Mistborn Trilogy - Brandon Sanderson [760]
He forced himself back to the conversation at hand. “You think the mist spirit tried to keep you from releasing Ruin, and Sazed says it gave him important information. That makes it the enemy of our enemy.”
“For the moment,” Vin said. “But, the mist spirit is much weaker than Ruin. I’ve felt them both. Ruin was . . . vast. Powerful. It can hear whatever we say—can see all places at once. The mist spirit is far fainter. More like a memory than a real force or power.”
“Do you still think it hates you?”
Vin shrugged. “I haven’t seen it in over a year. Yet, I’m pretty sure that it isn’t the sort of thing that changes, and I always felt hatred and animosity from it.” She paused, frowning. “That was the beginning. That night when I first saw the mist spirit was when I began to sense that the mists were no longer my home.”
“Are you sure the spirit isn’t what kills people and makes them sick?”
Vin nodded. “Yes, I’m sure.” She was adamant about this, though Elend felt she was a bit quick to judge. Something ghost-like, moving about in the mists? It seemed like just the kind of thing that would be related to people dying suddenly in those same mists.
Of course, the people who died in the mists didn’t die of stabbings, but of a shaking disease. Elend sighed, rubbing his eyes. His unfinished letter to Lord Yomen sat on his desk—he’d have to get back to it in the morning.
“Elend,” Vin said. “Tonight, I told someone that I’d stop the ash from falling and turn the sun yellow.”
Elend raised an eyebrow. “That informant you spoke of?”
Vin nodded. The two sat in silence.
“I never expected you to admit something like that,” he finally said.
“I’m the Hero of Ages, aren’t I? Even Sazed said so, before he started to go strange. It’s my destiny.”
“The same ‘destiny’ that said you would take up the power of the Well of Ascension, then release it for the greater good of mankind?”
Vin nodded.
“Vin,” Elend said with a smile, “I really don’t think ‘destiny’ is the sort of thing we need to worry about right now. I mean, we have proof that the prophecies were twisted by Ruin in order to trick people into freeing him.”
“Someone has to worry about the ash,” Vin said.
There wasn’t much he could say to that. The logical side of him wanted to argue, claiming that they should focus on the things they could do—making a stable government, uncovering the secrets left by the Lord Ruler, securing the supplies in the caches. Yet, the constant ashfall seemed to be growing even denser. If that continued, it wouldn’t be long before the sky was nothing more than a solid black storm of ash.
It just seemed so difficult to think that Vin—his wife—could do anything about the color of the sun or the falling ash. Demoux is right, he thought, tapping his fingers across the metallic letter to Lord Yomen. I’m really not a very good member of the Church of the Survivor.
He looked across the cabin at her, sitting on the bed, expression distant as she thought about things that shouldn’t have to be her burden. Even after leaping about all night, even after their days spent traveling, even with her face dirtied by ash, she was beautiful.
At that moment, Elend realized something. Vin didn’t need another person worshipping her. She didn’t need another faithful believer like Demoux, especially not in Elend. He didn’t need to be a good member of the Church of the Survivor. He needed to be a good husband.
“Well, then,” he said. “Let’s do it.”
“What?” Vin asked.
“Save the world,” Elend said. “Stop the ash.”
Vin snorted quietly. “You make it sound like a joke.”
“No, I’m serious,” he said, standing. “If this is what you feel you must do—what you feel that you are—then let’s do it. I’ll help however I can.”
“What about your speech before?” Vin said. “In the last storage cavern—you talked about division of labor. Me working on the mists, you working on uniting the empire.”
“I was wrong.”
Vin smiled, and suddenly Elend felt