“Want something to drink?” Jastes said, turning toward the room’s desk. Elend eyed the bottles and flasks lying in the corner of the room. They were all empty. Jastes removed a full bottle from the desk and poured Elend a small cup, the size and clear color an indication that this was no simple dinner wine.
Elend accepted the small cup, but did not drink. “What happened, Jastes? How did the clever, thoughtful philosopher I knew turn into a tyrant?”
“Tyrant?” Jastes snapped, downing his cup in a single shot. “I’m no tyrant. Your father’s the tyrant. I’m just a realist.”
“Sitting at the center of a koloss army doesn’t seem to be a very realistic position to me.”
“I can control them.”
“And Suisna?” Elend asked. “The village they slaughtered?”
Jastes wavered. “That was an unfortunate accident.”
Elend looked down at the drink in his hand, then threw it aside, the liquor splashing on the dusty tent floor. “This isn’t my father’s den, and we are not friends any longer. I will call no man friend who leads something like this against my city. What happened to your honor, Jastes Lekal?”
Jastes snorted, glancing at the spilled liquor. “That’s always been the problem with you, Elend. So certain, so optimistic, so self-righteous.”
“It was our optimism,” Elend said, stepping forward. “We wanted to change things, Jastes, not destroy them!”
“Is that so?” Jastes countered, showing a temper Elend had never seen in his friend. “You want to know why I’m here, Elend? Did you even pay attention to what was happening in the Southern Dominance while you played in Luthadel?”
“I’m sorry about what happened to your family, Jastes.”
“Sorry?” Jastes said, snatching the bottle off his desk. “You’re sorry? I implemented your plans, Elend. I did everything we talked about—freedom, political honesty. I trusted my allies rather than crushing them into submission. And you know what happened?”
Elend closed his eyes.
“They killed everyone, Elend,” Jastes said. “That’s what you do when you take over. You kill your rivals and their families—even the young girls, even the babies. And you leave their bodies, as a warning. That’s good politics. That’s how you stay in power!”
“It’s easy to believe in something when you win all the time, Jastes,” Elend said, opening his eyes. “The losses are what define a man’s faith.”
“Losses?” Jastes demanded. “My sister was a loss?”
“No, I mean—”
“Enough!” Jastes snapped, slamming the bottle down on his desk. “Guards!”
Two men threw back the tent flap and moved into the room.
“Take His Majesty captive,” Jastes said, with an unsteady wave of his hand. “Send a messenger to the city, tell them that we want to negotiate.”
“I’m not king anymore, Jastes,” Elend said.
Jastes stopped.
“Do you think I’d come here and let myself get captured if I were king?” Elend asked. “They deposed me. The Assembly invoked a no-confidence clause and chose a new king.”
“You bloody idiot,” Jastes said.
“Losses, Jastes,” Elend said. “It hasn’t been as hard for me as it was for you, but I do think I understand.”
“So,” Jastes said, running a hand through his “hair,” “that fancy suit and haircut didn’t save you, eh?”
“Take your koloss and go, Jastes.”
“That sounded like a threat, Elend,” Jastes said. “You aren’t king, you don’t have an army, and I don’t see your Mistborn around. What grounds do you have for threats?”
“They’re koloss,” Elend said. “Do you really want them getting into the city? It’s your home, Jastes—or, it was once. There are thousands of people inside!”
“I can … control my army,” Jastes said.
“No, I doubt you can,” Elend said. “What happened, Jastes? Did they decide they needed a king? They decided that’s the way that ‘humans’ did it, so they should do it, too? What is it that they carry in those pouches?”
Jastes didn’t answer.
Elend sighed. “What happens when one of them just snaps and attacks you?”
Jastes shook his head. “I’m sorry, Elend,” he said quietly. “I can’t let Straff get that atium.”
“And my people?”
Jastes paused only briefly, then lowered his eyes and motioned to the guards. One laid a hand on Elend’s shoulder.
Elend’s reaction surprised even himself. He slammed his elbow up into the man’s face, shattering his nose, then took the other man down with a kick to the leg. Before Jastes could do more than cry out, Elend jumped forward.
Elend ripped an obsidian knife—given to him by Vin—from his boot and caught Jastes by the shoulder. Elend slammed the whimpering man around, pushing him backward onto the desk and—barely thinking to consider his actions—rammed the knife into his old friend’s shoulder.
Jastes emitted a loud, pathetic scream.
“If killing you would do anything useful, Jastes,” Elend growled, “I’d do it right now. But I don’t know how you control these things, and I don’t want to set them loose.”
Soldiers piled into the room. Elend didn’t look up. He slapped Jastes, stopping his cries of pain.
“You listen,” Elend said. “I don’t care if you’ve been hurt, I don’t care if you don’t believe in the philosophies anymore, and I don’t really care if you get yourself killed playing politics with Straff and Cett.
“But I do care if you threaten my people. I want you to march your army out of my dominance—go attack Straff’s homeland, or maybe Cett’s. They’re both undefended. I promise I won’t let your enemies get the atium.
“And, as a friend, I’ll give you a bit of counsel. Think about that wound in your arm for a little while, Jastes. I was your best friend, and I nearly killed you. What the hell are you doing sitting in the middle of an entire army of deranged koloss?”
Soldiers surrounded him. Elend stood, ripping the knife from Jastes’s body and spinning the man around, pressing the weapon against his throat.
The guards froze.
“I’m leaving,” Elend said, pushing the confused Jastes ahead of him, moving out of the tent. He noticed with some concern that there were barely a dozen human guards. Sazed had counted more. Where had Jastes lost them?
There was no sign of Elend’s horse. So he kept a wary eye on the soldiers, pulling Jastes toward the invisible line between the human camp and the koloss one. Elend turned as he reached the perimeter, then pushed Jastes back toward his men. They caught him, one pulling out a bandage for the arm. Others made moves as if to chase Elend, but they paused, hesitant.
Elend had crossed the line into the koloss camp. He stood quietly, watching the pathetic group of young soldiers, Jastes at their center. Even as they ministered to him, Elend could see the look in Jastes’s eyes. Hatred. He wouldn’t retreat. The man Elend had known was dead, replaced by this product of a new world that didn’t kindly regard philosophers and idealists.