45
VIN LANDED, ABORTING HER ATTACK, but still tense, eyes narrow with suspicion. Reen was backlit by the fitful lantern-light, looking much as she remembered. The four years had changed him, of course—he was taller, broader of build—but he had the same hard face, unrelieved by humor. His posture was familiar to her; during her childhood, he had often stood as he did now, arms folded in disapproval.
It all returned to her. Things she thought she’d banished into the dark, quarantined parts of her mind: blows from Reen’s hand, harsh criticism from his tongue, furtive moves from city to city.
And yet, tempering these memories was an insight. She was no longer the young girl who had borne her beatings in confused silence. Looking back, she could see the fear Reen had shown in the things he had done. He’d been terrified that his half-breed Allomancer of a sister would be discovered and slaughtered by the Steel Inquisitors. He’d beaten her when she made herself stand out. He’d yelled at her when she was too competent. He’d moved her when he’d feared that the Canton of Inquisition had caught their trail.
Reen had died protecting her. He had taught her paranoia and distrust out of a twisted sense of duty, for he’d believed that was the only way she would survive on the streets of the Final Empire. And, she’d stayed with him, enduring the treatment. Inside—not even buried all that deeply—she’d known something very important. Reen had loved her.
She looked up and met the eyes of the man standing in the cavern. Then, she slowly shook her head. No, she thought. It looks like him, but those eyes are not his.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
“I’m your brother,” the creature said, frowning. “It’s only been a few years, Vin. You’ve grown brash—I thought I’d taught you better than that.”
He certainly has the mannerisms down, Vin thought, walking forward warily. How did he learn them? Nobody thought that Reen was of any importance during his life. They wouldn’t have known to study him.
“Where did you get his bones?” Vin asked, circling the creature. The cavern floor was rough and lined with burgeoning shelves. Darkness extended in all directions. “And how did you get the face so perfect? I thought kandra had to digest a body to make a good copy.”
He had to be a kandra, after all. How else would someone manage such a perfect imitation? The creature turned, regarding her with a confused expression. “What is this nonsense? Vin, I realize that we’re not exactly the type to reunite with a fond embrace, but I did at least expect you to recognize me.”
Vin ignored the complaints. Reen, then Breeze, had taught her too well. She’d know Reen if she saw him. “I need information,” she said. “About one of your kind. He is called TenSoon, and he returned to your Homeland a year ago. He said he was going to be put on trial. Do you know what happened to him? I would like to contact him, if possible.”
“Vin,” the false Reen said firmly, “I am not a kandra.”
We’ll see about that, Vin thought, reaching out with zinc and hitting the impostor with a duralumin-fueled blast of emotional Allomancy.
He didn’t even stumble. Such an attack would have put a kandra under Vin’s control, just as it did with koloss. Vin wavered. It was growing difficult to see the impostor in the waning lantern-light, even with tin enhancing her eyes.
The failed emotional Allomancy meant that he wasn’t a kandra. But he wasn’t Reen either. There seemed only one logical course to follow.
She attacked.
Whoever the impostor was, he knew her well enough to anticipate this move. Though he exclaimed in mock surprise, he immediately jumped back, getting out of her reach. He moved on light feet—light enough that Vin was reasonably certain he was burning pewter. In fact, she could still feel the Allomantic pulses coming from him, though for some reason it was hard for her to pin down exactly which metals he was burning.
Either way, the Allomancy was an additional confirmation of her suspicions. Reen had not been an Allomancer. True, he could have Snapped during their time apart, but she didn’t think he had any noble blood to impart him an Allomantic heritage. Vin had gotten her powers from her father, the parent she and Reen had not shared.
She attacked experimentally, testing this impostor’s skill. He stayed out of her reach, watching carefully as she alternately prowled and attacked. She tried to corner him against the shelves, but he was too careful to be caught.
“This is pointless,” the impostor said, jumping away from her again.
No coins, Vin thought. He doesn’t use coins to jump.
“You’d have to expose yourself too much to actually hit me, Vin,” the impostor said, “and I’m obviously good enough to stay out of your reach. Can’t we stop this and get on to more important matters? Aren’t you even a bit curious as to what I’ve been doing these last four years?”
Vin backed into a crouch, like a cat preparing to pounce, and smiled.
“What?” the impostor asked.
At that moment, her stalling paid off. Behind them, the overturned lantern finally flickered out, plunging the cavern into darkness. But Vin, with her ability to pierce copperclouds, could still sense her enemy. She’d dropped her coin pouch back when she’d first sensed someone in the room—she bore no metal to give him warning of her approach.
She launched herself forward, intending to grab her enemy around the neck and pull him into a pin. The Allomantic pulses didn’t let her see him, but they did tell her exactly where he was. That would be enough of an edge.
She was wrong. He dodged her just as easily as he had before.
Vin fell still. Tin, she thought. He can hear me coming.
So, she kicked over a storage shelf, then attacked again as the crash of the falling shelf echoed loudly in the chamber, spilling cans across the floor.
The impostor evaded her again. Vin froze. Something was very wrong. Somehow, he always sensed her. The cavern fell silent. Neither sound nor light bounced off its walls. Vin crouched, the fingers of one hand resting lightly on the cool stone before her. She could feel the thumping, his Allomantic power washing across her in waves. She focused on it, trying to differentiate the metals that had produced it. Yet, the pulses felt opaque. Muddled.
There’s something familiar about them, she realized. When I first sensed this impostor, I thought … I thought he was the mist spirit.
There was a reason the pulses felt familiar. Without the light to distract her, making her connect the figure with Reen, she could see what she’d been missing.
Her heart began to beat quickly, and for the first time this evening—imprisonment included—she began to feel afraid. The pulses felt just like the ones she’d felt a year ago. The pulses that had led her to the Well of Ascension.
“Why have you come here?” she whispered to the blackness.
Laughter. It rang in the empty cavern, loud, free. The thumpings approached, though no footsteps marked the thing’s movement. The pulses suddenly grew enormous and overpowering. They washed across Vin, unbounded by the cavern’s echoes, an unreal sound that passed through things both living and dead. She stepped backward in the darkness, and nearly tripped over the shelves she’d knocked down.
I should have known you wouldn’t be fooled, a kindly voice said in her head. The thing’s voice. She’d heard it only once before, a year ago, when she’d released it from its imprisonment in the Well of Ascension.