Especially not one with atium.
Zane continued to Push them against the ceiling. Vin’s hair fell toward him, and mists churned the floor below, like a whirlpool vortex that was slowly rising.
Zane released his Push, and they fell. Yet, he was still in control. He spun her, throwing her down below him as they entered the mists again. They hit the ground, the blow knocking the wind from Vin’s lungs yet again. Zane loomed above her, speaking through gritted teeth.
“All that effort, wasted,” he hissed. “Hiding an Allomancer in Cett’s hirelings so that you would suspect him of attacking you at the Assembly. Forcing you to fight in front of Elend so that he’d be intimidated by you. Pushing you to explore your powers and kill so that you’d realize just how powerful you truly are. All wasted!”
He leaned down. “You. Were. Supposed. To. Save me!” he said, his face just inches from hers, breathing heavily. He pinned one of her struggling arms to the floor with his knee, and then, in a strangely surreal moment, he kissed her.
And at the same time, he rammed his dagger into the side of one of her breasts. Vin tried to cry out, but his mouth held hers as the dagger cut her flesh.
“Be careful, Master!” OreSeur—TenSoon—suddenly yelled. “She knows much about kandra!”
Zane looked up, his hand stilled. The voice, the pain, brought lucidity to Vin. She flared tin, using the pain to shock herself awake, clearing her mind.
“What?” Zane asked, looking down toward the kandra.
“She knows, Master,” TenSoon said. “She knows our secret. The reason why we served the Lord Ruler. The reason why we serve the Contract. She knows why we fear Allomancers so much.”
“Be silent,” Zane commanded. “And speak no more.”
TenSoon fell silent.
Our secret… Vin thought, glancing over at the wolfhound, sensing the anxiety in his canine expression. He’s trying to tell me something. Trying to help me.
Secret. The secret of the kandra. The last time she’d tried Soothing him, he’d howled with pain. Yet, she saw permission in his expression. It was enough.
She slammed TenSoon with a Soothing. He cried out, howling, but she Pushed harder. Nothing happened. Gritting her teeth, she burned duralumin.
Something broke. She was in two places at once. She could feel TenSoon standing by the wall, and she could feel her own body in Zane’s grip. TenSoon was hers, totally and completely. Somehow, not quite knowing how, she ordered him forward, controlling his body.
The massive wolfhound’s body slammed into Zane, throwing him off Vin. The dagger flipped to the ground, and Vin stumbled to her knees, grabbing her chest, feeling warm blood there. Zane rolled, obviously shocked, but he came to his feet and kicked TenSoon.
Bones broke. The wolfhound tumbled across the floor—right toward Vin. She snatched the dagger off the ground as he rolled to her feet, then plunged it into his shoulder, cutting the shoulder, her fingers feeling in the muscle and sinew. She came up with bloodied hands and a single bead of atium. She swallowed it with a gulp, spinning toward Zane.
“Now let’s see how you fare,” she hissed, burning atium. Dozens of atium shadows burst from Zane, showing her possible actions he could take—all of them ambiguous. She would be giving off the same confusing mess to his eyes. They were even.
Zane turned, looking into her eyes, and his atium shadows disappeared.
Impossible! she thought. TenSoon groaned at her feet as she realized that her atium reserve was gone. Burned away. But the bead had been so large….
“Did you think I’d give you the very weapon you needed to fight me?” Zane asked quietly. “Did you think I’d really give up atium?”
“But—”
“A lump of lead,” Zane said, walking forward. “Plated with a thin layer of atium around it. Oh, Vin. You really need to be more careful whom you trust.”
Vin stumbled backward, feeling her confidence wilt. Make him talk! she thought. Try to get his atium to run out.
“My brother said that I shouldn’t trust anyone…” she mumbled. “He said…anyone would betray me.”
“He was a wise man,” Zane said quietly, standing chest-deep in mists.
“He was a paranoid fool,” Vin said. “He kept me alive, but he left me broken.”
“Then he did you a favor.”
Vin glanced toward TenSoon’s mangled, bleeding form. He was in pain; she could see it in his eyes. In the distance she could hear…thumping. She’d turned her bronze back on. She looked up slowly. Zane was walking toward her. Confident.
“You’ve been playing with me,” she said. “You drove a wedge between me and Elend. You made me think he feared me, made me think he was using me.”
“He was,” Zane said.
“Yes,” Vin said. “But it doesn’t matter—not the way you made it seem. Elend uses me. Kelsier used me. We use each other, for love, for support, for trust.”
“Trust will kill you,” he said.
“Then it is better to die.”
“I trusted you,” he said, stopping before her. “And you betrayed me.”
“No,” Vin said, raising her dagger. “I’m going to save you. Just like you want.” She snapped forward and struck, but her hope—that he’d run out of atium—was in vain. He sidestepped indifferently; he let her dagger come within an inch of striking, but he was never really in danger.
Vin spun to attack, but her blade cut only air, skimming along the top of the rising mists.
Zane moved before her next attack came, dodging even before she knew what she was going to do. Her dagger stabbed the place where he had been standing.
He’s too fast, she thought, side burning, mind thumping. Or was that the Well of Ascension thumping….
Zane stopped just in front of her.
I can’t hit him, she thought with frustration. Not when he knows where I’ll strike before I do!
Vin paused.
Before I do….
Zane stepped away to a place near the center of the room, then kicked her fallen dagger into the air and caught it. He turned back toward her, mist trailing from the weapon in his hand, jaw set and eyes dark.
He knows where I’ll strike before I do.
Vin raised her dagger, blood trickling down face and side, thunderous drumbeats booming in her mind. The mist was nearly up to her chin.
She cleared her mind. She didn’t plan an attack. She didn’t react to Zane as he ran toward her, dagger raised. She loosened her muscles and closed her eyes, listening to his footsteps. She felt the mist rise around her, churned by Zane’s advent.
She snapped her eyes open. He had the dagger raised; it glittered as it swung. Vin prepared to attack, but didn’t think about the strike; she simply let her body react.
And she watched Zane very, very carefully.
He flinched just slightly to the left, open hand moving upward, as if to grab something.
There! Vin thought, immediately wrenching herself to the side, forcing her instinctive attack out of its natural trajectory. She twisted her arm—and dagger—midswing. She had been about to attack left, as Zane’s atium had anticipated.
But, by reacting, Zane had shown her what she was going to do. Let her see the future. And if she could see it, she could change it.
They met. Zane’s weapon took her in the shoulder. But Vin’s knife took him in the neck. His left hand closed on empty air, snatching at a shadow that should have told him where her arm would be.
Zane tried to gasp, but her knife had pierced his windpipe. Air sucked through blood around the blade, and Zane stumbled back, eyes wide with shock. He met her eyes, then collapsed into the mists, his body thumping against the wooden floor.
Zane looked up through the mists, looked up at her. I’m dying, he thought.
Her atium shadow had split at the last moment. Two shadows, two possibilities. He’d counteracted the wrong one. She’d tricked him, defeated him somehow. And now he was dying.
Finally.
/> “You know why I thought you’d save me?” he tried to whisper to her, though he somehow knew that his lips weren’t properly forming the words. “The voice. You were the first person I ever met that it didn’t tell me to kill. The only person.”
“Of course I didn’t tell you to kill her,” God said.
Zane felt his life seeping away.
“You know the really funny thing, Zane?” God asked. “The most amusing part of this all? You’re not insane.
“You never were.”
Vin watched quietly as Zane sputtered, blood coming from his lips. She watched cautiously; a knife to the throat should have been enough to kill even a Mistborn, but sometimes pewter could let one do awesome things.
Zane died. She checked his pulse, then retrieved her dagger. After that, she stood for a moment, feeling…numb, in both mind and body. She raised a hand to her wounded shoulder—and in doing so, she brushed her wounded breast. She was bleeding too much, and her mind was growing fuzzy again.
I killed him.
She flared pewter, forcing herself to keep moving. She stumbled over to TenSoon, kneeling beside him.
“Mistress,” he said. “I’m sorry….”
“I know,” she said, staring at the terrible wound she’d made. His legs no longer worked, and his body lay in an unnatural twist. “How can I help?”
“Help?” TenSoon said. “Mistress, I nearly got you killed!”
“I know,” she said again. “How can I make the pain go away? Do you need another body?”
TenSoon was quiet for a moment. “Yes.”
“Take Zane’s,” Vin said. “For the moment, at least.”
“He is dead?” TenSoon asked with surprise.
He couldn’t see, she realized. His neck is broken.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“How, Mistress?” TenSoon asked. “He ran out of atium?”
“No,” Vin said.
“Then, how?”
“Atium has a weakness,” she said. “It lets you see the future.”
“That…doesn’t sound like a weakness, Mistress.”
Vin sighed, wobbling slightly. Focus! she thought. “When you burn atium, you see a few moments into the future—and you can change what will happen in that future. You can grab an arrow that should have kept flying. You can dodge a blow that should have killed you. And you can move to block an attack before it even happens.”
TenSoon was quiet, obviously confused.
“He showed me what I was going to do,” Vin said. “I couldn’t change the future, but Zane could. By reacting to my attack before I even knew what I was going to do, he inadvertently showed me the future. I reacted against him, and he tried to block a blow that never came. That let me kill him.”
“Mistress…” TenSoon whispered. “That is brilliant.”
“I’m sure I’m not the first to think of it,” Vin said wearily. “But it isn’t the sort of secret that you share. Anyway, take his body.”
“I…would rather not wear the bones of that creature,” TenSoon said. “You don’t know how broken he was, Mistress.”
Vin nodded tiredly. “I could just find you another dog body, if you want.”
“That won’t be necessary, Mistress,” TenSoon said quietly. “I still have the bones of the other wolfhound you gave me, and most of them are still good. If I replace a few of them with the good bones from this body, I should be able to form a complete skeleton to use.”
“Do it, then. We’re going to need to plan what to do next.”
TenSoon was quiet for a moment. Finally, he spoke. “Mistress, my Contract is void, now that my master is dead. I…need to return to my people for reassignment.”
“Ah,” Vin said, feeling a wrench of sadness. “Of course.”
“I do not want to go,” TenSoon said. “But, I must at least report to my people. Please, forgive me.”
“There is nothing to forgive,” Vin said. “And thank you for that timely hint at the end.”
TenSoon lay quietly. She could see guilt in his canine eyes. He shouldn’t have helped me against his current master.
“Mistress,” TenSoon said. “You know our secret now. Mistborn can control a kandra’s body with Allomancy. I don’t know what you will do with it—but realize that I have entrusted you with a secret that my people have kept sacred for a thousand years. The way that Allomancers could take control of our bodies and make slaves of us.”
“I…don’t even understand what happened.”
“Perhaps it is better that way,” TenSoon said. “Please, leave me. I have the other dog’s bones in the closet. When you return, I will be gone.”
Vin rose, nodding. She left, then, pushing through the mists and seeking the hallway outside. Her wounds needed tending. She knew that she should go to Sazed, but somehow she couldn’t force herself in that direction. She walked faster, feet taking her down the hallway, until she was running.
Everything was collapsing around her. She couldn’t manage it all, couldn’t keep things straight. But she did know what she wanted.
And so she ran to him.
48
He is a good man—despite it all, he is a good man. A sacrificing man. In truth, all of his actions—all of the deaths, destructions, and pains that he has caused—have hurt him deeply. All of these things were, in truth, a kind of sacrifice for him.
Elend yawned, looking over the letter he’d penned to Jastes. Perhaps he could persuade his former friend to see reason.
If he couldn’t…well, a duplicate of the wooden coin Jastes had been using to “pay” the koloss sat on Elend’s desk. It was a perfect copy, whittled by Clubs himself. Elend was pretty certain that he had access to more wood than Jastes did. If he could help Penrod stall for a few more weeks, they might be able to make enough “money” to bribe the koloss away.
He set down his pen, rubbing his eyes. It was late. Time to—
His door slammed open. Elend spun, and caught sight of a flustered Vin dashing across the room and into his arms. She was crying.
And she was bloody.
“Vin!” he said. “What happened?”
“I killed him,” she said, head buried in Elend’s chest.
“Who?”
“Your brother,” she said. “Zane. Straff’s Mistborn. I killed him.”
“Wait. What? My brother?”
Vin nodded. “I’m sorry.”
“Forget about that, Vin!” Elend said, gently prying her back and pushing her into his chair. She had a gash on her cheek, and her shirt was slick with blood. “Lord Ruler! I’m going to get Sazed right now.”
“Don’t leave me,” she said, holding his arm.
Elend paused. Something had changed. She seemed to need him again. “Come with me, then. We’ll both go see him.”
Vin nodded, standing. She teetered just a bit, and Elend felt a spike of fear, but the determined look in her eyes wasn’t something he wanted to challenge. He put his arm around her, letting her lean on him as they walked to Sazed’s quarters. Elend paused to knock, but Vin simply pushed her way into the dark room, then wobbled and sat down on the floor just inside.
“I’ll…sit here,” she said.
Elend paused worriedly by her side, then raised his lamp and called toward the bedchamber. “Sazed!”
The Terrisman appeared a moment later, looking exhausted and wearing a white sleeping robe. He noticed Vin, blinked a few times, then disappeared into his chambers. He returned a moment later with a metalmind bracer strapped to his forearm and a bag of medical equipment.
“Now, Lady Vin,” Sazed said, setting the bag down. “What would Master Kelsier think, seeing you in this condition? You ruin more clothing in this manner, I think….”
“This isn’t a time for levity, Sazed,” Elend said.
“I apologize, Your Majesty,” Sazed said, carefully cutting the clothing away from Vin’s shoulder. “However, if she is still conscious, then she isn’t in serious danger.” He peered closer at the
wound, absently lifting clean cloths from his bag.
“You see?” Sazed asked. “This gash is deep, but the blade was deflected by the bone, and missed hitting any major vessels. Hold this here.” He pressed a cloth to the wound, and Elend put his hand on it. Vin sat with her eyes closed, resting back against the wall, blood dripping slowly from her chin. She seemed more exhausted than in pain.
Sazed took his knife and cut away the front of Vin’s shirt, exposing her wounded chest.
Elend paused. “Perhaps I should…”
“Stay,” Vin said. It wasn’t a plea, but a command. She raised her head, opening her eyes as Sazed tisked quietly at the wound, then got out a numbing agent and some needle and thread.
“Elend,” she said, “I need to tell you something.”
He paused. “All right.”
“I’ve realized something about Kelsier,” she said quietly. “I always focus on the wrong things, when it comes to him. It’s hard to forget the hours he spent training me to be an Allomancer. Yet, it wasn’t his ability to fight that made him great—it wasn’t his harshness or his brutality, or even his strength or his instincts.”
Elend frowned.
“Do you know what it was?” she asked.
He shook his head, still pressing the cloth against her shoulder.
“It was his ability to trust,” she said. “It was the way that he made good people into better people, the way that he inspired them. His crew worked because he had confidence in them—because he respected them. And, in return, they respected each other. Men like Breeze and Clubs became heroes because Kelsier had faith in them.”
She looked up at him, blinking tired eyes. “And you are far better at that than Kelsier ever was, Elend. He had to work at it. You do it instinctively, treating even weasels like Philen as if they were good and honorable men. It’s not naiveté, as some think. It’s what Kelsier had, only greater. He could have learned from you.”
“You give me too much credit,” he said.
She shook a tired head. Then she turned to Sazed.
“Sazed?” she asked.
“Yes, child?”
“Do you know any wedding ceremonies?”
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