The Well of Ascension Read online

Page 5

  She was far less jumpy when she didnt have a particular reason to worry about him. However, Elend was only just beginning to understand that there was a very complex person hiding behind the face he had once known as Valette Renouxs. He had fallen in love with her courtly side without ever knowing the nervous, furtive Mistborn side. It was still a little difficult to see them as the same person.

  Vin closed the door, then paused briefly, watching him with her round, dark eyes. Elend found himself smiling. Despite her oddities—or, more likely because of them—he loved this thin woman with the determined eyes and blunt temperament. She was like no one he had ever known—a woman of simple, yet honest, beauty and wit.

  She did, however, sometimes worry him.

  "Vin?" he asked, standing.

  "Have you seen anything strange tonight?"

  Elend paused. "Besides you?"

  She frowned, striding across the room. Elend watched her small form, clothed in black trousers and a mans buttoning shirt, mistcloak tassels trailing behind her. She wore the cloaks hood down, as usual, and she stepped with a supple grace—the unconscious elegance of a person burning pewter.

  Focus! he told himself. You really are getting tired. "Vin? Whats wrong?"

  Vin glanced toward the balcony. "That Mistborn, the Watcher, is in the city again. "

  "Youre sure?"

  Vin nodded. "But. . . I dont think hes going to come for you tonight. "

  Elend frowned. The balcony doors were still open, and trails of mist puffed through them, creeping along the floor until they finally evaporated. Beyond those doors was. . . darkness. Chaos.

  Its just mist, he told himself. Water vapor. Nothing to fear. "What makes you think the Mistborn wont come for me?"

  Vin shrugged. "I just feel he wont. "

  She often answered that way. Vin had grown up a creature of the streets, and she trusted her instincts. Oddly, so did Elend. He eyed her, reading the uncertainty in her posture. Something else had unsettled her this night. He looked into her eyes, holding them for a moment, until she glanced away.

  "What?" he asked.

  "I saw. . . something else," she said. "Or, I thought I did. Something in the mist, like a person formed from smoke. I could feel it, too, with Allomancy. It disappeared, though. "

  Elend frowned more deeply. He walked forward, putting his arms around her. "Vin, youre pushing yourself too hard. You cant keep prowling the city at night and then staying up all day. Even Allomancers need rest. "

  She nodded quietly. In his arms, she didnt seem to him like the powerful warrior who had slain the Lord Ruler. She felt like a woman past the edge of fatigue, a woman overwhelmed by events—a woman who probably felt a lot like Elend did.

  She let him hold her. At first, there was a slight stiffness to her posture. It was as if a piece of her still expected to be hurt—a primal sliver that couldnt understand that it was possible to be touched out of love rather than anger. Then, however, she relaxed. Elend was one of the few she could do that around. When she held him—really held him—she clung with a desperation that bordered on terror. Somehow, despite her powerful skill as an Allomancer and her stubborn determination, Vin was frighteningly vulnerable. She seemed to need Elend. For that, he felt lucky.

  Frustrated, at times. But lucky. Vin and he hadnt discussed his marriage proposal and her refusal, though Elend often thought of the encounter.

  Women are difficult enough to understand, he thought, and I had to go and pick the oddest one of the lot. Still, he couldnt really complain. She loved him. He could deal with her idiosyncrasies.

  Vin sighed, then looked up at him, finally relaxing as he leaned down to kiss her. He held it for a long moment, and she sighed. After the kiss, she rested her head on his shoulder. "We do have another problem," she said quietly. "I used the last of the atium tonight. "

  "Fighting the assassins?"

  Vin nodded.

  "Well, we knew it would happen eventually. Our stockpile couldnt last forever. "

  "Stockpile?" Vin asked. "Kelsier only left us six beads. "

  Elend sighed, then pulled her tight. His new government was supposed to have inherited the Lord Rulers atium reserves—a supposed cache of the metal comprising an amazing treasure. Kelsier had counted on his new kingdom holding those riches; he had died expecting it. There was only one problem. Nobody had ever found the reserve. They had found some small bit—the atium that had made up the bracers that the Lord Ruler had used as a Feruchemical battery to store up age. However, they had spent those on supplies for the city, and they had actually contained only a very small bit of atium. Nothing like the cache was said to have. There should still be, somewhere in the city, a wealth of atium thousands of times larger than those bracers.

  "Well just have to deal with it," Elend said.

  "If a Mistborn attacks you, I wont be able to kill him. "

  "Only if he has atium," Elend said. "Its becoming more and more rare. I doubt the other kings have much of it. "

  Kelsier had destroyed the Pits of Hathsin, the only place where atium could be mined. Still, if Vin did have to fight someone with atium. . .

  Dont think about that, he told himself. Just keep searching. Perhaps we can buy some. Or maybe well find the Lord Rulers cache. If it even exists. . . .

  Vin looked up at him, reading the concern in his eyes, and he knew she had arrived at the same conclusions as he. There was little that could be accomplished at the moment; Vin had done well to conserve their atium as long as she had. Still, as Vin stepped back and let Elend return to his table, he couldnt help thinking about how they could have spent that atium. His people would need food for the winter.

  But, by selling the metal, he thought, sitting, we would have put more of the worlds most dangerous Allomantic weapon into the hands of our enemies. Better that Vin used it up.

  As he began to work again, Vin poked her head over his shoulder, obscuring his lamplight. "What is it?" she asked.

  "The proposal blocking the Assembly until Ive had my right of parlay. "

  "Again?" she asked, cocking her head and squinting as she tried to make out his handwriting.

  "The Assembly rejected the last version. "

  Vin frowned. "Why dont you just tell them that they have to accept it? Youre the king. "

  "Now, see," Elend said, "thats what Im trying to prove by all this. Im just one man, Vin—maybe my opinion isnt better than theirs. If we all work on the proposal together, it will come out better than if one man had done it himself. "

  Vin shook her head. "It will be too weak. No teeth. You should trust yourself more. "

  "Its not about trust. Its about whats right. We spent a thousand years fighting off the Lord Ruler—if I do things the same way he did, then what will be the difference?"

  Vin turned and looked him in the eyes. "The Lord Ruler was an evil man. Youre a good one. Thats the difference. "

  Elend smiled. "Its that easy for you, isnt it?"

  Vin nodded.

  Elend leaned up and kissed her again. "Well, some of us have to make things a little more complicated, so youll have to humor us. Now, kindly remove yourself from my light so I can get back to work. "

  She snorted, but stood up and rounded the desk, leaving behind a faint scent of perfume. Elend frowned. Whend she put that on? Many of her motions were so quick that he missed them.

  Perfume—just another of the apparent contradictions that made up the woman who called herself Vin. She wouldnt have been wearing it out in the mists; she usually put it on just for him. Vin liked to be unobtrusive, but she loved wearing scents—and got annoyed at him if he didnt notice when she was trying out a new one. She seemed suspicious and paranoid, yet she trusted her friends with a dogmatic loyalty. She went out at night in black and gray, trying so hard to hide—but Elend had seen her at the balls a year ago, and she had looked natural in gowns and dresses.

&nbs
p; For some reason she had stopped wearing those. She hadnt ever explained why.

  Elend shook his head, turning back to his proposal. Next to Vin, politics seemed simplistic. She rested her arms on the desktop, watching him work, yawning.

  "You should get some rest," he said, dipping his pen again.

  Vin paused, then nodded. She removed her mistcloak, wrapped it around herself, then curled up on the rug beside his desk.

  Elend paused. "I didnt mean here, Vin," he said with amusement.

  "Theres still a Mistborn out there somewhere," she said with a tired, muffled voice. "Im not leaving you. " She twisted in the cloak, and Elend caught a brief grimace of pain on her face. She was favoring her left side.

  She didnt often tell him the details of her fights. She didnt want to worry him. It didnt help.

  Elend pushed down his concern and forced himself to start reading again. He was almost finished—just a bit more and—

  A knock came at his door.

  Elend turned with frustration, wondering at this new interruption. Ham poked his head in the doorway a second later.

  "Ham?" Elend said. "Youre still awake?"

  "Unfortunately," Ham said, stepping into the room.

  "Mardra is going to kill you for working late again," Elend said, setting down his pen. Complain though he might about some of Vins quirks, at least she shared Elends nocturnal habits.

  Ham just rolled his eyes at the comment. He still wore his standard vest and trousers. Hed agreed to be the captain of Elends guard on a single condition: that he would never have to wear a uniform. Vin cracked an eye as Ham wandered into the room, then relaxed again.

  "Regardless," Elend said. "To what do I owe the visit?"

  "I thought you might want to know that we identified those assassins who tried to kill Vin. "

  Elend nodded. "Probably men I know. " Most Allomancers were noblemen, and he was familiar with all of those in Straffs retinue.

  "Actually, I doubt it," Ham said. "They were Westerners. "

  Elend paused, frowning, and Vin perked up. "Youre sure?"

  Ham nodded. "Makes it a bit unlikely that your father sent them—unless hes done some heavy recruiting in Fadrex City. They were of Houses Gardre and Conrad, mostly. "

  Elend sat back. His father was based in Urteau, hereditary home of the Venture family. Fadrex was halfway across the empire from Urteau, several months worth of travel. The chances were slim that his father would have access to a group of Western Allomancers.

  "Have you heard of Ashweather Cett?" Ham asked.

  Elend nodded. "One of the men whos set himself up as king in the Western Dominance. I dont know much about him. "

  Vin frowned, sitting. "You think he sent these?"

  Ham nodded. "They must have been waiting for a chance to slip into the city, and the traffic at the gates these last few days would have provided the opportunity. That makes the arrival of Straffs army and the attack on Vins life something of a coincidence. "

  Elend glanced at Vin. She met his eyes, and he could tell that she wasnt completely convinced that Straff hadnt sent the assassins. Elend, however, wasnt so skeptical. Pretty much every tyrant in the area had tried to take him out at one point or another. Why not Cett?