, the ways of men… it was like the power had been more than simple capability. It had been understanding as well.

That was a tangent. She needed to focus on what she knew before she could philosophize on what she needed to do. The power was real, and Ruin was real. Ruin had retained some ability to change the world while confined – Sazed had confirmed that his texts had been altered to suit Ruin’s purpose. Now Ruin was free, and Vin assumed that it was behind the violent mist killings and the falling ash.

Though, she reminded herself, I don’t know either of those things for certain. What did she know about Ruin? She had touched it, felt it, in that moment she had released it. It had a need to destroy, yet it was not a force of simple chaos. It didn’t act randomly. It planned and thought. And, it didn’t seem able to do anything it wanted. Almost as if it followed specific rules…

She paused. “Elend?” she called.

The emperor turned from his place beside the prow.

“What is the first rule of Allomancy?” Vin asked. “The first thing I taught you?”

“Consequence,” Elend said. “Every action has consequences. When you Push on something heavy, it will push you back. If you Push on something light, it will fly away.”

It was the first lesson that Kelsier had taught Vin, as well as – she assumed – the first lesson his master had taught him.

“It’s a good rule,” Elend said, turning back to his contemplation of the horizon. “It works for all things in life. If you throw something into the air, it will come back down. If you bring an army into a man’s kingdom, he will react…”

Consequence, she thought, frowning. Like things falling back when thrown into the sky. That’s what Ruin’s actions feel like to me. Consequences. Perhaps it was a remnant of touching the power, or perhaps just some rationalization her unconscious mind was giving her. Yet, she felt a logic to Ruin. She didn’t understand that logic, but she could recognize it.

Elend turned back toward her. “That’s why I like Allomancy, actually. Or, at least, the theory of it. The skaa whisper about it, call it mystical, but it’s really quite rational. You can tell what an Allomantic Push is going to do as certainly as you can tell what will happen when you drop a rock off the side of the boat. For every Push, there is a Pull. There are no exceptions. It makes simple, logical sense – unlike the ways of men, which are filled with flaws, irregularities, and double meanings. Allomancy is a thing of nature.”

A thing of nature.

For every Push, there is a Pull. A consequence.

“That’s important,” Vin whispered.

“What?”

A consequence.

The thing she had felt at the Well of Ascension had been a thing of destruction, like Alendi described in his logbook. But, it hadn’t been a creature, not like a person. It had been a force – a thinking force, but a force nonetheless. And forces had rules. Allomancy, weather, even the pull of the ground. The world was a place that made sense. A place of logic. Every Push had a Pull. Every force had a consequence.

She had to discover, then, the laws relating to the thing she was fighting. That would tell her how to beat it.

“Vin?” Elend asked, studying her face.

Vin looked away. “It’s nothing, Elend. Nothing I can speak of, at least.”

He watched her for a moment. He thinks that you’re plotting against him, Reen whispered from the back of her mind. Fortunately, the days when she had listened to Reen’s words were long past. Indeed, as she watched Elend, she saw him nod slowly, and accept her explanation. He turned back to his own contemplations.

Vin rose, walking forward, laying a hand on his arm. He sighed, raising the arm and wrapping it around her shoulders, pulling her close. That arm, once the weak arm of a scholar, was now muscular and firm.

“What are you thinking about?” Vin asked.

“You know,” Elend said.

“It was necessary, Elend. The soldiers had to get exposed to the mists eventually.”

“Yes,” Elend said. “But there’s something more, Vin. I fear I’m becoming like him.”

“Who?”

“The Lord Ruler.”

Vin snorted quietly, pulling closer to him.

“This is something he would have done,” Elend said. “Sacrificing his own men for a tactical advantage.”

“You explained this to Ham,” Vin said. “We can’t afford to waste time.”

“It’s still ruthless,” Elend said. “The problem isn’t that those men died, it’s that I was so willing to make it happen. I feel… brutal, Vin. How far will I go to see my goals achieved? I’m marching on another man’s kingdom to take it from him.”

“For the greater good.”

“That has been the excuse of tyrants throughout all time. I know it. Yet, I press on. This is why I didn’t want to be emperor. This is why I let Penrod take my throne from me back during the siege. I didn’t want to be the kind of leader who had to do things like this. I want to protect, not besiege and kill! But, is there any other way? Everything I do seems like it must be done. Like exposing my own men in the mists. Like marching on Fadrex City. We have to get to that storehouse – it’s the only lead we have that could even possibly give us some clue as to what we’re supposed to do! It all makes such sense. Ruthless, brutal sense.”

Ruthlessness is the very most practical of emotions, Reen’s voice whispered. She ignored it. “You’ve been listening to Cett too much.”

“Perhaps,” Elend said. “Yet, his is a logic I find difficult to ignore. I grew up as an idealist, Vin – we both know that’s true. Cett provides a kind of balance. The things he says are much like what Tindwyl used to say.”

He paused, shaking his head. “Just a short time ago, I was talking with Cett about Allomantic Snapping. Do you know what the noble houses did to ensure that they found the Allomancers among their children?”

“They had them beaten,” Vin whispered. A person’s Allomantic powers were always latent until something traumatic brought them out. A person had to be brought to the brink of death and survive – only then would their powers be awakened. It was called Snapping.

Elend nodded. “It was one of the great, dirty secrets of so-called noble life. Families often lost children to the beatings – those beatings had to be brutal for them to evoke Allomantic abilities. Each house was different, but they generally specified an age before adolescence. When a boy or girl hit that age, they were taken and beaten near to death.”

Vin shivered slightly.

“I vividly remember mine,” Elend said. “Father didn’t beat me himself, but he did watch. The saddest thing about the beatings was that most of them were pointless. Only a handful of children, even noble children, became Allomancers. I didn’t. I was beaten for nothing.”

“You stopped those beatings, Elend,” Vin said softly. He had drafted a bill soon after becoming king. A person could choose to undergo a supervised beating when they came of age, but Elend had stopped it from happening to children.

“And I was wrong,” Elend said softly.

Vin looked up.

“Allomancers are our most powerful resource, Vin,” Elend said, looking out over the marching soldiers. “Cett lost his kingdom, nearly his life, because he couldn’t marshal enough Allomancers to protect him. And I made it illegal to search out Allomancers in my population.”

“Elend, you stopped the beating of children.”

“And if those beatings could save lives?” Elend asked. “Like exposing my soldiers could save lives? What about Kelsier? He only gained his powers as a Mistborn after he was trapped in the Pits of Hathsin. What would have happened if he’d been beaten properly as a child? He would always have been Mistborn. He could have saved his wife.”

“And then wouldn’t have had the courage or motivation to overthrow the Final Empire.”

“And is what we have any better?” Elend asked. “The longer I’ve held this throne, Vin, the more I’ve come to realize that some of the things the Lord Ruler did weren’t evil, but simply effective. Right or wrong, he maintained order in his kingdom.”

Vin looked up, catching his eyes, forcing him to look down at her. “I don’t like this hardness in you, Elend.”

He looked out over the blackened canal waters. “It doesn’t control me, Vin. I don’t agree with most of the things the Lord Ruler did. I’m just coming to understand him – and that understanding worries me.” She saw questions in his eyes, but also strengths. He looked down and met her eyes. “I can hold this throne only because I know that at one point, I was willing to give it up in the name of what was right. If I ever lose that, Vin, you need to tell me. All right?”

Vin nodded.

Elend looked back at the horizon again. What is it he hopes to see? Vin thought.

“There has to be a balance, Vin,” he said. “Somehow, we’ll find it. The balance between whom we wish to be and whom we need to be.” He sighed. “But for now,” he said, nodding to the side, “we simply have to be satisfied with who we are.”

Vin glanced to the side as a small courier skiff from one of the other narrowboats pulled up alongside theirs. A man in simple brown robes stood upon it. He wore large spectacles, as if attempting to obscure the intricate Ministry tattoos around his eyes, and he was smiling happily.

Vin smiled herself. Once, she had thought that a happy obligator was always a bad sign. That was before she’d known Noorden. Even during the days of the Lord Ruler, the contented scholar had probably lived most of his life in his own little world. He provided a strange proof that even in the confines of what had once been – in her opinion – the most evil organization in the empire, one could find good men.

“Your Excellency,” Noorden said, stepping off of the skiff and bowing. A couple of assistant scribes joined him on the deck, lugging books and ledgers.

“Noorden,” Elend said, joining the man on the foredeck. Vin followed. “You have done the counts I asked?”

“Yes, Your Excellency,” Noorden said as an aide opened up a ledger on a pile of boxes. “I must say, this was a difficult task, what with the army moving about and the like.”

“I’m certain you were thorough as always, Noorden,” Elend said. He glanced at the ledger, which seemed to make sense to him, though all Vin saw was a bunch of random numbers.

“What’s it say?” she asked.

“It lists the number of sick and dead,” Elend said. “Of our thirty-eight thousand, nearly six thousand were taken by the sickness. We lost about five hundred and fifty.”

“Including one of my own scribes,” Noorden said, shaking his head.

Vin frowned. Not at the death, at something else, something itching at her mind…

“Fewer dead than expected,” Elend said, pulling thoughtfully at his beard.

“Yes, Your Excellency,” Noorden said. “I guess these soldier types are more rugged than the average skaa population. The sickness, whatever it is, didn’t strike them as hard.”

“How do you know?” Vin asked, looking up. “How do you know how many should have died?”

“Previous experience, my lady,” Noorden said in his chatty way. “We’ve been tracking these deaths with some interest. Since the disease is new, we’re trying to determine exactly what causes it. Perhaps that will lead us to a way to treat it. I’ve had my scribes reading what we can, trying to find clues of other diseases like this. It seems a little like the shakewelts, though that’s usually brought on by–”

“Noorden,” Vin said, frowning. “You have figures then? Exact numbers?”

“That’s what His Excellency asked for, my lady.”

“How many fell sick to the disease?” Vin asked. “Exactly?”

“Well, let me see…” Noorden said, shooing his scribe away and checking the ledger. “Five thousand two hundred and forty-three.”

“What percentage of the soldiers is that?” Vin asked.

Noorden paused, then waved over a scribe and did some calculations. “About thirteen and a half percent, my lady,” he finally said, adjusting his spectacles.

Vin frowned. “Did you include the men who died in your calculations?”

“Actually, no,” Noorden said.

“And which total did you use?” Vin asked. “The total number of men in the army, or the total number who hadn’t been in the mists before?”

“The first.”

“Do you have a count for the second number?” Vin asked.

“Yes, my lady,” Noorden said. “The emperor wanted an accurate count of which soldiers would be affected.”

“Use that number instead,” Vin said, glancing at Elend. He seemed interested.

“What is this about, Vin?” he asked as Noorden and his men worked.

“I’m… not sure,” Vin said.

“Numbers are important for generalizations,” Elend said. “But I don’t see how…” He trailed off as Noorden looked up from his calculations, then cocked his head, saying something softly to himself.

“What?” Vin asked.

“I’m sorry, my lady,” Noorden said. “I was just a bit surprised. The calculation came out to be exact – precisely sixteen percent of the soldiers fell sick. To the man.”

“A coincidence, Noorden,” Elend said. “It isn’t that remarkable for calculations to come out exact.”

Ash blew across the deck. “No,” Noorden said, “no, you are right, Your Excellency. A simple coincidence.”

“Check your ledgers,” Vin said. “Find percentages based on other groups of people who have caught this disease.”

“Vin,” Elend said, “I’m no statistician, but I have worked with numbers in my research. Sometimes, natural phenomena produce seemingly odd results, but the chaos of statistics actually results in normalization. It might appear strange that our numbers broke down to an exact percentage, but that’s just the way that statistics work.”

“Sixteen,” Noorden said. He looked up. “Another exact percentage.”

Elend frowned, stepping over to the ledger.

“This third one here isn’t exact,” Noorden said, “but that’s only because the base number isn’t a multiple of twenty-five. A fraction of a person can’t really become sick, after all. Yet, the sickness in this population here is within a single person of being exactly sixteen percent.”

Elend knelt down, heedless of the ash that had dusted the deck since it had last been swept. Vin looked over his shoulder, scanning the numbers.

“It doesn’t matter how old the average member of the population is,” Noorden said, scribbling. “Nor does it matter where they live. Each one shows the exact same percentage of people falling sick.”

“How could we have not noticed this before?” Elend asked.

“Well, we did, after a fashion,” Noorden said. “We knew that about four in twenty-five caught the sickness. However, I hadn’t realized how exact the numbers were. This is indeed odd, Your Excellency. I know of no other disease that works this way. Look, here’s an entry where a hundred scouts were sent into the mists, and precisely sixteen of them fell sick!”

Elend looked troubled.

“What?” Vin asked.

“This is wrong, Vin,” Elend said. “Very wrong.”

“It’s like the chaos of normal random statistics has broken down,” Noorden said. “A population should never react this precisely – there should be a curve of probability, with smaller populations reflecting the expected percentages least accurately.”

“At the very least,” Elend said, “the sickness should affect the elderly in different ratios from the healthy.”

“In a way, it does,” Noorden said as one of his assistants handed him a paper with further calculations. “The deaths respond that way, as we would expect. But, the total number who fall sick is always sixteen percent! We’ve been paying so much attention to how many died, we didn’t notice how unnatural the percentages of those stricken were.”

Elend stood. “Check on this, Noorden,” he said, gesturing toward the ledger. “Do interviews, make certain the data hasn’t been changed by Ruin, and find out if this trend holds. We can’t jump to conclusions with only four or five examples. It could all just be a large coincidence.”

“Yes, Your Excellency,” Noorden said, looking a bit shaken. “But… what if it’s not a coincidence? What does it mean?”

“I don’t know,” Elend said.

It means consequence, Vin thought. It means that there are laws, even if we don’t understand them.

Sixteen. Why sixteen percent?

22

SAZED SAT IN ONE OF THE NICER BUILDINGS at the Pits of Hathsin – a former guardhouse – holding a mug of hot tea. The Terris elders sat in chairs before him, a small stove providing warmth. On the next day, Sazed would have to leave to catch up with Goradel and Breeze, who would be well on their way to Urteau by now.

The sunlight was dimming. The mists had already come, and they hung just outside the glass window. Sazed could just barely make out depressions in the dark ground outside – cracks, in the earth. There were dozens of the cracks; the Terris people had built fences to mark them. Only a few years ago, before Kelsier had destroyed the atium crystals, men had been forced to crawl down into those cracks, seeking small geodes which had beads of atium at their centers.

Each slave who hadn’t been able to find at least one geode a week had been executed. There were likely still hundreds, perhaps thousands, of corpses pinned beneath the ground, lost in deep caverns, dead without anyone knowing or caring.

What a terrible place this was, Sazed thought, turning away from the window as a young Terriswoman closed the shutters. Before him on the table were several ledgers which showed the resources, expenditures, and needs of the Terris people.

“I believe I suggested keeping these figures in metal,” Sazed said.

“Yes, Master Keeper,” said one of the elderly stewards. “We copy the important figures into a sheet of metal each evening, then check them weekly against the ledgers to make certain nothing has changed.”

“That is well,” Sazed said, picking through one of the ledgers, sitting in his lap. “And sanitation? Have you addressed those issues since my last visit?”

“Yes, Master Keeper,” said another man. “We have prepared many more latrines, as you commanded – though we do not need them.”

“There may be refugees,” Sazed said. “I wish for you to be able to care for a larger population, should it become necessary. But, please. These are only suggestions, not commands. I claim no authority over you.”

The group of stewards shared glances. Sazed had been busy during his time with them, which had kept him from dwelling on his melancholy thoughts. He’d made sure they had enough supplies, that they kept a good communication with Penrod in Luthadel, and that they had a system in place for settling disputes among themselves.

“Master Keeper,” one of the elders finally said. “How long will you be staying?”

“I must leave in the morning, I fear,” Sazed said. “I came simply to check on your needs. This is a difficult time to live, and you could be easily forgotten by those in Luthadel, I think.”

“We are well, Master Keeper,” said one of the others. He was the youngest of the elders, and he was only a few years younger than Sazed. Most of the men here were far older – and far wiser – than he. That they should look to him seemed wrong.

“Will you not reconsider your place with us, Master Keeper?” asked another. “We want not for food or for land. Yet, what we do lack is a leader.”

“The Terris people were oppressed long enough, I think,” Sazed said. “You have no need for another tyrant king.”

“Not a tyrant,” one said. “One of our own.”

“The Lord Ruler was one of our own,” Sazed said quietly,

The group of men looked down. That the Lord Ruler had proven to be Terris was a shame to all of their people.

“We need someone to guide us,” one of the men said. “Even during the days of the Lord Ruler, he was not our leader. We looked to the Keeper Synod.”

The Keeper Synod – the clandestine leaders of Sazed’s sect. They had led the Terris people for centuries, secretly working to make certain that Feruchemy continued, despite the Lord Ruler’s attempts to breed the power out of the people.

“Master Keeper,” said Master Vedlew, senior of the elders.

“Yes, Master Vedlew?”

“You do not wear your copperminds.”

Sazed looked down. He hadn’t realized it was noticeable that, beneath his robes, he wasn’t wearing the metal bracers. “They are in my pack.”

“It seems odd, to me,” Vedlew said, “that you should work so hard during the Lord Ruler’s time, always wearing your metalminds in secret, despite the danger. Yet, now that you are free to do as you wish, you carry them in your pack.”

Sazed shook his head. “I cannot be the man you wish me to be. Not right now.”

“You are a Keeper.”

“I was the lowest of them,” Sazed said. “A rebel and a reject. They cast me from their presence. The last time I left Tathingdwen, I did so in disgrace. The common people cursed me in the quiet of their homes.”

“Now they bless you, Master Sazed,” said one of the men.

“I do not deserve those blessings.”

“Deserve them or not, you are all we have left.”

“Then we are a sorrier people than we may appear.”

The room fell silent.

“There was another reason why I came here, Master Vedlew,” Sazed said, looking up. “Tell me, have any of your people died recently in… odd circumstances?”

“Of what do you speak?” the aged Terrisman asked.

“Mist deaths,” Sazed said. “Men who are killed by simply going out into the mists during the day.”

“That is a tale of the skaa,” one of the other men scoffed. “The mists are not dangerous.”

“Indeed,” Sazed said carefully. “Do you send your people out to work in them during the daylight hours, when the mists have not yet retreated for the day?”

“Of course we do,” said the younger Terrisman. “Why, it would be foolish to let those hours of work pass.”

Sazed found it difficult not to let his curiosity work on that fact. Terrismen weren’t killed by the daymists.

What was the connection?

He tried to summon the mental energy to think on the issue, but he felt traitorously apathetic. He just wanted to hide somewhere where nobody would expect anything of him. Where he wouldn’t have to solve the problems of the world, or even deal with his own religious crisis.

He almost did just that. And yet, a little part of him – a spark from before – refused to simply give up. He would at least continue his research, and would do what Elend and Vin asked of him. It wasn’t all he could do, and it wouldn’t satisfy the Terrismen who sat here, looking at him with needful expressions.

But, for the moment, it was all Sazed could offer. To stay at the Pits would be to surrender, he knew. He needed to keep moving, keep working.

“I’m sorry,” he said to the men, setting aside the ledger. “But this is how it must be.”

23

IN THE EASTERN LANDS, near the wastelands of grit and sand, a young boy fell to the ground inside a skaa shack. It was many years before the Collapse, and the Lord Ruler still lived. Not that the boy knew of such things. He was a dirty, ragged thing – like most other skaa children in the Final Empire. Too young to be put to work in the mines, he spent his days ducking away from his mother’s care and running about with the packs of children who foraged in the dry, dusty streets.

Spook hadn’t been that boy for some ten years. In a way, he was aware that he was delusional – that the fever of his wounds was causing him to come in and out of consciousness, dreams of the past filling his mind. He let them run. Staying focused required too much energy.

And so, he remembered what it felt like as he hit the ground. A large man – all men were large compared with Spook – stood over him, skin dirtied with the dust and grime of a miner. The man spat on the dirty floor beside Spook, then turned to the other skaa in the room. There were many. One was crying, the tears leaving lines of cleanliness on her cheeks, washing away the dust.

“All right,” the large man said. “We have him. Now what?”

The people glanced at each other. One quietly closed the shack’s door, shutting out the red sunlight.

“There’s only one thing to be done,” another man said. “We turn him in.”

Spook looked up. He met the eyes of the crying woman. She looked away. “Wasing the where of what?” Spook demanded.

The large man spat again, setting a boot against Spook’s neck, pushing him back down against the rough wood. “You shouldn’t have let him run around with those street gangs, Margel. Damn boy is barely coherent now.”

“What happens if we give him up?” asked one of the other men. “I mean, what if they decide that we’re like him? They could have us executed! I’ve seen it before. You turn someone in, and those… things come searching for everyone that knew him.”

“Problems like his run in the family, they do,” another man said.

The room grew quiet. They all knew about Spook’s family.

“They’ll kill us,” said the frightened man. “You know they will! I’ve seen them, seen them with those spikes in their eyes. Spirits of death, they are.”

“We can’t just let him run about,” another man said. “They’ll discover what he is.”

“There’s only one thing to be done,” the large man said, pressing down on Spook’s neck even harder.

The room’s occupants – the ones Spook could see – nodded solemnly. They couldn’t turn him in. They couldn’t let him go. But, nobody would miss a skaa urchin. No Inquisitor or obligator would ask twice about a dead child found in the streets. Skaa died all the time.

That was the way of the Final Empire.

“Father,” Spook whispered.

The heel came down harder. “You’re not my son! My son went into the mists and never came out. You must be a mistwraith.”

Spook tried to object, but his chest was pressed down too tight. He couldn’t breathe, let alone speak. The room started to grow black. And yet, his ears – supernaturally sensitive, enhanced by powers he barely understood – heard something.

Coins.

The pressure on his neck grew weaker. He was able to gasp for breath, his vision returning. And there, spilled on the ground before him, was a scattering of beautiful copper coins. Skaa weren’t paid for their work – the miners were given goods instead, barely enough to survive on. Yet, Spook had seen coins occasionally passing between noble hands. He’d once known a boy who had found a coin, lost in the dusty grime of the street.

A larger boy had killed him for it. Then, a nobleman had killed that boy when he’d tried to spend it. It seemed to Spook that no skaa would want coins – they were far too valuable, and far too dangerous. And yet, every eye in the room stared at that spilled bag of wealth.

“The bag in exchange for the boy,” a voice said. Bodies parted to where a man sat at a table at the back of the room. He wasn’t looking at Spook. He just sat, quietly spooning gruel into his mouth. His face was gnarled and twisted, like leather that had been sitting in the sun for far too long. “Well?” the gnarled man said between bites.

“Where did you get money like this?” Spook’s father demanded.

“None of your business.”

“We can’t let the boy go,” one of the skaa said. “He’ll betray us! Once they catch him, he’ll tell them that we knew!”

“They won’t catch him,” the gnarled man said, taking another bite of food. “He’ll be with me, in Luthadel. Besides, if you don’t let him go, I’ll just go ahead and tell the obligators about you all.” He paused, lowering his spoon, glancing at the crowd with a crusty look. “Unless you’re going to kill me too.”

Spook’s father finally took his heel off Spook’s neck as he stepped toward the gnarled stranger. However, Spook’s mother grabbed her husband’s arm. “Don’t, Jedal,” she said softly – but not too softly for Spook’s enhanced ears. “He’ll kill you.”

“He’s a traitor,” Spook’s father spat. “Servant in the Lord Ruler’s army.”

“He brought us coins. Surely taking his money is better than simply killing the boy.”

Spook’s father looked down at the woman. “You did this! You sent for your brother. You knew he’d want to take the boy!”

Spook’s mother turned away.

The gnarled man finally set down his spoon, then stood. People backed away from his chair in apprehension. He walked with a pronounced limp as he crossed the room.

“Come on, boy,” he said, not looking at Spook as he opened the door.

Spook rose slowly, tentatively. He glanced at his mother and father as he backed away. Jedal stooped down, finally gathering up the coins. Margel met Spook’s eyes, then turned away. This is all I can give you, her posture seemed to say.

Spook turned, rubbing his neck, and rushed into the hot red sunlight after the stranger. The older man hobbled along, walking with a cane. He glanced at Spook as he walked.

“You have a name, boy?”

Spook opened his mouth, then stopped. His old name didn’t seem like it would do any more. “Lestibournes,” he finally said.

The old man didn’t bat an eye. Later, Kelsier would decide that Lestibournes was too difficult to say, and name him “Spook” instead. Spook never did figure out whether or not Clubs knew how to speak Eastern street slang. Even if he did, Spook doubted that he’d understand the reference.

Lestibournes. Lefting I’m born.

Street slang for “I’ve been abandoned.”

24

DAYS LATER, MELAAN’S WORDS still pricked TenSoon’s conscience.

You come, proclaim dread news, then leave us to solve the problems on our own? During his year of imprisonment, it had seemed simple. He would make his accusations, deliver his information, then accept the punishment he deserved.

But now, strangely, an eternity of imprisonment seemed like the easy way out. If he let himself be taken in such a manner, how was he better than the First Generation? He would be avoiding the issues, content to be locked away, knowing that the outside world was no longer his problem.

Fool, he thought. You’ll be imprisoned for eternity – or, at least, until the kandra themselves are destroyed, and you die of starvation. That’s not the easy way out! By accepting your punishment, you’re doing the honorable, orderly thing.

And by so doing, he would leave MeLaan and the others to be destroyed as their leaders refused to take action. What’s more, he would leave Vin without the information she needed. Even from within the Homeland, he could feel the occasional rumbles in the rock. The earthquakes were still remote, and the others likely ignored them. But TenSoon worried.

The end could be nearing. If it was, then Vin needed to know the truths about the kandra. Their origins, their beliefs. Perhaps she could use the Trust itself. Yet, if he told Vin anything more, it would mean an even greater betrayal of his people. Perhaps a human would have found it ridiculous that he would hesitate now. However, so far, his true sins had been impulsive, and he’d only later rationalized what he’d done. If he fought his way free of prison, it would be different. Willful and deliberate.

He closed his eyes, feeling the chill of his cage, which still sat alone in the large cavern – the place was mostly abandoned during the sleeping hours. What was the point? Even with the Blessing of Presence – which let TenSoon focus, despite his uncomfortable confines – he could think of no way to escape the meshed cage and its Fifth Generation guards, who all bore the Blessing of Potency. Even if he did get out of the cage, TenSoon would have to pass through dozens of small caverns. With his body mass as low as it was, he didn’t have the muscles to fight, and he couldn’t outrun kandra who had the Blessing of Potency. He was trapped.

In a way, this was comforting. Escape was not something he preferred to contemplate – it simply wasn’t the kandra way. He had broken Contract, and deserved punishment. There was honor in facing the consequences of one’s actions.

Wasn’t there?

He shifted positions in his cell. Unlike that of a real human, the skin of his naked body did not become sore or chapped from the extended exposure, for he could re-form his flesh to remove wounds. However, there was little to do about the cramped feeling he got from being forced to sit in the small cage for so long.

Motion caught his attention. TenSoon turned, surprised to see VarSell and several other large Fifths approaching his cage, their quartzite stone True Bodies ominous in size and coloring.

Time already? TenSoon thought. With the Blessing of Presence, he was able to mentally recount the days of his imprisonment. It was nowhere near time. He frowned, noting that one of the Fifths carried a large sack. For a moment, TenSoon had a flash of panic as he pictured them towing him away inside the sack.

It looked filled already, however.

Dared he hope? Days had passed since his conversation with MeLaan, and while she had returned several times to look at him, they had not spoken. He’d almost forgotten his words to her, said in the hope that they would be overheard by the minions of the Second Generation. VarSell opened the cage and tossed the sack in. It clinked with a familiar sound. Bones.

“You are to wear those to the trial,” VarSell said, leaning down and putting a translucent face up next to TenSoon’s bars. “Orders of the Second Generation.”

“What is wrong with the bones I now wear?” TenSoon asked carefully, pulling over the sack, uncertain whether to be excited or ashamed.

“They intend to break your bones as part of your punishment,” VarSell said, smiling. “Something like a public execution – but where the prisoner lives through the process. It’s a simple thing, I know – but the display ought to leave… an impression on some of the younger generations.”

TenSoon’s stomach twisted. Kandra could re-form their bodies, true, but they felt pain just as acutely as any human. It would take quite a severe beating to break his bones, and with the Blessing of Presence, there would be no release of unconsciousness for him.

“I still don’t see the need for another body,” TenSoon said, pulling out one of the bones.

“No need to waste a perfectly good set of human bones, Third,” VarSell said, slamming the cage door closed. “I’ll be back for your current bones in a few hours.”

The leg bone he pulled out was not that of a human, but a dog. A large wolfhound. It was the very body TenSoon had been wearing when he’d returned to the Homeland over a year before. He closed his eyes, holding the smooth bone in his fingers.

A week ago, he’d spoken of how much he despised these bones, hoping that the Second Generation’s spies would carry the news back to their masters. The Second Generation was far more traditional than MeLaan, and even she had found the thought of wearing a dog’s body distasteful. To the Seconds, forcing TenSoon to wear an animal’s body would be supremely degrading.

That was exactly what TenSoon had been counting on.

“You’ll look good, wearing that,” VarSell said, standing to leave. “When your punishment comes, everyone will be able to see you for what you really are. No kandra would break his Contract.”

TenSoon rubbed the thighbone with a reverent finger, listening to VarSell’s laughter. The Fifth had no way of knowing that he’d just given TenSoon the means he needed to escape.

25

“FADREX CITY,” ELEND SAID, standing in his customary place near the narrowboat’s prow. Ahead, the broad Conway Canal – the primary canal route to the west – continued into the distance, turning to the northwest. To Elend’s left, the ground rose in a broken incline, forming a set of steep rock formations. He could see them rising much higher in the distance.

Closer to the canal, however, a broad city was nestled in the very center of a large group of rock formations. The deep red and orange rocks were the type left behind when wind and rain wore away weaker sections of stone, and many of them reached high, like spires. Others formed jagged, hedge-like barriers – like stacks of enormous blocks that had been fused together, reaching some thirty and forty feet into the air.

Elend could barely see the tips of the city’s buildings over the stone formations. Fadrex had no formal city wall, of course – only Luthadel had been allowed one of those – but the rising rocks around the city formed a set of terrace-like natural fortifications.

Elend had been to the city before. His father had made certain to introduce him in all of the Final Empire’s main cultural centers. Fadrex hadn’t been one of those, but it had been on the way to Tremredare, once known as the capital of the West. In forging his new kingdom, however, Cett had ignored Tremredare, instead establishing his capital in Fadrex. A clever move, in Elend’s estimation – Fadrex was smaller, more defensible, and had been a major supply station for numerous canal routes.

“The city looks different from the last time I was here,” Elend said.

“Trees,” Ham said, standing beside him. “Fadrex used to have trees growing on the rocky shelves and plateaus.” Ham glanced at him. “They’re ready for us. They cut down the trees to provide a better killing field and to keep us from sneaking up close.”

Elend nodded. “Look down there.”

Ham squinted, though it obviously took him a moment to pick out what Elend’s tin-enhanced eyes had noticed. On the northern side of the city – the one closest to the main canal route – the rock terraces and shelves fell down into a natural canyon. Perhaps twenty feet across, it was the only way into the city, and the defenders had cut several troughs into the floor. They were bridged at the moment, of course, but getting through that narrow entryway, with pits in front of the army and archers presumably firing from the rocky shelves above, with a gate at the end…

“Not bad,” Ham said. “I’m just glad they decided not to drain the canal on us.”

As they’d moved west, the land had risen – requiring the convoy to pass through several massive lock mechanisms. The last four had been jammed intentionally, requiring hours of effort to get them working.

“They rely on it too much,” Elend said. “If they survive our siege, they’ll need to ship in supplies. Assuming any can be had.”

Ham fell silent. Finally, he turned, looking back up the dark canal behind them. “El,” he said. “I don’t think that much more will be traveling this canal. The boats barely made it this far – there’s too much ash clogging it. If we go home, we’ll do so on foot.”

“ ‘If’ we go home?”

Ham shrugged. Despite the colder western weather, he still wore only a vest. Now that Elend was an Allomancer, he could finally understand the habit. While burning pewter, Elend barely felt the chill, though several of the soldiers had complained about it in the mornings.

“I don’t know, El,” Ham finally said. “It just seems portentous to me. Our canal closing behind us as we travel. Kind of like fate is trying to strand us here.”

“Ham,” Elend said, “everything seems portentous to you. We’ll be fine.”

Ham shrugged.

“Organize our forces,” Elend said, pointing. “Dock us in that inlet over there, and set up camp on the mesa.”

Ham nodded. He was still looking backward, however. Toward Luthadel, which they had left behind.

They don’t fear the mists, Elend thought, staring up through the darkness at the rocky formations that marked the entrance into Fadrex City. Bonfires blazed up there, lighting the night. Often, such lights were futile – signifying man’s fear of the mists. These fires were different, somehow. They seemed a warning; a bold declaration of confidence. They burned brightly, high, as if floating in the sky.

Elend turned, walking into his illuminated commander’s tent, where a small group of people sat waiting for him. Ham, Cett, and Vin. Demoux was absent, still recovering from mistsickness.

We’re spread thin, Elend thought. Spook and Breeze in the North, Penrod back at Luthadel, Felt watching the storage cache in the East…

“All right,” Elend said, letting the tent flaps close behind him. “Looks like they’re holed up in there pretty well.”

“Initial scout reports are in, El,” Ham said. “We’re guessing about twenty-five thousand defenders.”

“Not as many as I expected,” Elend said.

“That bastard Yomen has to keep control of the rest of my kingdom,” Cett said. “If he pulled all of his troops into the capital, the other cities would overthrow him.”

“What?” Vin asked, sounding amused. “You think they’d rebel and switch back to your side?”

“No,” Cett said, “they’d rebel and try to take over the kingdom themselves! That’s the way this works. Now that the Lord Ruler is gone, every little lord or petty obligator with half a taste of power thinks he can run a kingdom. Hell, I tried it – so did you.”

“We were successful,” Ham pointed out.

“And so was Lord Yomen,” Elend said, folding his arms. “He’s held this kingdom since Cett marched on Luthadel.”

“He all but forced me out,” Cett admitted. “He had half the nobility turned against me before I even struck toward Luthadel. I said I was leaving him in charge, but we both knew the truth. He’s a clever one – clever enough to know he can hold that city against a larger force, letting him spread his troops out to maintain the kingdom, and to endure a longer siege without running out of supplies.”

“Unfortunately, Cett’s probably right,” Ham said. “Our initial reports placed Yomen’s forces at somewhere around eighty thousand men. He’d be a fool to not have a few units within striking distance of our camp. We’ll have to be wary of raids.”

“Double the guards and triple scout patrols,” Elend said, “particularly during the early morning hours, when the daymist is out to obscure, but the sun is up to provide light.”

Ham nodded.

“Also,” Elend said thoughtfully, “order the men to stay in their tents during the mists – but tell them to be ready for a raid. If Yomen thinks that we’re afraid to come out, perhaps we can bait one of his ‘surprise’ attacks against us.”

“Clever,” Ham said.

“That won’t get us past those natural walls, though,” Elend said, folding his arms. “Cett, what do you say?”

“Hold the canal,” Cett said. “Post sentries up around those upper rock formations to make certain that Yomen doesn’t resupply the city via secret means. Then, move on.”

“What?” Ham asked with surprise.

Elend eyed Cett, trying to decide what the man meant. “Attack surrounding cities? Leave a force here that’s large enough to stymie a siege-break, then capture other parts of his territory?”

Cett nodded. “Most of the cities around here aren’t fortified at all. They’d cave in without a fight.”

“A good suggestion,” Elend said. “But we won’t do it.”

“Why not?” Cett asked.

“This isn’t just about conquering your homeland back, Cett,” Elend said. “Our primary reason for coming here is to secure that storage cache – and I hope to do that without resorting to pillaging the countryside.”

Cett snorted. “What do you expect to find in there? Some magical way to stop the ash? Even atium wouldn’t do that.”

“Something’s in there,” Elend said. “It’s the only hope we have.”

Cett shook his head. “You’ve been chasing a puzzle left by the Lord Ruler for the better part of a year, Elend. Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that the man was a sadist? There’s no secret. No magical way out of this. If we’re going to survive the next few years, we’re going to have to do it on our own – and that means securing the Western Dominance. The plateaus in this area represent some of the most elevated farmland in the empire – and higher altitude means closer to the sun. If you’re going to find plants that survive despite the daymists, you’ll have to grow them here.”

They were good arguments. But I can’t give up, Elend thought. Not yet. Elend had read the reports of supplies back in Luthadel, and had seen the projections. Ash was killing crops as much or more than the mists were. More land wouldn’t save his people – they needed something else. Something that, he hoped, the Lord Ruler left for them.

The Lord Ruler didn’t hate his people, and he wouldn’t want them to die out, even if he were defeated. He left food, water, supplies. And, if he knew secrets, he would have hidden them in the caches. There will be something here.

There has to be.

“The cache remains our primary target,” Elend said. To the side, he could see Vin smiling.

“Fine,” Cett said, sighing. “Then you know what we have to do. This siege could take a while.”

Elend nodded. “Ham, send our engineers in under cover of mist. See if they can find a way for our troops to cross those troughs. Have the scouts search out streams that might run into the city – Cett, presumably you can help us locate some of these. And, once we get spies into the city, have them search out food stores that we can ruin.”

“A good start,” Cett said. “Of course, there’s one easy way to sow chaos in that city, to perhaps make them surrender without a fight…”

“We’re not going to assassinate King Yomen,” Elend said.

“Why not?” Cett demanded. “We’ve got two Mistborn. We’ll have no difficulty killing off the Fadrex leadership.”

“We don’t work that way,” Ham said, face growing dark.

“Oh?” Cett asked. “That didn’t stop Vin from tearing a hole through my army and attacking me back before we teamed up.”

“That was different,” Ham said.

“No,” Elend said, interrupting. “It wasn’t. The reason we’re not going to assassinate Yomen, Cett, is because I want to try diplomacy first.”

“Diplomacy?” Cett asked. “Didn’t we just march an army of forty thousand soldiers on his city? That’s not a diplomatic move.”

“True,” Elend said, nodding. “But we haven’t attacked, not yet. Now that I’m here in person, I might as well try talking before sending out knives in the night. We might be able to persuade Lord Yomen that an alliance will benefit him more than a war.”

“If we make an alliance,” Cett said, leaning forward in his chair, “I don’t get my city back.”

“I know,” Elend said.

Cett frowned.

“You seem to be forgetting yourself, Cett,” Elend said. “You did not ‘team up’ with me. You knelt before me, offering up oaths of service in exchange for not getting executed. Now, I appreciate your allegiance, and I will see you rewarded with a kingdom to rule under me. However, you don’t get to choose where that kingdom is, nor when I will grant it.”

Cett paused, sitting in his chair, one arm resting on his useless, paralyzed legs. Finally, he smiled. “Damn, boy. You’ve changed a lot in the year I’ve known you.”

“So everyone is fond of telling me,” Elend said. “Vin. You think you can get into the city?”

She raised an eyebrow. “I hope that was meant to be rhetorical.”

“It was meant to be polite,” Elend said. “I need you to do some scouting. We know next to nothing about what’s been going on in this dominance lately – we’ve focused all of our efforts on Urteau and the South.”

Vin shrugged. “I can go poke around a bit. I don’t know what you expect me to find.”

“Cett,” Elend said, turning, “I need names. Informants, or perhaps some noblemen that might still be loyal to you.”

“Noblemen?” Cett asked, amused. “Loyal?”

Elend rolled his eyes. “How about some that could be bribed to pass on a little information.”

“Sure,” Cett said. “I’ll write up some names and locations. Assuming they still live in the city. Hell, assuming they’re even still alive. Can’t count on much these days.”

Elend nodded. “We won’t take any further action until we have more information. Ham, make certain the soldiers dig in well – use the field fortifications that Demoux taught them. Cett, see that those guard patrols get set up, and make certain our Tineyes remain alert and on watch. Vin will scout and see if she can sneak into the cache like she did in Urteau. If we know what’s in there, then we can better judge whether to gamble on trying to conquer the city or not.”

The various members of the group nodded, understanding that the meeting was over. As they left, Elend stepped back out into the mists, looking up at the distant bonfires burning on the rocky heights.

Quiet as a sigh, Vin stepped up to his side, following his gaze. She stood for a few moments. Then she glanced to the side, where a pair of soldiers were entering the tent to carry Cett away. Her eyes narrowed in displeasure.

“I know,” Elend said quietly, knowing that she was thinking of Cett again and his influence over Elend.

“You didn’t deny that you might turn to assassination,” Vin said softly.

“Hopefully it won’t come to that.”

“And if it does?”

“Then I’ll make the decision that is best for the empire.”

Vin was silent for a moment. Then, she glanced at the fires up above.

“I could come with you,” Elend offered.

She smiled, then kissed him. “Sorry,” she said. “But you’re noisy.”

“Come now. I’m not that bad.”

“Yes you are,” Vin said. “Plus, you smell.”

“Oh?” he asked, amused. “What do I smell like?”

“An emperor. A Tineye would pick you out in seconds.”

Elend raised his eyebrows. “I see. And, don’t you possess an imperial scent as well?”

“Of course I do,” Vin said, wrinkling her nose. “But I know how to get rid of it. Either way, you’re not good enough to go with me, Elend. I’m sorry.”

Elend smiled. Dear, blunt Vin.

Behind him, the soldiers left the tent, carrying Cett. An aide walked up, delivering to Elend a short list of informants and noblemen who might be willing to talk. Elend passed it to Vin. “Have fun,” he said.

She dropped a coin between them, kissed him again, then shot up into the night.

26

SPOOK STOOD IN HIS LITTLE ONE-ROOM LAIR, a room that was – of course – illegal. The Citizen forbade such places, places where a man could live unaccounted, unwatched. Fortunately, forbidding such places didn’t eliminate them.

It only made them more expensive.

Spook was lucky. He barely remembered leaping from the burning building, clutching six Allomantic vials, coughing and bleeding. He didn’t at all remember making it back to his lair. He should probably be dead. Even surviving the fires, he should have been sold out – if the proprietor of his little illegal inn had realized who Spook was and what he’d escaped, the promise of reward would undoubtedly have been irresistible.

But, Spook had survived. Perhaps the other thieves in the lair thought he had been on the wrong side of a robbery. Or, perhaps they simply didn’t care. Either way, he was able to stand in front of the room’s small mirror, shirt off, looking in wonder at his wound.

I’m alive, he thought. And… I feel pretty good.

He stretched, rolling his arm in its socket. The wound hurt far less than it should have. In the very dim light, he was able to see the cut, scabbed over and healing. Pewter burned in his stomach – a beautiful complement to the familiar flame of tin.

He was something that shouldn’t exist. In Allomancy, people either had just one of the eight basic powers, or they had all fourteen powers. One or all. Never two. Yet, Spook had tried to burn other metals without success. Somehow, he had been given pewter alone to complement his tin. Amazing as that was, it was overshadowed by a greater wonder.

He had seen Kelsier’s spirit. The Survivor had returned and had shown himself to Spook.

Spook had no idea how to react to that event. He wasn’t particularly religious, but… well, a dead man – one some called a god – had appeared to him and saved his life. He worried that it had been an hallucination. But, if that were so, how had he gained the power of pewter?

He shook his head, reaching for his bandages, but paused as something twinkled in the mirror’s reflection. He stepped closer, relying – as always – upon starlight from outside to provide illumination. With his extreme tin senses, it was easy to see the bit of metal sticking from the skin in his shoulder, even though it only protruded a tiny fraction of an inch.

The tip of that man’s sword, Spook realized, the one that stabbed me. It broke – the end must have gotten embedded in my skin. He gritted his teeth, reaching to pull it free.

“No,” Kelsier said. “Leave it. It, like the wound you bear, is a sign of your survival.”

Spook started. He glanced about, but there was no apparition this time. Just the voice. Yet, he was certain he’d heard it.

“Kelsier?” he hesitantly asked.

There was no response.

Am I going mad? Spook wondered. Or… is it like the Church of the Survivor teaches? Could it be that Kelsier had become something greater, something that watched over his followers? And, if so, did Kelsier always watch him? That felt a little bit… unsettling. However, if it brought him the power of pewter, then who was he to complain?

Spook turned and put his shirt on, stretching his arm again. He needed more information. How long had he been delirious? What was Quellion doing? Had the others from the crew arrived yet?

Taking his mind off of his strange visions for the moment, he slipped out of his room and onto the dark street. As lairs went, his wasn’t all that impressive – a room behind the hidden door in a slum alleyway wall. Still, it was better than living in one of the crowded shanties he passed as he made his way through the dark, mist-covered city.

The Citizen liked to pretend that everything was perfect in his little utopia, but Spook had not been surprised to find that it had slums, just like every other city he’d ever visited. There were many people in Urteau who, for one reason or another, weren’t fond of living in the parts of town where the Citizen could keep watch on them. These had aggregated in a place known as the Harrows, a particularly cramped canal far from the main trenches.

The Harrows was clogged with a disorderly mash of wood and cloth and bodies. Shacks leaned against shacks, buildings leaned precariously against earth and rock, and the entire mess piled on top of itself, creeping up the canal walls toward the dark sky above. Here and there, people slept under only a dirty sheet stretched between two bits of urban flotsam – their millennium-old fear of the mists giving way before simple necessity.

Spook shuffled down the crowded canal. Some of the piles of half-buildings reached so high and wide that the sky narrowed to a mere crack far above, shining down its midnight light, too dim to be of use to any eyes but Spook’s.

Perhaps the chaos was why the Citizen chose not to visit the Harrows. Or, perhaps he was simply waiting to clean them out until he had a better grip on his kingdom. Either way, his strict society, mixed with the poverty it was creating, made for a curiously open nighttime culture. The Lord Ruler had patrolled the streets. The Citizen, however, preached that the mists were of Kelsier – and so could hardly forbid people to go out in them. Urteau was the first place in Spook’s experience where a person could walk down a street at midnight and find a small tavern open and serving drinks. He moved inside, cloak pulled tight. There was no proper bar, just a group of dirty men sitting around a dug-out firepit in the ground. Others sat on stools or boxes in the corners. Spook found an empty box, and sat down.

Then he closed his eyes and listened, filtering through the conversations. He could hear them all, of course – even with his earplugs in. So much about being a Tineye wasn’t about what you could hear, but what you could ignore.

Footsteps thumped near him, and he opened his eyes. A man wearing trousers sewn with a dozen different buckles and chains stopped in front of Spook, then thumped a bottle on the ground. “Everyone drinks,” the man said. “I have to pay to keep this place warm. Nobody just sits for free.”

“What have you got?” Spook asked.

The bartender kicked the bottle. “House Venture special vintage. Aged fifty years. Used to go for six hundred boxings a bottle.”

Spook smiled, fishing out a pek – a coin minted by the Citizen to be worth a fraction of a copper clip. A combination of economic collapse and the Citizen’s disapproval of luxury meant that a bottle of wine that had once been worth hundreds of boxings was now practically worthless.

“Three for the bottle,” the bartender said, holding out his hand.

Spook brought out two more coins. The bartender left the bottle on the floor, and so Spook picked it up. He had been offered no corkscrew or cup – both likely cost extra, though this vintage of wine did have a cork that stuck up a few inches above the bottle’s lip. Spook eyed it.

I wonder…

He had his pewter on a low burn – not flared like his tin. Just there enough to help with the fatigue and the pain. In fact, it did its job so well that he’d nearly forgotten about his wound during the walk to the bar. He stoked the pewter a bit, and the rest of the wound’s pain vanished. Then, Spook grabbed the cork, pulling it with a quick jerk. It came free of the bottle with barely a hint of resistance.

Spook tossed the cork aside. I think I’m going to like this, he thought with a smile.

He took a drink of the wine straight from the bottle, listening for interesting conversations. He had been sent to Urteau to gather information, and he wouldn’t be much use to Elend or the others if he stayed lying in bed. Dozens of muffled conversations echoed in the room, most of them harsh. This wasn’t the kind of place where one found men loyal to the local government – which was precisely why Spook had found his way to the Harrows in the first place.

“They say he’s going to get rid of coins,” a man whispered at the main firepit. “He’s making plans to gather them all up, keep them in his treasury.”

“That’s foolish,” another voice replied. “He minted his own coins – why take them now?”

“It’s true,” the first voice said. “I seen him speak on it myself. He says that men shouldn’t have to rely on coins – that we should have everything together, not having to buy and sell.”

“The Lord Ruler never let skaa have coins either,” another voice grumbled. “Seems that the longer old Quellion is in charge, the more he looks like that rat the Survivor killed.”

Spook raised an eyebrow, taking another chug of wine. Vin, not Kelsier, was the one who had killed the Lord Ruler. Urteau, however, was a significant distance from Luthadel. They probably hadn’t even known about the Lord Ruler’s fall until weeks after it happened. Spook moved on to another conversation, searching for those who spoke in furtive whispers. He found exactly what he was listening for in a couple of men sharing a bottle of fine wine as they sat on the floor in the corner.

“He has most everyone catalogued now,” the man whispered. “But he’s not done yet. He has those scribes of his, the genealogists. They’re asking questions, interrogating neighbors and friends, trying to trace everyone back five generations, looking for noble blood.”

“But, he only kills those who have noblemen back two generations.”

“There’s going to be a division,” the other voice whispered. “Every man who is pure back five generations will be allowed to serve in the government. Everyone else will be forbidden. It’s a time when a man could make a great deal of coin if he could help people hide certain events in their past.”

Hum, Spook thought, taking a swig of wine. Oddly, the alcohol didn’t seem to be affecting him very much. The pewter, he realized. It strengthens the body, makes it more resistant to pains and wounds. And, perhaps, helps it avoid intoxication?

He smiled. The ability to drink and not grow drunk – an advantage of pewter that nobody had told him about. There had to be a way to use such a skill.

He turned his attention to other bar patrons, searching for useful tidbits. Another conversation spoke of work in the mines. Spook felt a chill and a flicker of remembrance. The men spoke of a coal mine, not a gold mine, but the grumbles were the same. Cave-ins. Dangerous gas. Stuffy air and uncaring taskmasters.

That would have been my life, Spook thought. If Clubs hadn’t come for me.

To this day, he still didn’t understand. Why had Clubs traveled so far – visiting the distant eastern reaches of the Final Empire – to rescue a nephew he’d never met? Surely there had been young Allomancers in Luthadel who had been equally deserving of his protection.

Clubs had spent a fortune, traveled a long distance in an empire where skaa were forbidden to leave their home cities, and had risked betrayal by Spook’s father. For that, Clubs had earned the loyalty of a wild street boy who – before that time – had run from any authority figure who tried to control him.

What would it be like? Spook thought. If Clubs hadn’t come for me, I would never have been in Kelsier’s crew. I might have hidden my Allomancy and refused to use it. I might have simply gone to the mines, living my life like any other skaa.

The men commiserated about the deaths of several who had fallen to a cave-in. It seemed that for them, little had changed since the days of the Lord Ruler. Spook’s life would have been like theirs, he suspected. He’d be out in those Eastern wastes, living in sweltering dust when outside, working in cramped confines the rest of the time.

Most of his life, it seemed that he had been a flake of ash, pushed around by whatever strong wind came his way. He’d gone where people told him to go, done what they’d wanted him to. Even as an Allomancer, Spook had lived his life as a nobody. The others had been great men. Kelsier had organized an impossible revolution. Vin had struck down the Lord Ruler himself. Clubs had led the armies of revolution, becoming Elend’s foremost general. Sazed was a Keeper, and had carried the knowledge of centuries. Breeze had moved waves of people with his clever tongue and powerful Soothing, and Ham was a powerful soldier. But Spook, he had simply watched, not really doing anything.

Until the day he ran away, leaving Clubs to die.

Spook sighed, looking up. “I just want to be able to help,” he whispered.

“You can,” Kelsier’s voice said. “You can be great. Like I was.”

Spook started, glancing about. But, nobody else appeared to have heard the voice. Spook sat back uncomfortably. However, the words made sense. Why did he always berate himself so much? True, Kelsier hadn’t picked him to be on the crew, but now the Survivor himself had appeared to Spook and granted him the power of pewter.

I could help the people of this city, he thought. Like Kelsier helped those of Luthadel. I could do something important: bring Urteau into Elend’s empire, deliver the storage cache as well as the loyalty of the people.

I ran away once. I don’t ever have to do that again. I won’t ever do that again!

Smells of wine, bodies, ash, and mold hung in the air. Spook could feel the very grain in the stool beneath him despite his clothing, the movements of people throughout the building shuffling and vibrating the ground beneath his feet. And, with all of this, pewter burned inside of him. He flared it, made it strong alongside his tin. The bottle cracked in his hand, his fingers pressing too hard, though he released it quickly enough to keep it from shattering. It fell toward the floor, and he snatched it from the air with his other hand, the arm moving with blurring quickness.

Spook blinked, awed at the speed of his own motions. Then, he smiled. I’m going to need more pewter, he thought.

“That’s him.”

Spook froze. Several of the conversations in the room had stopped, and to his ears – accustomed to a cacophony – the growing silence was eerie. He glanced to the side. The men who had been speaking of the mines were looking at Spook, speaking softly enough that they probably assumed he couldn’t hear them.

“I’m telling you I saw him get run through by the guards. Everyone thought he was dead even before they burned him.”

Not good, Spook thought. He hadn’t thought himself memorable enough for people to notice. But… then again, he had attacked a group of soldiers in the middle of the city’s busiest market.

“Durn’s been talking about him,” the voice continued. “Said he was of the Survivor’s own crew…”

Durn, Spook thought. So he does know who I really am. Why has he been telling people my secrets? I thought he was more careful than that.

Spook stood up as nonchalantly as he could, then fled into the night.

27

VIN SHOT THROUGH THE DARK NIGHT AIR. Mist swirled about her, a spinning, seething storm of white upon black. It darted close to her body, as if snapping at her, but never came closer than a few inches away – as if blown back by some current of air. She remembered a time when the mist had skimmed close to her skin, rather than being repelled. The transition had been gradual; it had taken months before she had realized the change.

She wore no mistcloak. It felt odd to be leaping about in the mists without one of the garments, but in truth, she was quieter this way. Once, the mistcloak had been useful in making guards or thieves turn away at her passing. However, like the era of friendly mists, that time had passed. So, instead, she wore only a black shirt and trousers, both closely fitted to her body to keep the sounds of flapping fabric to a minimum. As always, she wore no metal save for the coins in her pouch and an extra vial of metals in her sash. She pulled out a coin now – its familiar weight wrapped in a layer of cloth – and threw it beneath her. A Push against the metal sent it slamming into the rocks below, but the cloth dampened the sound of its striking. She used the Push to slow her descent, popping her up slightly into the air.

She landed carefully on a rock ledge, then Pulled the coin back into her hand. She crept across the rocky shelf, fluffy ash beneath her toes. A short distance away, a small group of guards sat in the darkness, whispering quietly, watching Elend’s army camp – which was now little more than a haze of campfire light in the mists. The guards spoke of the spring chill, commenting that it seemed colder this year than it had in previous ones. Though Vin was barefoot, she rarely noticed the cold. A gift of pewter.

Vin burned bronze, and heard no pulsings. None of the men were burning metals. One of the reasons Cett had come to Luthadel in the first place was because he’d been unable to raise enough Allomancers to protect him from Mistborn assassins. No doubt Lord Yomen had experienced similar trouble recruiting Allomancers, and he probably wouldn’t have sent those he did have out into the cold to watch an enemy camp.

Vin crept past the guard post. She didn’t need Allomancy to keep her quiet – she and her brother, Reen, had sometimes been burglars, sneaking into homes. She had a lifetime of training that Elend would never know or understand. He could practice with pewter all he liked – and he really was getting better – but he’d never be able to replicate instincts honed by a childhood spent sneaking to stay alive.

As soon as she was past the guard post, she jumped into the mists again, using her sound-deadened coins as anchors. She gave the fires at the front of the city a wide berth, instead rounding to the rear of Fadrex. Most of the patrols would be at the front of the city, for the back was protected by the steep walls of the rising rock formations. Of course, that barely inconvenienced Vin, and she soon found herself dropping several hundred feet through the air along a rock wall before landing in an alley at the very back of the city.

She took to the roofs and did a quick survey, jumping from street to street in wide Allomantic leaps. She was quickly impressed with Fadrex’s size. Elend had called the city “provincial,” and Vin had imagined a town barely larger than a village. Once they’d arrived, she’d instead begun to imagine a barricaded, austere city – more like a fort. Fadrex was neither.

She should have realized that Elend – who had been raised in the sprawling metropolis of Luthadel – would have a skewed concept of what constituted a large city. Fadrex was plenty big. Vin counted several skaa slums, a smattering of noble mansions, and even two Luthadel-style keeps. The grand stone structures sported the typical arrangement of stained-glass windows and soaring, buttressed walls. These were undoubtedly the homes of the most important nobles in the city.

She landed on a rooftop near one of the keeps. Most of the buildings in the city were only a single story or two, which was quite a change from the high tenements of Luthadel. They were spaced out a bit more, and tended to be flat and squat, rather than tall and peaked. That only made the massive keep seem so much larger by comparison. The building was rectangular, with a row of three peaked towers rising from each end. Ornamented white stonework ran around the entire perimeter at the top.

And the walls, of course, were lined with beautiful stained-glass windows, lit from inside. Vin crouched on a low rooftop, looking at the colored beauty of the swirling mists. For a moment, she was taken back to a time three years before, when she had attended balls in keeps like this one in Luthadel as part of Kelsier’s plan to overthrow the Final Empire. She had been an uncertain, nervous thing back then, worried that her newfound world of a trustworthy crew and beautiful parties would collapse around her. And, in a way, it had – for that world was gone. She had helped to destroy it.

Yet, during those months, she had been content. Perhaps more content than any other time in her life. She loved Elend, and was glad life had progressed to the point where she could call him husband, but there had been a delicious innocence about her early days with the crew. Dances spent with Elend reading at her table, pretending to ignore her. Nights spent learning the secrets of Allomancy. Evenings spent sitting around the table at Clubs’s shop, sharing laughter with the crew. They’d faced the challenge of planning something as large as the fall of an empire, yet felt no burden of leadership or weight of responsibility for the future.

Somehow, she had grown into a woman in between the fall of kings and collapse of worlds. Once she had been terrified of change. Then she had been terrified of losing Elend. Now her fears were more nebulous – worries of what would come after she was gone, worries of what would happen to the people of the empire if she failed to divine the secrets she sought.

She turned from her contemplation of the large, castle-like keep, Pushing herself off of a chimney brace and into the night. Attending those balls in Luthadel had changed her dramatically, leaving a residual effect that she’d never been able to shake. Something within her had responded instantly to the dancing and the parties. For the longest time, she’d struggled to understand how that part of her fit into the rest of her life. She still wasn’t certain she knew the answer. Was Valette Renoux – the girl she had pretended to be at the balls – really a part of Vin, or just a fabrication devised to serve Kelsier’s plot?

Vin bounded across the city, making cursory notes of fortifications and troop placements. Ham and Demoux would probably find a way to get true military spies into the city eventually, but they’d want to hear preliminary information from Vin. She also made note of living conditions. Elend had hoped that the city would be struggling, a factor that his siege would exacerbate, making Lord Yomen more likely to capitulate.

She found no obvious signs of mass starvation or disrepair – though it was difficult to tell much at night. Still, the city streets were kept swept of ash, and a remarkable number of the noble homes appeared occupied. She would have expected the noble population to be the first to bolt at news of an approaching army.

Frowning to herself, Vin completed her loop of the city, landing in a particular square that Cett had suggested. The mansions here were separated from each other by large grounds and cultivated trees; she walked along the street, counting them off. At the fourth mansion, she leaped up and over the gate, then moved up the hill to the house.

She wasn’t certain what she expected to find – Cett had been absent from the city for two years, after all. Yet, he’d indicated that this informant was the most likely to be of help. True to Cett’s instructions, the rear balcony of the mansion was lit. Vin waited in the darkness suspiciously, the mist cold and unfriendly, yet providing cover. She didn’t trust Cett – she worried that he still bore her a grudge for her attack on his keep in Luthadel a year before. Wary, she dropped a coin and launched herself into the air.

A lone figure sat on the balcony, fitting the description in Cett’s instructions. Those same instructions gave this informant the nickname Slowswift. The old man appeared to be reading by the light of a lamp. Vin frowned, but as instructed, she landed on the balcony railing, crouching beside a ladder that would have allowed a more mundane visitor to approach.

The old man did not look up from his book. He puffed quietly on a pipe, a thick woolen blanket across his knees. Vin wasn’t certain if he noticed her or not. She cleared her throat.

“Yes, yes,” the old man said calmly. “I shall be with you in a moment.”

Vin cocked her head, looking at the strange man with his bushy eyebrows and frosty white hair. He was dressed in a nobleman’s suit, with a scarf and an overcoat that bore an oversized fur collar. He appeared to be completely unconcerned by the Mistborn crouching on his railing. Eventually, the elderly man closed his book, then turned toward her. “Do you enjoy stories, young lady?”

“What kind of stories?”

“The best kind, of course,” Slowswift said, tapping his book. “The kind about monsters and myths. Longtales, some call them – stories told by skaa around the fires, whispering of mistwraiths, sprites, and brollins and such.”

“I don’t have much time for stories,” Vin said.

“Seems that fewer and fewer people do, these days.” A canopy kept off the ash, but he seemed unconcerned about the mists. “It makes me wonder what is so alluring about the real world that gives them all such a fetish for it. It’s not a very nice place these days.”

Vin did a quick check with bronze, but the man burned nothing. What was his game? “I was told that you could give me information,” she said carefully.

“That I can certainly do,” the man said. Then he smiled, glancing at her. “I have a wealth of information – though somehow I suspect that you might find most of it useless.”

“I’ll listen to a story, if that’s what it will cost.”

The man chuckled. “There’s no surer way to kill a story than to make it a ‘cost,’ young lady. What is your name, and who sent you?”

“Vin Venture,” Vin said. “Cett gave me your name.”

“Ah,” the man said. “That scoundrel still alive?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I suppose I could chat with someone sent by an old writing friend. Come down off that railing – you’re giving me vertigo.”

Vin climbed down, wary. “Writing friend?”

“Cett is one of the finest poets I know, child,” said Slowswift, waving her toward a chair. “We shared our work with one another for a good decade or so before politics stole him away. He didn’t like stories either. To him, everything had to be gritty and ‘real,’ even his poetry. Seems like an attitude with which you’d agree.”

Vin shrugged, sitting in the indicated chair. “I suppose.”

“I find that ironic in a way you shall never understand,” the old man said, smiling. “Now, what is it you wish of me?”

“I need to know about Yomen, the obligator king.”

“He’s a good man.”

Vin frowned.

“Oh,” Slowswift said. “You didn’t expect that? Everyone who is your enemy must also be an evil person?”

“No,” Vin said, thinking back to the days before the fall of the Final Empire. “I ended up marrying someone my friends would have named an enemy.”

“Ah. Well then, Yomen is a fine man, and a decent king. A fair bit better a king than Cett ever was, I’d say. My old friend tries too hard, and that makes him brutal. He doesn’t have the subtle touch that a leader needs.”

“What has Yomen done that is so good, then?” Vin asked.

“He kept the city from falling apart,” Slowswift said, puffing on his pipe. The smoke mixed with the swirling mists. “Plus, he gave both nobility and skaa what they wanted.”

“Which was?”

“Stability, child. For a time, the world was in turmoil – neither skaa nor nobleman knew his place. Society was collapsing, and people were starving. Cett did little to stop that – he fought constantly to keep what he’d killed to obtain. Then Yomen stepped in. People saw authority in him. Before the Collapse, the Lord Ruler’s Ministry had ruled, and the people were ready to accept an obligator as a leader. Yomen immediately took control of the plantations and brought food to his people, then he returned the factories to operation, started work in the Fadrex mines again, and gave the nobility a semblance of normalcy.”

Vin sat quietly. Before, it might have seemed incredible to her that – after a thousand years of oppression – the people would willingly return to slavery. Yet, something similar had happened in Luthadel. They had ousted Elend, who had granted them great freedoms, and had put Penrod in charge – all because he promised them a return to what they had lost.

“Yomen is an obligator,” she said.

“People like what is familiar, child.”

“They’re oppressed.”

“Someone must lead,” the old man said. “And, someone must follow. That is the way of things. Yomen has given the people something they’ve been crying for since the Collapse – identity. The skaa may work, they may be beaten, they may be enslaved, but they know their place. The nobility may spend their time going to balls, but there is an order to life again.”

“Balls?” Vin asked. “The world is ending, and Yomen is throwing balls?”

“Of course,” Slowswift said, taking a long, slow puff on his pipe. “Yomen rules by maintaining the familiar. He gives the people what they had before – and balls were a large part of life before the Collapse, even in a smaller city like Fadrex. Why, there is one happening tonight, at Keep Orielle.”

“On the very day an army arrived to besiege the city?”

“You just pointed out that the world seems very close to disaster,” the old man said, pointing at her with his pipe. “In the face of that, an army doesn’t mean much. Plus, Yomen understands something even the Lord Ruler didn’t – Yomen always personally attends the balls thrown by his subjects. In doing so, he comforts and reassures them. That makes a day like this, when an army arrived, a perfect day for a ball.”

Vin sat back, uncertain what to think. Of all the things she had expected to find in the city, courtly balls were very low on the list. “So,” she said. “What’s Yomen’s weakness? Is there something in his past that we can use? What quirks of personality make him vulnerable? Where should we strike?”

Slowswift puffed quietly on his pipe, a breeze blowing mist and ash across his elderly figure.

“Well?” Vin asked.

The old man let out a breath of mist and smoke. “I just told you that I like the man, child. What would possess me to give you information to use against him?”

“You’re an informant,” Vin said. “That’s what you do – sell information.”

“I’m a storyteller,” Slowswift corrected. “And not every story is meant for every set of ears. Why should I talk to those who would attack my city and overthrow my liege?”

“We’d give you a powerful position in the city once it is ours.”

Slowswift snorted quietly. “If you think such things would interest me, then Cett obviously told you little regarding my temperament.”

“We could pay you well.”

“I sell information, child. Not my soul.”

“You’re not being very helpful,” Vin noted.

“And tell me, dear child,” he said, smiling slightly. “Why exactly should I care?”

Vin frowned. This is, she thought, undoubtedly the strangest informant meeting I’ve ever been to.

Slowswift puffed on his pipe. He didn’t appear to be waiting for her to say anything. In fact, he seemed to think the conversation was over.

He’s a nobleman, Vin thought. He likes the way that the world used to be. It was comfortable. Even skaa fear change.

Vin stood. “I’ll tell you why you should care, old man. Because the ash is falling, and soon it will cover up your pretty little city. The mists kill. Earthquakes shake the landscape, and the ashmounts burn hotter and hotter. Change is looming. Eventually, even Yomen won’t be able to ignore it. You hate change. I hate it too. But things can’t stay the same – and that’s well, for when nothing changes in your life, it’s as good as being dead.” She turned to leave.

“They say you’ll stop the ash,” the old man said quietly from behind. “Turn the sun yellow again. They call you Heir of the Survivor. Hero of Ages.”

Vin paused, turning to look through the traitorous mist toward the man with his pipe and closed book. “Yes,” she said.

“Seems like quite the destiny to live up to.”

“It’s either that or give up.”

Slowswift sat silently for a moment. “Sit down, child,” the old man finally said, gesturing toward the seat again.

Vin reseated herself.

“Yomen is a good man,” Slowswift said, “but only a mediocre leader. He’s a bureaucrat, a member of the Canton of Resource. He can make things happen – get supplies to the right places, organize construction projects. Ordinarily, that would have made him a good enough ruler. However…”

“Not when the world is ending,” Vin said softly.

“Precisely. If what I’ve heard is true, then your husband is a man of vision and action. If our little city is going to survive, then we’ll need to be part of what you are offering.”

“What do we do, then?”

“Yomen has few weaknesses,” Slowswift said. “He’s a calm man, and an honorable one. However, he has an unfailing belief in the Lord Ruler and his organization.”

“Even now?” Vin asked. “The Lord Ruler died!”

“Yes, so?” Slowswift asked, amused. “And your Survivor? Last I checked, he was somewhat dead as well. Didn’t seem to hinder his revolution much, now did it?”

“Good point.”

“Yomen is a believer,” Slowswift said. “That may be a weakness; it may be a strength. Believers are often willing to attempt the seemingly impossible, then count on providence to see them through.” He paused, glancing at Vin. “That sort of behavior can be a weakness if the belief is misplaced.”

Vin said nothing. Belief in the Lord Ruler was misplaced. If he’d been a god, then she wouldn’t have been able to kill him. In her mind, it was a rather simple matter.

“If Yomen has another weakness,” Slowswift said, “it is his wealth.”

“Hardly a weakness.”

“It is if you can’t account for its source. He got money somewhere – a suspiciously vast amount of it, far more than even local Ministry coffers should have been able to provide. Nobody knows where it came from.”

The cache, Vin thought, perking up. He really does have the atium!

“You reacted a little too strongly to that one,” Slowswift said, taking a puff on his pipe. “You should try to give less away when speaking with an informant.”

Vin flushed.

“Anyway,” the old man said, turning back to his book, “if that is all, I should like to return to my reading. Give my regards to Ashweather.”

Vin nodded, rising and moving over toward the banister. As she did, however, Slowswift cleared his throat. “Usually,” he noted, “there is compensation for acts such as mine.”

Vin raised an eyebrow. “I thought you said that stories shouldn’t cost.”

“Actually,” Slowswift noted, “I said that a story itself shouldn’t be a cost. That is very different from the story itself costing something. And, while some will argue, I believe that a story without cost is one considered worthless.”

“I’m sure that’s the only reason,” Vin said, smiling slightly as she tossed her bag of coins – minus a few cloth-covered ones to use for jumping – to the old man. “Gold imperials. Still good here, I assume?”

“Good enough,” the old man said, tucking them away. “Good enough…”

Vin jumped out into the night, leaping a few houses away, burning bronze to see if she felt any Allomantic pulses from behind. She knew that her nature made her irrationally suspicious of people who appeared weak. For the longest time, she’d been convinced that Cett was Mistborn, simply because he was paraplegic. Still, she checked on Slowswift. This was one old habit that she didn’t feel much need to extinguish.

No pulses came from behind. Soon, she moved on, pulling out Cett’s instructions, searching out a second informant. She trusted Slowswift’s words well enough, but she would like confirmation. She picked an informant on the other side of the spectrum – a beggar named Hoid whom Cett claimed could be found in a particular square late at night.

A few quick jumps brought her to the location. She landed atop a roof and looked down, scanning the area. The ash had been allowed to drift here, piling in corners, making a general mess of things. A group of lumps huddled in an alley beside the square. Beggars, without home or job. Vin had lived like that at times, sleeping in alleys, coughing up ash, hoping it wouldn’t rain. She soon located a figure that wasn’t sleeping like the others, but sitting quietly in the light ashfall. Her ears picked out a faint sound. The man was humming to himself, as the instructions said that he might be doing.

Vin hesitated.

She couldn’t decide what it was, but something bothered her about the situation. It wasn’t right. She didn’t stop to think, she simply turned and jumped away. That was one of the big differences between her and Elend – she didn’t always need a reason. A feeling was enough. He always wanted to tease things out and find a why, and she loved him for his logic. However, he would have been very frustrated about her decision to turn away from the square as she had.

Perhaps nothing bad would have happened if she’d gone into the square. Perhaps something terrible would have occurred. She would never know, nor did she need to know. As she had countless other times in her life, Vin simply accepted her instincts and moved on.

Her flight took her along a street that Cett had noted in his instructions. Curious, Vin didn’t search out another informant, but instead followed the road, bounding from anchor to anchor in the pervasive mists. She landed on a cobbled street a short distance from a building with lit windows.

Blocky and utilitarian, the building was nonetheless daunting – if only because of its size. Cett had written that the Canton of Resource was the largest of the Steel Ministry buildings in the city. Fadrex had acted as a kind of way station between Luthadel and more important cities to the west. Near several main canal routes and well fortified against banditry, the city was the perfect place for a Canton of Resource regional headquarters. Yet, Fadrex hadn’t been important enough to attract the Cantons of Orthodoxy or Inquisition – traditionally the most powerful of the Ministry departments.

That meant that Yomen, as head obligator at the Resource building, had been the area’s top religious authority. From what Slowswift said, Vin assumed that Yomen was pretty much a standard Resource obligator: dry, boring, but terribly efficient. And so, of course, he’d chosen to make his old Canton building into his palace. It was what Cett had suspected, and Vin could easily see that it was true. The building bustled with activity despite the late hour, and was guarded by platoons of soldiers. Yomen had probably chosen the building in order to remind everyone where his authority originated.

Unfortunately, it was also where the Lord Ruler’s supply cache would be located. Vin sighed, turning from her contemplation of the building. Part of her wanted to sneak in and try to find her way down to the cavern beneath. Instead, she dropped a coin and shot herself into the air. Even Kelsier wouldn’t have tried breaking into the place on his first night of scouting. She’d gotten into the one in Urteau, but it had been abandoned. She had to confer with Elend and study the city for a few days before she did something as bold as sneak into a fortified palace.

Using starlight and tin, Vin read off the name of the third and final informant. It was another nobleman, which wasn’t surprising, considering Cett’s own station. She began moving in the direction indicated. However, as she moved, she noticed something.

She was being followed.

She only caught hints of him behind her, obscured by the patterns of swirling mist. Tentatively, Vin burned bronze, and was rewarded with a very faint thumping from behind. An obscured Allomantic pulse. Usually, when an Allomancer burned copper – as the one behind her was doing – it made him invisible to the Allomantic bronze sense. Yet, for some reason Vin had never been able to explain, she could see through this obfuscation. The Lord Ruler had been able to do likewise, as had his Inquisitors.

Vin continued to move. The Allomancer following her obviously believed himself – or herself – invisible to Vin’s senses. He moved with quick, easy bounds, following at a safe distance. He was good without being excellent, and he was obviously Mistborn, for only a Mistborn could have burned both copper and steel at the same time.

Vin wasn’t surprised. She’d assumed that if there were any Mistborn in the city, her leaping would draw their attention. Just in case, she hadn’t bothered burning any copper herself, leaving her pulses open to be heard by anyone – Mistborn or Seeker – who was listening. Better an enemy drawn out than one hiding in the shadows.

She increased her pace, though not suspiciously so, and the person following had to move quickly to keep up. Vin kept going toward the front of the city, as if planning to leave. As she got closer, her Allomantic senses produced twin blue lines pointing at the massive iron brackets holding the city gates to the rock at their sides. The brackets were large, substantial sources of metal, and the lines they gave off were bright and thick.

Which meant they would make excellent anchors. Flaring her pewter to keep from being crushed, Vin Pushed on the brackets, throwing herself backward.

Immediately, the Allomantic pulses behind her disappeared.

Vin shot through ash and mist, even her tight clothing flapping slightly from the wind. She quickly Pulled herself down to a rooftop and crouched, tense. The other Allomancer must have stopped burning his metals. But why would he do that? Did he know that she could pierce copperclouds? If he did, then why had he followed her so recklessly?

Vin felt a chill. There was something else that gave off Allomantic pulses in the night. The mist spirit. She hadn’t seen it in over a year. In fact, during her last encounter with it, it had nearly killed Elend – only to then restore him by making him Mistborn.

She still didn’t know how the spirit fit into all of this. It wasn’t Ruin – she had felt Ruin’s presence when she’d freed him at the Well of Ascension. They were different.

I don’t even know if this was the spirit tonight, Vin told herself. Yet, the one tailing her had vanished so abruptly…

Confused, and chilled, she Pushed herself out of the city and quickly made her way back to Elend’s camp.

28

“ARE YOU SURE IT WAS THE MIST SPIRIT?” Elend asked, frowning, a half-finished letter – scribed into a steel foil sheet – sitting on his desk before him. He’d decided to sleep in his cabin aboard the narrowboat, rather than in a tent. Not only was it more comfortable, he felt more secure with walls around him, as opposed to canvas.

Vin sighed, sitting down on their bed, pulling her legs up and setting her chin on her knees. “I don’t know. I kind of got spooked, so I fled.”

“Good thing,” Elend said, shivering as he remembered what the mist spirit had done to him.

“Sazed was convinced that the mist spirit wasn’t evil,” Vin said.

“So was I,” Elend said. “If you’ll remember, I’m the one who walked right up to it, telling you that I felt it was friendly. That was right about the time it stabbed me.”

Vin shook her head. “It was trying to keep me from releasing Ruin. It thought that if you were dying, I would take the power for myself and heal you, rather than giving it up.”

“You don’t know its intentions for certain, Vin. You could be connecting coincidences in your mind.”

“Perhaps. However, it led Sazed to discover that Ruin was altering text.”

That much, at least, was true – if, indeed, Sazed’s account of the matter could be trusted. The Terrisman had been a little bit… inconsistent since Tindwyl had died. No, Elend told himself, feeling an instant stab of guilt. No, Sazed is trustworthy. He might be struggling with his faith, but he is still twice as reliable as the rest of us.

“Oh, Elend,” Vin said softly. “There’s so much we don’t know. Lately, I feel like my life is a book written in a language I don’t know how to read. The mist spirit is related to all this, but I can’t even begin to fathom how.”

“It’s probably on our side,” Elend said, though it was hard not to keep flashing back to memories of how it had felt to be stabbed, to feel his life fading away. To die, knowing what it would do to Vin.

He forced himself back to the conversation at hand. “You think the mist spirit tried to keep you from releasing Ruin, and Sazed says it gave him important information. That makes it the enemy of our enemy.”

“For the moment,” Vin said. “But, the mist spirit is much weaker than Ruin. I’ve felt them both. Ruin was… vast. Powerful. It can hear whatever we say – can see all places at once. The mist spirit is far fainter. More like a memory than a real force or power.”

“Do you still think it hates you?”

Vin shrugged. “I haven’t seen it in over a year. Yet, I’m pretty sure that it isn’t the sort of thing that changes, and I always felt hatred and animosity from it.” She paused, frowning. “That was the beginning. That night when I first saw the mist spirit was when I began to sense that the mists were no longer my home.”

“Are you sure the spirit isn’t what kills people and makes them sick?”

Vin nodded. “Yes, I’m sure.” She was adamant about this, though Elend felt she was a bit quick to judge. Something ghost-like, moving about in the mists? It seemed like just the kind of thing that would be related to people dying suddenly in those same mists.

Of course, the people who died in the mists didn’t die of stabbings, but of a shaking disease. Elend sighed, rubbing his eyes. His unfinished letter to Lord Yomen sat on his desk – he’d have to get back to it in the morning.

“Elend,” Vin said. “Tonight, I told someone that I’d stop the ash from falling and turn the sun yellow.”

Elend raised an eyebrow. “That informant you spoke of?”

Vin nodded. The two sat in silence.

“I never expected you to admit something like that,” he finally said.

“I’m the Hero of Ages, aren’t I? Even Sazed said so, before he started to go strange. It’s my destiny.”

“The same ‘destiny’ that said you would take up the power of the Well of Ascension, then release it for the greater good of mankind?”

Vin nodded.

“Vin,” Elend said with a smile, “I really don’t think ‘destiny’ is the sort of thing we need to worry about right now. I mean, we have proof that the prophecies were twisted by Ruin in order to trick people into freeing him.”

“Someone has to worry about the ash,” Vin said.

There wasn’t much he could say to that. The logical side of him wanted to argue, claiming that they should focus on the things they could do – making a stable government, uncovering the secrets left by the Lord Ruler, securing the supplies in the caches. Yet, the constant ashfall seemed to be growing even denser. If that continued, it wouldn’t be long before the sky was nothing more than a solid black storm of ash.

It just seemed so difficult to think that Vin – his wife – could do anything about the color of the sun or the falling ash. Demoux is right, he thought, tapping his fingers across the metallic letter to Lord Yomen. I’m really not a very good member of the Church of the Survivor.

He looked across the cabin at her, sitting on the bed, expression distant as she thought about things that shouldn’t have to be her burden. Even after leaping about all night, even after their days spent traveling, even with her face dirtied by ash, she was beautiful.

At that moment, Elend realized something. Vin didn’t need another person worshipping her. She didn’t need another faithful believer like Demoux, especially not in Elend. He didn’t need to be a good member of the Church of the Survivor. He needed to be a good husband.

“Well, then,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

“What?” Vin asked.

“Save the world,” Elend said. “Stop the ash.”

Vin snorted quietly. “You make it sound like a joke.”

“No, I’m serious,” he said, standing. “If this is what you feel you must do – what you feel that you are – then let’s do it. I’ll help however I can.”

“What about your speech before?” Vin said. “In the last storage cavern – you talked about division of labor. Me working on the mists, you working on uniting the empire.”

“I was wrong.”

Vin smiled, and suddenly Elend felt as if the world had been put back together just a bit.

“So,” Elend said, sitting on the bed beside her. “What have you got? Any thoughts?”

Vin paused. “Yes,” she said. “But I can’t tell you.”

Elend frowned.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” Vin said. “It’s Ruin. In the last storage cavern, I found a second inscription on the plate, down near the bottom. It warned me that anything I speak – or that I write – will be known by our enemy. So, if we talk too much, he will know our plans.”

“That makes it a bit difficult to work on the problem together.”

Vin took his hands. “Elend, do you know why I finally agreed to marry you?”

Elend shook his head.

“Because I realized that you trusted me,” Vin said. “Trusted me as nobody ever has before. On that night, when I fought Zane, I decided that I had to give my trust to you. This force that’s destroying the world, we have something that it can never understand. I don’t necessarily need your help; I need your trust. Your hope. It’s something I’ve never had of myself, and I rely on yours.”

Elend nodded slowly. “You have it.”

“Thank you.”

“You know,” Elend added, “during those days when you refused to marry me, I constantly thought about how strange you were.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Well, that’s romantic.”

Elend smiled. “Oh, come on. You have to admit that you’re unusual, Vin. You’re like some strange mixture of a noblewoman, a street urchin, and a cat. Plus, you’ve managed – in our short three years together – to kill not only my god, but my father, my brother, and my fiancée. That’s kind of like a homicidal hat trick. It’s a strange foundation for a relationship, wouldn’t you say?”

Vin just rolled her eyes.

“I’m just glad I don’t have any other close relatives,” Elend said. Then, he eyed her. “Except for you, of course.”

“I’m not about to drown myself, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“No,” Elend said. “I’m sorry. I’m just… well, you know. Anyway, I was explaining something. In the end, I stopped worrying about how strange you seemed. I realized that it didn’t really matter if I understood you, because I trusted you. Does that make sense? Either way, I guess I’m saying that I agree. I don’t really know what you’re doing, and I don’t have any clue how you’re going to achieve it. But, well, I trust that you’ll do it.”

Vin pulled close to him.

“I just wish there were something I could do to help,” Elend said.

“Then take the whole numbers part,” Vin said, frowning distastefully. Though she’d been the one to think something was odd about the percentages of those who fell to the mists, Elend knew that she found numbers troublesome. She didn’t have the training, or the practice, to deal with them.

“You’re sure that’s even related?” Elend asked.

“You were the one who thought that the percentages were so strange.”

“Good point. All right, I’ll work on it.”

“Just don’t tell me what you discover,” Vin said.

“Well, how is that going to help anything?”

“Trust,” Vin said. “You can tell me what to do, just don’t tell me why. Maybe we can stay ahead of this thing.”

Stay ahead of it? Elend thought. It has the power to bury the entire empire in ash, and can apparently hear every single word we say. How do we “stay ahead” of something like that? But, he had just promised to trust Vin, so he did so.

Vin pointed at the table. “Is that your letter to Yomen?”

Elend nodded. “I’m hoping that he’ll talk to me, now that I’m actually here.”

“Slowswift does seem to think that Yomen is a good man. Maybe he’ll listen.”

“Somehow, I doubt it,” Elend said. He sat softly for a moment, then made a fist, gritting his teeth in frustration. “I told the others that I want to try diplomacy, but I know that Yomen is going to reject my message. That’s why I brought my army in the first place – I could have just sent you to sneak in, like you did in Urteau. However, sneaking in didn’t help us much there; we still have to secure the city if we want the supplies.

“We need this city. Even if you hadn’t felt so driven to discover what was in the cache, I would have come here. The threat Yomen poses to our kingdom is too strong, and the possibility that the Lord Ruler left important information in that cache can’t be ignored. Yomen has grain in that storage, but the land here won’t get enough sunlight to grow it. So, he’ll probably feed it to the people – a waste, when we don’t have enough to plant and fill the Central Dominance. We have to take this city, or at least make an ally out of it.

“But, what do I do if Yomen won’t talk? Send armies to attack nearby villages? Poison the city’s supplies? If you’re right, then he’s found the cache, which means he’ll have more food than we hoped. Unless we destroy that, he might outlast our siege. But, if I do destroy it, his people will starve…” Elend shook his head. “Do you remember when I executed Jastes?”

“That was well within your right,” Vin said quickly.

“I believe it was,” Elend said. “But I killed him because he led a group of koloss to my city, then let them ravage my people. I’ve nearly done the same thing here. There are twenty thousand of the beasts outside.”

“You can control them.”

“Jastes thought he could control them too,” Elend said. “I don’t want to turn those creatures loose, Vin. But what if the siege fails, and I have to try and break Yomen’s fortifications? I won’t be able to do that without the koloss.” He shook his head. “If only I could talk to Yomen. Perhaps I could make him see reason, or at least convince myself that he needs to fall.”

Vin paused. “There… might be a way.”

Elend glanced over, catching her eyes.

“They’re still staging balls inside the city,” Vin said. “And King Yomen attends every one.”

Elend blinked. At first, he assumed that he must have misunderstood her. However, the look in her eyes – that wild determination – persuaded him otherwise. Sometimes, he saw a touch of the Survivor in her; or, at least, of the man the stories claimed Kelsier had been. Bold to the point of recklessness. Brave and brash. He’d rubbed off on Vin more than she liked to admit.

“Vin,” he said flatly, “did you just suggest that we attend a ball being held in the middle of a city we’re besieging?”

Vin shrugged. “Sure. Why not? We’re both Mistborn – we can get into that city without much trouble at all.”

“Yes, but…” He trailed off.

I’d have a room filled with the very nobility I’m hoping to intimidate – not to mention have access to the man who refuses to meet with me, in a situation where he’d have trouble running away without looking like a coward.

“You think it’s a good idea,” Vin said, smiling impishly.

“It’s a crazy idea,” Elend said. “I’m emperor – I shouldn’t be sneaking into the enemy city so I can go to a party.”

Vin narrowed her eyes, staring at him.

“I will admit, however,” Elend said, “that the concept does have considerable charm.”

“Yomen won’t come meet us,” Vin said, “so we go in and crash his party.”

“It’s been a while since I’ve been to a ball,” Elend said speculatively. “I’ll have to dig up some good reading material for old time’s sake.”

Suddenly, Vin grew pale. Elend paused, glancing at her, sensing that something was wrong. Not with what he’d said, something else. What is it? Assassins? Mist spirits? Koloss?

“I just realized something,” Vin said, looking at him with those intense eyes of hers. “I can’t go to a ball – I didn’t bring a gown!”

29

LIKE MOST CITIES IN THE FINAL EMPIRE, Urteau had been forbidden a city wall. In the early days of Sazed’s life, before he’d rebelled, the fact that cities couldn’t build fortifications had always seemed a subtle indication to him of the Lord Ruler’s vulnerability. After all, if the Lord Ruler was worried about rebellions and cities that could stand against him, then perhaps he knew something that nobody else did: that he could be defeated.

Thoughts like those had led Sazed to Mare, and finally to Kelsier. And now, they led him to the city of Urteau – a city that finally had rebelled against noble leadership. Unfortunately, it lumped Elend Venture in with all the other nobles.

“I don’t like this, Master Keeper,” Captain Goradel said, walking beside Sazed, who – for the sake of his image – now rode in the carriage with Breeze and Allrianne. After leaving the Terris people behind, Sazed had hurriedly caught up with Breeze and the others, and they were finally entering the city that was their destination.

“Things are supposed to be kind of brutal in there,” Goradel continued. “I don’t think you’ll be safe.”

“I doubt it’s as bad as you think,” Sazed said.

“What if they take you captive?” Goradel asked.

“My dear man,” Breeze said, leaning forward to look out at Goradel. “That’s why kings send ambassadors. This way, if someone gets captured, the king is still safe. We, my friend, are something Elend can never be: expendable.”

Goradel frowned at that. “I don’t feel very expendable.”

Sazed peered out of the carriage, looking at the city through the falling ash. It was large, and was one of the oldest cities in the empire. He noted with interest that as they approached, the road sloped downward, entering an empty canal trough.

“What’s this?” Allrianne asked, sticking her blond head out of the other side of the carriage. “Why’d they build their roads in ditches?”

“Canals, my dear,” Breeze said. “The city used to be filled with them. Now they’re empty – an earthquake or something diverted a river.”

“It’s creepy,” she said, bringing her head back in. “It makes the buildings look twice as tall.”

As they entered the city proper – their two hundred soldiers marching around them in formation – they were met by a delegation of Urteau soldiers in brown uniforms. Sazed had sent word ahead of their coming, of course, and the king – the Citizen, they called him – had given Sazed leave to bring his small contingent of troops into the city.

“They say that their king wants to meet with you immediately, Master Terrisman,” Goradel said, walking back to the carriage.

“The man doesn’t waste time, does he?” Breeze asked.

“We’ll go, then,” Sazed said, nodding to Goradel.

“You aren’t wanted here.”

Quellion, the Citizen, was a short-haired man with rough skin and an almost military bearing. Sazed wondered where the man – apparently a simple farmer before the Collapse – had gained such leadership skills.

“I realize that you have no desire to see foreign soldiers in your city,” Sazed said carefully. “However, you must have realized that we do not come to conquer. Two hundred men is hardly an invading force.”

Quellion stood at his desk, arms clasped behind his back. He wore what appeared to be regular skaa trousers and shirt, though both had been dyed a deep red verging on maroon. His “audience chamber” was a large conference room in what had once been a nobleman’s house. The walls had been whitewashed and the chandelier removed. Stripped of its furniture and finery, the room felt like a box.

Sazed, Breeze, and Allrianne sat on hard wooden stools, the only comfort the Citizen had offered them. Goradel stood at the back with ten of his soldiers as a guard.

“It isn’t about the soldiers, Terrisman,” Quellion said. “It’s about the man who sent you.”

“Emperor Venture is a good and reasonable monarch,” Sazed said.

Quellion snorted, turning to one of his companions. He had many of these – perhaps twenty – and Sazed assumed they were members of his government. Most wore red, like Quellion, though their clothing hadn’t been dyed as deeply.

“Elend Venture,” Quellion said, raising a finger, turning back to Sazed, “is a liar and a tyrant.”

“That isn’t true.”

“Oh?” Quellion asked. “And how did he gain his throne? By defeating Straff Venture and Ashweather Cett in war?”

“War was–”

“War is often the excuse of tyrants, Terrisman,” Quellion said. “My reports said that his Mistborn wife forced the kings to kneel before him that day – forced them to swear their loyalty to him or be slaughtered by his koloss brutes. Does that sound like the actions of a ‘good and reasonable’ man?”

Sazed didn’t respond.

Quellion stepped forward, laying both hands palm-down on the top of his desk. “Do you know what we’ve done to the noblemen in this city, Terrisman?”

“You’ve killed them,” Sazed said quietly.

“Just as the Survivor ordered,” Quellion said. “You claim to have been his companion, before the fall. Yet, you serve one of the very noble houses he sought to overthrow. Doesn’t that strike you as inconsistent, Terrisman?”

“Lord Kelsier accomplished his purpose in the death of the Lord Ruler,” Sazed said. “Once that was achieved, peace–”

“Peace?” Quellion asked. “Tell me, Terrisman. Did you ever hear the Survivor speak of peace?”

Sazed hesitated. “No,” he admitted.

Quellion snorted. “At least you’re honest. The only reason I’m talking to you is because Venture was clever enough to send a Terrisman. If he’d sent a nobleman, I would have killed the cur and sent his blackened skull back as an answer.”

The room fell silent. Tense. After a few moments of waiting, Quellion turned his back on Sazed, facing his companions. “You sense that?” he asked his men. “Can you feel yourselves begin to feel ashamed? Look at your emotions – do you suddenly feel a fellowship with these servants of a liar?”

He turned back, glancing at Breeze. “I’ve warned you all of Allomancy, the black tool of the nobility. Well, now you get to feel it. That man – sitting beside our distinguished Terrisman – is known as Breeze. He’s one of the world’s most vile men. A Soother of no small skill.”

Quellion turned to address Breeze. “Tell me, Soother. How many friends have your magics made for you? How many enemies have you forced to kill themselves? That pretty girl beside you – did you use your arts to hex her into your bed?”

Breeze smiled, raising his cup of wine. “My dear man, you have, of course, found me out. However, instead of congratulating yourself for noticing my touch, perhaps you should ask yourself why I manipulated you into saying what you just did.”

Quellion paused – though, of course, Breeze was bluffing. Sazed sighed. An indignant reaction would have been far more appropriate – but, then, that wasn’t Breeze’s way. Now the Citizen would spend the rest of the meeting wondering if his words were being guided by Breeze.

“Master Quellion,” Sazed said, “these are dangerous times. Surely you have noticed that.”

“We can protect ourselves well enough,” Quellion said.

“I’m not speaking of armies or bandits, Citizen. I’m speaking of mists and ash. Have you noticed that the mists are lingering longer and longer during the daylight hours? Have you noticed them doing strange things to your people, causing the deaths of some who go out?”

Quellion did not contradict him or call his words foolish. That told Sazed enough. People had died in this city.

“The ash falls perpetually, Citizen,” Sazed said. “The mists are deadly, and the koloss run free. This would be a very good time to have powerful alliances. In the Central Dominance, we can grow better crops, for we get more sunlight. Emperor Venture has discovered a method of controlling the koloss. Whatever is to come in the next few years, it would be very advantageous to be Emperor Venture’s friend.”

Quellion shook his head, as if in resignation. He turned to his companions again. “You see – just as I told you. First, he tells us he comes in peace, then he moves on to threats. Venture controls the koloss. Venture controls the food. Next he’ll be saying that Venture controls the mists!” Quellion turned back to Sazed. “We don’t have any use for threats here, Terrisman. We aren’t worried about our future.”

Sazed raised an eyebrow. “And why is that?”

“Because we follow the Survivor,” Quellion said. “Be gone from my sight.”

Sazed stood. “I would like to stay in the city and perhaps meet with you again.”

“That meeting will not happen.”

“Regardless,” Sazed said. “I would prefer to stay. You have my promise that my men will not cause trouble. Might I have your leave?” He bowed his head in deference.

Quellion muttered something under his breath before waving a hand at him. “If I forbid you, then you’ll just sneak in. Stay if you must, Terrisman, but I warn you – follow our laws and do not make trouble.”

Sazed bowed further, then retreated with his people.

“Well,” Breeze said, settling back into the carriage, “murderous revolutionaries, everybody wearing the same gray clothing, ditch-like streets where every tenth building has been burned to the ground. This is a lovely place Elend chose for us to visit – remind me to thank him upon our return.”

Sazed smiled, though he felt little humor.

“Oh, don’t look so grim, old man,” Breeze said, waving with his cane as the carriage began to roll, their soldiers surrounding it. “Something tells me that Quellion there isn’t half as threatening as his bearing implies. We’ll convince him eventually.”

“I’m not certain, Lord Breeze. This place… it’s different from the other cities we’ve visited. The leaders aren’t as desperate, and the people are more subservient. We won’t have an easy time of it here, I think.”

Allrianne poked Breeze’s arm. “Breezy, do you see that, over there?”

Breeze squinted against the light, and Sazed leaned forward, glancing out the side of the carriage. A group of people had created a bonfire in the courtyard. The massive blaze sent a twisting line of smoke into the air. Sazed reflexively looked for a tinmind to draw upon and enhance his vision. He shoved the impulse aside, instead squinting against the afternoon light.

“It looks like…”

“Tapestries,” said one of their soldiers, marching at the side of the carriage. “And furniture – rich things that are signs of the nobility, according to the Citizen. The burning was staged for your benefit, of course. Quellion probably keeps storehouses of the stuff so that he can order them burned at dramatically appropriate times.”

Sazed froze. The soldier was remarkably well informed. Sazed looked closely, suspicious. Like all of their men, this one wore his cloak hood up against the falling ash. As the man turned his head, Sazed could see that – oddly – he wore a thick bandage tied across his eyes, as if he were blind. Despite that, Sazed recognized the face.

“Spook, my dear boy!” Breeze exclaimed. “I knew you’d turn up eventually. Why the blindfold?”

Spook didn’t answer the question. Instead, he turned, glancing back at the burning flames of the bonfire. There seemed a… tension to his posture.

The cloth must be thin enough to see through, Sazed thought. That was the only explanation for the way Spook moved with ease and grace, despite the cloth. Though, it certainly seemed thick enough to be obscuring…

Spook turned back to Sazed. “You’re going to need a base of operations in the city. Have you chosen one yet?”

Breeze shook his head. “We were thinking of using an inn.”

“There aren’t any true inns in the city,” Spook said. “Quellion says that citizens should care for one another, letting visitors stay in each other’s homes.”

“Hmm,” Breeze said. “Perhaps we’ll need to camp outside.”

Spook shook his head. “No. Follow me.”

“The Ministry Canton of Inquisition?” Sazed asked, frowning as he climbed out of the carriage.

Spook stood ahead of them, on the steps leading into the grand building. He turned, nodding his strange, cloth-wrapped head. “Quellion hasn’t touched any of the Ministry buildings. He ordered them boarded up, but he didn’t ransack or burn them. I think he’s afraid of Inquisitors.”

“A healthy and rational fear, my boy,” Breeze said, still sitting inside the carriage.

Spook snorted. “The Inquisitors aren’t going to bother us, Breeze. They’re far too busy trying to kill Vin. Come on.”

He walked up the steps, and Sazed followed. Behind, he could hear Breeze sigh with an exaggerated sound, then call for one of the soldiers to bring a parasol against the ash.

The building was broad and imposing, like most Ministry offices. During the days of the Lord Ruler, these buildings had stood as reminders of imperial might in every city across the Final Empire. The priests who had filled them had mostly been bureaucrats and clerks – but, then, that had been the real power of the Final Empire. Its control of resources and management of people.

Spook stood beside the building’s broad, boarded-up doors. Like most structures in Urteau, it was built of wood, rather than stone. He stared up, as if watching the falling ash, as he waited for Sazed and Breeze. He had always been a quiet one, even more so since his uncle’s death during the assault on Luthadel. As Sazed arrived, Spook began to rip boards free from the front of the building. “I’m glad you’re here, Sazed,” he said.

Sazed moved to help pull off boards. He heaved, trying to get the nails undone – yet, he must have chosen one of the more stubborn boards, for though the ones Spook grabbed came free with ease, Sazed’s refused to even budge. “And why is it you’re glad I am here, Lord Spook?”

Spook snorted. “I’m no lord, Saze. Never did get Elend to give me a title.”

Sazed smiled. “He said that you only wanted one to impress women.”

“Of course I did,” Spook said, smiling as he ripped free another board. “What other reason would there be to have a title? Anyway, please just call me Spook. It’s a good name.”

“Very well.”

Spook reached over, using a single, casual hand to pull off the board Sazed had tried to budge. What? Sazed thought with shock. Sazed was by no means muscular – but, then, he hadn’t thought that Spook was either. The lad must have been practicing with weights.

“Anyway,” Spook said, turning, “I’m glad you’re here, because I have things to discuss with you. Things that others might not understand.”

Sazed frowned. “Things of what nature?”

Spook smiled, then threw his shoulder against the door, opening it into a dark, cavernous chamber. “Things of gods and men, Sazed. Come on.”

The boy disappeared into the darkness. Sazed waited outside, but Spook never lit a lantern. He could hear the young man moving around inside.

“Spook?” he finally called out. “I can’t see in there. Do you have a lantern?”

There was a pause. “Oh,” Spook’s voice said. “Right.” A moment later, a light sparked, and a lantern began to glow.

Breeze sauntered up behind Sazed. “Tell me, Sazed,” he said quietly, “is it me, or has that boy changed since we last saw him?”

“He seems far more self-confident,” Sazed said, nodding to himself. “More capable as well. But, what do you suppose is the purpose of that blindfold?”

Breeze shrugged, taking Allrianne’s arm. “He always was an odd one. Perhaps he thinks it will disguise him and help keep him from being recognized as a member of Kelsier’s crew. Considering the improvement in the boy’s disposition – and diction – I’m willing to deal with a quirk or two.”

Breeze and Allrianne entered the building, and Sazed waved to Captain Goradel, indicating that he should make a perimeter outside. The man nodded, sending a squad of soldiers up to follow Sazed and the others. Finally, Sazed frowned to himself and entered the building.

He wasn’t certain what he had been expecting. The building had been part of the Canton of Inquisition – the most infamous of the Ministry’s arms. It wasn’t a place Sazed relished entering. The last building like this he’d entered had been the Conventical of Seran, and it had been decidedly eerie. This building, however, proved to be nothing like the Conventical – it was just another bureaucratic office. It was furnished a little more austerely than most Ministry buildings, true, but it still had tapestries on the wooden walls and broad red rugs on the floor. The trim was of metal, and there were hearths in every room.

As Sazed followed Breeze and Spook through the building, he was able to imagine what the building had been like during the days of the Lord Ruler. There would have been no dust, then, but instead an air of crisp efficiency. Administrators would have sat at those desks, collecting and filing information about noble houses, skaa rebels, and even other Ministry Cantons. There had been a longstanding feud between the Canton of Orthodoxy, which had administered the Lord Ruler’s empire, and the Canton of Inquisition, which had policed it.

This was not a place of fear at all, but rather a place of ledgers and files. The Inquisitors had probably visited this building only rarely. Spook led them through several cluttered rooms toward a smaller storage chamber at the back. Here, Sazed could see that the dust on the floor had been disturbed.

“You’ve been here before?” he asked, entering the room after Spook, Breeze, and Allrianne.

Spook nodded. “As has Vin. Don’t you remember the report?” With that, he felt about on the floor, eventually finding a hidden latch and opening a trapdoor. Sazed peered down into the dark cavern below.

“What’s he talking about?” Allrianne whispered to Breeze. “Vin’s been here?”

“She did reconnaissance in this city, dear,” Breeze said. “To find…”

“The cache,” Sazed said as Spook began to climb down a ladder into the darkness. He left the lantern behind. “The supply cache left behind by the Lord Ruler. All of them are underneath Ministry buildings.”

“Well, that’s what we’re here to recover, isn’t it?” Allrianne asked. “So, we’ve got it. Why bother with that Citizen fellow and his crazy peasants?”

“There’s no way we could get these supplies out of the city with the Citizen in control.” Spook’s voice drifted up, echoing slightly. “There’s too much down here.”

“Besides, my dear,” Breeze said. “Elend didn’t just send us to get these supplies – he sent us to quell a rebellion. We can’t have one of our major cities in revolt, and we particularly can’t afford to let the rebellion spread. I must say, though, it does feel odd to be on this side of the problem – stopping a rebellion, rather than starting one.”

“We may have to organize a rebellion against the rebellion, Breeze,” Spook’s voice echoed from below. “If that makes you feel any more comfortable. Anyway, are you three coming down or not?”

Sazed and Breeze shared a look, then Breeze gestured toward the dark pit. “After you.”

Sazed picked up the lantern and climbed down the ladder. At the bottom, he found a small stone chamber, one wall of which had been pulled back to reveal a cavern. He stepped inside, Breeze reaching the ground behind him, then helping Allrianne down.

Sazed raised the lantern, staring quietly.

“Lord Ruler!” Breeze said, stepping up beside him. “It’s enormous!”

“The Lord Ruler prepared these caches in case of a disaster,” Spook said, standing ahead of them in the cavern. “They were meant to help the empire through what we’re now facing. They wouldn’t be much good if they weren’t created on a grand scale.”

“Grand” was correct. They stood on a ledge near the ceiling of the cavern, and a vast chamber extended out below. Sazed could see row upon row of shelves lining the cavern floor.

“I think we should set up our base here, Sazed,” Spook said, moving toward stairs that led down to the cavern floor. “It’s the only defensible place in the city. If we move our troops into the building above, we can use this cavern for supplies – and can even fall back in here in an emergency. We could defend this even against a determined assault.”

Sazed turned, regarding the stone doorway into the chamber. It was small enough that only one man could pass through at a time – which meant that it would be very easy to guard. And, there was probably a way to shut it again.

“Suddenly I feel a whole lot safer in this city,” Breeze noted.

Sazed nodded. He turned, regarding the cavern again. In the distance, he could hear something. “Is that water?”

Spook was moving down steps. Again, his voice echoed hauntingly in the chamber. “Each cache has a specialty – something it contains more of than all the others.”

Sazed moved down the steps as Goradel’s soldiers entered the chamber behind Breeze. Though the soldiers had brought more lanterns, Breeze and Allrianne stuck close to Sazed as they descended.

Soon, Sazed realized he could see something sparkling in the distance. He held the lantern high, pausing on the steps as he saw that some of the darkness in the distance was too flat to be part of the cavern floor.

Breeze whistled quietly as they studied the enormous underground lake. “Well,” he noted, “I guess now we know where all the water from those canals went.”

30

“YOU’RE NOT GOING TO TRY AND TALK me out of this?” Elend asked, amused.

Ham and Cett shared a look.

“Why would we do that, El?” Ham asked, standing at the front of the boat. In the distance, the sun was setting, and the mists had already begun to gather. The boat rocked quietly, and soldiers milled about on the shore, preparing for night. One week had passed since Vin’s initial scouting of Fadrex, and she still hadn’t managed to sneak into the storage cache.

The night of the next ball had arrived, and Elend and Vin were planning to attend.

“Well, I can think of a couple of reasons why you might object,” Elend said, counting them off on his fingers. “First, it isn’t wise to expose me to potential capture. Second, by revealing myself at the party, I’ll show that I’m Mistborn, confirming rumors that Yomen may not believe. Third, I’ll be putting both of our Mistborn in the same place, where they can be easily attacked – that can’t be a good idea. Finally, there’s the fact that going to a ball in the middle of a war is just plain crazy.”

Ham shrugged, leaning with one elbow against the deck railing. “This isn’t so different from when you entered your father’s camp during the siege of Luthadel. Except you weren’t Mistborn then, and you weren’t in such a position of political power. Yomen would be crazy to make a move against you – he has to know that if you’re in the same room with him, he’s in mortal danger himself.”

“He’ll run,” Cett said from his seat. “This party will end the moment you arrive.”

“No,” Elend said, “I don’t think it will.” He glanced back toward their cabin. Vin was still getting ready – she’d had the camp tailors modify one of the cooking girls’ dresses. Elend was worried. No matter how good the dress turned out to be, it would look out of place compared to the lavish ball gowns.

He turned back to Cett and Ham. “I don’t think Yomen will run. He has to know that if Vin wanted to kill him, she’d attack his palace in secret. He’s trying very hard to pretend that nothing has changed since the Lord Ruler disappeared. When we show up at the ball, it will make him think that we’re willing to pretend with him. He’ll stay and see if he can gain some advantage by meeting with us on his terms.”

“The man’s a fool,” Cett said. “I can’t believe he’d want to go back to the way things were.”

“At least he’s trying to give his subjects what they want. That’s where you went wrong, Cett. You lost your kingdom the moment you left because you didn’t care to try pleasing anyone.”

“A king doesn’t have to please anyone,” Cett snapped. “He’s the one with the army – that means other people have to please him.”

“Actually,” Ham said, rubbing his chin, “that theory can’t be true. A king has to please somebody – after all, even if he intended to force everyone to do what he said, he’d still have to at least please his army. But then, I guess if the army is pleased simply by being allowed to push people around, you might have an argument…”

Ham trailed off, looking thoughtful, and Cett scowled. “Does everything have to be some damn logic puzzle to you?” he demanded. Ham just continued to rub his chin.

Elend smiled, glancing at his cabin again. It was good to hear Ham acting like himself. Cett protested Ham’s comments almost as much as Breeze did. In fact… Maybe that’s why Ham hasn’t been quite so prone to his little logic puzzles lately, Elend thought. There hasn’t been anyone around to complain about them.

“So, Elend…” Cett said. “If you die, I’m in charge, right?”

“Vin will take command if something happens to me,” Elend said. “You know that.”

“Right,” Cett said. “And if both of you die?”

“Sazed is next in the imperial succession after Vin, Cett. We’ve discussed that.”

“Yes, but what about this army?” Cett said. “Sazed is off in Urteau. Who leads these men until we meet up with him?”

Elend sighed. “If, somehow, Yomen manages to kill both Vin and myself, then I suggest that you run – because yes, you’d be in charge here, and the Mistborn who killed us is likely to come for you next.”

Cett smiled in satisfaction, though Ham frowned at this.

“You’ve never wanted titles, Ham,” Elend pointed out. “And you’ve chafed at every leadership position I’ve given you.”

“I know,” he said. “But what about Demoux?”

“Cett has more experience,” Elend said. “He’s a better man than he pretends, Ham. I trust him. That will have to be enough for you. Cett, if things turn bad, I charge you with returning to Luthadel and searching out Sazed to tell him that he’s emperor. Now, I think that–”

Elend paused as the door to his cabin opened. He turned, putting on his best consoling smile, then froze.

Vin stood in the doorway wearing a stunning black gown with silver trim, cut after a modern fashion. Somehow, it managed to look sleek despite the bell-shaped skirt, which fanned out with petticoats. Her pure black hair, which she often wore pulled back in a tail, was down, and it now reached to her collarbone, neatly trimmed and curling just slightly. The only jewelry she wore was her simple earring, the one she’d gotten from her mother when she was just a child.

He always thought she was beautiful. And yet… how long had it been since he’d seen her in a gown, with her hair and makeup done? He tried to say something, give her a compliment, but his voice just kind of trailed off.

She walked over on light feet, kissing him briefly. “I’ll take that as an indication that I managed to put this thing on right. I’d forgotten what a pain gowns could be. And the makeup! Honestly, Elend, you’re never allowed to complain about those suits of yours again.”

Beside them, Ham was chuckling. Vin turned. “What?”

“Ah, Vin,” Ham said, leaning back and folding his muscular arms, “when did you go and grow up on me? It seems like just last week you were scrambling about, hiding in corners, wearing the haircut of a boy and the attitude of a mouse.”

Vin smiled fondly. “Do you remember when we first met? You thought I was a twixt.”

Ham nodded. “Breeze nearly fainted dead away when he found we’d been talking with a Mistborn all that time! Honestly, Vin. Sometimes I can’t believe that you were that same frightened girl Kelsier brought into the crew.”

“It has been five years, Ham. I’m twenty-one now.”

“I know,” Ham said, sighing. “You’re like my own children, adults before I had time to know them as kids. In fact, I probably know you and El better than I know any of them…”

“You’ll get back to them, Ham,” Vin said, reaching over and laying a hand on his shoulder. “Once this is all over.”

“Oh, I know that,” he said, smiling, ever the optimist. “But, you can never have back what you’ve missed. I hope all this turns out to be worth it.”

Elend shook his head, finally finding his voice. “I have only one thing to say. If that dress is what the cooking girls are wearing, I’m paying them far too much.”

Vin laughed.

“Seriously, Vin,” Elend said. “The army’s tailors are good, but there’s no way that dress came from materials we had in camp. Where did you get it?”

“It’s a mystery,” Vin said, narrowing her eyes and smiling. “We Mistborn are incredibly mysterious.”

Elend paused. “Um… I’m Mistborn too, Vin. That doesn’t make any sense.”

“We Mistborn need not make sense,” Vin said. “It’s beneath us. Come on – the sun’s already down. We need to get moving.”

“Have fun dancing with our enemies,” Ham said as Vin hopped from the boat, then Pushed herself up through the mists. Elend waved farewell, Pushing himself into the air as well. As he shot away, his tin-enhanced ears heard Ham’s voice talking to Cett.

“So… you can’t go anywhere unless someone carries you, right?” the Thug asked.

Cett grunted.

“Well then,” Ham said, sounding very pleased. “I’ve got quite a number of philosophical puzzles you might enjoy…”

Allomantic jumping was not easy when one was wearing a ball gown. Every time Vin started to descend, the bottom of the dress flared up around her, ruffling and flapping like a flock of startled birds.

Vin wasn’t particularly worried about showing off what was under the dress. Not only was it too dark for most people to see, but she wore leggings beneath the petticoats. Unfortunately, flapping dresses – and the drag they created in the air – made steering a jump much more difficult. They also made a lot of noise. She wondered what the guards thought as she passed over the rocky shelves that were the natural city walls. To her ear, she sounded like a dozen waving flags, beating against themselves in the middle of a windstorm.

She finally slowed, aiming for a rooftop that had been cleared of ash. She hit lightly, bouncing up and spinning, dress flaring, before landing and waiting for Elend. He followed, landing less smoothly with a hard thump and a grunt. It wasn’t that he was bad at Pushing and Pulling – he just hadn’t had as much practice as Vin. She’d probably been much like him during her first years as an Allomancer.

Well… maybe not like him, she thought fondly as Elend dusted himself off. But, I’m sure a lot of other Allomancers were about at Elend’s level after only a year of practice.

“That was quite the series of jumps, Vin,” Elend said, puffing slightly as he glanced back toward the cliff-like rock formations, their fires burning high in the night. Elend wore his standard white military uniform, one of the same ones that Tindwyl had designed for him. He’d had this one scrubbed free of ash, and he’d gotten his beard trimmed.

“I couldn’t land often,” Vin explained. “These white petticoats will stain with ash easily. Come on – we need to get inside.”

Elend turned, smiling in the darkness. He actually looked excited. “The dress. You paid a dressmaker inside the city to make it for you?”

“Actually, I paid a friend inside the city to have it made for me, and to get me the makeup.” She jumped away, heading toward Keep Orielle – which, according to Slowswift, was the site of the evening’s ball. She kept to the air, never landing. Elend followed behind, using the same coins.

Soon, they approached a burst of color in the mists, like an aurora from one of Sazed’s stories. The bubble of light turned into the massive keep she had seen during her previous infiltration, its stained-glass windows shining from the inside. Vin angled herself downward, streaking through the mists. She briefly considered dropping to the ground out in the courtyard – away from watchful eyes – so that she and Elend could approach the doors subtly. Then she decided against it.

This wasn’t an evening for subtlety.

So, instead she dropped directly down onto the carpeted steps leading up to the main entrance of the castle-like building. Her landing blew away flakes of ash, creating a little pocket of cleanliness. Elend landed beside her a second later, then stood up straight, his brilliant white cape flapping around him. At the top of the steps, a pair of uniformed servants had been greeting guests and ushering them into the building. Both men froze, stunned expressions on their faces.

Elend held out his arm to Vin. “Shall we?”

Vin took the arm. “Yes,” she said. “Preferably before those men can get the guards.”

They strode up the steps, sounds of surprise coming from behind, where a small group of noblemen had been exiting their carriage. Ahead, one of the servants moved forward and cut off Vin and Elend. Elend carefully placed a hand against the man’s chest, then shoved him aside with a pewter-fueled push. The man stumbled backward into the wall. The other one went running for the guards.

Inside the antechamber, waiting nobility began to whisper and question. Vin heard them asking if anyone recognized these strange newcomers, one in black, the other in white. Elend strode forward firmly, Vin at his side, causing people to stumble over themselves and move out of the way. Elend and Vin passed quickly through the small room, and Elend handed a name card to a servant who waited to announce arrivals into the ballroom proper.

They waited on the servant, and Vin realized that she’d begun holding her breath. It seemed as if she were reliving a dream – or was it a fond memory? For a moment, she was that same young girl of over four years before, arriving at Keep Venture for her very first ball, nervous and worried that she wouldn’t be able to play her part.

Yet, she felt none of that same insecurity. She didn’t worry if she’d find acceptance or belief. She’d slain the Lord Ruler. She’d married Elend Venture. And – more remarkable than either accomplishment – somehow in the chaos and mess she’d discovered who she was. Not a girl of the streets, though that was where she’d been raised. Not a woman of the court, though she appreciated the beauty and grace of the balls. Someone else.

Someone she liked.

The servant reread Elend’s card, growing pale. He looked up. Elend met the man’s eyes, then gave a small nod, as if to say, “Yes, I’m afraid that it’s true.”

The servant cleared his throat, and Elend led Vin into the ballroom.

“High Emperor, Lord Elend Venture,” the servant announced in a clear voice. “And the Empress Vin Venture, Heir of the Survivor, Hero of Ages.”

The entire ballroom grew suddenly – and unnaturally – quiet. Vin and Elend paused at the front of the room, giving the gathered nobility a chance to see them. It appeared that Keep Orielle’s grand main hall, like Keep Venture’s, was also its ballroom. However, instead of being tall with a broad, arched roof, this room had a relatively low ceiling and small, intricate designs in the stonework. It was as if the architect had tried for beauty on a delicate scale, rather than an imposing one.

The entire chamber was crafted from white marble of various shades. While it was large enough to hold hundreds of people – plus a dance floor and tables – it still felt intimate. The room was divided by rows of ornamental marble pillars, and it was further partitioned with large stained-glass panels that ran from floor to ceiling. Vin was impressed – most keeps in Luthadel left their stained glass to the perimeter walls, so they could be lit from outside. While this keep did have some of those, she quickly realized that the true masterpieces had been placed here, freestanding inside the ballroom, where they could be admired from both sides.

“By the Lord Ruler,” Elend whispered, scanning the gathered people. “They really do think they can just ignore the rest of the world, don’t they?”

Gold, silver, bronze, and brass sparkled upon figures in brilliant ball gowns and sharp gentlemen’s suits. The men generally wore dark clothing, and the women generally wore colors. A group of musicians played strings in a far corner, their music unimpeded by the shocked atmosphere. Servants waited, uncertain, bearing drinks and foods.

“Yes,” Vin whispered. “We should move out of the doorway. When the guards come, we’ll want to be mingled in the crowd to make the soldiers uncertain if they want to attack.”

Elend smiled, and she knew he was remarking to himself about her tendency to keep her back from being exposed. However, she also knew that he realized she was right. They walked down the short set of marble steps, joining the party.

Skaa might have shied away from such a dangerous couple, but Vin and Elend wore the costume of noble propriety. The aristocracy of the Final Empire were quite adept at playing pretend – and when they were uncertain how to behave, they fell back on the old standard: proper manners.

Lords and ladies bowed and curtsied, acting as if the emperor and empress’s attendance had been completely expected. Vin let Elend take the lead, as he had far more experience than she with matters of court. He nodded to those they passed, displaying just the right amount of self-assurance. Behind, guards finally arrived at the doors. They stopped, however, obviously wary about disturbing the party.

“There,” Vin said, nodding to their left. Through a stained-glass partition, she could make out a figure sitting at an elevated table.

“I see him,” Elend said, leading her around the glass, and giving Vin her first sight of Aradan Yomen, king of the Western Dominance.

He was younger than she’d expected – perhaps as young as Elend. Round-faced with serious eyes, Yomen had his head shaved bald, after the manner of obligators. His dark gray robes were a mark of his station, as were the complicated patterns of tattoos around his eyes, which proclaimed him a very high-ranking member of the Canton of Resource.

Yomen stood up as Vin and Elend approached. He looked utterly dumbfounded. Behind, the soldiers had begun to carefully work their way into the room. Elend paused a distance from the high table, with its white cloth and pure crystal place settings. He met Yomen’s gaze, the other guests so quiet that Vin guessed most were holding their breaths.

Vin checked her metal reserves, turning slightly, keeping an eye on the guards. Then, from the corner of her eye, she saw Yomen raise his hand and subtly wave the guards back.

Chatter began in the room almost immediately. Yomen sat back down, looking troubled, and did not return to his meal.

Vin looked up at Elend. “Well,” she whispered, “we’re in. What now?”

“I need to talk to Yomen,” Elend said. “But I’d like to wait a little bit first; give him a chance to get used to our presence.”

“Then we should mingle.”

“Split up? We can cover more nobility that way.”

Vin hesitated.

“I can protect myself, Vin,” Elend said, smiling. “I promise.”

“All right.” Vin nodded, though that wasn’t the only reason she’d paused.

“Talk to as many people as you can,” Elend said. “We’re here to shatter this people’s image of safety. After all, we just proved that Yomen can’t keep us out of Fadrex – and we’re showing that we’re so unthreatened by him that we’ll waltz into a ball that he’s attending. Once we’ve made a bit of a stir, I’ll talk to their king, and they’ll all be certain to listen in.”

Vin nodded. “When you mingle, watch for people who look like they might be willing to support us against the current government. Slowswift implied that there are some in the city who aren’t pleased with the way their king is handling things.”

Elend nodded, kissed her cheek, and then she was alone. Vin stood in her beautiful gown, feeling a moment of shock. Over the last two years, she’d explicitly worked to keep herself out of situations where she would wear gowns and mingle with nobility. She’d determinedly worn trousers and shirts, making it her self-appointed duty to sow discomfort in those she found too full of themselves.

Yet, she had been the one to suggest this infiltration to Elend. Why? Why put herself back in this position? She wasn’t displeased with who she was – she didn’t need to prove anything by putting on another silly gown and making courtly conversation with a bunch of nobility she didn’t know.

Did she?

No use fidgeting about it now, Vin thought, scanning the crowd. Noble balls in Luthadel – and she could only assume here – were very polite affairs, designed to encourage mingling, and therefore facilitate political give and take. Balls had once been the main form of sport for the nobility, who had lived privileged lives under the Lord Ruler because their ancestors had been his friends back before his Ascension.

And so, the party was made up of small groups – some mixed couples, but many clusters of just women or just men. A pair was not expected to stay together the entire time. There were side rooms where gentlemen could retire and drink with their allies, leaving the women to converse in the ballroom.

Vin walked forward, slipping a cup of wine off the tray of a passing servant. By splitting up, Elend and she had indicated that they were open to conversation with others. Unfortunately, it had been a long, long time since Vin had to be alone at a party like this. She felt awkward, uncertain whether to approach one of the groups, or wait to see if anyone came to her. She felt somewhat as she had that first night, when she’d gone to Keep Venture posing as a lone noblewoman, Sazed her only guide.

That day, she’d played a part, hiding in her role as Valette Renoux. She couldn’t do that anymore. Everyone knew who she really was. That would have bothered her, once, but it didn’t anymore. Still, she couldn’t just do what she’d done then – stand around and wait for others to come to her. The entire room seemed to be staring at her.

She strode through the beautiful white room, aware of how much her black dress stood out against the women in their colors. She moved around the slices of colored glass that hung from the ceiling like crystalline curtains. She’d learned from her earlier balls that there was one thing she could always count on: Whenever noblewomen gathered, one always set herself up as the most important.

Vin found her with ease. The woman had dark hair and tan skin, and she sat at a table surrounded by sycophants. Vin recognized that arrogant look, that way the woman’s voice was just loud enough to be imperious, but just soft enough to make everyone hang on her words.

Vin approached with determination. Years ago, she’d been forced to start at the bottom. She didn’t have time for that. She didn’t know the subtle political intricacies of the city – the allegiances and rivalries. However, there was one thing of which she was fairly confident.

Whichever side this woman was on, Vin wanted to be on the opposite one.

Several of the sycophants looked up as Vin approached, and they grew pale. Their leader had the poise to remain aloof. She’ll try to ignore me, Vin thought. I can’t leave her that option. Vin sat at the table directly across from the woman. Then, Vin turned and addressed several of the younger sycophants.

“She’s planning to betray you,” Vin said.

The women glanced at each other.

“She has plans to get out of the city,” Vin said. “When the army attacks, she won’t be here. And she’s going to leave you all to die. Make an ally of me, however, and I will see that you are protected.”

“Excuse me?” the lead woman said, her voice indignant. “Did I invite you to sit here?”

Vin smiled. That was easy. A thieving crewleader’s basis of power was money – take that away, and he’d fall. For a woman like this, her power was in the people who listened to her. To make her react, one simply had to threaten to take her minions.

Vin turned to confront the woman. “No, you didn’t invite me. I invited myself. Someone needs to warn the women here.”

The woman sniffed. “You spread lies. You know nothing of my supposed plans.”

“Don’t I? You’re not the type to let a man like Yomen determine your future, and if the others here think about it, they’ll realized that there’s no way you would let yourself get caught in Fadrex City without plans to escape. I’m surprised you’re even still here.”

“Your threats do not frighten me,” the lady said.

“I haven’t threatened you yet,” Vin noted, sipping her wine. She gave a careful Push on the emotions of the women at the table, making them more worried. “We could get to that, if you wish – though, technically, I’ve got your entire city under threat already.”

The woman narrowed her eyes at Vin. “Don’t listen to her, ladies.”

“Yes, Lady Patresen,” one of the women said, speaking a little too quickly.

Patresen, Vin thought, relieved that someone had finally mentioned the woman’s name. Do I know that name? “House Patresen,” Vin said idly. “Isn’t that a cousin family of House Elariel?”

Lady Patresen remained quiet.

“I killed an Elariel once,” Vin said. “It was a good fight. Shan was a very clever woman, and a skilled Mistborn.” She leaned in. “You may think that the stories about me are exaggerations. You may assume that I didn’t really kill the Lord Ruler, and that the talk is simply propaganda crafted to help stabilize my husband’s rule.

“Think as you wish, Lady Patresen. However, there is one thing you must understand. You are not my adversary. I don’t have time for people like you. You’re a petty woman in an insignificant city, part of a doomed culture of nobility. I’m not talking to you because I want to be part of your schemes; you can’t even understand how unimportant they are to me. I’m just here to voice a warning. We’re going to take this city – and when we do, there will be little room for people who were against us.”

Patresen paled just slightly. However, her voice was calm when she spoke. “I doubt that’s true. If you could take the city as easily as you claim, then you would have already.”

“My husband is a man of honor,” Vin said, “and decided that he wished to speak with Yomen before attacking. I, however, am not quite so temperate.”

“Well, I think that–”

“You don’t understand, do you?” Vin asked. “It doesn’t matter what you think. Look, I know you’re the type with powerful connections. Those connections will have told you by now the numbers we bring. Forty thousand men, twenty thousand koloss, and a full contingent of Allomancers. Plus two Mistborn. My husband and I did not come to this conference to make allies, or even to make enemies. We came to give warning. I suggest you take it.”

She punctuated her last comment with a powerful Soothing. She wanted it to be obvious to the women, to let them know that they were – indeed – under her power. Then, she stood, trailing away from the table.

What she had said to Patresen wasn’t really that important – the important thing was that Vin had been seen confronting the woman. Hopefully, that would put Vin on a side in the local politics, making her less threatening to some factions in the room. That, in turn, would make her more accessible, and–

The sound of chairs scooting back from the table came from behind her. Vin turned, suspicious, and saw most of Lady Patresen’s clique approaching in a hurry, leaving their leader sitting virtually alone at her table, a scowl on her face.

Vin tensed.

“Lady Venture,” one of the women said. “Perhaps you would let some of us… introduce you at the party?”

Vin frowned.

“Please,” the woman said very quietly.

Vin blinked in surprise. She’d expected the women to resent her, not listen to her. She glanced about. Most of the women looked so intimidated that Vin thought they might wilt away, like leaves in the sun. Feeling a little bemused, Vin nodded her head and let herself be led into the party for introductions.

31

“LORD BREEZE GUESSED CORRECTLY,” Sazed said, standing at the front of their small group. “As far as I can tell, the diversion of waters into this underground reservoir was intentional. The project must have taken decades. It required widening natural passageways so that the water – which once fed the river and canals above – instead flowed into this cavern.”

“Yes, but what’s the point?” Breeze asked. “Why waste so much effort to move a river?”

Three days in Urteau had allowed them to do as Spook had suggested, moving their troops into the Ministry building, ostensibly taking up residence inside of it. The Citizen couldn’t know about the cache, otherwise he would have ransacked it. That meant Sazed and his team held a distinct advantage should events in the city turn ugly.

They had pulled some of the furniture from the building above and arranged it – with sheets and tapestries to create “rooms” – amid the shelves in the cavern. Logic dictated that the cavern was the best place to spend their time, for should someone attack the Ministry building, the cavern was where they wanted to be. True, they’d be trapped – but with the supplies they had, they’d be able to survive indefinitely and work out a plan of escape.

Sazed, Breeze, Spook, and Allrianne sat in one of these partitioned-off areas among the shelves of food. “The reason that the Lord Ruler made this lake is simple, I think.” Sazed turned, glancing over his shoulder at the lake. “That water comes via an underground river, filtered – in all likelihood – through layers of rock. It is pure water, the likes of which you rarely see in the Final Empire. No ash, no sediment. The purpose of that water is to sustain a population should a disaster occur. If it were still flowing into the canals above, it would quickly get soiled and polluted by the population living in the city.”

“The Lord Ruler was looking to the future,” Spook said, still wearing his strange eye bandage. He’d turned aside all questions and promptings regarding why he wore it, though Sazed was beginning to suspect it had to do with burning tin.

Sazed nodded at the young man’s comment. “The Lord Ruler wasn’t worried about causing financial ruin in Urteau – he just wanted to make certain this cavern had access to a constant, flowing source of fresh water.”

“Isn’t this all beside the point?” Allrianne asked. “So we have water. What about that maniac running the city?”

Sazed paused, and the others turned to look to him. I am, unfortunately, in charge. “Well,” he said, “we should speak of this. Emperor Venture has asked us to secure the city. As the Citizen has proven unwilling to meet with us again, we shall need to discuss other options.”

“That man needs to go,” Spook said. “We need assassins.”

“I fear that wouldn’t work very well, my dear boy,” Breeze said.

“Why not?” Spook asked. “We killed the Lord Ruler, and that worked pretty well.”

“Ah,” Breeze said, raising a finger, “but the Lord Ruler was irreplaceable. He was a god, and so killing him created a psychological impact on his populace.”

Allrianne nodded. “This Citizen’s not a force of nature, but a man – and men can be replaced. If we assassinate Quellion, one of his lackeys will simply take his place.”

“And we will be branded as murderers,” Breeze added.

“What, then?” Spook asked. “We leave him alone?”

“Of course not,” Breeze said. “If we want to take this city, we need to undermine him, then remove him. We prove that his entire system is faulty – that his government is, in essence, silly. If we manage that, we won’t just stop him, we’ll stop everyone who has worked with him and supported him. That is the only way we’re going to take Urteau short of marching an army in here and seizing it by force.”

“And, since His Majesty kindly left us without any troops to speak of…” Allrianne said.

“I am not convinced that such rash action is required,” Sazed said. “Perhaps, given more time, we’ll be able to work with this man.”

“Work with him?” Spook asked. “You’ve been here three days – isn’t that enough for you to see what Quellion is like?”

“I have seen,” Sazed said. “And, to be perfectly honest, I do not know that I can fault the Citizen’s views.”

The cavern fell silent.

“Perhaps you should explain yourself, my dear man,” Breeze said, sipping at a cup of wine.

“The things that the Citizen says are not false,” Sazed said. “We cannot blame him for teaching the very same things that Kelsier did. The Survivor spoke of killing the nobility – goodness knows, we all saw him engaging in that activity often enough. He spoke of revolution and of skaa ruling themselves.”

“He spoke of extreme actions during extreme times,” Breeze said. “That’s what you do when you need to motivate people. Even Kelsier wouldn’t have taken it this far.”

“Perhaps,” Sazed said. “But can we really be surprised that people who heard Kelsier speak have created this society? And, what right have we to take it from them? In a way, they’ve been truer to Kelsier than we have. Can you really say that you think he’d be pleased to find out that we put a nobleman on the throne not one day after he died?”

Breeze and Spook glanced at each other, and neither contradicted him.

“It’s just not right,” Spook finally said. “These people claim to know Kelsier, but they don’t. He didn’t want people to be grim and bullied – he wanted them to be free and happy.”

“Indeed,” Breeze said. “Besides, we did choose to follow Elend Venture – and he’s given us an order. Our empire needs these supplies, and we can’t afford to let an organized rebellion seize and control one of the most important cities in the empire. We need to secure this cache and protect the people of Urteau. It’s for the greater good, and all that!”

Allrianne nodded her agreement – and, as always, Sazed felt her touch on his emotions.

For the greater good… Sazed thought. He knew that Spook was right. Kelsier wouldn’t want this warped society being perpetuated in his name. Something needed to be done. “Very well,” he said. “What should our course of action be?”

“Nothing, for now,” Breeze said. “We need time to feel out the city’s climate. How close are the people to rebelling against dear Quellion? How active is the local criminal element? How corruptible are the men who serve the new government? Give me some time to discover answers to these questions, and then we can decide what to do.”

“I still say we do it as Kelsier did,” Spook said. “Why can’t we just topple the Citizen like he did the Lord Ruler?”

“I doubt that would work,” Breeze said, sipping his wine.

“Why not?” Spook asked.

“For a very simple reason, my dear boy,” Breeze said. “We don’t have Kelsier anymore.”

Sazed nodded. That much was true – though he did wonder if they would ever be rid of the Survivor’s legacy. In a way, the battle in this town had been inevitable. If Kelsier had possessed one flaw, it had been his extreme hatred of the nobility. It was a passion that had driven him, had helped him accomplish the impossible. However, Sazed feared it would destroy those whom it had infected.

“Take the time you need, Breeze,” Sazed said. “Let me know when you think we are ready to take the next step.”

Breeze nodded, and the meeting broke up. Sazed stood, sighing quietly. As he did, he met Breeze’s eyes, and the man winked at him with a smile that seemed to say, “This won’t be half as difficult as you think.” Sazed smiled back, and he felt Breeze’s touch on his emotions, trying to encourage him.

Yet, the Soother’s hand was too light. Breeze couldn’t have known the conflict that still twisted inside of Sazed. A conflict about much more than Kelsier and the problems in Urteau. He was glad for a little bit of time to wait in the city, for he still had much work to do with the religions listed, one per sheet, in his portfolio.

Even that work was difficult for him to get to recently. He did his best to give the others leadership, as Elend had asked. However, the pernicious darkness Sazed felt inside of him refused to be shaken away. It was more dangerous to him, he knew, than anything else he had faced while serving with the crew, because it made him feel as if he didn’t care.

I must keep working, he decided, walking away from the meeting place, carefully sliding his portfolio off of a nearby shelf. I have to keep searching. I must not give up.

It was far more difficult than that, however. In the past, logic and thought had always been his refuge. However, his emotions didn’t respond to logic. No amount of thinking about what he should be doing could help him.

He ground his teeth, walking, hoping that the motion would help him work out the knots within himself. A part of him wanted to go out and study the new form of the Church of the Survivor that had sprung up here in Urteau. However, that seemed like a waste of time. The world was ending, why study one more religion? He already knew this one was false; he’d dismissed the Church of the Survivor early in his studies. It was filled with more contradictions than almost any in his portfolio.

More filled with passion as well.

All the religions in his collection were alike in one respect; they had failed. The people who’d followed them had died, been conquered, their religions stamped out. Was that not proof enough for him? He’d tried preaching them, but he’d very, very rarely had any success.

It was all meaningless. Everything was ending anyway.

No! Sazed thought. I will find the answers. The religions didn’t disappear completely – the Keepers preserved them. There must be answers in one of them. Somewhere.

Eventually, he found his way to the wall of the cavern, which held the steel plate inscribed by the Lord Ruler. They already had a record of what it said, of course, but Sazed wanted to see it and read it for himself. He looked up at the metal, which reflected the light of a nearby lantern, reading the words of the very man who had destroyed so many religions.

The plan, the words said, is simple. When the power returns to the Well, I will take it and make certain the thing remains trapped.

And still I worry. It has proven far more clever than I had assumed, infecting my thoughts, making me see and feel things I do not wish to. It is so subtle, so careful. I cannot see how it could cause my death, but still I worry.

If I am dead, then these caches will provide some measure of protection for my people. I fear what is coming. What might be. If you read this now, and I am gone, then I fear for you. Still, I will try to leave what help I can.

There are metals of Allomancy which I have shared with none. If you are a priest of mine, working this cavern and reading these words, know that you will incur my wrath if you share this knowledge. However, if it is true that the force has returned and I am unable to deal with it, then perhaps knowledge of electrum will give you some aid. My researchers have discovered that mixing an alloy of forty-five percent gold and fifty-five percent silver creates a new Allomantic metal. Burning it will not give you the power of atium, but will provide some help against those who themselves burn it.

And that was it. Beside the words was a map, indicating the location of the next cache – the one in the small southern mining village that Vin and Elend had secured a short time back. Sazed read over the words again, but they only served to enhance his sense of despair. Even the Lord Ruler seemed to feel helpless in the face of their current predicament. He’d planned to be alive, he’d planned for none of this to happen. But he’d known that his plans might not work.

Sazed turned, leaving the plate behind, walking to the bank of the underground lake. The water lay like black glass, undisturbed by wind or ash, though it did ripple slightly from the current. A pair of lanterns sat by the edge of the water, burning quietly, marking the bank. Behind him, a short distance away, some of the soldiers had made camp – though a good two-thirds of them kept to the upstairs to make certain the building had the look of being lived in. Others searched the cavern walls in hopes of finding a secret exit. They would all be a lot more comfortable within the cavern if they knew they had a means of escaping it, should they get attacked.

“Sazed.”

Sazed turned, then nodded to Spook as the young man walked up to join him on the bank of the black still water. They stood together quietly, contemplative.

This one has troubles of his own, Sazed thought, noting the way that Spook watched the waters. Then, surprisingly, Spook reached up and untied the cloth from his eyes. He pulled it free, revealing a pair of spectacles underneath, perhaps used to keep the cloth from pressing his eyes closed. Spook removed the spectacles and blinked, squinting. His eyes began to water, then he reached down and put out one of the two lanterns, leaving Sazed standing in very dim light. Spook sighed, standing and wiping his eyes.

So it is his tin, Sazed thought. As Sazed considered the thought, he realized that he had often seen the young man wearing gloves – as if to protect his skin. Sazed suspected that if he watched closely, he’d see the boy put in earplugs as well. Curious.

“Sazed,” Spook said, “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Please, speak as you wish.”

“I…” Spook trailed off, then glanced at Sazed. “I think Kelsier is still with us.”

Sazed frowned.

“Not alive, of course,” Spook said quickly. “But, I think he’s watching over us. Protecting us… that sort of thing.”

“That’s a pleasant sentiment, I think,” Sazed said. Completely false, of course.

“It’s not just a sentiment,” Spook replied. “He’s here. I was just wondering if there was anything in any of those religions you studied that talked about things like that.”

“Of course,” Sazed said. “Many of them spoke of the dead remaining as spirits to help, or curse, the living.”

They fell silent, Spook obviously waiting for something.

“Well?” Spook asked. “Aren’t you going to preach a religion to me?”

“I don’t do that anymore,” Sazed said quietly.

“Oh,” Spook said. “Um, why not?”

Sazed shook his head. “I find it hard to preach to others that which has offered me no solace, Spook. I am looking through them, trying to discover which – if any of them – are right and true. Once I have that knowledge, I will be happy to share with you any that seem most likely to contain truth. For now, however, I believe none of them, and therefore will preach none of them.”

Surprisingly, Spook didn’t argue with him. Sazed had found it frustrating that his friends – people who were, for the most part, determined atheists – would grow so offended when he threatened to join them in their lack of belief. And yet, Spook didn’t offer arguments.

“It makes sense,” the young man finally said. “Those religions aren’t true. After all, Kelsier is the one who watches over us, not those other gods.”

Sazed closed his eyes. “How can you say that, Spook? You lived with him – you knew him. We both know that Kelsier was no god.”

“The people of this city think he is.”

“And where has it gotten them?” Sazed asked. “Their belief has brought oppression and violence. What is the good of faith if this is the result? A city full of people misinterpreting their god’s commands? A world of ash and pain and death and sorrow?” Sazed shook his head. “That is why I no longer wear my metalminds. Religions which cannot offer more than this do not deserve to be taught.”

“Oh,” Spook said. He knelt down, dipping a hand in the water, then shivered. “That makes sense too, I guess – though I’d have guessed it was because of her.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your woman,” Spook said. “The other Keeper – Tindwyl. I heard her talk about religion. She didn’t think very much of it. I’d have thought that maybe you wouldn’t talk about religion anymore because that might be what she’d have wanted.”

Sazed felt a chill.

“Anyway,” Spook said, standing, wiping off his hand, “the people of this city know more than you think they do. Kelsier is watching over us.”

With that, the boy trailed away. Sazed, however, wasn’t listening. He stood, staring at the ebony waters.

Because that might be what she’d have wanted…

Tindwyl had thought religion to be foolish. She had said that people who looked toward ancient prophecies or unseen forces were seeking excuses. During her last few weeks with Sazed, this had often been a topic of conversation – even slight contention – between the two of them, for their research had dealt with the prophecies regarding the Hero of Ages.

That research had turned out to be useless. At best, the prophecies were the vain hopes of men who wished for a better world. At worst, they had been cleverly placed to further the goals of a malignant force. Either way, he had believed strongly in his work at that time. And Tindwyl had helped him. They had searched through their metalminds, sifting through centuries of information, history, and mythology, seeking references to the Deepness, the Hero of Ages, and the Well of Ascension. She had worked with him, claiming that her interest was academic, not religious. Sazed suspected that she’d had a different motivation.

She’d wanted to be with him. She had suppressed her dislike of religion out of a desire to be involved with what he found important. And, now that she was dead, Sazed found himself doing what she’d found important. Tindwyl had studied politics and leadership. She’d loved to read the biographies of great statesmen and generals. Had he unconsciously agreed to become Elend’s ambassador so that he could involve himself in Tindwyl’s studies, just as she – before her death – had given herself over to his?

He wasn’t certain. In truth, he thought his problems were deeper than that. However, the fact that Spook had been the one to make such an astute observation gave Sazed pause. It was a very clever way of looking at things. Instead of contradicting him, Spook had offered a possible explanation.

Sazed was impressed. He turned out, looking across the waters for a time and contemplating what Spook had said. Then, he pulled out the next religion in his portfolio and began to consider it. The sooner he got through them, the sooner he could – hopefully – find the truth.

32

“ELEND, IS THAT REALLY YOU?”

Elend turned with shock. He’d been mingling at the ball, talking with a group of men who had turned out to be distant cousins of his. The voice from behind, however, seemed far more familiar. “Telden?” Elend asked. “What are you doing here!”

“I live here, El,” Telden said, clasping hands with Elend.

Elend was dumbfounded. He hadn’t seen Telden since his house had escaped Luthadel in the days of chaos following the death of the Lord Ruler. Once, this man had been one of Elend’s best friends. To the side, Elend’s cousins made a graceful withdrawal. “I thought you were in BasMardin, Tell,” Elend said.

“No,” Telden said. “That’s where my house settled, but I thought that the area was too dangerous, what with the koloss rampages. I moved inward to Fadrex once Lord Yomen came to power – he quickly gained a reputation for being able to provide stability.”

Elend smiled. The years had changed his friend. Telden had once been the model of a debonair ladies’ man, his hair and expensive suits intended to draw attention. It wasn’t that the older Telden had grown sloppy, but he obviously didn’t take as much care to appear stylish. He’d always been a large man – tall and kind of rectangular – and the extra weight he’d gained made him look far more… ordinary than he once had.

“Elend,” Telden said, shaking his head. “You know, for the longest time, I refused to believe that you’d really managed to seize power in Luthadel.”

“You were there at my coronation!”

“I thought that they had picked you as a puppet, El,” Telden said, rubbing his wide chin. “I thought… well, I’m sorry. I guess I just didn’t have much faith in you.”

Elend laughed. “You were right, my friend. I turned out to be a terrible king.”

Telden obviously wasn’t sure how to reply to that.

“I did get better at the job,” Elend said. “I just had to stumble through a few messes first.”

Partygoers shuffled through the divided ballroom. Though those watching did their best to appear uninterested and aloof, Elend could tell that they were doing the noble equivalent of gawking. He glanced to the side, where Vin stood in her gorgeous black dress, surrounded by a group of women. She seemed to be doing well – she took to the courtly scene far better than she liked to let herself think or admit. She was graceful, poised, and the center of attention.

She was also alert – Elend could tell by the way she managed to keep her back to a wall or glass partition. She’d be burning iron or steel, watching for sudden movements of metal that might indicate an attacking Coinshot. Elend began burning iron as well, and he made certain to keep burning zinc to Soothe the emotions of those in the room, keeping them from feeling too angry or threatened by his intrusion. Other Allomancers – Breeze, or even Vin – would have had trouble Soothing an entire room at once. For Elend, with his inordinate power, it barely took any attention.

Telden still stood nearby, looking troubled. Elend tried to say something to start their conversation again, but he struggled to come up with anything that wouldn’t sound awkward. It had been nearly four years since Telden had left Luthadel. Before that, he had been one of the friends with whom Elend had discussed political theory, planning with the idealism of youth for the day when they would lead their houses. Yet, the days of youth – and their idealistic theories – were gone.

“So…” Telden said. “This is where we end up, is it?”

Elend nodded.

“You’re not… really going to attack the city, are you?” Telden asked. “You’re just here to intimidate Yomen, right?”

“No,” Elend said softly. “I will conquer the city if I have to, Telden.”

Telden flushed. “What happened to you, Elend? Where is the man who talked about rights and legality?”

“The world caught up with me, Telden,” Elend said. “I can’t be the man I was.”

“So you become the Lord Ruler instead?”

Elend hesitated. It felt odd to have another confront him with his own questions and arguments. Part of him felt a stab of fear – if Telden asked these things, then Elend had been right to worry about them. Perhaps they were true.

Yet, a stronger impulse flared within him. An impulse nurtured by Tindwyl, then refined by a year of struggling to bring order to the shattered remains of the Final Empire.

An impulse to trust himself.

“No, Telden,” Elend said firmly. “I’m not the Lord Ruler. A parliamentary council rules in Luthadel, and there are others like it in every city I’ve brought into my empire. This is the first time that I’ve marched on a city with my armies out of a need to conquer, rather than protect – and that is only because Yomen himself took this city from an ally of mine.”

Telden snorted. “You set yourself up as emperor.”

“Because that’s what the people need, Telden,” Elend said. “They don’t want to return to the days of the Lord Ruler – but they would rather do that than live in chaos. Yomen’s success here proves that much. The people want to know that someone is watching over them. They had a god-emperor for a thousand years – now is not the time to leave them without a leader.”

“You mean to tell me that you’re just a figurehead?” Telden asked, folding his arms.

“Hardly,” Elend said. “But, eventually, I hope to be. We both know I’m a scholar and not a king.”

Telden frowned. He didn’t believe Elend. And yet, Elend found that fact didn’t bother him. Something about saying those words, about confronting the skepticism, made him recognize the validity of his own confidence. Telden didn’t understand – he hadn’t lived through what Elend had. The young Elend himself wouldn’t have agreed with what he was now doing. A part of that youth still had a voice inside of Elend’s soul – and he would never quiet it. However, it was time to stop letting it undermine him.

Elend put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “It’s all right, Tell. It took me years to convince you that the Lord Ruler was a terrible emperor. I fully expect it to take the same amount of time to convince you that I’ll be a good one.”

Telden smiled wanly.

“Going to tell me that I’ve changed?” Elend asked. “Seems all the rage lately.”

Telden laughed. “I thought that was obvious. No need to point it out.”

“What, then?” Elend asked.

“Well…” Telden said. “I was actually going to chide you for not inviting me to your wedding! I’m hurt, El. Truly. I spent the better part of my youth giving you relationship advice, then when you finally pick a girl, you don’t even let me know about the marriage!”

Elend laughed, turning to follow Telden’s gaze toward Vin. Confident and powerful, yet somehow delicate and graceful. Elend smiled with pride. Even during the glory days of the Luthadel ball scene, he couldn’t remember a woman commanding as much attention as Vin now did. And, unlike Elend, she’d stepped into this ball without knowing a single person.

“I feel a little like a proud parent,” Telden said, laying a hand on Elend’s shoulder. “There were days I was convinced that you were hopeless, El! I figured you’d someday wander into a library and just disappear completely. We’d find you twenty years later covered with dust, picking through some philosophy text for the seven hundredth time. Yet, here you are, married – and to a woman like that!”

“Sometimes, I don’t understand either,” Elend said. “I can’t ever come up with any logical reason why she would want to be with me. I just… have to trust her judgment.”

“Either way, you did well.”

Elend raised an eyebrow. “I seem to remember that you once tried to talk me out of spending time with her.”

Telden flushed. “You have to admit, she was acting very suspiciously when she came to those parties.”

“Yes,” Elend said. “She seemed too much like a real person to be a noblewoman.” He looked over at Telden, smiling. “However, if you’ll excuse me, I have something I need to do.”

“Of course, El,” Telden said, bowing slightly as Elend withdrew. The move felt a little odd coming from Telden. They didn’t really know each other anymore. However, they did have memories of friendship.

I didn’t tell him that I killed Jastes, Elend thought as he made his way through the room, its members parting easily for him. I wonder if he knows.

Elend’s enhanced hearing picked out a general rise in excitement among the whispered conversations as people realized what he was doing. He’d given Yomen time enough to deal with his surprise; it was time to confront the man. Though part of Elend’s purpose in visiting the ball was to intimidate the local nobility, the main reason was still to speak with their king.

Yomen watched Elend approach the high table – and, to his credit, the obligator did not look frightened at the prospect of a meeting. His meal still remained uneaten, however. Elend didn’t wait for permission to come to the table, but he did pause and wait as Yomen waved for servants to clear space and set Elend a place directly across the high table from him.

Elend sat, trusting in Vin – mixed with his own burning steel and tin – to warn him of attacks from behind. He was the only one on this side of the table, and Yomen’s dining companions all retired as Elend seated himself, leaving the two rulers alone. In another situation, the image might have looked ridiculous: two men seated across from each other with empty table wings extending a great distance to either side. The white tablecloth and crystalline dinnerware were pristine, just as it would have been during the Lord Ruler’s day.

Elend had sold all such finery he owned, struggling to feed his people during the last few winters.

Yomen laced his fingers on the table in front of him – his meal taken away by silent servants – and studied Elend, his cautious eyes framed by intricate tattoos. Yomen wore no crown, but he did wear a single bead of metal tied so that it hung in the center of his forehead.

Atium.

“There is a saying in the Steel Ministry,” Yomen finally said. “ ‘Sit down to dine with evil, and you will ingest it with your meal.’ ”

“It’s a good thing we’re not eating, then,” Elend said, smiling slightly.

Yomen did not smile back.

“Yomen,” Elend said, growing more serious. “I come to you now, not as an emperor seeking for new lands to control, but as a desperate king seeking allies. The world has become a dangerous place – the land itself seems to be fighting us, or at least falling apart beneath us. Accept my hand of friendship, and let us be done with wars.”

Yomen didn’t reply. He just sat, fingers laced, studying Elend.

“You doubt my sincerity,” Elend said. “I can’t say that I blame you, since I marched my army up to your doorstep. Is there a way that I can persuade you? Would you be willing to enter into talks or parley?”

Again, no answer. So, this time, Elend just waited. The room around them felt still.

Yomen finally spoke. “You are a flagrant and garish man, Elend Venture.”

Elend bristled at that. Perhaps it was the ball setting, perhaps it was the way Yomen so flippantly ignored his offer. However, Elend found himself responding to the comment in a way he might have years before, when he hadn’t been a king at war. “It’s a bad habit I’ve always had,” Elend said. “I’m afraid that the years of rule – and of being trained in propriety – haven’t changed one fact: I’m a terribly rude man. Bad breeding would be my guess.”

“You find this a game,” the obligator said, eyes hard. “You come to my city to slaughter my people, then you dance into my ball hoping to frighten the nobility to the point of hysteria.”

“No,” Elend said. “No, Yomen, this is no game. The world seems near to ending, and I’m just doing my best to help as many people survive as possible.”

“And doing your best includes conquering my city?”

Elend shook his head. “I’m not good at lying, Yomen. So, I’ll be truthful with you. I don’t want to kill anyone – as I said, I’d rather we simply made a truce and were done with it. Give me the information I seek, pool your resources with mine, and I will not force you to give up your city. Deny me, and things will grow more difficult.”

Yomen sat quietly for a moment, music still being played softly in the background, vibrating over the hum of a hundred polite conversations.

“Do you know why I dislike men like you, Venture?” Yomen finally asked.

“My insufferable charm and wit?” Elend asked. “I doubt it’s my good looks – but, compared to that of an obligator, I suppose even my face could be enviable.”

Yomen’s expression darkened. “How did a man like you ever end up at a table of negotiation?”

“I was trained by a surly Mistborn, a sarcastic Terrisman, and a group of disrespectful thieves,” Elend said, sighing. “Plus, on top of that, I was a fairly insufferable person to begin with. But, kindly continue with your insult – I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“I don’t like you,” Yomen continued, “because you have the gall to believe that you deserve to take this city.”

“I do,” Elend said. “It belonged to Cett; half the soldiers I brought with me on this march once served him, and this is their homeland. We’ve come to liberate, not conquer.”

“Do these people look to you like they need liberation?” Yomen said, nodding to the dancing couples.

“Yes, actually,” Elend said. “Yomen, you’re the upstart here – not me. You have no right to this city, and you know it.”

“I have the right given me by the Lord Ruler.”

“We don’t accept the Lord Ruler’s right to rule,” Elend said. “That’s why we killed him. Instead, we look to the people’s right to rule.”

“Is that so?” Yomen said, hands still laced before him. “Because, as I recall, the people of your city chose Ferson Penrod to be their king.”

Good point, that one, Elend had to admit.

Yomen leaned forward. “This is the reason I don’t like you, Venture. You’re a hypocrite of the worst kind. You pretended to let the people be in charge – but when they ousted you and picked another, you had your Mistborn conquer the city back for you. You rule by force, not by common consent, so don’t talk to me about rights.”

“There were… circumstances in Luthadel, Yomen. Penrod was working with our enemies, and he bought himself the throne through manipulating the assembly.”

“That sounds like a flaw in the system,” Yomen said. “A system that you set up – a system replacing the one of order that existed before it. A people depend on stability in their government; they need someone to look to. A leader that they can trust, a leader with true authority. Only a man chosen by the Lord Ruler has that claim on authority.”

Elend studied the obligator. The frustrating thing was, he almost agreed with the man. Yomen said things that Elend himself had said, even if they were twisted a bit by his perspective as an obligator.

“Only a man chosen by the Lord Ruler has that claim on authority…” Elend said, frowning. The phrase sounded familiar. “That’s from Durton, isn’t it? Calling of Trust?”

Yomen paused. “Yes.”

“I prefer Gallingskaw, when it comes to divine right.”

Yomen made a curt gesture. “Gallingskaw was a heretic.”

“That makes his theories invalid?” Elend asked.

“No,” Yomen said. “It shows that he lacked the ability to reason soundly – otherwise he wouldn’t have gotten himself executed. That affects the validity of his theories. Besides, there is no divine mandate in the common man, as he proposed.”

“The Lord Ruler was a common man before he took his throne,” Elend said.

“Yes,” Yomen said, “but the Lord Ruler touched divinity at the Well of Ascension. That imprinted the Sliver of Infinity upon him, and gave him the Right of Inference.”

“Vin, my wife, touched that same divinity.”

“I don’t accept that story,” Yomen said. “As it has been said, the Sliver of Infinity was unique, unplanned, uncreated.”

“Don’t bring Urdree into this,” Elend said, raising a finger. “We both know he was more a poet than a real philosopher – he ignored convention, and never gave proper attributions. At least give me the benefit of the doubt and quote Hardren. He’d give you a much better foundation.”

Yomen opened his mouth, then stopped, frowning. “This is pointless,” he said. “Arguing philosophy will not remove the fact that you have an army camped outside my city, nor change the fact that I find you a hypocrite, Elend Venture.”

Elend sighed. For a moment, he’d thought that they might be able to respect one another as scholars. There was one problem, however. Elend saw true loathing in Yomen’s eyes. And, Elend suspected that there was a deeper reason for it than Elend’s alleged hypocrisy. After all, Elend had married the woman who had killed Yomen’s god.

“Yomen,” Elend said, leaning in. “I realize we have differences. However, one thing seems clear – we both care about the people of this empire. We both took the time to study political theory, and we both apparently focused on the texts that held the good of the people up as the prime reason for rule. We should be able to make this work.

“I want to offer you a deal. Accept kingship under me – you’d be able to stay in control, with very few changes in your government. I will need access to the city and its resources, and we will need to discuss setting up a parliamentary council. Other than that, you may continue as you wish – you can even keep throwing your parties and teaching about the Lord Ruler. I will trust your judgment.”

Yomen did not scoff at the offer, but Elend could tell that he also didn’t give it much weight. He had likely already known what Elend would say.

“You mistake one thing, Elend Venture,” Yomen said.

“And that is?”

“That I can be intimidated, bribed, or influenced.”

“You’re no fool, Yomen,” Elend said. “Sometimes, fighting isn’t worth its cost. We both know that you can’t beat me.”

“That is debatable,” Yomen said. “Regardless, I do not respond well to threats. Perhaps if you didn’t have an army camped on my doorstep, I could see my way to an alliance.”

“We both know that without an army on your doorstep, you wouldn’t even have listened to me,” Elend said. “You refused every messenger I sent, even before I marched here.”

Yomen just shook his head. “You seem more reasonable than I would have thought, Elend Venture, but that doesn’t change facts. You already have a large empire of your own. In coming here, you betray your arrogance. Why did you need my dominance? Wasn’t what you already had enough?”

“Firstly,” Elend said, raising a finger, “I feel that I need to remind you again that you stole this kingdom from an ally of mine. I had to come here eventually, if only to make good on promises I gave Cett. However, there’s something much larger at play here.” Elend hesitated, then made a gamble. “I need to know what is in your storage cavern.”

Elend was rewarded with a slight look of surprise on Yomen’s face, and that was all the confirmation Elend needed. Yomen did know about the cavern. Vin was right. And considering that atium displayed so prominently on his forehead, perhaps she was right about what was contained in the cavern.

“Look, Yomen,” Elend said, speaking quickly. “I don’t care about the atium – it’s barely of any value anymore. I need to know what instructions the Lord Ruler left in that cavern. What information is there for us? What supplies did he find necessary for our survival?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Yomen said flatly. He wasn’t a particularly good liar.

“You asked me why I came here,” Elend said. “Yomen, it’s not about conquering or taking this land from you. I realize you may find that hard to believe, but it’s the truth. The Final Empire is dying. Surely you’ve seen that. Mankind needs to band together, pool its resources – and you have vital clues we need. Don’t force me to break down your gates to get them. Work with me.”

Yomen shook his head. “There is your mistake again, Venture. You see, I don’t care if you attack me.” He met Elend’s eyes. “It would be better for my people to fight and to die than to be ruled by the man who overthrew our god and destroyed our religion.”

Elend held those eyes, and saw determination in them.

“That’s how it has to be?” Elend said.

“It is,” Yomen said. “I can expect an attack in the morning, then?”

“Of course not,” Elend said, standing. “Your soldiers aren’t starved yet. I’ll get back to you in a few months.” Maybe then you’ll be more willing to deal.

Elend turned to go, then hesitated. “Nice party, by the way,” he said, glancing back at Yomen. “Regardless of what I believe, I do think that your god would be pleased with what you’ve done here. I think you should reconsider your prejudices. The Lord Ruler probably isn’t fond of Vin and me, but I’d say that he’d rather that your people live than get themselves killed.”

Elend nodded in respect, then left the high table, feeling more frustrated than he showed. It felt like Yomen and he had been so close, and yet at the same time, an alliance seemed impossible. Not while the obligator had such hatred of Elend and Vin.

He forced himself to relax, walking. There was little he could do about the situation at the moment – it would take the siege to make Yomen rethink his position. I’m at a ball, Elend thought, wandering. I should enjoy what I can of it, letting myself be seen by the nobility here, intimidating them and making them think about helping us instead of Yomen…

A thought occurred to him. He glanced at Vin, then waved a servant over to him.

“My lord?” the man asked.

“I need you to fetch something for me,” Elend said.

Vin was the center of attention. Women pandered to her, hung on her words, and looked to her as a model. They wanted to know news from Luthadel, to hear about fashion, politics, and events from the great city. They didn’t reject her, or even seem to resent her.

The instant acceptance was the strangest thing Vin had ever experienced. She stood amid the women in their gowns and finery, and was foremost among them. She knew that it was just because of her power – yet, the women of this city seemed almost desperate to have someone to look to. An empress.

And Vin found herself enjoying it. There was a part of her that had craved this acceptance since the first day she’d attended a ball. She’d spent that year being mistreated by most of the women of court – some had let her join with their company, but she’d always been an insignificant country noblewoman with no connections or significance. It was a shallow thing, this acceptance, but sometimes even shallow things feel important. Plus, there was something else about it. As she smiled toward a newcomer – a young niece that one of the women wanted to meet Vin – Vin realized what it was.

This is part of me, she thought. I didn’t want it to be – perhaps because I didn’t believe that I deserved it. I found this life too different, too full of beauty and confidence. Yet, I am a noblewoman. I do fit in here.

I was born to the streets by one parent, but I was born to this by another.

She’d spent the first year of Elend’s reign trying so hard to protect him. She’d forced herself to focus only on her street side, the side that had been trained to be ruthless, for that, she thought, would give her the power to defend what she loved. Yet, Kelsier had shown her another way to be powerful. And, that power was connected with the nobility – with their intrigue, their beauty, and their clever schemes. Vin had taken almost immediately to life at court, and that had frightened her.

That’s it, she thought, smiling at another curtsying young girl. That’s why I always felt that this was wrong. I didn’t have to work for it, so I couldn’t believe that I deserved it.

She’d spent sixteen years on the streets – she’d earned that side of her. Yet, it had taken her barely a month to adapt to noble life. It had seemed impossible to her that something that came so easily could be as important a part of herself as the years spent on the streets.

But it was.

I had to confront this, she realized. Tindwyl tried to make me do it, two years ago, but I wasn’t ready.

She needed to prove to herself not only that she could move among the nobility, but that she belonged with them. Because that proved something much more important: that the love she’d earned from Elend during those few early months wasn’t based on a falsehood.

It’s… true, Vin thought. I can be both. Why did it take me so long to figure it out?

“Excuse me, ladies,” a voice said.

Vin smiled, turning as the women parted to make way for Elend. Several of the younger ones got dreamy expressions on their faces as they regarded Elend with his warrior’s body, his rugged beard, and his white imperial uniform. Vin suppressed a huff of annoyance. She’d loved him long before he’d become dreamy.

“Ladies,” Elend said to the women, “as Lady Vin herself will be quick to tell you, I’m rather ill-mannered. That, in itself, would be a very small sin. Unfortunately, I’m also quite unconcerned about my own disregard for propriety. So, therefore, I’m going to steal my wife away from you all and selfishly monopolize her time. I’d apologize, but that’s not the sort of thing we barbarians do.”

With that, and with a smile, he held out his elbow to her. Vin smiled back, taking the arm and allowing him to lead her away from the pack of women.

“Thought you might want some room to breathe,” Elend said. “I can only imagine how it must make you feel to be surrounded by a virtual army of puffballs.”

“I appreciate the rescue,” Vin said, though it wasn’t actually true. How was Elend to know that she’d suddenly discovered that she fit in with those puffballs? Besides, just because they wore frills and makeup didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous – she’d learned that much easily her first few months. The thought distracted her such that she didn’t notice where Elend was leading her until they were almost there.

When she did realize it, she stopped immediately, jerking Elend back. “The dance floor?” she asked.

“Indeed,” he said.

“But, I haven’t danced in almost four years!”

“Neither have I,” Elend said. He stepped closer. “But, it would be terrible to miss the opportunity. After all, we never did get to dance.”

It was true. Luthadel had gone into revolt before they’d gotten an opportunity to dance together, and after that, there hadn’t been time for balls or frivolity. She knew Elend understood how much she missed not having had the chance. He’d asked her to dance on the first night when they’d met, and she’d turned him down. She still felt as if she’d given up some unique opportunity on that first evening.

And so, she let him lead her up onto the slightly raised dance floor. Couples whispered, and as the song ended, everyone else furtively departed the dance floor, leaving Vin and Elend alone – a figure in lines of white, and another in curves of black. Elend put an arm at her waist, turning her toward him, and Vin found herself traitorously nervous.

This is it, she thought, flaring pewter to keep from shaking. It’s finally happening. I finally get to dance with him!

At that moment – as the music began – Elend reached into his pocket and pulled out a book. He raised it with one hand, the other on her waist, and began to read.

Vin’s jaw dropped, then she whacked him on the arm. “What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded as he shuffled through the dance steps, still holding his book. “Elend! I’m trying to have a special moment here!”

He turned toward her, smiling with a terribly mischievous grin. “Well, I want to make that special moment as authentic as possible. I mean, you are dancing with me, after all.”

“For the first time!”

“All the more important to be certain that I make the right impression, Miss Valette!”

“Oh, for… Will you please just put the book away?”

Elend smiled more deeply, but slid the book back into his pocket, taking her hand and dancing with her in a more proper manner. Vin flushed as she saw the confused crowd standing around the dance floor. They obviously had no idea what to make of Elend’s behavior.

“You are a barbarian,” Vin told him.

“A barbarian because I read books?” Elend said lightly. “That’s one that Ham will have a great time with.”

“Honestly,” Vin said, “where did you even get a book here?”

“I had one of Yomen’s servants fetch it for me,” Elend said. “From the keep library. I knew they’d have it – Trials of Monument is a rather famous work.”

Vin frowned. “Do I recognize that title?”

“It was the book that I was reading that night on the Venture balcony,” Elend said. “The time we first met.”

“Why, Elend! That’s almost romantic – in a twisted ‘I’m going to make my wife want to kill me’ sort of way.”

“I thought you’d appreciate it,” he said, turning lightly.

“You’re in rare form tonight. I haven’t seen you like this for quite some time.”

“I know,” he said, sighing. “To be honest, Vin, I feel a bit guilty. I’m worried that I was too informal during my conversation with Yomen. He’s so stiff that my old instincts – the ones that always made me respond to people like him with mockery – came out.”

Vin let him lead the dance, looking up at him. “You’re just acting like yourself. That’s a good thing.”

“My old self didn’t make a good king,” Elend said.

“The things you learned about kingship didn’t have to do with your personality, Elend,” Vin said. “They had to do with other things – about confidence, and about decisiveness. You can have those things and still be yourself.”

Elend shook his head. “I’m not sure I can. Certainly, tonight, I should have been more formal. I allowed the setting to make me lax.”

“No,” Vin said firmly. “No, I’m right about this, Elend. You’ve been doing the exact thing I have. You’ve been so determined to be a good king that you’ve let it squish who you really are. Our responsibilities shouldn’t have to destroy us.”

“They haven’t destroyed you,” he said, smiling behind his short beard.

“They nearly did,” Vin said. “Elend, I had to realize that I could be both people – the Mistborn of the streets and the woman of the court. I had to acknowledge that the new person I’m becoming is a valid extension of who I am. But for you, it’s opposite! You have to realize that who you were is still a valid part of you. That person makes silly comments, and does things just to provoke a reaction. But, he’s also lovable and kindhearted. You can’t lose those things just because you’re emperor.”

He got that look in his face, the thoughtful one, the one that meant he was going to argue. Then, however, he hesitated.

“Coming to this place,” he said, looking at the beautiful windows and watching the nobility, “it’s reminded me of what I spent most of my life doing. Before I had to be a king. Even then, I was trying to do things my way – I went off and read during balls. But, I didn’t do it away in the library, I did it in the ballroom. I didn’t want to hide, I wanted to express discontent with my father, and reading was my way.”

“You were a good man, Elend,” Vin said. “Not an idiot, as you now seem to think that you were. You were a little undirected, but still a good leader. You took control of Luthadel and stopped the skaa from committing a slaughter in their rebellion.”

“But then, the whole Penrod fiasco…”

“You had things to learn,” Vin said. “Like I did. But, please don’t become someone else, Elend. You can be both Elend the emperor and Elend the man.”

He smiled deeply, then pulled her close, pausing their dance. “Thank you,” he said, then kissed her. She could tell that he hadn’t made his decision yet – he still thought that he needed to be more of a hard warrior than a kind scholar. However, he was thinking. That was enough, at the moment.

Vin looked up into his eyes, and they returned to the dance. Neither spoke; they simply let the wonder of the moment hold them. It was a surreal experience for Vin. Their army was outside, the ash was falling perpetually, and the mists were killing people. Yet, inside this room of white marble and sparkling colors, she danced with the man she loved for the first time.

They both spun with the grace of Allomancy, stepping as if on the wind, moving as if made of mist. The room grew hushed, the nobility like a theater audience, watching some grand performance, not two people who hadn’t danced in years. And yet, Vin knew it was wonderful, something that had rarely been seen. Most noble Mistborn couldn’t afford to appear too graceful, lest they give away their secret powers.

Vin and Elend had no such inhibitions. They danced as if to make up for the four years lost, as if to throw their joy in the face of an apocalyptic world and a hostile city. The song began to wind down. Elend pulled her against him, and her tin let her feel his heartbeat so close. It was beating far more swiftly than a simple dance could account for.

“I’m glad we did this,” he said.

“There’s another ball soon,” she said. “In a few weeks.”

“I know,” he said. “As I understand it, that ball is going to be held at the Canton of Resource.”

Vin nodded. “Thrown by Yomen himself.”

“And, if the supply cache is hidden anywhere in the city, it will most likely be beneath that building.”

“We’d have an excuse – and a precedent – to get in.”

“Yomen has some atium,” Elend said. “He’s wearing a bead of it on his forehead. Though, just because he has one bead doesn’t mean he has a wealth of it.”

Vin nodded. “I wonder if he’s found the storage cavern.”

“He has,” Elend said, “I’m sure of it. I got a reaction out of him when I mentioned it.”

“That still shouldn’t stop us,” Vin said, smiling. “We go to his ball, sneak into the cavern, find out what the Lord Ruler left there, then decide what to do about the siege – and the city – based on that?”

“Seems like a good plan,” Elend said. “Assuming I can’t get him to listen to reason. I was close, Vin. I can’t help but think that there might be a chance to bring him to our side.”

She nodded.

“All right, then,” he said. “Ready to make a grand exit?”

Vin smiled, then nodded. As the music ended, Elend spun and threw her to the side, and she Pushed off of the metal dance floor rim. She shot out over the crowd, guiding herself toward the exit, dress flapping.

Behind, Elend addressed the crowd. “Thank you so much for letting us join you. Anyone who wants to escape the city will be allowed passage through my army.”

Vin landed and saw the crowd turn as Elend jumped over their heads, fortunately managing to guide himself through the relatively low room without crashing into any windows or hitting the ceiling. He joined her at the doors, and they escaped through the antechamber and into the night.

33

HUMANS MIGHT HAVE SCORNED TENSOON, perhaps throwing things at him or yelling curses as he passed. Kandra were too orderly for that kind of display, but TenSoon could feel their disdain. They watched as he was taken from his cage, then led back to the Trustwarren for judgment. Hundreds of eyes regarded him, set in bodies with bones of steel, glass, rock, and wood. The younger kandra were more extreme in form, the older were more orthodox.

All were accusatory.

Before, at the trial, the crowd had been curious – perhaps horrified. That had changed; TenSoon’s time spent in the display cage had worked as intended. The Second Generation had been able to promote his infamy, and kandra who had once, perhaps, been sympathetic to him now watched with disgust. In a thousand years of history, the kandra had never had a criminal such as TenSoon.

He bore the stares and the scorn with a raised head, padding through the corridor in a dog’s body. It was strange to him, how natural the bones felt. He’d only spent a year’s time wearing them, but putting them on again – discarding the scrawny, naked human body – felt more like returning home than coming back to the Homeland had a year before.

And so, what was supposed to be a humiliation for him became, instead, something of a triumph. It had been a wild hope, but he’d manipulated the Second Generation into giving him back the dog’s body. The sack had even contained the body’s hair and nails – likely, they had simply collected the entire mess after forcing TenSoon to abandon it and enter his prison a year ago.

The comfortable bones gave him strength. This was the body that Vin had given him. She was the Hero of Ages. He had to believe that.

Otherwise he was about to make a very big mistake.

His guards led him into the Trustwarren. This time, there were too many observers to fit into the room, so the Seconds declared that those younger than the Seventh Generation had to wait outside. Even so, kandra filled the rows of stone seats. They sat silently as TenSoon was led to the slightly raised metallic disk set into the center of the stone floor. The broad doors were left open, and younger kandra crowded outside, listening.

TenSoon looked up as he stepped onto his platform. The lump-like shadows of the First Generation waited above, each one in his separate alcove, backlit faintly in blue.

KanPaar approached his lectern. TenSoon could see the satisfaction in the way KanPaar slid across the floor. The Second felt that his triumph was complete – what happened to those who ignored the directives of the Second Generation would not soon be forgotten. TenSoon settled back on his haunches, guarded by two kandra with the Blessing of Potency twinkling in each shoulder. They carried large mallets.

“TenSoon of the Third Generation,” KanPaar said loudly. “Are you ready to bear the sentence of your judgment?”

“There will be no judgment,” TenSoon said. His words slurred, coming from the dog’s mouth, but they were clear enough to understand.

“No judgment?” KanPaar asked, amused. “You now seek to back out of what you yourself demanded?”

“I came to give information, not to be judged.”

“I–”

“I’m not speaking to you, KanPaar,” TenSoon said, turning from the Second to look up. “I’m talking to them.”

“They heard your words, Third,” KanPaar snapped. “Control yourself! I will not let you turn this judgment into a circus, as you did before.”

TenSoon smiled. Only a kandra would consider a mild argument to be a ‘circus.’ TenSoon didn’t turn away from the First Generation’s alcoves, however.

“Now,” KanPaar said. “We–”

“You!” TenSoon bellowed, causing KanPaar to sputter again. “First Generation! How long will you sit in your comfortable home, pretending that the world above doesn’t exist? You think that if you ignore the problems, they won’t affect you? Or, is it that you’ve stopped believing in your own teachings?

“The days of mist have come! The endless ash now falls! The earth shakes and trembles. You can condemn me, but you must not ignore me! The world will soon die! If you want people – in all of their forms – to survive, you must act! You must be ready! For you may soon need to command our people to accept the Resolution!”

The room fell silent. Several of the shadows above shuffled, as if discomfited – though kandra generally didn’t react in such a way. It was too disorderly.

Then a voice – soft, scratchy, and very tired – spoke from above. “Proceed, KanPaar.”

The comment was so unexpected that several members of the audience actually gasped. The First Generation never spoke in the presence of lessers. TenSoon wasn’t awed – he’d seen them, and talked with them, before they’d grown too superior to deal with anyone but the Seconds. No, he wasn’t awed. He was just disappointed.

“My faith in you was misplaced,” he said, mostly to himself. “I should not have returned.”

“TenSoon of the Third Generation!” KanPaar said, standing up straight, crystalline True Body sparkling as he pointed. “You have been sentenced to the ritual imprisonment of ChanGaar! You will be beaten to the point of fracture, then bricked into a pit, with only one hole for your daily slop. You will remain there for ten generations! Only after that will you be executed by starvation! Know that your greatest sin was that of rebellion. If you had not strayed from the advice and wisdom of this council, you would never have thought it right to break the First Contract. Because of you, the Trust has been endangered, as has every kandra of every generation!”

KanPaar let the pronouncement ring in the chamber. TenSoon sat quietly on his haunches. KanPaar had obviously expected some kind of response from him, but TenSoon gave none. Finally, KanPaar gestured to the guards beside TenSoon, who hefted their fearsome hammers.

“You know, KanPaar,” TenSoon said, “I learned a few important things while wearing these bones a year ago.”

KanPaar gestured again. The guards raised their weapons.

“It’s something I had never paused to consider,” TenSoon said. “Humans, if you think about it, just aren’t built for speed. Dogs, however, are.”

The hammers fell.

TenSoon leaped forward.

The powerful dog’s haunches launched him into motion. TenSoon was a member of the Third Generation. Nobody had been eating and emulating bodies as long as he had, and he knew how to pack muscles into a body. In addition, he had spent a year wearing the bones of a wolfhound, being forced to try to keep up with his Mistborn master. He had undergone what had effectively been a year of training by one of the most talented Allomancers the world had ever known.

On top of that, a body mass that had translated from a scrawny human made quite a substantial wolfhound. This, combined with his skill in crafting bodies, meant that when TenSoon jumped, he jumped. His guards cried out in shock as TenSoon sprang away, his leap taking him at least ten feet across the room. He hit the ground running, but didn’t head for the door. They’d be expecting that.

Instead he sprang directly toward KanPaar. The foremost of Seconds cried out, throwing up ineffectual hands as a hundred pounds of wolfhound crashed into him, throwing him to the stone floor. TenSoon heard sharp cracks as KanPaar’s delicate bones shattered, and KanPaar screamed in a very un-kandra-like way.

That seems appropriate, TenSoon thought, shoving his way through the ranks of the Seconds, shattering bones. Honestly, what kind of vain fool wears a True Body made of crystal?

Many of the kandra didn’t know how to react. Others – especially the younger ones – had spent a lot of time around humans on Contracts, and they were more accustomed to chaos. These scattered, leaving their elder companions sitting on the benches in shock. TenSoon darted between bodies, heading toward the doors. The guards beside the podium – the ones who would have shattered his bones – rushed to KanPaar’s side, their filial sense of duty overriding their desire to prevent his escape. Besides, they must have seen the crowd clogging the doorway, and assumed that TenSoon would be slowed.

As soon as he reached the crowd, TenSoon jumped again. Vin had required him to be able to leap incredible heights, and he’d practiced with many different muscle structures. This jump wouldn’t have impressed Vin – TenSoon no longer had the Blessing of Potency he’d stolen from OreSeur – but it was more than enough to let him clear the watching kandra. Some cried out, and he landed in a pocket of open space, then leaped again toward the open cavern beyond.

“No!” he heard echoing from the Trustwarren. “Go after him!”

TenSoon took off in a loping dash down one of the corridors. He ran quickly – far more quickly than anything bipedal could have managed. With his canine body, he hoped he’d be able to outrun even kandra bearing the Blessing of Potency.

Farewell, my home, TenSoon thought, leaving the main cavern behind. And farewell to what little honor I had left.