POV: vin
Summary
Vin stands at the front of a packed Assembly Hall on the day of the vote, in a white gown chosen to match Elend's uniform, edged by a nervousness she cannot name. Elend insists on greeting every Assemblyman in person as they enter; rows of guards have been seeded into the front benches. He is wearing his crown. He looks too confident. He tells her, quickly and apologetically, that he and Ham cooked up a ploy the night before that involves her reputation, that he had not had time to ask her about it, that it changes nothing between them. Penrod calls the meeting to order before he can explain. She takes her seat near the back, finds Ham seated in the audience with the skaa and with Captain Demoux and a priest of the Church, and works out the trick on her own.
From the lectern Elend tells the room that he has joined the Church of the Survivor and that, by the Survivor's blessing, he asks the Assembly to vote for him. The eight skaa are suddenly hard to vote against him; combined with his own ballot, even a partial deadlock costs him nothing — the king sits until the Assembly picks another. Vin is still working through how much that ploy costs his integrity when she notices men drifting along the edges of the room.
A Thug leaps onto the dais. Two more groups of attackers move on the front row and on Cett's bench. The room explodes into screams. Vin hurls herself between Elend and the first Thug and drives him back with both feet; the Hall clogs at its exits and there is nowhere for the audience to escape. Six attackers fan out in three pairs — a Thug with a Coinshot or Lurcher each — deliberately keeping her from using coins by ensuring any deflection will spray the crowd. They press Elend from the sides while she tries to keep him alive.
Vin Pulls Elend's sword and metal-tipped sheath out of his hands as projectiles, scatters them against the bleachers, breaks a Thug's leg, takes a snapped staff to the ribs while burning duralumin on pewter so she can drive a dagger through his neck, then drops the Coinshot behind him before her boosted reserves vanish. The wound in her shoulder and cracked ribs nearly take her under. The last vial of metal hidden in OreSeur's wolfhound-shoulder saves her; he is pretending to be dead from a skull-blow he took on her behalf and signals her with a slumped jaw. She gulps the vial, jams a finger into a Thug's eye, finishes the second Coinshot with a staff. Elend, in the last unfinished moment, manages to hold his ground with a borrowed dueling cane.
The first Thug — the one whose leg she had broken and forgotten — gets a grip on her throat from behind. He is too big and too strong; she cannot pry him off. She burns duralumin one more time on a flared pewter reserve and drives her forehead into his face. His head explodes. She stumbles to her feet, white gown red, and sees what she has been afraid to see since the fight began — the look on Elend's face. Horror. Then she falls.
Ham reports to Elend afterwards, in the cleared Hall, that she will live; Sazed will see to her ribs and a coin wound. Elend cannot get the headless corpse out of his head, or her gore-soaked white gown out of his eyes. He assumes Straff sent the assassins, because they targeted both him and Cett — Cett himself barely escaped, half his soldiers dead around him. Then Penrod's messenger arrives: the voting is to continue, at Mansion Penrod, by deadline. Elend refuses to let the law he himself wrote be retained by default and goes.
At Penrod's mansion, under heavy guard and witnessed by Noorden and three other scribes, the Assembly reconvenes. Penrod votes for himself. Lord Dukaler joins him — expected. Then Lord Habren votes Cett — also expected. Elend votes for himself. And the merchants begin: Philen, who once smuggled Cett into the city, votes Penrod. Every merchant after him does the same. Elend cannot read whether the man is bitter or pleased — but Cett is being torn loose from his throne.
Haws, foremost of the skaa, gives Elend the first Church vote with a nod. Four more skaa follow him; the canal-worker brothers Jasten and Thurts hold for Penrod because they have never liked the Church; Vet closes ranks with the believers. The tally is fifteen for Penrod, seven for Elend, two for Cett — a deadlock, and the throne stays with Elend.
Then Habren asks aloud whether he can change his vote, since Cett obviously cannot win. The clause exists, oblique and known to only two men in the room — Noorden holds his tongue. Elend tells him truthfully that the law allows it, that the same opportunity belongs to everyone, and that it must be exercised before voting closes. Habren votes Penrod; the other Cett voter, Lord Hue, follows. Penrod closes the voting at seventeen and seven, and accepts the appointment as king. Elend sets his crown on the mantelpiece, tells the new king he will need it, and walks out without looking back.