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“Too proud to crawl?” Kelsier said. “Nonsense! Why, I’d say that we Mistborn are too proud not to be humble enough to go crawling about—in a dignified manner, of course.” Dockson frowned, approaching the desk. “Kell, that didn’t make any sense.” “We Mistborn need not make sense,” Kelsier said haughtily.
Our belief is often strongest when it should be weakest. That is the nature of hope.”
“Elend,” she said quietly, “please don’t turn away from me.” He paused, then looked back at her. “I know the truth, Valette. I know how you’ve lied about who you are. I don’t care, really—I’m not angry, or even disappointed. The truth is, I expected it. You’re just…playing the game. Like we all are.” He paused, then shook his head and turned away from her. “Like I am.”
“Besides, child,” Kliss added, turning to walk away. “Didn’t the boy just spurn you? What do you owe him?” Vin paused. She’s right. What do I owe him? The answer came immediately. I love him.
Only Mare knew enough—dates, times, objectives—to have betrayed us. Besides, there’s the Lord Ruler’s comment. You didn’t see him, Vin. Smiling as he thanked Mare. There was…honesty in his eyes. They say the Lord Ruler doesn’t lie. Why would he need to?”
“Elend, how can you read at times like this?” Jastes asked. Elend looked up from his book. “It calms me.”
He paused—imagining his meeting Valette as a pleasant accident, an event that had thrown a terrible twist into both of their lives.
“Marsh knew everything, Dox,” Kelsier said. “They broke him before they killed him—that’s how Inquisitors work.” He let the words hang. Vin felt a chill. The lair was compromised.
“And so I return,” Kelsier whispered. His scars burned, and memories returned.
“Actually,” Breeze noted, “we took it for granted that you were doing something stupid. We’ve just been wondering how stupid this particular event would turn out to be. So, what is it? Did you assassinate the lord prelan? Slaughter dozens of noblemen? Steal the cloak off the Lord Ruler’s own back?” “I destroyed the Pits of Hathsin,” Kelsier said quietly. The room fell into a stunned silence. “You know,” Breeze finally said, “you’d think that by now we’d have learned not to underestimate him.”
“Lord Ruler!” Dockson said, though Vin couldn’t tell if it was a curse or an observation.
There was almost nothing remaining of the left side of his face. The right side, however…it still smiled faintly, single dead eye staring up into the red-black sky. Bits of ash fell lightly on his face.
She hung, her tin extinguished to let her better see the mists. They were slightly wet, cool upon her skin. Like the tears of a dead man.
Belief isn’t simply a thing for fair times and bright days, I think. What is belief—what is faith—if you don’t continue in it after failure?”
“He doesn’t deserve our belief. He never did.” “The skaa think differently—their legends about him are growing quickly. I shall have to return here soon and collect them.” Vin frowned. “You would gather stories about Kelsier?” “Of course,” Sazed said. “I collect all religions.” Vin snorted. “This is no religion we’re talking about, Sazed. This is Kelsier.” “I disagree. He is certainly a religious figure to the skaa.” “But, we knew him,” Vin said. “He was no prophet or god. He was just a man.” “So many of them are, I think,” Sazed said quietly.
“What are you?” Vin asked with horror. Renoux-Kelsier looked at her, and then his face shimmered, becoming transparent. She could see his bones through the gelatinous skin. It reminded her of… “A mistwraith.” “A kandra,” the creature said, its skin losing its transparency. “A mistwraith that has…grown up, you might say.”
The Lord Ruler held her face close to his own, looking into her eyes. In that moment, she knew the truth. She could see a piece of him; she could sense his power. His…godlike power. He wasn’t worried about the skaa rebellion. Why would he have to worry? If he wished, he could slaughter every person in the city by himself. Vin knew it to be the truth. It might take him time, but he could kill forever, tirelessly. He need fear no rebellion.
She caught the quarterstaff as it fell, spinning, slamming it into the head of the soldier attacking Elend. The staff exploded, and she let it drop with the corpse.
She smiled up at him. “You found me.” “For all the good it did,” he said wryly. “It doesn’t look like you needed our help very much….” “That doesn’t matter,” she said. “You came back. No one’s ever come back before.”
Dozens more coins zipped through the window, scattering it with holes. Metallic clinks and tinkling glass rang in the air. Kar stepped back in surprise. The entire southern section of the window shattered, blasting inward, the glass weakened by coins to the point that a soaring body could break through. Shards of colorful glass spun in the air, spraying before a small figure clad in a fluttering Mistcloak and carrying a pair of glittering black daggers. The girl landed in a crouch, skidding a short distance on the bits of glass, mist billowing through the opening behind her. It curled forward,
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“God cannot be killed,” he said. “God cannot be overthrown. Your rebellion—you think I haven’t seen its like before? You think I haven’t destroyed entire armies on my own? What will it take before you people stop questioning? How many centuries must I prove myself before you idiot skaa see the truth? How many of you must I kill!”
Marsh shook his head. “His own people. He did such horrible things to them just to keep hold of his power.”
“I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have killed him.” Sazed shook his head. “His own aging would have killed him soon anyway, Mistress. What you did was right. This way, I can record that the Lord Ruler was struck down by one of the skaa he had oppressed.”
He didn’t notice her crouching above. Who would? Who saw a Mistborn in her element? She was, in a way, like one of the shadow images created by the Eleventh Metal. Incorporeal. Really just something that could have been. Could have been…
Before she could convince herself otherwise, she dashed limpingly back to the broken skylight and dropped a coin to the floor below. Elend turned curiously, looking at the coin, cocking his head. Vin dropped down a second later, Pushing herself up to slow the fall, landing only on her good leg. “Elend Venture,” she said, standing up. “There is something I’ve been meaning to tell you for some time.” She paused, blinking away her tears. “You read too much. Especially in the presence of ladies.” He smiled, throwing back his chair and grabbing her in a firm embrace. Vin closed her eyes, simply
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Eight Mistings. Kelsier could have done it; he’d killed an Inquisitor. She wasn’t Kelsier, however. She had yet to decide if that was a bad or a good thing.
Vin was in grave danger. She only had a moment to make her decision. She did so on a hunch, but she’d grown up on the streets, a thief and a scam artist. Hunches felt more natural to her than logic ever would.
Ham turned back, still smiling. “You make it sound so desperate, El.” Elend looked over at him. “The Assembly is a mess, a half-dozen warlords with superior armies are breathing down my neck, barely a month passes without someone sending assassins to kill me, and the woman I love is slowly driving me insane.” Vin snorted at this last part. “Oh, is that all?” Ham said. “See? It’s not so bad after all. I mean, we could be facing an immortal god and his all-powerful priests instead.”
“I could love him as a teacher and a friend. But I don’t think I could ever love—not really love—a man like that. I don’t blame him; he was of the streets, like me. When you struggle so hard for life, you grow strong—but you can grow harsh, too.
She closed her eyes, feeling Elend’s warmth. “You, Elend Venture, are a good man. A truly good man.” “Good men don’t become legends,” he said quietly. “Good men don’t need to become legends.” She opened her eyes, looking up at him. “They just do what’s right anyway.”
Kelsier had, apparently, insisted on laughing, no matter how bad the situation. It had been a form of rebellion to him.
Other than the noblemen and the mill workers, there was a large number of the “new” class. Skaa merchants and craftsmasters, now allowed to set their own prices for their services. They were the true winners in Elend’s economy. Beneath the Lord Ruler’s oppressive hand, only the few most extraordinarily skilled skaa had been able to rise to positions of even moderate comfort. Without those restrictions, these same people had quickly proven to have abilities and acumen far above their noble counterparts’. They represented a faction in the Assembly at least as powerful as that of the nobility.
Even after spending so much time with Mistborn, Sazed was impressed with Allomancy’s gifts. Of course, he’d never been jealous of them—not really. True, Allomancy was better in a fight; but it could not expand the mind, giving one access to the dreams, hopes, and beliefs of a thousand years of culture. It could not give the knowledge to treat a wound, or help teach a poor village to use modern fertilization techniques. The metalminds of Feruchemy weren’t flamboyant, but they had a far more lasting value to society.
he knew that he would eventually find himself walking toward that darkness. It was the same as ever—the curiosity, the need to understand the unknown. This sense had driven him as a Keeper, had led him to Kelsier’s company. His search for truths could never be completed, but neither could it be ignored.
Breeze shrugged. “Manipulation works so well on a personal level, I don’t see why it wouldn’t be an equally viable national policy.” “That’s actually how most rulership works,” Ham mused.
“You have good ideas, Elend Venture,” Tindwyl said. “Regal ideas. However, you are not a king. A man can only lead when others accept him as their leader, and he has only as much authority as his subjects give to him. All of the brilliant ideas in the world cannot save your kingdom if no one will listen to them.”
The thief in her, the paranoid girl that Elend always teased, itched to use Allomancy on him—to test him, to see if he reacted to her Pushes and Pulls. She stopped herself. This one man she would trust. The others she would test, but she would not question Elend. In a way, she’d rather trust him and be wrong than deal with the worry of mistrust.
Suddenly urgent, Sazed pulled out a small ring—a scent tinmind—and slipped it on his thumb. The smell on the wind, it didn’t seem like that of a slaughter. It was a mustier, dirtier smell. A smell not only of death, but of corruption, unwashed bodies, and waste. He reversed the use of the tinmind, filling it instead of tapping it, and his ability to smell grew very weak—keeping him from gagging.
The difference was surprising. All his life, he’d seen himself as a scholar and socialite, but also as just a bit of a fool. He was Elend—the friendly, comfortable man with the funny ideas. Easy to dismiss, perhaps, but difficult to hate.
Elend stopped by the door, turning back. “Then, what does? What do you think makes a man a good king, Tindwyl of Terris?” “Trust,” Tindwyl said, looking him in the eyes. “A good king is one who is trusted by his people—and one who deserves that trust.” Elend paused, then nodded. Good answer, he acknowledged,
Eventually, lying amid the mess—overlapping piles turned in odd directions to keep them separate—Vin acknowledged a distasteful fact. She was going to have to take notes.
She didn’t know him, and she certainly didn’t trust him. That only made the prospect of a fight all the more exciting.
She’d never seen an Allomancer with as much control as Zane. His ability to push slightly against that coin would be of little use in a fight; it obviously took too much concentration. Yet, there was a grace to it, a beauty to his movements that implied something Vin herself had felt. Allomancy wasn’t just about fighting and killing. It was about skill and grace. It was something beautiful.
He found insanity no excuse, however, for irrational behavior. Some men were blind, others had poor tempers. Still others heard voices. It was all the same, in the end. A man was defined not by his flaws, but by how he overcame them.
“You just told me everything that happens in the kingdom is my fault!” “It is.” “How can I not feel guilty, then?” “You have to feel confident that your actions are the best,” Tindwyl explained. “You have to know that no matter how bad things get, they would be worse without you. When disaster occurs, you take responsibility, but you don’t wallow or mope. You aren’t allowed that luxury; guilt is for lesser men. You simply need to do what is expected.” “And that is?” “To make everything better.”
“Arrogance, Your Majesty,” Tindwyl said. “Successful leaders all share one common trait—they believe that they can do a better job than the alternatives. Humility is fine when considering your responsibility and duty, but when it comes time to make a decision, you must not question yourself.”
“I don’t know,” Elend finally said, sitting back in his chair, sighing. “Vin isn’t…like other women.” Tindwyl raised an eyebrow, her voice softening slightly. “I think that the more women you come to know, Your Majesty, the more you’ll find that statement applies to all of them.”
Chaos and stability, the mist was both.
And above them all, within them all, around them all, was the mist. It was more constant than the sun, for it could not be hidden by clouds. It was more powerful than the storms, for it would outlast any weather’s fury. It was always there. Changing, but eternal.
“Good men can make terrible kings,” Tindwyl noted. “But bad men cannot make good kings,” Sazed said. “It is better to start with a good man and work on the rest, I think.”
