Mistborn #02 The Well of Ascension

breathing beside him.
    "Do you know why I love you, Sazed?" she asked quietly.
    "I cannot fathom," he answered honestly.
    "Because you never give in," she said. "Other men are strong like bricks—firm, unyielding, but if you pound on them long enough, they crack. You. . .you're strong like the wind. Always there, so willing to bend, but never apologetic for the times when you must be firm. I don't think any of your friends understand what a power they had in you."
    Had , he thought. She already thinks of all this in the past tense. And. . .it feels right for her to do so . "I fear that whatever I have won't be enough to save them," Sazed whispered.
    "It was enough to save three of them, though," Tindwyl said. "You were wrong to send them away. . .but maybe you were right, too."
    Sazed just closed his eyes and held her, cursing her for staying, yet loving her for it all the same.
    At that moment, the wall-top warning drums began to beat.

And so, I have made one final gamble .

51
    THE MISTY RED LIGHT OF morning was a thing that should not have existed. Mist died before daylight. Heat made it evaporate; even locking it inside of a closed room made it condense and disappear. It shouldn't have been able to withstand the light of the rising sun.
    Yet it did. The farther they'd gotten from Luthadel, the longer the mists lingered in the mornings. The change was slight—they were still only a few days' ride from Luthadel—but Vin knew. She saw the difference. This morning, the mists seemed even stronger than she'd anticipated—they didn't even weaken as the sun came up. They obscured its light.
    Mist , she thought. Deepness . She was increasingly sure that she was right about it, though she couldn't know for certain. Still, it felt right to her for some reason. The Deepness hadn't been some monster or tyrant, but a force more natural—and therefore more frightening. A creature could be killed. The mists. . .they were far more daunting. The Deepness wouldn't oppress with priests, but use the people's own superstitious terror. It wouldn't slaughter with armies, but with starvation.
    How did one fight something larger than a continent? A thing that couldn't feel anger, pain, hope, or mercy?
    Yet, it was Vin's task to do just that. She sat quietly on a large boulder beside the night's firepit, her legs up, knees to her chest. Elend still slept; Spook was out scouting.
    She didn't question her place any longer. She was either mad or she was the Hero of Ages. It was her task to defeat the mists. Yet. . . she thought, frowning. Shouldn't the thumpings be getting louder, not softer? The longer they traveled, the weaker the thumpings seemed. Was she too late? Was something happening at the Well to dampen its power? Had someone else already taken it?
    We have to keep moving .
    Another person in her place might have asked why he had been chosen. Vin had known several men—both in Camon's crew and in Elend's government—who would complain every time they were given an assignment. "Why me?" they would ask. The insecure ones didn't think they were up to the task. The lazy ones wanted out of the work.
    Vin didn't consider herself to be either self-assured or self-motivated. Still, she saw no point in asking why. Life had taught her that sometimes things simply happened. Often, there hadn't been any specific reason for Reen to beat her. And, reasons were weak comforts, anyway. The reasons that Kelsier had needed to die were clear to her, but that didn't make her miss him any less.
    She had a job to do. The fact that she didn't understand it didn't stop her from acknowledging that she had to try to accomplish it. She simply hoped that she'd know what to do when the time came. Though the thumpings were weaker, they were still there. They drew her forward. To the Well of Ascension.
    Behind her, she could feel the lesser vibration of the mist spirit. It never disappeared until the mists themselves did. It had been there all morning, standing just behind her.
    "Do you know the secret to this all?" she asked quietly, turning toward the spirit in the reddish mists. "Do you have—"
    The Allomantic pulse of the mist spirit was coming from directly inside the tent she shared with Elend.
    Vin jumped off the rock, landing on the frosted ground and scrambling to the tent. She threw open the flaps. Elend slept inside, head just barely visible as it poked out of the blankets. Mist filled the small tent, swirling, twisting—and that was odd