Mistborn: The Final Empire (Mistborn #1)(214)
“Mistress, what are you doing?”
Vin walked over to a trunk beside the table, within which she had seen a large collection of powdered metals. She ?lled her pouch with several handfuls of pewter dust.
“I’m worried about the Lord Ruler,” she said, taking a ?le from the box and scraping off a few ?akes of the Eleventh Metal. She paused—eyeing the unfamiliar, silvery metal— then swallowed the ?akes with a gulp from her ?ask. She put a couple more ?akes in one of her backup metal vials.
“Surely the rebellion can deal with him,” Sazed said. “He is not so strong without all of his servants, I think.”
“You’re wrong,” Vin said, rising and walking toward the door. “He’s strong, Saze. Kelsier couldn’t feel him, not like I can. He didn’t know.”
“Where are you going?” Sazed asked behind her.
Vin paused in the doorway, turning, mist curling around her. “Inside the palace complex, there is a chamber protected by soldiers and Inquisitors. Kelsier tried to get into it twice.” She turned back toward the dark mists. “Tonight, I’m going to ?nd out what’s inside of it.”
I have decided that I am thankful for Rashek’s hatred. It does me well to remember that there are those who abhor me. My place is not to seek popularity or love; my place is to ensure mankind’s survival.
36
VIN WALKED QUIETLY TOWARD KREDIK Shaw. The sky behind her burned, the mists re?ecting and diffusing the light of a thousand torches. It was like a radiant dome over the city.
The light was yellow, the color Kelsier had always said the sun should be.
Four nervous guards waited at the same palace doorway that she and Kelsier had attacked before. They watched her approach. Vin stepped slowly, quietly, on the mist-wetted stones, her mistcloak rustling solemnly.
One of the guards lowered a spear at her, and Vin stopped right in front of him.
“I know you,” she said quietly. “You endured the mills, the mines, and the forges. You knew that someday they would kill you, and leave your families to starve. So, you went to the Lord Ruler—guilty but determined—and joined his guards.”
The four men glanced at each other, confused.
“The light behind me comes from a massive skaa rebellion,” she said. “The entire city is rising up against the Lord Ruler. I don’t blame you men for your choices, but a time of change is coming. Those rebels could use your training and your knowledge. Go to them—they gather in the Square of the Survivor.”
“The…Square of the Survivor?” a soldier asked.
“The place where the Survivor of Hathsin was killed earlier today.”
The four men exchanged looks, uncertain.
Vin Rioted their emotions slightly. “You don’t have to live with the guilt anymore.”
Finally, one of the men stepped forward and ripped the symbol off his uniform, then strode determinedly into the night. The other three paused, then followed—leaving Vin with an open entrance to the palace.
Vin walked down the corridor, eventually passing the same guard chamber as before. She strode inside—stepping past a group of chatting guards without hurting any of them—and entered the hallway beyond. Behind her, the guards shook off their surprise and called out in alarm. They burst into the corridor, but Vin jumped and Pushed against the lantern brackets, hurling herself down the hallway.
The men’s voices grew distant; even running, they wouldn’t be able to keep up with her. She reached the end of the corridor, then let herself drop lightly to the ground, enveloping cloak falling around her body. She continued her resolute, unhurried pace. There was no reason to run. They’d be waiting for her anyway.
She passed through the archway, stepping into the dome-roofed central chamber. Silver murals lined the walls, braziers burned in the corners, the ?oor was an ebony marble.
And two Inquisitors stood blocking her path.
Vin strode quietly through the room, approaching the building-within-a-building that was her goal.
“We search all this time,” said an Inquisitor in his grinding voice. “And you come to us. A second time.”
Vin stopped, standing about twenty feet in front of the pair. They loomed, each of them nearly two feet taller than she, smiling and con?dent.
Vin burned atium, then whipped her hands from beneath her cloak, tossing a double handful of arrowheads into the air. She ?ared steel, Pushing powerfully against the rings of metal wrapped loosely around the arrowheads’ broken hafts. The missiles shot forward, ripping across the room. The lead Inquisitor chuckled, raising a hand and Pushing disdainfully against the missiles.
His Push ripped the unattached rings free from the hafts, shooting the bits of metal backward. The arrowheads themselves, however, continued forward—no longer Pushed from behind, but still carried by a deadly momentum.
The Inquisitor opened his mouth in surprise as two dozen arrowheads struck him. Several punched completely through his ?esh, continuing on to snap against the stone wall behind him. Several others struck his companion in the legs.
The lead Inquisitor jerked, spasming as he collapsed. The other growled, staying on his feet, but wobbling a bit on the weakened leg. Vin dashed forward, ?aring her pewter. The remaining Inquisitor moved to block her, but she reached inside her cloak and threw out a large handful of pewter dust.
The Inquisitor stopped, confused. To his “eyes” he would see nothing but a mess of blue lines—each one leading to a speck of metal. With so many sources of metal concentrated in one place, the lines would be virtually blinding.