Mistborn #01 The Final Empire

into a dash.
    Ahead, Kelsier’s line vanished into the night. Vin sighed, slowing. She flared her iron, but it was barely enough to catch a glimpse of him disappearing again in the distance. She’d never keep up.
    Her flared iron, however, showed her something else. She frowned, continuing forward until she reached a stationary source of metal—two small bronze bars stuck into the ground a couple feet from each other. She flipped one up into her hand, then looked into the swirling mists to the north.
    He’s jumping, she thought. But why? Jumping was faster than walking, but there didn’t seem much point to it in the empty wilderness.
    Unless . . .
    She walked forward, and she soon found two more bronze bars embedded in the earth. Vin glanced backward. It was hard to tell in the night, but it seemed that the four bars made a line that pointed directly toward Luthadel.
    So that’s how he does it, she thought. Kelsier had an uncanny ability to move between Luthadel and Fellise with remarkable speed. She’d assumed that he was using horses, but it appeared that there was a better way. He—or perhaps someone before him—had laid down an Allomantic road between the two cities.
    She gripped the first bar in her palm—she’d need it to soften her landing if she was wrong—then stepped up in front of the second pair of bars and launched herself into the air.
    She Pushed hard, flaring her steel, throwing herself as far up into the sky as she could. As she flew, she flared her iron, searching for other sources of metal. They soon appeared—two directly north, and two more in the distance to either side of her.
    The ones on the sides are for course corrections, she realized. She’d have to keep moving directly north if she wanted to stay on the bronze highway. She nudged herself slightly to the left—moving so that she passed directly between the two adjacent bars of the main path—then hurled herself forward again in an arcing leap.
    She got the hang of it quickly, hopping from point to point, never dropping even close to the ground. In just a few minutes, she had the rhythm down so well that she barely had to do any corrections from the sides.
    Her progress across the scraggly landscape was incredibly swift. The mists blew by, her mistcloak whipping and flapping behind her. Still, she forced herself to speed up. She’d spent too long studying the bronze bars. She had to catch up to Kelsier; otherwise she’d arrive in Luthadel, but not know where to go from there.
    She began to throw herself from point to point at an almost reckless speed, watching desperately for some sign of Allomantic motion. After about ten minutes of leaping, a line of blue finally appeared ahead of her—one pointing up, rather than down toward bars in the ground. She breathed in relief.
    Then a second line appeared, and a third.
    Vin frowned, letting herself drop to the ground with a muted thump. She flared tin, and a massive shadow appeared in the night before her, its top sparkling with balls of light.
    The city wall, she thought with amazement. So soon? I made the trip twice as fast as a man on horseback!
    However, that meant she’d lost Kelsier. Frowning to herself, she used the bar she’d been carrying to throw herself up onto the battlements. Once she landed on the damp stone, she reached behind and Pulled the bar up into her hand. Then she approached the other side of the wall, hopping up and crouching on the stone railing as she scanned the city.
    What now? she thought with annoyance. Head back to Fellise? Stop by Clubs’s shop and see if he went there?
    She sat uncertainly for a moment, then threw herself off the wall and began making her way across the rooftops. She wandered randomly, pushing off of window clasps and bits of metal, using the bronze bar—then pulling it back into her hand—when long jumps were necessary. It wasn’t until she arrived that she realized she’d unconsciously gone to a specific destination.
    Keep Venture rose before her in the night. The limelights had been extinguished, and only a few phantom torches burned near guard posts.
    Vin crouched on the lip on a rooftop, trying to decide what had led her back to the massive keep. The cool wind ruffled her hair and cloak, and she thought she felt a few tiny raindrops on her cheek. She sat for a long moment, her toes growing cold.
    Then she noticed motion to her right. She crouched immediately, flaring her tin.
    Kelsier sat on a rooftop not three