Mistborn Trilogy - Brandon Sanderson [611]
What did you expect? she thought to herself. Why keep fighting once you knew Sazed was free? Did you think to stop them all? Kill every koloss in the army?
Once, she’d stopped Kelsier from rushing an army by himself. He had been a great man, but still just one person. He couldn’t have stopped an entire army—no more than she could.
I have to find the Well, she thought with determination, burning bronze, the thumpings—which she’d been ignoring during the battle—becoming loud to her ears.
And yet, that left her with the same problem as before. She knew it was in the city now; she could feel the thumpings all around her. Yet, they were so powerful, so omnipresent, that she couldn’t sense a direction from them.
Besides, what proof did she have that finding the Well would even help? If Sazed had lied about the location—had gone so far as to draw up a fake map—then what else had he lied about? The power might stop the mists, but what good would that do for Luthadel, burning and dying?
She knelt in frustration, pounding the top of the roof with her fists. She had proven too weak. What good was it to return—what good was it to decide to protect—if she couldn’t do anything to help?
She knelt for a few moments, breathing in gasps. Finally, she forced herself to her feet and jumped into the air, throwing down a coin. Her metals were nearly gone. She barely had enough steel to carry her through a few jumps. She ended up slowing near Kredik Shaw, the Hill of a Thousand Spires. She caught one of the spikes at the top of the palace, spinning in the night, looking out over the darkening city.
It was burning.
Kredik Shaw itself was silent, quiet, left alone by looters of both races. Yet, all around her, Vin saw light in the darkness. The mists glowed with a haunting light.
It’s like…like that day two years ago, she thought. The night of the skaa rebellion. Except, on that day, the firelight had come from the torches of the rebels as they marched on the palace. This night, a revolution of a different type was occurring. She could hear it. She had her tin burning, and she forced herself to flare it, opening her ears. She heard the screams. The death. The koloss hadn’t finished their killing work by destroying the army. Not by far.
They had only just begun.
The koloss are killing them all, she thought, shivering as the fires burned before her. Elend’s people, the ones he left behind because of me. They’re dying.
I am his knife. Their knife. Kelsier trusted me with them. I should be able to do something….
She dropped toward the ground, skidding off an angled rooftop, landing in the palace courtyard. Mists gathered around her. The air was thick. And not just with ash and snow; she could smell death in its breezes, hear screams in its whispers.
Her pewter ran out.
She slumped to the ground, a wave of exhaustion hitting her so hard that everything else seemed inconsequential. She suddenly knew she shouldn’t have relied on the pewter so much. Shouldn’t have pushed herself so hard. But, it had seemed like the only way.
She felt herself begin to slip into unconsciousness.
But people were screaming. She could hear them—had heard them before. Elend’s city…Elend’s people…dying. Her friends were out there somewhere. Friends that Kelsier had trusted her to protect.
She gritted her teeth, shoving aside the exhaustion for a moment longer, struggling up to her feet. She looked through the mists, toward the phantom sounds of terrified people. She began to dash toward them.
She couldn’t jump; she was out of steel. She couldn’t even run very fast, but as she forced her body to move, it responded better and better, fighting off the dull numbness that she’d earned from relying on pewter so long.
She burst out of an alleyway, skidding in the snow, and found a small group of people running before a koloss raiding party. There were six of the beasts, small ones, but still dangerous.