Mistborn #02 The Well of Ascension Read Online Free PDF Page B

nobleman: He saw life as a competition between lords to see who could earn the greatest reputation. He had played the game well, making House Venture the most powerful of the pre-Collapse noble families.
    Elend's father would not see the Lord Ruler's death as a tragedy or a victory—just as an opportunity. The fact that Straff's supposedly weak-willed fool of a son now claimed to be king of the Central Dominance probably gave him no end of mirth.
    Elend shook his head, turning back to the proposal. A few more rereads, a few tweaks, and I'll finally be able to get some sleep. I just —
    A cloaked form dropped from the skylight in the roof and landed with a quiet thump behind him.
    Elend raised an eyebrow, turning toward the crouching figure. "You know, I leave the balcony open for a reason, Vin. You could come in that way, if you wanted."
    "I know," Vin said. Then she darted across the room, moving with an Allomancer's unnatural litheness. She checked beneath his bed, then moved over to his closet and threw open the doors. She jumped back with the tension of an alert animal, but apparently found nothing inside that met with her disapproval, for she moved over to peek through the door leading into the rest of Elend's chambers.
    Elend watched her with fondness. It had taken him some time to get used to Vin's particular. . .idiosyncrasies. He teased her about being paranoid; she just claimed she was careful. Regardless, half the time she visited his chambers she checked underneath his bed and in his closet. The other times, she held herself back—but Elend often caught her glancing distrustfully toward potential hiding places.
    She was far less jumpy when she didn't have a particular reason to worry about him. However, Elend was only just beginning to understand that there was a very complex person hiding behind the face he had once known as Valette Renoux's. He had fallen in love with her courtly side without ever knowing the nervous, furtive Mistborn side. It was still a little difficult to see them as the same person.
    Vin closed the door, then paused briefly, watching him with her round, dark eyes. Elend found himself smiling. Despite her oddities—or, more likely because of them—he loved this thin woman with the determined eyes and blunt temperament. She was like no one he had ever known—a woman of simple, yet honest, beauty and wit.
    She did, however, sometimes worry him.
    "Vin?" he asked, standing.
    "Have you seen anything strange tonight?"
    Elend paused. "Besides you?"
    She frowned, striding across the room. Elend watched her small form, clothed in black trousers and a man's buttoning shirt, mistcloak tassels trailing behind her. She wore the cloak's hood down, as usual, and she stepped with a supple grace—the unconscious elegance of a person burning pewter.
    Focus ! he told himself. You really are getting tired . "Vin? What's wrong?"
    Vin glanced toward the balcony. "That Mistborn, the Watcher, is in the city again."
    "You're sure?"
    Vin nodded. "But. . .I don't think he's going to come for you tonight."
    Elend frowned. The balcony doors were still open, and trails of mist puffed through them, creeping along the floor until they finally evaporated. Beyond those doors was. . .darkness. Chaos.
    It's just mist , he told himself. Water vapor. Nothing to fear . "What makes you think the Mistborn won't come for me?"
    Vin shrugged. "I just feel he won't."
    She often answered that way. Vin had grown up a creature of the streets, and she trusted her instincts. Oddly, so did Elend. He eyed her, reading the uncertainty in her posture. Something else had unsettled her this night. He looked into her eyes, holding them for a moment, until she glanced away.
    "What?" he asked.
    "I saw. . .something else," she said. "Or, I thought I did. Something in the mist, like a person formed from smoke. I could feel it, too, with Allomancy. It disappeared, though."
    Elend frowned more deeply. He walked forward, putting his arms around her.