Mistborn #02 The Well of Ascension

died expecting it. There was only one problem. Nobody had ever found the reserve. They had found some small bit—the atium that had made up the bracers that the Lord Ruler had used as a Feruchemical battery to store up age. However, they had spent those on supplies for the city, and they had actually contained only a very small bit of atium. Nothing like the cache was said to have. There should still be, somewhere in the city, a wealth of atium thousands of times larger than those bracers.
    "We'll just have to deal with it," Elend said.
    "If a Mistborn attacks you, I won't be able to kill him."
    "Only if he has atium," Elend said. "It's becoming more and more rare. I doubt the other kings have much of it."
    Kelsier had destroyed the Pits of Hathsin, the only place where atium could be mined. Still, if Vin did have to fight someone with atium. . .
    Don't think about that , he told himself. Just keep searching. Perhaps we can buy some. Or maybe we'll find the Lord Ruler's cache. If it even exists . . ..
    Vin looked up at him, reading the concern in his eyes, and he knew she had arrived at the same conclusions as he. There was little that could be accomplished at the moment; Vin had done well to conserve their atium as long as she had. Still, as Vin stepped back and let Elend return to his table, he couldn't help thinking about how they could have spent that atium. His people would need food for the winter.
    But, by selling the metal , he thought, sitting, we would have put more of the world's most dangerous Allomantic weapon into the hands of our enemies . Better that Vin used it up.
    As he began to work again, Vin poked her head over his shoulder, obscuring his lamplight. "What is it?" she asked.
    "The proposal blocking the Assembly until I've had my right of parlay."
    "Again?" she asked, cocking her head and squinting as she tried to make out his handwriting.
    "The Assembly rejected the last version."
    Vin frowned. "Why don't you just tell them that they have to accept it? You're the king."
    "Now, see," Elend said, "that's what I'm trying to prove by all this. I'm just one man, Vin—maybe my opinion isn't better than theirs. If we all work on the proposal together, it will come out better than if one man had done it himself."
    Vin shook her head. "It will be too weak. No teeth. You should trust yourself more."
    "It's not about trust. It's about what's right. We spent a thousand years fighting off the Lord Ruler—if I do things the same way he did, then what will be the difference?"
    Vin turned and looked him in the eyes. "The Lord Ruler was an evil man. You're a good one. That's the difference."
    Elend smiled. "It's that easy for you, isn't it?"
    Vin nodded.
    Elend leaned up and kissed her again. "Well, some of us have to make things a little more complicated, so you'll have to humor us. Now, kindly remove yourself from my light so I can get back to work."
    She snorted, but stood up and rounded the desk, leaving behind a faint scent of perfume. Elend frowned. When'd she put that on ? Many of her motions were so quick that he missed them.
    Perfume—just another of the apparent contradictions that made up the woman who called herself Vin. She wouldn't have been wearing it out in the mists; she usually put it on just for him. Vin liked to be unobtrusive, but she loved wearing scents—and got annoyed at him if he didn't notice when she was trying out a new one. She seemed suspicious and paranoid, yet she trusted her friends with a dogmatic loyalty. She went out at night in black and gray, trying so hard to hide—but Elend had seen her at the balls a year ago, and she had looked natural in gowns and dresses.
    For some reason she had stopped wearing those. She hadn't ever explained why.
    Elend shook his head, turning back to his proposal. Next to Vin, politics seemed simplistic. She rested her arms on the desktop, watching him work, yawning.
    "You should get some rest," he said, dipping his pen again.
    Vin paused, then nodded. She removed her mistcloak, wrapped it around herself, then curled up on the rug beside his desk.
    Elend paused. "I didn't mean here , Vin," he said with amusement.
    "There's still a Mistborn out there somewhere," she said with a tired, muffled voice. "I'm not leaving you." She twisted in the cloak, and Elend caught a brief grimace of pain on her face. She was favoring her left side.
    She didn't often tell him the details of her fights. She didn't want to worry him. It didn't help.
    Elend pushed