The Mistborn Trilogy

by Brandon Sanderson

  I hope Elend did what I said, Vin thought. If he had gotten captured too . . .

  Vin knocked her head back against the obstinate stones, frustrated.

  Something sounded in the darkness.

  Vin froze, then quickly scrambled up into a crouch. She checked her metal reserves—she had plenty, for the moment.

  I’m probably just—

  It came again. A soft footfall. Vin shivered, realizing that she had only cursorily checked the chamber, and then she’d been searching for atium and other ways out. Could someone have been hiding inside the entire time?

  She burned bronze, and felt him. An Allomancer. Mistborn. The one she had felt before; the man she had chased.

  So that’s it! she thought. Yomen did want his Mistborn to fight us—but he knew he had to separate us first! She smiled, standing. It wasn’t a perfect situation, but it was better than thinking about the immobile door. A Mistborn she could beat, then hold hostage until they released her.

  She waited until the man was close—she could tell by the beating of the Allomantic pulses that she hoped he didn’t know she could feel—then spun, kicking her lantern toward him. She jumped forward, guiding herself toward her enemy, who stood outlined by the lantern’s last flickers. He looked up at her as she soared through the air, her daggers out.

  And she recognized his face.

  Reen.

  PART FOUR

  BEAUTIFUL DESTROYER

  A man with a given power—such as an Allomantic ability—who then gained a Hemalurgic spike granting that same power would be nearly twice as strong as a natural unenhanced Allomancer.

  An Inquisitor who was a Seeker before his transformation would therefore have an enhanced ability to use bronze. This simple fact explains how many Inquisitors were able to pierce copperclouds.

  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 fel
t 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.

  “What do you want?” she whispered.

  You know what I want. You’ve always known.

  And she did. She had sensed it in the moment when she had touched the thing. Ruin, she called it. It had very simple desires. To see the world come to its end.

  “I will stop you,” she said. Yet, it was hard to not feel foolish speaking the words to a force she did not understand, a thing that existed beyond men and beyond worlds.

  It laughed again, though this time the sound was only inside her head. She could still feel Ruin pulsing—though not from any one specific place. It surrounded her. She forced herself to stand up straight.

  Ah, Vin, Ruin said, its voice almost fatherly in tone. You act as if I were your enemy.

  “You are my enemy. You seek to end the things I love.”

  And is an ending always bad? it asked. Must not all things, even worlds, someday end?

  “There is no need to hasten that end,” Vin said. “No reason to force it.”

  All things are subject to their own nature, Vin, Ruin said, seeming to flow around her. She could feel its touch upon her—wet and delicate, like mist. You cannot blame me for being what I am. Without me, nothing would end. Nothing could end. And therefore, nothing could grow. I am life. Would you fight life itself?

  Vin fell silent.

  Do not mourn because the day of this world’s end has arrived, Ruin said. That end was ordained the very day of the world’s conception. There is a beauty in death—the beauty of finality, the beauty of completion.

  For nothing is truly complete until the day it is finally destroyed.

  “Enough,” Vin snapped, feeling alone and smothered in the chill darkness. “Stop taunting me. Why have you come here?”

  Come here? it asked. Why do you ask that?

  “What is your purpose in appearing now?” Vin said. “Have you simply come to gloat over my imprisonment?”

  I have not “just appeared,” Vin, Ruin said. Why, I have never left. I’ve always been with you. A part of you.

  “Nonsense,” Vin said. “You only just revealed yourself.”

  I revealed myself to your eyes, yes, Ruin said. But, I see that you do not understand. I’ve always been with you, even when you could not see me.

  It paused, and there was silence, both outside and inside of her head.

  When you’re alone, no one can betray you, a voice whispered in the back of her mind. Reen’s voice. The voice she heard sometimes, almost real, like a conscience. She’d taken it for granted that the voice was just part of her psyche—a leftover from Reen’s teachings. An instinct.

  Anyone will betray you, Vin, the voice said, repeating a bit of advice it commonly gave. As it spoke, it slowly slid from Reen’s voice into that of Ruin. Anyone.

  I’ve always been with you. You’ve heard me in your mind since your first years of life.

  Ruin’s escape deserves some explanation. This is a thing that even I had a problem understanding.

  Ruin could not have used the power at the Well of Ascension. It was of Preservation, Ruin’s fundamental opposite. Indeed, a direct confrontation of these two forces would have caused the destruction of both.

  Ruin’s prison, however, was fabricated of that power. Therefore, it was attuned to the power of Preservation—the very power of the Well. When that power was released and dispersed, rather than utilized, it acted as a key. The subsequent “unlocking” is what finally freed Ruin.

  46

  “ALL RIGHT,” BREEZE SAID, “so does somebody want to speculate on how our team’s spy ended up becoming a pseudo-religious vigilante freedom fighter?”

  Sazed shook his head. They sat in their cavern lair beneath the Canton of Inquisition. Breeze, declaring that he was tired of travel rations, had ordered several of the soldiers to break open some of the cavern’s supplies to prepare a more suitable meal. Sazed might have complained, but the truth was that the cavern was so well stocked that even a determinedly eating Breeze wouldn’t be able to make a dent in it.

  They had waited all day for Spook to return to the lair. Tensions in the city were high, and most of their contacts had gone to ground, weathering the Citizen’s paranoia regarding a rebellion. Soldiers walked the streets, and a sizable contingent had set up camp just outside the Ministry building. Sazed was worried that the Citizen had associated Breeze and Sazed with Spook’s appearance at the executions. It appeared that their days of moving about freely in the city were at an end.

  “Why hasn’t he come back?” Allrianne asked. She and Breeze sat at a fine table, pilfered from an empty nobleman’s mansion. They had, of course, changed back to their fine clothing—a suit on Breeze, a peach dress on Allrianne. They always changed as soon as possible, as if eager to reaffirm to themselves who they really were.

  Sazed did not dine with them; he didn’t have much of an appetite. Captain Goradel leaned against a bookcase a short distance away, determined to keep a close eye on his charges. Though the good-natured man wore his usual smile, Sazed could tell from the orders he’d given to his soldiers that he was worried about the possibility of an assault. He made very certain that Breeze, Allrianne, and Sazed stayed within the protective confines of the cavern. Better to be trapped than dead.

  “I’m sure the boy is fine, my dear,” Breeze said, finally answering Allrianne’s question. “It’s likely he hasn’t come back because he fears implicating us in what he did today.”

  “Either that,” Sazed said, “or he can’t get past the soldiers watching outside.”

  “He snuck into a burning building while we were watching, my dear man,” Breeze said, “I doubt he’d have trouble with a bunch of toughs, especially now that it’s dark out.”

  Allrianne shook her head. “It would have been better if he’d managed to sneak out of that building as well, rather than jumping off the roof in front of everyone.”

  “Perhaps,” Breeze said. “But, part of being a vigilante rebel is letting your enemies know what you are about. The psychological effect produced by leaping from a burning building carrying a child is quite sound. And, to do that right in front of the tyrant who tried to execute said child? I wasn’t aware that dear little Spook had such a flair for drama!”

  “He’s not so little anymore, I think,” Sazed said quietly. “We have a habit of ignoring Spook too much.”

  “Habits come from reinforcement, my dear man,” Breeze said, wagging a fork at Sazed. “We paid little attention to the lad because he rarely had an important role to play. It isn’t his fault—he was simply young.”

  “Vin was young as well,” Sazed noted.

  “Vin, you must admit, is something of a special case.”

  Sazed couldn’t argue with that.

  “Either way,” Breeze said, “when we look at the facts, wha
t happened isn’t really all that surprising. Spook has had months to become known to Urteau’s underground population, and he is of the Survivor’s own crew. It is logical that they would begin to look to him to save them, much as Kelsier saved Luthadel.”

  “We’re forgetting one thing, Lord Breeze,” Sazed said. “He jumped from a rooftop ledge two stories up and landed on a cobbled street. Men do not survive falls like that without broken bones.”

  Breeze paused. “Staged, you think? Perhaps he worked out some kind of landing platform to soften the fall?”

  Sazed shook his head. “I believe it a stretch to assume that Spook could plan, and execute, a staged rescue like that. He would have needed the aid of the underground, which would have ruined the effect. If they knew that his survival was a trick, then we wouldn’t have heard the rumors we did about him.”

  “What, then?” Breeze asked, shooting a glance at Allrianne. “You’re not truly suggesting that Spook has been Mistborn all this time, are you?”

  “I do not know,” Sazed said softly.

  Breeze shook his head, chuckling. “I doubt he could have hidden that from us, my dear man. Why, he would have had to go through that entire mess of overthrowing the Lord Ruler, then the fall of Luthadel, without ever revealing that he was anything more than a Tineye! I refuse to accept that.”

  Or, Sazed thought, you refuse to accept that you wouldn’t have detected the truth. Still, Breeze had a point. Sazed had known Spook as a youth. The boy had been awkward and shy, but he hadn’t been deceitful. It was truly a stretch to imagine him to have been a Mistborn from the beginning.

  Yet, Sazed had seen that fall. He had seen the grace of the jump, the distinctive poise and natural dexterity of one burning pewter. Sazed found himself wishing for his copperminds so that he could search for references about people spontaneously manifesting Allomantic powers. Could a man be a Misting early in life, then transform to a full Mistborn later?