The Final Empire

by Brandon Sanderson

  “They might lack experience,” Kelsier said. “But not courage. Our army lost, true, but they were willing—with minimal training—to charge a superior force. No, the skaa don’t lack courage. Just opportunity.”

  “Then it’s your position as half skaa, half nobleman that has given you opportunity, Kelsier. And you’ve chosen to use that opportunity to help your skaa half. That makes you worthy of being a skaa if anything does.”

  Kelsier smiled. “Worthy to be a skaa. I like the sound of that. Regardless, perhaps I need to spend a little less time worrying about which noblemen to kill, and a little more time worrying about which peasants to help.”

  Vin nodded, pulling the cloak close as she stared up into the mists. They protect us…. give us power…hide us….

  She hadn’t felt like she needed to hide in a long time. But now, after the things she’d said below, she almost wished that she could just blow away like a wisp of mist.

  I need to tell him. It could mean the plan’s success or failure. She took a deep breath. “House Venture has a weakness, Kelsier.”

  He perked up. “It does?”

  Vin nodded. “Atium. They make certain the metal is harvested and delivered—it’s the source of their wealth.”

  Kelsier paused for a moment. “Of course! That’s how they can pay the taxes, that’s why they’re so powerful…. He would need someone to handle things for him….”

  “Kelsier?” Vin asked.

  He looked back at her.

  “Don’t…do anything unless you have to, all right?”

  Kelsier frowned. “I…don’t know that I can promise anything, Vin. I’ll try and think of another way, but as things stand now, Venture has to fall.”

  “I understand.”

  “I’m glad you told me, though.”

  She nodded. And now I’ve betrayed him too. There was a peace in knowing, however, that she hadn’t done it out of spite. Kelsier was right: House Venture was a power that needed to be toppled. Oddly, her mention of the house seemed to bother Kelsier more than it did her. He sat, staring into the mists, strangely melancholy. He reached down, absently scratching his arm.

  The scars, Vin thought. It isn’t House Venture he’s thinking about—it’s the Pits. Her. “Kelsier?” she said.

  “Yes?” His eyes still looking a bit…absent as he watched the mists.

  “I don’t think that Mare betrayed you.”

  He smiled. “I’m glad you think that way.”

  “No, I really mean it,” Vin said. “The Inquisitors were waiting for you when you got to the center of the palace, right?”

  Kelsier nodded.

  “They were waiting for us too.”

  Kelsier shook his head. “You and I fought some guards, made some noise. When Mare and I went in, we were quiet. We’d planned for a year—we were stealthy, secretive, and very careful. Someone set a trap for us.”

  “Mare was an Allomancer, right?” Vin asked. “They could have just sensed you coming.”

  Kelsier shook his head. “We had a Smoker with us. Redd was his name—the Inquisitors killed him straight off. I’ve wondered if he was the traitor, but that just doesn’t work. Redd didn’t even know about the infiltration until that night, when we went and got him. Only Mare knew enough—dates, times, objectives—to have betrayed us. Besides, there’s the Lord Ruler’s comment. You didn’t see him, Vin. Smiling as he thanked Mare. There was…honesty in his eyes. They say the Lord Ruler doesn’t lie. Why would he need to?”

  Vin sat quietly for a moment, considering what he’d said. “Kelsier,” she said slowly, “I think that Inquisitors can sense our Allomancy even when we’re burning copper.”

  “Impossible.”

  “I did it tonight. I punctured Shan’s coppercloud to locate her and the other assassins. That’s how I got to Elend in time.”

  Kelsier frowned. “You’ve got to be mistaken.”

  “It happened before too,” Vin said. “I can feel the Lord Ruler’s touch on my emotions, even when I’m burning copper. And I swear that when I was hiding from that Inquisitor who was hunting me, he found me when he shouldn’t have been able to. Kelsier, what if it’s possible? What if hiding yourself by Smoking isn’t just a simple matter of whether or not your copper is on? What if it just depends on how strong you are?”

  Kelsier sat thoughtfully. “It could be possible, I suppose.”

  “Then Mare wouldn’t have had to betray you!” Vin said eagerly. “Inquisitors are extremely powerful. The ones who were waiting for you, maybe they just felt you burning metals! They knew that an Allomancer was trying to sneak into the palace. Then, the Lord Ruler thanked her because she was the one who gave you away! She was the Allomancer, burning tin, that led them to you.”

  Kelsier’s face took on a troubled expression. He turned, sitting himself so he was directly in front of her. “Do it now, then. Tell me what metal I’m burning.”

  Vin closed her eyes, flaring bronze, listening…feeling, as Marsh had taught her. She remembered her solitary trainings, time spent focusing on the waves Breeze, Ham, or Spook gave off for her. She tried to pick out the fuzzing rhythm of Allomancy. Tried to…

  For a moment, she thought she felt something. Something very strange—a slow pulsing, like a distant drum, unlike any Allomantic rhythm she’d felt before. But it wasn’t coming from Kelsier. It was distant…far away. She focused harder, trying to pick out the direction it was coming from.

  But suddenly, as she focused harder, something else drew her attention. A more familiar rhythm, coming from Kelsier. It was faint, difficult to feel over the pulsing of her own heartbeat. It was a bold beat, and quick.

  She opened her eyes. “Pewter! You’re burning pewter.”

  Kelsier blinked in surprise. “Impossible,” he whispered. “Again!”

  She closed her eyes. “Tin,” she said after a moment. “Now steel—you changed as soon as I spoke.”

  “Bloody hell!”

  “I was right,” Vin said eagerly. “You can feel Allomantic pulses through copper! They’re quiet, but I guess you just have to focus hard enough to—”

  “Vin,” Kelsier interrupted. “Don’t you think Allomancers have tried this before? You don’t think that after a thousand years’ time, someone would have noticed that you could pierce a coppercloud? I’ve even tried it. I focused for hours on my Master, trying to sense something through his coppercloud.”

  “But…” Vin said. “But why…?”

  “It must have to do with strength, like you said. Inquisitors can Push and Pull harder than any regular Mistborn—perhaps they’re so strong that they can overwhelm someone else’s metal.”

  “But, Kelsier,” Vin said quietly. “I’m not an Inquisitor.”

  “But you’re strong,” he said. “Stronger than you have any right to be. You killed a full Mistborn tonight!”

  “By luck,” Vin said, face flushing. “I just tricked her.”

  “Allomancy is nothing but tricks, Vin. No, there’s something special about you. I noticed it on that first day, when you shrugged off my attempts to Push and Pull your emotions.”

  She flushed. “It can’t be that, Kelsier. Maybe I’ve just practiced with bronze more than you…. I don’t know, I just…”

  “Vin,” Kelsier said, “you’re still too self-effacing. You’re good at this—that much is obvious. If that’s why you can see through copperclouds…well, I don’t know. But learn to take a little pride in yourself, kid! If there’s anything I can teach you, it’s how to be self-confident.”

  Vin smiled.

  “Come on,” he said, standing and holding out a hand to help her up. “Sazed is going to fret all night if you don’t let him finish stitching that cheek wound, and Ham’s dying to hear about your battle. Good job leaving Shan’s body back at Keep Venture, by the way—when House Elariel hears that she was found dead on Venture property…”

  Vin allowed him to pull her up, but she glanced toward the trapdoor apprehensively. “I…don�
�t know if I want to go down yet, Kelsier. How can I face them?”

  Kelsier laughed. “Oh, don’t worry. If you didn’t say some stupid things every once in a while, you certainly wouldn’t fit in with this group. Come on.”

  Vin hesitated, then let him lead her back down to the warmth of the kitchen.

  “Elend, how can you read at times like this?” Jastes asked.

  Elend looked up from his book. “It calms me.”

  Jastes raised an eyebrow. The young Lekal sat impatiently in the coach, tapping his fingers on the armrest. The window shades were drawn, partially to hide the light of Elend’s reading lantern, partially to keep out the mists. Though Elend would never admit it, the swirling fog made him just a bit nervous. Noblemen weren’t supposed to be afraid of such things, but that didn’t change the fact that the deep, caliginous mist was just plain creepy.

  “Your father is going to be livid when you get back,” Jastes noted, still tapping the armrest.

  Elend shrugged, though this comment did make him a little bit nervous. Not because of his father, but because of what had happened this night. Some Allomancers had, apparently, been spying on Elend’s meeting with his friends. What information had they gathered? Did they know about the books he’d read?

  Fortunately, one of them had tripped, falling through Elend’s skylight. After that, it had been confusion and chaos—soldiers and ballgoers running about in a semi-panic. Elend’s first thought had been for the books—the dangerous ones, the ones that if the obligators found he possessed, could get him into serious trouble.

  So, in the confusion, he’d dumped them all in a bag and followed Jastes down to the palace side exit. Grabbing a carriage and sneaking out of the palace grounds had been an extreme move, perhaps, but it had been ridiculously easy. With the number of carriages fleeing the Venture grounds, not a single person had paused to notice that Elend himself was in the carriage with Jastes.

  It’s probably all died down by now, Elend told himself. People will realize that House Venture wasn’t trying to attack them, and that there wasn’t really any danger. Just some spies who got careless.

  He should have returned by now. However, his convenient absence from the palace gave him a perfect excuse to check on another group of spies. And this time, Elend himself had sent them.

  A sudden knock on the door made Jastes jump, and Elend closed his book, then opened the carriage door. Felt, one of the House Venture chief spies, climbed into the carriage, nodding his hawkish, mustached face respectfully to Elend, then Jastes.

  “Well?” Jastes asked.

  Felt sat down with the keen litheness of his kind. “The building is ostensibly a woodcrafter’s shop, m’lord. One of my men has heard of the place—it’s run by one Master Cladent, a skaa carpenter of no small skill.”

  Elend frowned. “Why did Valette’s steward come here?”

  “We think that the shop is a front, m’lord,” Felt said. “We’ve been observing it ever since the steward led us here, as you ordered. However, we’ve had to be very careful—there are several watchnests hidden on its roof and top floors.”

  Elend frowned. “An odd precaution for a simple craftsman’s shop, I should think.”

  Felt nodded. “That’s not the half of it, m’lord. We managed to sneak one of our best men up to the building itself—we don’t think he was spotted—but he had a remarkably difficult time hearing what’s going on inside. The windows are sealed and stuffed to keep in sound.”

  Another odd precaution, Elend thought. “What do you think it means?” he asked Felt.

  “It’s got to be an underground hideout, m’lord,” Felt said. “And a good one. If we hadn’t been watching carefully, and been certain what to look for, we would never have noticed the signs. My guess is that the men inside—even the Terrisman—are members of a skaa thieving crew. A very well-funded and skilled one.”

  “A skaa thieving crew?” Jastes asked. “And Lady Valette too?”

  “Likely, m’lord,” Felt said.

  Elend paused. “A…skaa thieving crew…” he said, stunned. Why would they send one of their members to balls? To perform a scam of some sort, perhaps?

  “M’lord?” Felt asked. “Do you want us to break in? I’ve got enough men to take their entire crew.”

  “No,” Elend said. “Call your men back, and tell no one of what you’ve seen this night.”

  “Yes, m’lord,” Felt said, climbing out of the coach.

  “Lord Ruler!” Jastes said as the carriage door closed. “No wonder she didn’t seem like a regular noblewoman. It wasn’t her rural upbringing—she’s just a thief!”

  Elend nodded, thoughtful, not certain what to think.

  “You owe me an apology,” Jastes said. “I was right about her, eh?”

  “Perhaps,” Elend said. “But…in a way, you were wrong about her too. She wasn’t trying to spy on me—she was just trying to rob me.”

  “So?”

  “I…need to think about this,” Elend said, reaching out and knocking for the carriage to start moving. He sat back as the coach began to roll back toward Keep Venture.

  Valette wasn’t the person that she’d said she was. However, he’d already prepared himself for that news. Not only had Jastes’s words about her made him suspicious, Valette herself hadn’t denied Elend’s accusations earlier in the night. It was obvious; she had been lying to him. Playing a part.

  He should have been furious. He realized this, logically, and a piece of him did ache of betrayal. But, oddly, the primary emotion he felt was one of…relief.

  “What?” Jastes asked, studying Elend with a frown.

  Elend shook his head. “You’ve had me worrying over this for days, Jastes. I felt so sick that I could barely function—all because I thought that Valette was a traitor.”

  “But she is. Elend, she’s probably trying to scam you!”

  “Yes,” Elend said, “but at least she probably isn’t a spy for another house. In the face of all the intrigue, politics, and backbiting that has been going on lately, something as simple as a robbery feels slightly refreshing.”

  “But…”

  “It’s only money, Jastes.”

  “Money is kind of important to some of us, Elend.”

  “Not as important as Valette. That poor girl…all this time, she must have been worrying about the scam she would have to pull on me!”

  Jastes sat for a moment, then he finally shook his head. “Elend, only you would be relieved to find out that someone was trying to steal from you. Need I remind you that the girl has been lying this entire time? You might have grown attached to her, but I doubt her own feelings are genuine.”

  “You may be right,” Elend admitted. “But…I don’t know, Jastes. I feel like I know this girl. Her emotions…they just seem too real, too honest, to be false.”

  “Doubtful,” Jastes said.

  Elend shook his head. “We don’t have enough information to judge her yet. Felt thinks she’s a thief, but there have to be other reasons a group like that would send someone to balls. Maybe she’s just an informant. Or, maybe she is a thief—but not one who ever intended to rob me. She spent an awful lot of time mixing with the other nobility—why would she do that if I was her target? In fact, she spent relatively little time with me, and she never plied me for gifts.”

  He paused—imagining his meeting Valette as a pleasant accident, an event that had thrown a terrible twist into both of their lives. He smiled, then shook his head. “No, Jastes. There’s more here than we’re seeing. Something about her still doesn’t make sense.”

  “I…suppose, El,” Jastes said, frowning.

  Elend sat upright, a sudden thought occurring to him—a thought that made his speculations about Valette’s motivation seem far less important. “Jastes,” he said. “She’s skaa!”

  “And?”

  “And she fooled me—fooled us both. She acted the part of an aristocrat almost perfectly.”

  “An inexperienced a
ristocrat, perhaps.”

  “I had a real skaa thief with me!” Elend said. “Think of the questions I could have asked her.”

  “Questions? What kind of questions?”

  “Questions about being skaa,” Elend said. “That’s not the point. Jastes, she fooled us. If we can’t tell the difference between a skaa and a noblewoman, that means that the skaa can’t be very different from us. And, if they’re not that different from us, what right do we have treating them as we do?”

  Jastes shrugged. “Elend, I don’t think you’re looking at this in perspective. We’re in the middle of a house war.”

  Elend nodded distractedly. I was so hard on her this evening. Too hard?

  He had wanted her to believe, totally and completely, that he didn’t want anything more to do with her. Part of that had been genuine, for his own worries had convinced him that she couldn’t be trusted. And she couldn’t be, not at the moment. Either way, he’d wanted her to leave the city. He’d thought that the best thing to do was break off the relationship until the house war was through.

  But, assuming she’s really not a noblewoman, then there’s no reason for her to leave.

  “Elend?” Jastes asked. “Are you even paying attention to me?”

  Elend looked up. “I think I did something wrong tonight. I wanted to get Valette out of Luthadel. But, now I think I hurt her for no reason.”

  “Bloody hell, Elend!” Jastes said. “Allomancers were listening to our conference this night. Do you realize what could have happened? What if they’d decided to kill us, rather than just spy on us?”

  “Ah, yes, you’re right,” Elend said with a distracted nod. “It’s best if Valette leaves anyway. Anyone close to me will be in danger during the days to come.”

  Jastes paused, his annoyance deepening, then he finally laughed. “You’re hopeless.”

  “I try my best,” Elend said. “But, seriously, there’s no use worrying. The spies gave themselves away, and likely got chased off—or even captured—in the chaos. We now know some of the secrets that Valette is hiding, so we’re ahead there too. It’s been a very productive night!”