Mistborn #01 The Final Empire

that when she swallowed bits of metal, she was able to draw upon their power.
    Power she appreciated, for she well knew what it was like to lack it. Even now, she was not what one would likely envision as a warrior. Slight of frame and barely five feet tall, with dark hair and pale skin, she knew she had an almost frail look about her. She no longer displayed the underfed look she had during her childhood on the streets, but she certainly wasn’t someone any man would find intimidating.
    She liked that. It gave her an edge—and she needed every edge she could get.
    She also liked the night. During the day, Luthadel was cramped and confining despite its size. But at night the mists fell like a deep cloud. They dampened, softened, shaded. Massive keeps became shadowed mountains, and crowded tenements melted together like a chandler’s rejected wares.
    Vin crouched beside her building, still watching the intersection. Carefully, she reached within herself and burned steel—one of the other metals she’d swallowed earlier. Immediately, a group of translucent blue lines sprung up around her. Visible only to her eyes, the lines pointed from her chest to nearby sources of metal—all metals, no matter what type. The thickness of the lines was proportionate to the size of the metal pieces they met. Some pointed to bronze door latches, others to crude iron nails holding boards together.
    She waited silently. None of the lines moved. Burning steel was an easy way to tell if someone were moving nearby. If they were wearing bits of metal, they would trail telltale moving lines of blue. Of course, that wasn’t the main purpose of steel. Vin reached her hand carefully into her belt pouch and pulled out one of the many coins that sat within, muffled by cloth batting. Like all other bits of metal, this coin had a blue line extending from its center to Vin’s chest.
    She flipped the coin into the air, then mentally grabbed its line and—burning steel—Pushed on the coin. The bit of metal shot into the air, arcing through the mists, forced away by the Push. It plinked to the ground in the middle of the street.
    The mists continued to spin. They were thick and mysterious, even to Vin. More dense than a simple fog and more constant than any normal weather pattern, they churned and flowed, making rivulets around her. Her eyes could pierce them—tin made her sight more keen. The night seemed lighter to her, the mists less thick. Yet, they were still there.
    A shadow moved in the city square, responding to her coin—which she had Pushed out into the square as a signal. Vin crept forward, and recognized OreSeur the kandra. He wore a different body than he had a year ago, during the days when he had acted the part of Lord Renoux. Yet, this balding, nondescript body had now become just as familiar to Vin.
    OreSeur met up with her. “Did you find what you were looking for, Mistress?” he asked, tone respectful—yet somehow still a little hostile. As always.
    Vin shook her head, glancing around in the darkness. “Maybe I was wrong,” she said. “Maybe I wasn’t being followed.” The acknowledgment made her a bit sad. She’d been looking forward to sparring with the Watcher again tonight. She still didn’t even know who he was; the first night, she’d mistaken him for an assassin. And, maybe he was. Yet, he seemed to display very little interest in Elend—and a whole lot of interest in Vin.
    “We should go back to the wall,” Vin decided, standing up. “Elend will be wondering where I went.”
    OreSeur nodded. At that moment, a burst of coins shot through the mists, spraying toward Vin.

    v1.1 proofed by billbo196