One second I was falling through thick mist that swirled around me while fighting twelve people whose eyes had been pierced with metal spikes.

The next I was standing, green grass in front of me. The sound of children laughing filled my ears. My adrenaline was gone. None of my muscles were tensed. No metals were burning in my gut.

It was too much, too rapid a change. I did not stumble, but I was disoriented.

I stared at the alien grass. Green grass. My lips parted slightly. My eyes widened.

Grass wasn't green! Grass was brown. I looked at the blue sky and shook my head. It wasn't raining ash. The sky was clear. How could the grass live if there was no ash for it to dissolve? It wasn't natural.

Where were the mists?

I took a step back. Am I dead?

No.

I had fought twelve Inquisitors at once. It was hard to wrap my head around, since I had been winning. Kelsier, my mentor, had become a legend after killing just one Inquisitor, but I had been able to fight twelve of them at the same time.

The battle!

Adrenaline shot through me and I flared Pewter. Pewter was one of the physicals metals. When it was burned, it made me stronger, faster, and tougher. When I flared it the Pewter in my system was used up more quickly, but the effect I got from it was amplified. Strength surged through me.

Past the grass in front of me, about ten yards away, there were children playing on brightly colored metal in a field of wood mulch. But behind me? There could be Inquisitors.

I spun! My tasseled mist cloak echoed my spin, hundreds of gray strips of cloth caught up in my momentum swept in a pendulum before crashing against my front. By the time I had turned, the twin obsidian knives that had been in sheathes on my belt were already in my hands.

I was ready to fight. Knees bent slightly. Eyes darting. People. Dozens. Men and women. But none of them had metal spikes through their eyes. They weren't Inquisitors.

Most of them were sitting on benches and staring at me. Parents watching children play? Some were starting to stand. They couldn't be skaa. The clothes were too fine and the people were too tall. Their clothing was strange too. Blue pants and white shirts? And the dresses they wore? I wasn't a prude, but they were scandalous. I averted my eyes, a blush creeping onto my cheeks.

The tassels of my cloak were caught by gravity. They draped over my arms. If someone thought that would hinder me, I would kill them before they could realize their mistake. But nobody was attacking.

I had panicked for a good reason, I couldn't have known there was no enemies until I had confirmed it, but I still felt a bit foolish. Standing near children who played without a care in the world with knives drawn wasn't my best moment.

I stopped burning Pewter and strength faded from my limbs. Then I sheathed my knives, dropped my arms to my sides and stood up straight. The tassels of my mistcloak fell, then swung back around me, resettling into the cape that was common among everyone that had the powers I did.

Everyone I could see was staring at me. Some looked frightened. Others shocked. It was rare that a Mistborn let themselves be seen openly. I was probably the first one they had ever seen. Some might even have thought that Allomancy was just a myth told to scare skaa.

Lord Ruler! I had once thought it was just a myth. Had it really been only a few years ago that I had been working for a third-rate thieving crew, barely managing to survive on the crumbs that I helped scam from the nobility?

I took a deep breath. Things were strange, but I wasn't a girl who only hid in the shadows watching for danger. Not anymore at least. There was more to me now. I was a ruler. A warrior; Elend's knife, the knife of the New Empire.

People would be looking to me for guidance and expecting me to fight their battles. Especially now. If I panicked, they would pick up on that. It had been mere seconds since I had arrived, but I was already adapting to the situation. I needed to figure out which of the Outer Dominances I was in, get in touch with whoever was ruling it, and then get in touch with Elend.

But I needed to act quickly. Every second I waste is a second in which my people are dying.

"I am Vin Venture," I announced, raising my voice so everyone could hear. "Wife of the Emperor Elend Venture! Empress of the New Empire! Mistborn and Heir of the Survivor! I killed the Lord Ruler! I come from the Inner Dominances, where Ruin's touch has grown heavy on the world. Who rules this Dominance as my husband's regent?"

It was important that I make it clear that I had killed the Lord Ruler. I was small and scrawny, even though I was twenty years old. I would probably never break a hundred twenty pounds. It was my heritage as someone who was half-skaa. The Lord Ruler had bred the Skaa to be docile servants who would never manage to overthrow their captors. He had lived for over a thousand years and had single handedly fought off entire armies. People had thought he was immortal and even worshiped him before I had killed him.

It was better that people see me as I was; deadly and dangerous, a Mistborn. So many problems would have been dealt with so much more easily if people had been able to see me as that instead of a little girl. They wouldn't have tried to push things or tried to topple Elend's fledgling Empire if I had been seen as my feats suggested I was rather than how I looked.

People were gaping at me now. The children behind me weren't playing anymore. They were staring too. I could hear one of them babbling about capes, but the adults were silent. There was more fear than I had expected. A lot more. I got the impression they thought I was unhinged and about to slaughter everyone.

I felt a little unhinged. In the distance, beyond the adults, there was a street filled with metal carts that moved without the need of horses. I forced myself to ignore both them and the zooming noises that they produced. There were far too many strange things.

"Ricky! Come here Ricky!" One of the mothers was calling to their child. "Hurry now. We're going home."

It was as if the Ashmounts had exploded, such was the frenzy that was produced after Ricky was called for. Parents were running by me to get their children. Others were calling for them. Some of the people were pulling out strange blocks filled with metals. I didn't let the strangeness and how it flustered me show on my face. Didn't react to the flashes of light. Or let on just how odd it was to see people stare at their little rectangles.

I hadn't been trained as extensively in statecraft by Tindwyl as Elend had been, but I had still had some training. Enough so that my life as a skaa thief and the unregal habits such a life had instilled in me wouldn't destroy Elend's empire. So I knew that it was important that I act as if I had everything under control and as if people should be obeying me.

"Stop!" I shouted. I burned Zinc and Brass. They were the two emotional allomantic metals. With Zinc I could Riot emotion, making it greater. With Brass I could soothe emotion, making it less. I slammed a calm tinged with fear into everyone and the chaos around me subsided.

"Who rules this Dominance?" I called out again, louder this time. I swept my gaze across the crowd. One person, a boy with brown hair that looked to be about fifteen, five years my junior, didn't look as stunned as everyone else, though the older woman standing beside him didn't share his poise.

I strode towards him. "You there, who rules this dominance?"