Vin smiled slightly, but she still seemed troubled. “And …” she said very slowly, “if there is someone else? For me?”
Ah. …
She tensed immediately. “You mustn’t tell Elend I said that.”
“I won’t,” Sazed promised. “Who is this other man?”
Vin shrugged. “Just … someone more like myself. The kind of man I should be with.”
“Do you love him?”
“He’s strong,” Vin said. “He makes me think of Kelsier.”
So there is another Mistborn, Sazed thought. In this matter, he knew he should remain unbiased. He didn’t know enough about this second man to make a judgment—and Keepers were supposed to give information, but avoid specific advice.
Sazed, however, had never been very good at following that rule. He didn’t know this other Mistborn, true, but he did know Elend Venture. “Child,” he said, “Elend is the best of men, and you have been so much happier since you’ve been with him.”
“But, he’s really the first man I loved,” Vin said quietly. “How do I know it’s right? Shouldn’t I pay more attention to the man who is a better match for me?”
“I don’t know, Lady Vin. I honestly don’t know. I warned you of my ignorance in this area. But, can you really hope to find a better person than Lord Elend?”
She sighed. “It’s all so frustrating. I should be worrying about the city and the Deepness, not which man to spend my evenings with!”
“It is hard to defend others when our own lives are in turmoil,” Sazed said.
“I just have to decide,” Vin said, standing, walking over toward the window. “Thank you, Sazed. Thank you for listening … thank you for coming back to the city.”
Sazed nodded, smiling. Vin shot backward out the open window, shoving herself against some bit of metal. Sazed sighed, rubbing his eyes as he walked over to the room’s door and pulled it open.
Tindwyl stood outside, arms crossed. “I think I would feel more comfortable in this city,” she said, “if I didn’t know that our Mistborn had the volatile emotions of a teenage girl.”
“Lady Vin is more stable than you think,” Sazed said.
“Sazed, I’ve raised some fifteen daughters,” Tindwyl said, entering the room. “No teenage girl is stable. Some are just better at hiding it than others.”
“Then, be glad she didn’t hear you eavesdropping,” Sazed said. “She is usually rather paranoid about such things.”
“Vin has a weak spot regarding Terris people,” Tindwyl said with a wave of her hand. “We can likely thank you for that. She seems to give great value to your advice.”
“Such as it is.”
“I thought what you said was very wise, Sazed,” Tindwyl said, sitting. “You would have made an excellent father.”
Sazed bowed his head in embarrassment, then moved over to sit down. “We should—”
A knock came at the door.
“Now what?” Tindwyl asked.
“Did you not order us lunch?”
Tindwyl shook her head. “I never even left the hallway.”
A second later, Elend poked his head into the room. “Sazed? Could I talk to you for a bit?”
“Of course, Lord Elend,” Sazed said, rising.
“Great,” Elend said, striding into the room. “Tindwyl, you are excused.”
She rolled her eyes, shooting an exasperated glance at Sazed, but stood and walked from the room.
“Thank you,” Elend said as she shut the door. “Please, sit,” he said, waving to Sazed.
Sazed did so, and Elend took a deep breath, standing with hands clasped behind his back. He had gone back to his white uniforms, and stood with a commanding posture despite his obvious frustration.
Someone stole my friend the scholar away, Sazed thought, and left a king in his place. “I assume this is about Lady Vin, Lord Elend?”
“Yes,” Elend said, beginning to pace, gesturing with one hand as he spoke. “She doesn’t make any sense, Sazed. I expect that—hell, I count on it. She’s not just female, she’s Vin. But, I’m left unsure how to react. One minute she seems warm to me—like we were before this mess hit the city—and the next minute she’s distant and stiff.”
“Perhaps she’s just confused herself.”
“Perhaps,” Elend agreed. “But shouldn’t at least one of us know what is going on in our relationship? Honestly, Saze, sometimes I just think we’re too different to be together.”
Sazed smiled. “Oh, I don’t know about that, Lord Elend. You may be surprised at how similarly the two of you think.”
“I doubt that,” Elend said, continuing to pace. “She’s Mistborn; I’m just a regular man. She grew up on the streets; I grew up in a mansion. She is wily and clever; I’m book-learned.”
“She is extremely competent, and so are you,” Sazed said. “She was oppressed by her brother, you by your father. Both of you hated the Final Empire, and fought it. And both of you think far too much about what should be, rather than what is.”
Elend paused, looking at Sazed. “What does that mean?”
“It means that I think you two are right for each other,” Sazed said. “I am not supposed to make such judgments, and truly, this is just the opinion of a man who hasn’t seen much of you two in the last few months. But, I believe it to be true.”
“And our differences?” Elend asked.
“At first glance, the key and the lock it fits may seem very different,” Sazed said. “Different in shape, different in function, different in design. The man who looks at them without knowledge of their true nature might think them opposites, for one is meant to open, and the other to keep closed. Yet, upon closer examination, he might see that without one, the other becomes useless. The wise man then sees that both lock and key were created for the same purpose.”
Elend smiled. “You need to write a book sometime, Sazed. That’s as profound as anything I’ve read.”
Sazed flushed, but glanced at the stack of papers on the desktop. Would they be his legacy? He wasn’t certain if they were profound, but they did represent the most cohesive attempt that he’d ever made at writing something original. True, most of the sheets contained quotes or references, but a great deal of the text also included his thoughts and annotations.
“So,” Elend said, “what should I do?”
“About Lady Vin?” Sazed asked. “I would suggest simply giving her—and yourself—a little more time.”
“Time is at a premium these days, Saze.”
“When is it not?”
“When your city isn’t besieged by two armies,” Elend said, “one of them led by a megalomaniac tyrant, the other by a reckless fool.”
“Yes,” Sazed said slowly. “Yes, I think you may be right. I should return to my studies.”
Elend frowned. “What are you working on, anyway?”
“Something that has little relevance to your current problem, I fear,” Sazed said. “Tindwyl and I are collecting and compiling references about the Deepness and the Hero of Ages.”