Mistborn Trilogy - Brandon Sanderson [561]
“Mistress?” OreSeur asked from behind. “What are you thinking about?”
“The end,” Vin said quietly, staring outward.
Silence.
“The end of what, Mistress?”
“I don’t know.”
OreSeur padded over to the balcony, walking into the mists and sitting down beside her. She was getting to know him well enough that she could see concern in his canine eyes.
She sighed, shaking her head. “I just have decisions to make. And, no matter which choice I make, it will mean an end.”
OreSeur sat for a moment, head cocked. “Mistress,” he finally said, “that seems excessively dramatic to me.”
Vin shrugged. “No advice for me, then?”
“Just make the decision,” OreSeur said.
Vin sat for a moment, then smiled. “Sazed would have said something wise and comforting.”
OreSeur frowned. “I fail to see why he should be part of this conversation, Mistress.”
“He was my steward,” Vin said. “Before he left, and before Kelsier switched your Contract to me.”
“Ah,” OreSeur said. “Well, I never did much like Terrismen, Mistress. Their self-important sense of subservience is very difficult to imitate—not to mention the fact that their muscles are far too stringy to taste good.”
Vin raised an eyebrow. “You’ve imitated Terrismen? I didn’t think there would be much cause for that—they weren’t a very influential people during the days of the Lord Ruler.”
“Ah,” OreSeur said. “But they were always around influential people.”
Vin nodded, standing. She walked back into her empty room and lit a lamp, extinguishing her tin. Mist carpeted the room, flowing over her stacks of paper, her feet throwing up puffs as she walked toward the bedroom.
She paused. That was a bit strange. Mist rarely remained long when it came indoors. Elend said it had to do with heat and enclosed spaces. Vin had always ascribed to it something more mystical. She frowned, watching it.
Even without tin, she heard the creak.
Vin spun. Zane stood on the balcony, his figure a black silhouette in the mists. He stepped forward, the mist following around him, as it did around anyone burning metals. And yet…it also seemed to be pushing away from him slightly.
OreSeur growled quietly.
“It’s time,” Zane said.
“Time for what?” Vin asked, setting the lamp down.
“To go,” Zane said. “To leave these men and their armies. To leave the squabbling. To be free.”
Free.
“I…don’t know, Zane,” Vin said, looking away.
She heard him step forward. “What do you owe him, Vin? He doesn’t know you. He fears you. The truth is, he was never worthy of you.”
“No,” Vin said, shaking her head. “That’s not it at all, Zane. You don’t understand. I was never worthy of him. Elend deserves someone better. He deserves…someone who shares his ideals. Someone who thinks he was right to give up his throne. Someone who sees more honor—and less foolishness—in that.”
“Either way,” Zane said, stopping a short distance from her. “He cannot understand you. Us.”
Vin didn’t reply.
“Where would you go, Vin?” Zane asked. “If you weren’t bound to this place, bound to him? If you were free, and could do whatever you wished, where would you go?”
The thumpings seemed louder. She glanced toward OreSeur, who sat quietly by the side wall, mostly in the dark. Why feel guilty? What did she have to prove to him?
She turned back to Zane. “North,” she said. “To Terris.”
“We can go there. Wherever you want. Location is irrelevant to me, as long as it is not this place.”
“I can’t abandon them,” Vin said.
“Even if by doing so, you steal away Straff’s only Mistborn?” Zane asked. “The trade is a good one. My father will know that I have disappeared, but he will not realize that you aren’t still in Luthadel. He’ll be even more afraid to attack. By giving yourself freedom, you’ll also be leaving your allies with a precious gift.”
Zane took her hand, forcing her to look at him. He did look like Elend—like a hard version of Elend. Zane had been broken by life, just as she had been, but both had put themselves back together. Had the re-forming made them stronger, or more fragile?