The Hero of Ages

up and resist him. Indeed, skaa revolts always failed in part for this very reason.

28

'Are you sure it was the mist spirit?' Elend asked, frowning, a half-finished letter-scribed into a steel foil sheet-sitting on his desk before him. He'd decided to sleep in his cabin aboard the narrowboat, rather than in a tent. Not only was it more comfortable, he felt more secure with walls around him, as opposed to canvas.

Vin sighed, sitting down on their bed, pulling her legs up and setting her chin on her knees. 'I don't know. I kind of got spooked, so I fled.'

'Good thing,' Elend said, shivering as he remembered what the mist spirit had done to him.

'Sazed was convinced that the mist spirit wasn't evil,' Vin said.

'So was I,' Elend said. 'If you'll remember, I'm the one who walked right up to it, telling you that I felt it was friendly. That was right about the time it stabbed me.'

Vin shook her head. 'It was trying to keep me from releasing Ruin. It thought that if you were dying, I would take the power for myself and heal you, rather than giving it up.'

'You don't know its intentions for certain, Vin. You could be connecting coincidences in your mind.'

'Perhaps. However, it led Sazed to discover that Ruin was altering text.'

That much, at least, was true-if, indeed, Sazed's account of the matter could be trusted. The Terrisman had been a little bit. . inconsistent since Tindwyl had died. No, Elend told himself, feeling an instant stab of guilt. No, Sazed is trustworthy. He might be struggling with his faith, but he is still twice as reliable as the rest of us.

'Oh, Elend,' Vin said softly. 'There's so much we don't know. Lately, I feel like my life is a book written in a language I don't know how to read. The mist spirit is related to all this, but I can't even begin to fathom how.'

'It's probably on our side,' Elend said, though it was hard not to keep flashing back to memories of how it had felt to be stabbed, to feel his life fading away. To die, knowing what it would do to Vin.

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 as if the world had been put back together just a bit.

'So,' Elend said, sitting on the bed beside her. 'What have you got? Any thoughts?'

Vin paused. 'Yes,' she said. 'But I can't tell you.'

Elend frowned.

'It's not that I don't trust you,' Vin said. 'It's Ruin. In the last storage cavern, I found a second inscription on the plate, down near the bottom. It warned me that anything I speak-or that I write-will be known by our enemy. So, if we talk too much, he will know our plans.'

'That makes it a bit difficult to work on the problem together.'

Vin took his hands. 'Elend, do you know why I finally agreed to marry you?'

Elend shook his head.

'Because I realized that you trusted me,' Vin said. 'Trusted me as nobody ever has before. On that night, when I fought Zane, I decided that I had to give my trust to you. This force that's destroying the world, we have something that it can never understand. I don't necessarily need your help; I need your trust. Your hope. It's something I've never had of myself, and I rely on yours.'

Elend nodded slowly. 'You have it.'

'Thank you.'

'You know,' Elend added, 'during those days when you refused to marry me, I constantly thought about how strange you were.'

She raised an eyebrow. 'Well, that's romantic.'

Elend smiled. 'Oh, come on. You have to admit that you're unusual, Vin. You're like some strange mixture of a noblewoman, a street urchin, and a cat. Plus, you've managed-in our short three years together-to kill not only my god, but my father, my brother, and my fiancee. That's kind of like a homicidal hat trick. It's a strange foundation for a relationship, wouldn't you say?'