Mistborn: The Final Empire (Mistborn #1)(112)

Sazed nodded, and the two of them made their way to the front doors. “What took you so long?” Vin asked as they waited for an attendant to fetch her shawl.

“I came back several times, Mistress,” Sazed said. “But you were always dancing. I decided I would be of far more use speaking with the servants than I would be standing beside your table.”

Vin nodded, accepting her shawl, then walked out the front steps and down the carpeted stairs, Sazed just behind her. Her step was quick—she wanted to get back and tell Kelsier the names she’d memorized before she forgot the whole list. She paused at the landing, waiting for a servant to fetch her carriage. As she did, she noticed something odd. A small disturbance was going on a short distance away in the mists. She stepped forward, but Sazed put a hand on her shoulder, holding her back. A lady wouldn’t wander off into the mists.

She reached to burn copper and tin, but waited—the disturbance was getting closer. It resolved as a guard appeared from the mists, pulling a small, struggling form: a skaa boy in dirty clothing, face soot-stained. The soldier gave Vin a wide berth, nodding apologetically to her as he approached one of the guard captains. Vin burned tin to hear what was said.

“Kitchen boy,” the soldier said quietly. “Tried to beg from one of the noblemen inside a carriage when they stopped for the gates to open.”

The captain simply nodded. The soldier pulled his captive back out into the mists, walking toward the far courtyard. The boy struggled, and the soldier grunted with annoyance, keeping a tight grip. Vin watched him go, Sazed’s hand on her shoulder, as if to hold her back. Of course she couldn’t help the boy. He shouldn’t have—

In the mists, beyond the eyesight of regular people, the soldier drew out a dagger and slit the boy’s throat. Vin jumped, shocked, as the sounds of the boy’s struggling tapered off. The guard dropped the body, then grabbed it by a leg and began to drag it away.

Vin stood, stunned, as her carriage pulled up.

“Mistress,” Sazed prompted, but she simply stood there.

They killed him, she thought. Right here, just a few paces away from where noblemen wait for their carriages. As if. . the death were nothing out of the ordinary. Just another skaa, slaughtered. Like an animal.

Or less than an animal. Nobody would slaughter pigs in a keep courtyard. The guard’s posture as he’d performed the murder indicated that he’d simply been too annoyed with the struggling boy to wait for a more appropriate location. If any of the other nobility around Vin had noticed the event, they paid it no heed, continuing their chatting as they waited. Actually, they seemed a little more chatty, now that the screams had stopped.

“Mistress,” Sazed said again, pushing her forward.

She allowed herself to be led into the carriage, her mind still distracted. It seemed such an impossible contrast to her. The pleasant nobility, dancing, just inside a room sparkling with light and dresses. Death in the courtyard. Didn’t they care? Didn’t they know?

This is the Final Empire, Vin, she told herself as the carriage rolled away. Don’t forget the ash because you see a little silk. If those people in there knew you were skaa, they’d have you slaughtered just as easily as they did that poor boy.

It was a sobering thought—one that absorbed her during the entire trip back to Fellise.

Kwaan and I met by happenstance—though, I suppose, he would use the word “providence.”

I have met many other Terris philosophers since that day. They are, every one, men of great wisdom and ponderous sagaciousness. Men with an almost palpable importance.

Not so Kwaan. In a way, he is as unlikely a prophet as I am a hero. He never had an air of ceremonious wisdom—nor was he even a religious scholar. When we ?rst met, he was studying one of his ridiculous interests in the great Khlenni library—I believe he was trying to determine whether or not trees could think.

That he should be the one who ?nally discovered the great Hero of Terris prophecy is a matter that would cause me to laugh, had events turned out just a little differently.

19

KELSIER COULD FEEL ANOTHER ALLOMANCER pulsing in the mists. The vibrations washed over him like rhythmic waves brushing up against a tranquil shore. They were faint, but unmistakable.

He crouched atop a low garden wall, listening to the vibrations. The curling white mist continued its normal, placid wafting—indifferent, save for the bit closest to his body, which curled in the normal Allomantic current around his limbs.

Kelsier squinted in the night, ?aring tin and seeking out the other Allomancer. He thought he saw a ?gure crouching atop a wall in the distance, but he couldn’t be certain. He recognized the Allomantic vibrations, however. Each metal, when burned, gave off a distinct signal, recognizable to one who was well practiced with bronze. The man in the distance burned tin, as did the four others Kelsier had sensed hiding around Keep Tekiel. The ?ve Tineyes formed a perimeter, watching the night, searching for intruders.

Kelsier smiled. The Great Houses were growing nervous. Keeping ?ve Tineyes on watch wouldn’t be that hard for a house like Tekiel, but the noblemen Allomancers would resent being forced into simple guard duty. And if there were ?ve Tineyes on watch, chances were good that a number of Thugs, Coinshots, and Lurchers were on call as well. Luthadel was quietly in a state of alert.

The Great Houses were growing so wary, in fact, that Kelsier had trouble ?nding cracks in their defenses. He was only one man, and even Mistborn had limits. His success so far had been achieved through surprise. However, with ?ve Tineyes on watch, Kelsier wouldn’t be able to get very close to the keep without serious risk of being spotted.