Beautiful Destroyer
Chapter Ten
Back when Vin had been in Camon's crew, she had spent most of her free time hiding. Whenever the crew leader hadn't needed her to serve as his good luck charm, she always tried to find some small, dark crevice to crawl into—a closet, a hole in the wall, anything. He'd often beat her for making him look for her when she was needed, but compared to what some of the other crew members might have done to her while bored, she'd willingly take the beating.
That was what had excited her so much about going out in the mists when she had first started learning Allomancy. It had all the solitude of a closet, but was as open and endless as the night.
Not like here. In this strange world, there were no mists, and perching on the tallest tower in the middle of the night was no shield against casual visitors.
The prince floated up over the rooftop, and when he noticed her he looked back at her with wide eyes. "Ah, Lady Vin, is that you? I wasn't expecting anyone here."
She stood up respectfully. "Your Highness," she said in her best high noblewoman impression. She wasn't dressed as one, but she had presented herself to the prince as one when they had first met and now she was stuck with that story. "Excuse me. I fear I am intruding."
"Not at all. You are a guest, and are welcome where'er you wander." He turned around and looked over the surrounding war camp, where torches and campfires flickered like stars. The sound of cannon fire rumbled through the night, but the cannons were aimed at the outer walls of the fortress. She was in no danger here, at least not from them. "I come here often myself to enjoy the view, though I find it sullied as of late."
Vin looked out into the distance. "Sullied," she repeated. Like a stained shirt or an embarrassing scandal. To use that term when describing a war ...
Wales cocked an eyebrow. "Is there something on your mind? I take it the wedding was not to your liking. I had assumed you would be the maid of honor, but instead I found you glowering in the back."
"And you were smiling in the front like they were your lifelong friends," Vin said before she could stop herself.
But the prince didn't take offense. Instead he laughed. "What can I say? I have a weakness for young love. Love redeems the world." He gazed out over the siege lines. "Something has to."
"That wasn't love, that was wishful thinking and opportunism."
He chuckled at that. "Such cynicism! Take care, Vin. You're starting to sound like a spurned lover."
Vin gritted her teeth. Don't punch the prince. "You and Princess Henrietta used to be together?" That was the nature of the letter they had been sent to retrieve, an expression of love that threatened to embarrass her in front of the Germanian emperor she was now engaged to.
He smiled fondly. "Yes. I first met her at a meeting of monarchs at Lake Lagdorian. We shared an instant connection, the sort that only occurs once in a lifetime. While our time together was short, I'll cherish it for the rest of my life."
So, until the end of next week? Vin kept that comment to herself. "But she's not here," she said instead. "Your kingdom is falling apart around you, but she didn't come with her armies to save you. She sent us to hide the evidence that she had been with you."
She readied brass in case she needed to Soothe him, but he didn't seem upset. "It is more complicated than you seem to think, Lady Vin. Ruling a kingdom is like riding a horse. A meek rider will be carried astray by a strong willed mount, but an arrogant one might find himself overthrown and trampled beneath its hooves. Should Henrietta try to force her kingdom to come to my aid, I fear that she too would find herself besieged by traitors."
Vin considered that. She understood little of the power dynamics of kingdoms and princesses, but she had grown up in thieving crews. If a crew leader paid his men too little, failed too many jobs, or treated too many of his men too cruelly, he was likely to wake up with a knife in his chest held by his successor.
What did you expect? Reen whispered. No one will look out for you but you.
She had been hearing his voice more and more often recently. More and more recently, he seemed to be right.
"But she's not here," she said. "Whether she can't or won't doesn't matter. She's not here."
"No."
"So what's the point?" she said. "What's the point if you're going to be alone when it matters most?"
Anyone will betray you. Anyone will abandon you.
"Of what? Love?"
"Of ..." She gesticulated wordlessly. "Of people."
Wales stared out into the night as cannons rumbled in the distance. He sat down on the roof, his feet braced against the gutter.
"This conversation is better suited to a funeral than a wedding."
"The wedding's over."
"The wedding's over," he agreed. "And it's back to business as usual. So. People. I wish I could tell you of someone who has never let me down, but I have not been so fortunate. As you said, Henrietta is not here, for which I am most grateful. I'd rather her live without me than die at my side." He fell silent for a moment, then smiled. "And I think that's it."
"What?"
He tapped the side of his head. "She's still right here. Everyone I've ever cared about. They're still right here. I may die alone, but I did not live alone. That, Lady Vin, is what people are good for."
For a moment Prince Wales stood tall and proud under the twin moons. Then Vin saw a flash of blinding light, heard a crack of deafening thunder, and an arc of lightning from the far wall of the keep struck Wales in the back.
WWW
Wales carried Louise bridal style into her bedroom. No, he carried her bridal style into their bedroom. Their bedroom. The honeymoon suite. On their wedding night.
She felt like she was standing on the edge of a cliff, screaming internally in her head while her body continued walking forward on autopilot.
He set her gently on the bed. Her bed. Their bed. OhFounderohFounderohFounder.
She hadn't been dreading this. She had been dreaming about this, looking forward to it. Getting married to Wardes, being married to Wardes, ever since she was a little girl. But she had imagined them being together in a little girl way, with all the innocence that implied. Now, as a sixteen year old adult with all the wisdom and maturity that she had accumulated, she had a far more intimate idea of what was supposed to happen.
"Well, that was fun," she said brightly. "But I'm really tired right now. Goodnight!" She grabbed the edge of the blanket and rolled herself up in it.
Wardes loomed over her from the side of the bed, and he could loom with the best of them. She could feel his eyes on her even through the back of her head. "Is there something wrong, Louise?"
"No, everything's good!"
"I see. You understand that this is our wedding night, and it is generally expected for newlyweds to consummate their marriage at this time."
"What? Who ... who do you think I am? Kirche?" She forced a laugh.
"I don't know who that is, but I assume some sort of reprobate."
Ha! Suck it, Kirche! He called you a reprobate! "Y-yes. I mean, what sort of girl does th-that sort of thing with someone she only just married? We have to wait at least three months before we do ... naughty stuff together. Otherwise people might talk." After all, she had her family name to worry about.
"Three months," Wardes repeated.
"Mm-mm."
"Before we do ... 'naughty stuff.'"
"We don't want a scandal."
Her husband ... it was hard to think of him that way. Wardes sat down on the edge of the mattress. "Alright. If you're not comfortable with this, I won't push you. Goodnight, Louise."
Louise blinked. "That's it?"
"What is?"
"You're giving up just like that?" She untangled herself from her blankets and sat up. "I've had classmates ask me to dance who were more persistent!"
"I ... do not understand ..."
She glared at him, feeling a comfortable anger rising in her chest. Anger was safe. Anger was strong. "You don't even like me, do you? You just want to be married to me for the-the political alliance! It's just like Vin said!" Stupid, stupid, stupid! People didn't like her, they just pretended to at best. First Vin, and now Wardes! Wardes was always so controlled, she should have seen it from the start.
He stood up. "I see what the problem is. We haven't had any wine yet. It's a poor wedding night without something to drink. Stay here and compose yourself. I'll be back soon."
He closed the door behind him, and, alone in the room, her anger fell and Louise felt her embarrassment grow. Compose herself? What was she, some kind of child throwing a temper tantrum? No. She was a sixteen year old young woman, and she was going to ... please her husband.
She put a pillow in her face and began screaming until she felt better.
The sound of shouting came in through the window. It was probably nothing. Well, nothing that concerned her. There was a war going on, so there was likely to be shouting and worse throughout the night.
Then Wardes returned with a wine bottle, and Louise latched onto it with all her might. "Wardes! Did you hear that? Something's going on out there!"
"I heard it too," he said. "I'm sure the prince and his men are taking care of it."
"But what if they're not? We should go take a look."
He gave her a long look and firmly put the wine bottle on the table. "You want to, right now, go investigate this specific disturbance, at this exact time."
"It ... might be important."
"You want to do this. You do. This is not a test to see if I want to do this."
Louise glared at him. "Viscount Jean-Jacques Wardes. What are you implying?"
He took a deep breath. "Nothing at all, my maiden wife. Let us commence our investigation."
WWW
Vin caught Wales before he fell. His skin felt hot, and even without tin she knew the charred scent of his skin and hair.
With tin she saw the attacker, and she knew him just as she knew the spell he cast. Same cloak, same build, same mask as the man who had attacked her in Scarborough. The same man who, when defeated, disappeared into mist.
When she burned bronze, she felt the Allomatic pulse of him preparing another spell, and she had no steel to fight him with. She yanked Wales' sword wand from its sheath and pried it into the cracks of the rooftop. Hoping it would hold, she jumped off the edge, burned iron, and Pulled the two of them through an open window.
On the floor, the prince coughed.
He's alive.
"Wales. Can you wake up?"
His eyes opened, then closed without even focusing.
Leave him. He was dead weight, and she was already at a disadvantage. If she tried to help him, she'd only get herself killed along with him.
The pulse changed into something much weaker and harder to hear amid the dozen other spells being cast in the castle, but ... was it coming closer?
Burning pewter, she pulled Wales' arm around her shoulders and half dragged, half carried him toward the stairwell.
A shadow passed over the window.
If Vin was lucky, the assassin would search the grounds for her without realizing that she was inside. She wasn't counting on it. She pulled a glass dagger from her belt, turned, and threw it at the figure just as he landed on the window sill. With no time to change spells, the dagger should have felled him.
He blocked it with his staff, and the glass shattered. Not a sword wand. No, it would have been too easy if he had as much as a metal button on his person. A staff.
You are too good at fighting Allomancers. Even during their first encounter he had attacked her without metal. That sort of thing didn't happen in this world by accident.
He began chanting another spell, but Vin didn't wait to see what it was. Tossing a few coins onto the floor, she hurled herself down the empty center of the spiral stairs, yanking herself upward at the bottom to break her fall. A flash of light, a thunderclap, and the smell of burnt air came from above. She sprinted down the hall, out the door, and into the courtyard.
She turned around the doorway, dropped the prince to the ground, and pressed her back against the wall. The smart thing to do would be to go get help. She wasn't an agent of an enemy kingdom in a strange city this time, she was a guest of the prince that the assassin had just tried to kill. That meant that he would be in a hurry to finish this, and the allomatic pulse and the rushing of wind were the only clues to where he was.
He burst out through the same doorway after her, and was met with a second glass dagger through the chest.
It felt like flesh going in, but mist coming out.
I should get gloves, a distant part of her thought. The light from the runes nearly gave me away.
But it wasn't over yet. There were more allomatic pulses in the night, and they were all coming her way.
More assassins?
No, they were soldiers, coming to investigate the lightning spells. Mageknights, covered in armor and the red dragon of Albion emblazoned on their white capes floated down toward her. One of them rode a giant eagle with golden feathers, and he pointed a wand at her.
Light. The sun itself burst out of nowhere, filling her vision, cutting straight through her tin-enhanced eyes. Instinct took over, and she ran ...
Straight into another spell. A blast of wind hit her, slamming her into a stone wall. Get up and keep running? No, without steel she wouldn't get anywhere. Stay down. Stay down, look weak, look beaten. That was how she had survived this long.
"Founder Brimir!" she heard someone yell. "It's the prince! He's ... he's dead! She killed him!"
No I didn't! But the way the assassin disappeared into thin air didn't make things look good for her.
She kept her eyes closed, playing dead. An armored boot kicked her in the gut, then another stomped down on her shoulder. Vin couldn't fight so many people, not mages with powers she couldn't predict. Instead she burned pewter to withstand the beating and she Soothed away their aggression.
The beatings slowed to a stop, and one of the men grabbed her by her hair and pulled her to her feet. "You bitch," he spat. "To think that the Reconquista would sink so low as to send assassins. How much did they pay you to kill our prince?"
"Send her to the dungeon!" someone called out. "Find out what she knows!"
Dungeon. Vin could work with that. As long as they didn't know what she could do, she could find a way to escape.
"Why bother? Kill her now!"
"Death to the enemy!"
No! She had to push them to the dungeon option. How? Soothe their bloodlust, Riot their curiosity?
"Wait, I recognize her!" someone said. "She's that peasant girl who was with the Tristainian ambassador!"
Her mind raced. Is that good or bad? Bad, she decided. The last thing Vin wanted was to get Louise involved. She might try to help.
Someone else claimed that Vin wasn't a peasant, but a noblewoman disguised as one, and an argument broke out.
She needed to take control of the situation, and that wasn't something she could do with brass and zinc alone. "He isn't dead!" Vin blurted out. One of the mageknights still held her by her hair, and she was worried that he would strike her for speaking. Even with pewter, a gauntleted fist would leave a mark. "The prince isn't dead, and I didn't try to kill him!"
She clenched her eyes shut, flaring brass, hoping that these men would calm down and listen instead of leaping to judgment.
"She's right! He's alive!"
"Take him to a healer!"
There was movement around her, and the knight holding her released his grip. She didn't let herself relax just yet, though. There was still a stone wall behind her and more than a dozen angry mages in front of her. She was so focused on them crowding around the unconscious body of the prince that she nearly missed a new voice speaking up.
"What's this? What's going on?" It was light, refined, and a little petulant, and Vin recognized it immediately.
Oh no.
"Is that ..." Louise came into view and locked eyes with Vin. Wardes stood right behind her. "What are you doing to my familiar? Get away from her this instant!"
A stunned silence fell over the group, interrupted only by a whispered, "She's her what?" and a muttered, "Tristanians."
"Ambassador," one of the knights said. "Are you aware that your associate tried to assassinate Prince Wales?"
Louise let out a gasp. Wardes' expression ... was impossible to read.
"I didn't do it!" Vin blurted out. "I was trying to help him—"
The blow came instantly, a chunk of metal crashing into her face and making her see pinpricks of light as she fell to the cold grass. She burned tin to keep focus and felt everything more clearly, even her own blood dripping down her cheek.
When she could make sense of her surroundings again, Wardes was standing in front of Louise, holding her back. "I cannot apologize enough for her actions," Wardes said, his calm voice at odds with the wild thrashing of the girl behind him. "While her abilities have aided us in coming here, she has always been an unknown—"
He stopped abruptly as Louise bit into his hand and stepped forward as he winced. "You saw her do this?" she demanded. "You stood by and watched my familiar murder your prince? Because I find it hard to believe that Prince Wales would employ such incompetence, even during such desperate times as these."
Wardes put a hand on her shoulder. "Louise, perhaps we should not antagonize—"
Louise brushed his hand away. "I'm waiting."
Vin acted immediately, burning brass. This was her old role, wasn't it, using her Luck on an unfortunate mark? But even in Camon's crew, she knew beforehand what he was going to say. Louise was making things up as she went along and Vin had to try to keep up with her.
Worse than that, these were terrible marks to begin with. The best marks wore their emotions on their faces so Vin could know if she was pulling too hard or not enough. These men covered their faces in helmets, and their stiff postures gave nothing away. The best marks were passionate, and if she could control their emotions she could control the rest of them, but these men were soldiers, and they would follow orders regardless of how they felt.
"We saw her standing over the prince's body," one of the knights said, "fleeing from the scene of the crime." He said the last part as though it were some sort of damning piece of evidence instead of a natural reflex. "This is not an investigation, this is an arrest. Interfere and you will be arrested as well."
"If you think you can—" Louise started, but Wardes raised his wand behind her and began chanting a spell.
Vin hesitated before calling out a warning, not sure if his spell was intended to help Louise or hurt her, and the knights around her raised their sword-wands.
Wardes tapped Louise on the head, and she fell silent. Her mouth continued moving for a moment longer, then she turned on Wardes and tried to scream, unable to make a sound. He ignored her and stepped in front of her. "I apologize for this. It dishonors us all to have brought an assassin under our banner. Know that she acted alone in this, as in many things."
It was a betrayal, but an expected one. Only a fool would have stood by her when she stood accused of murder. A fool like Louise or possibly even Guiche, but not Wardes.
"Know also that she bears no noble blood and is no true mage," Wardes continued. "Her magic comes from potions she carries on her person. Deprive her of these, and you should be able to hold her without difficulty."
That betrayal went beyond expectations, falling from practical to damning. Why? They had never liked each other, but Wardes had never struck her as petty. He had always been too focused on his mission.
But what is your mission?
Louise? A political union? He had that. As of their marriage less than an hour ago, he had Louise and Vin was effectively out of the picture.
There's always another secret.
Wardes knew how to fight Allomancers. Louise had told him how and had given him a chance to spar with Vin. And twice now Vin had faced an assassin who knew how to do the same in a world where no other Mistborn existed.
Vin tried to envision the assassin, and he even looked like Wardes. Same height, same build. Did Wardes know a spell to turn himself into mist? No, that couldn't be it. Both times Vin had faced the assassin Wardes had been with Louise, and she would have noticed if Wardes had disappeared.
But did Wardes know a spell that could create a copy of himself made out of mist? Guiche could make servants out of bronze, and Fouquet could make them out of dirt. The only two differences were that the assassin could pass for human and it could cast spells.
I finally know who you are, she thought. Just a little bit too late.
"Thank you, Tristanian," one of the mageknights said. "We will bear that in mind."
"No thanks is needed," Wardes said. "Though if I may ask, did Prince Wales survive the attack? If not, I will need to report his death to Princess Henrietta."
And you want to know if your attack succeeded. If these soldiers were smart they'd grow suspicious.
"It will take more than some Reconquista whore to kill our prince," the leader said instead.
Wales nodded and turned to Louise. She was waving her wand about and screaming noiselessly as he ended the silence spell.
"—with a Founder-cursed pig, you miserable—oh, I can talk again."
"My apologies, Louise," Wardes said smoothly. "That was rude of me. I was, however, able to deescalate the situation."
She blinked. "You were?"
"Yes. These guards simply wish to detain her until Prince Wales recovers enough to tell them what happened. Should she be found innocent, they'll let her go."
Vin didn't think for a second that the guards would wait that long. They were convinced that she was guilty, and they had until the Reconquista broke through their walls to exact justice. She also doubted that Wardes would let the prince recover.
Louise, though, seemed willing to believe anything as long as it was good news. "Really? The prince is alive? I thought you said ..."
"I said that she tried to assassinate the prince," the mageknight said. "Not that she succeeded. This wasn't the first time Wales the Valiant has been struck by lightning, and Brimir willing it won't be the last."
Louise let out a sigh of relief. "Alright then, that's that. Vin? Behave yourself. I'm sure this will all be worked out by morning."
Vin remained silent. What could she even say? Be careful? Don't trust Wardes? I think he's the real assassin? Louise either wouldn't believe her or she'd ignore her entirely, as she had before, and her words would only tip off Wardes.
"And as for the rest of you," Louise said, "remember that Vin is my familiar and therefore a member of my household. Harm or mistreat her in any way and House Vallière will demand retribution of the highest order."
Vin Rioted the knights' fear to give Louise's threat more impact than it deserved. It was something she could do, at least.
But what would make a difference? She couldn't fight her way out of this until her captors let their guards down, so what did that leave her with? Zinc and brass? Her captors were too set in what they were doing, too stoic to let her go just because they felt like it.
But Louise ... Louise was just the opposite. She was impulsive, and it wouldn't take too much of a push to make her change course.
It's rude to use emotional Allomancy on your friends. Something Kelsier had said to her.
But they weren't friends. Louise was just someone Vin was trying to keep alive.
Worry about your own skin, Reen whispered. No one else will.
As the knights tied her hands and began dragging her off, she looked over her shoulder at Louise and flared zinc as hard as she could. She Rioted her fear, her anxiety, and most of all, her distrust.
WWW
Trust no one.
Louise felt her heart clench up in her chest like a physical force, like a warning from Brimir himself. She was on her knees gasping for breath before she even realized she had fallen.
Something touched her shoulder and she recoiled as though it had been a snake before seeing that it was just Wardes. Wardes. She could trust him. Couldn't she?
He'sgoingtoattackmekillmehe'splottingagainstme—
"What is wrong?" he asked. His voice was gentle, but it was the sort of gentleness that could be faked.
Trust no one.
"I ... I ..." she stuttered. Rule of Steel, she thought. Rule of Steel. She took all her sudden fear and squashed it down to the pit of her stomach. "I'm fine. I'm just ... worried about Vin." She glanced back at the knights who were taking her familiar away, presumably to a dungeon of some sort.
"They seem like honorable men," Wardes said, following her gaze. "I'm sure they'll treat her fairly."
Lieslieslies!
"Come," he said. "It's been a trying night for you. We should go back to our room and get some rest."
They walked together up the steps to their room, the silence interrupted by the drum of cannonfire, the heartbeat of war. Then a thought struck her, not the voice of God but something from her own head.
Prince Wales had been struck by a lightning spell. That's what the guards had said. Vin had her own sort of magic, but she could not have struck the prince with lightning.
"Is there something the matter, Louise?" Wardes asked.
Louise forced herself to look the man in the eye, and as she felt herself grow cold she seemed to see him for the first time. "You're a smart man, Viscount Wardes."
He frowned. "I try to be."
Smarter than she was. Smart enough to have figured out the proof of Vin's innocence long before Louise had.
"Is there something wrong?"
He knew Vin was innocent. He could have proven Vin's innocence with a word, but he let the knights blame her for the attack on the prince and drag her down to their deepest dungeon and had said nothing.
"No, Viscount Wardes."
Trust no one.
WWW
A/n And that's the end of the chapter! I don't know about you, but I'm glad that someone besides Louise's familiar got to experience her unpredictable mood swings. Canon Louise couldn't decide if she liked Saito for more than one chapter at a time, but canon Wardes only ever got her dere side.
Thank you for all the reviews and comments I got. I try to reply to most of them, but I read all of them. And thank you most of all to my editor Exiled and to my Patrons Exiled, Prime 2.0, Sphinxes, Kelsey Bull, Hubris Prime, Apofatix, Janember, Yotam Bonneh, Svistka, Lady Charon, LordXamon, Victoria Carey, and Bridie. This story wouldn't be here without you.