There was more. She still remembered vividly the morning when she’d fought the Lord Ruler. There was something about that event that she hadn’t told anyone—partially because it made her fear, just a bit, that the rumors and legends about her were true. Somehow, she’d drawn upon the mists, using them to fuel her Allomancy instead of metals.
It was only with that power, the power of the mists, that she had been able to beat the Lord Ruler in the end. She liked to tell herself that she had simply been lucky in figuring out the Lord Ruler’s tricks. But … there had been something strange that night, something that she’d done. Something that she shouldn’t have been able to do, and had never been able to repeat.
Vin shook her head. There was so much they didn’t know, and not just about Allomancy. She and the other leaders of Elend’s fledgling kingdom tried their best, but without Kelsier to guide them, Vin felt blind. Plans, successes, and even goals were like shadowy figures in the mist, formless and indistinct.
You shouldn’t have left us, Kell, she thought. You saved the world—but you should have been able to do it without dying. Kelsier, the Survivor of Hathsin, the man who had conceived and implemented the collapse of the Final Empire. Vin had known him, worked with him, been trained by him. He was a legend and a hero. Yet, he had also been a man. Fallible. Imperfect. It was easy for the skaa to revere him, then blame Elend and the others for the dire situation that Kelsier had created.
The thought left her feeling bitter. Thinking about Kelsier often did that. Perhaps it was the sense of abandonment, or perhaps it was just the uncomfortable knowledge that Kelsier—like Vin herself—didn’t fully live up to his reputation.
Vin sighed, closing her eyes, still burning bronze. The evening’s fight had taken a lot out of her, and she was beginning to dread the hours she still intended to spend watching. It would be difficult to remain alert when—
She sensed something.
Vin snapped her eyes open, flaring her tin. She spun and stooped against the rooftop to obscure her profile. There was someone out there, burning metal. Bronze pulses thumped weakly, faint, almost unnoticeable—like someone playing drums very quietly. They were muffled by a coppercloud. The person—whoever it was—thought that their copper would hide them.
So far, Vin hadn’t left anyone alive, save Elend and Marsh, who knew of her strange power.
Vin crept forward, fingers and toes chilled by the roof’s copper sheeting. She tried to determine the direction of the pulses. Something was … odd about them. She had trouble distinguishing the metals her enemy was burning. Was that the quick, beating thump of pewter? Or was it the rhythm of iron? The pulses seemed indistinct, like ripples in a thick mud.
They were coming from somewhere very close. … On the rooftop …
Just in front of her.
Vin froze, crouching, the night breezes blowing a wall of mist across her. Where was he? Her senses argued with each other; her bronze said there was something right in front of her, but her eyes refused to agree.
She studied the dark mists, glanced upward just to be certain, then stood. This is the first time my bronze has been wrong, she thought with a frown.
Then she saw it.
Not something in the mists, but something of the mists. The figure stood a few feet away, easy to miss, for its shape was only faintly outlined by the mist. Vin gasped, stepping backward.
The figure continued to stand where it was. She couldn’t tell much about it; its features were cloudy and vague, outlined by the chaotic churnings of windblown mist. If not for the form’s persistence, she could have dismissed it—like the shape of an animal seen briefly in the clouds.
But it stayed. Each new curl of the mist added definition to thin its body and long head. Haphazard, yet persistent. It suggested a human, but it lacked the Watcher’s solidity. It felt … looked … wrong.
The figure took a step forward.
Vin reacted instantly, throwing up a handful of coins and Pushing them through the air. The bits of metal zipped through the mist, trailing streaks, and passed right through the shadowy figure.
It stood for a moment. Then, it simply puffed away, dissipating into the mists’ random curls.
Elend wrote the final line with a flair, though he knew he’d simply have a scribe rewrite the proposal. Still, he was proud. He thought that he’d been able to work out an argument that would finally convince the Assembly that they could not simply surrender to Straff.
He glanced unconsciously toward a stack of papers on his desk. On their top sat an innocent-seeming yellow letter, still folded, bloodlike smudge of wax broken at the seal. The letter had been short. Elend remembered its words easily.
Son,
I trust you’ve enjoyed seeing after Venture interests in Luthadel. I have secured the Northern Dominance, and will shortly be returning to our keep in Luthadel. You may turn over control of the city to me at that time.
King Straff Venture
Of all the warlords and despots that had afflicted the Final Empire since the Lord Ruler’s death, Straff was the most dangerous. Elend knew this firsthand. His father was a true imperial nobleman: He saw life as a competition between lords to see who could earn the greatest reputation. He had played the game well, making House Venture the most powerful of the pre-Collapse noble families.
Elend’s father would not see the Lord Ruler’s death as a tragedy or a victory—just as an opportunity. The fact that Straff’s supposedly weak-willed fool of a son now claimed to be king of the Central Dominance probably gave him no end of mirth.
Elend shook his head, turning back to the proposal. A few more rereads, a few tweaks, and I’ll finally be able to get some sleep. I just—
A cloaked form dropped from the skylight in the roof and landed with a quiet thump behind him.
Elend raised an eyebrow, turning toward the crouching figure. “You know, I leave the balcony open for a reason, Vin. You could come in that way, if you wanted.”
“I know,” Vin said. Then she darted across the room, moving with an Allomancer’s unnatural litheness. She checked beneath his bed, then moved over to his closet and threw open the doors. She jumped back with the tension of an alert animal, but apparently found nothing inside that met with her disapproval, for she moved over to peek through the door leading into the rest of Elend’s chambers.
Elend watched her with fondness. It had taken him some time to get used to Vin’s particular … idiosyncrasies. He teased her about being paranoid; she just claimed she was careful. Regardless, half the time she visited his chambers she checked underneath his bed and in his closet. The other times, she held herself back—but Elend often caught her glancing distrustfully toward potential hiding places.
She was far less jumpy when she didn’t have a particular reason to worry about him. However, Elend was only just beginning to understand that there was a very complex person hiding behind the face he had once known as Valette Renoux’s. He had fallen in love with her courtly side without ever knowing the nervous, furtive Mistborn side. It was still a little difficult to see them as the same person.
Vin closed the door, then paused briefly, watching him with her round, dark eyes. Elend found himself smiling. Despite her oddities—or, more likely because of them—he loved this thin woman with the determined eyes and blunt temperament. She was like no one he had ever known—a woman of simple, yet honest, beauty and wit.