POV: vin
Summary
Vin curls in Elend's plush reading chair with OreSeur beside her while the inner crew argues out the plan in Elend's study. Dockson says it is dangerous; Elend says it is the only option: he will walk personally and unarmed into Straff's siege camp, persuade his father that Luthadel is on the Venture side, then walk afterwards into Cett's camp and tell Cett the opposite, and force the two armies into each other. The crew dig at the plan. What if Straff simply takes him hostage? The Assembly has the constitutional power to elect another king; orders are to let him die. What if Straff just attacks? He has Cett at his back. What if Elend can't lie that well? Elend keeps his fists clenched at his sides and finally tells the room he has decided, and to her surprise, the crew accept it. Vin silently approves, then adds that Straff will only agree if she comes along — and the meeting agrees to that too.
She is half-listening, because while the men argue she has been studying them. Vin is hunting the second kandra in the palace and the only test she has is Allomancy — anyone she catches actively burning a metal is cleared. She burns bronze and feels at once that Breeze is using brass on Elend. Predictable; he always is. Then she remembers Marsh hinting that bronze held more information than people credited it for. She squeezes her eyes shut, then cheats: turns off her tin, burns duralumin, and flares the bronze in one massive pulse. For one deafening instant she reads the emotion Breeze is touching: anxiety, nervousness, worry, insecurity, anxiety, nervousness, worry. Breeze is Soothing those feelings down in Elend — making him stand straighter and speak more firmly under the surface of his own mockery. He has been on Elend's side the whole time, and Vin, rebuking her own cynicism, smiles to herself. He is, also, not the impostor.
Underneath all the bronze work, Vin is quietly distracted. She catches herself thinking again about Zane on the wall walk — they do not belong in this world, the Mistborn had told her in the mist — and about Elend, who stands a little straighter now and trains in the cane and the sword, and whether he is becoming something different from the man she fell in love with. She does not yet know what to do with either thought. She files them away with her growing list of impostors she has not yet ruled out.
The crew disperse on their assignments — letters, security, the garrison sparring sessions, placating the Assembly about Elend's absence and about a growing trade in counterfeit coins in the city. Vin trails out, shooting Tindwyl one last suspicious look.
Alone with Elend, Tindwyl tells him he is an embarrassment. The lesson goes long: stop letting friends call him "El"; a king's friends address him as Your Majesty in public, privately too if he can manage it; stop asking the people he leads for permission; stop wallowing in guilt; never apologise unless he means it; stand by his own decisions because the alternative is chaos. When he half-jokes that she is saying he should kill himself, she tells him no — she is telling him to have pride. And then, without warning, she pivots to ask him why he hasn't married Vin. He bristles. She insults Vin mildly to see what he does. He snaps back, hard, and she smiles: he had taken abuse all afternoon without a fight, and an idle dig at his Mistborn brought the king out. She apologises; she had to be sure. And then, out of character, she tells him to keep Vin anyway, because love is harder for kings than the rest, and worth the difficulty.
Captain Demoux knocks at the door, looking embarrassed. A visitor has come from Lord Cett's army — a woman, who claims to be Cett's daughter, and who has come looking for Breeze.