Mistborn: The Final Empire (Mistborn, #1)

My gold image, she thought in frustration, I was able to touch that. Why can’t I touch this?

It obviously didn’t work the same way. The shadow stood still, completely oblivious of her attacks. She’d thought that maybe, if she killed the past version of the Lord Ruler, his current form would die as well. Unfortunately, the past-self appeared to be just as insubstantial as an atium shadow.

She had failed.

Kar crashed into her, his powerful Inquisitor’s grip grabbing her at the shoulders, his momentum carrying her off the dais. They tumbled down the back steps.

Vin grunted, flaring pewter. I’m not the same powerless girl you held prisoner just a short time ago, Kar, she thought with determination, kicking him upward as they hit the ground behind the throne.

The Inquisitor grunted, her kick tossing him into the air and ripping his grip free of her shoulders. Her mistcloak came off in his hands, but she flipped to her feet and scrambled away.

“Inquisitors!” the Lord Ruler bellowed, standing. “Come to me!”

Vin cried out, the powerful voice striking pain in her tin-enhanced ears.

I have to get out of here, she thought, stumbling. I’ll need to come up with a different way to kill him. . . .

Kar tackled her again from behind. This time he got his arms wrapped completely around her, and he squeezed. Vin cried out in pain, flaring her pewter, pushing back, but Kar forced her to her feet. He dexterously wrapped one arm around her throat while pinning her own arms behind her back with his other. She fought angrily, squirming and struggling, but his grip was tight. She tried throwing them both back with a sudden Steelpush against a doorlatch, but the anchor was too weak, and Kar barely stumbled. His grip held.

The Lord Ruler chuckled as he sat back down on his throne. “You’ll have little success against Kar, child. He was a soldier, many years ago. He knows how to hold a person so that they can’t break his grip, no matter how strong they may be.”

Vin continued to struggle, gasping for breath. The Lord Ruler’s words proved true, however. She tried ramming her head back against Kar’s, but he was ready for this. She could hear him in her ear, his quick breathing almost . . . passionate as he choked her. In the reflection on the window, she could see the door behind them open. Another Inquisitor strode into the room, his spikes gleaming in the distorted reflection, his dark robe ruffling.

That’s it, she thought in a surreal moment, watching the mists on the ground before her, creeping through the shattered window wall, flowing across the floor. Oddly, they didn’t curl around her as they usually did—as if something were pushing them away. To Vin, it seemed a final testament to her defeat.

I’m sorry, Kelsier. I’ve failed you.

The second Inquisitor stepped up beside his companion. Then, he reached out and grabbed something at Kar’s back. There was a ripping sound.

Vin dropped immediately to the ground, gasping for breath. She rolled, pewter allowing her to recover quickly.

Kar stood above her, teetering. Then, he toppled limply to the side, sprawling to the ground. The second Inquisitor stood behind him, holding what appeared to be a large metal spike—just like the ones in the Inquisitor’s eyes.

Vin glanced toward Kar’s immobile body. The back of his robe had been ripped, exposing a bloody hole right between the shoulder blades. A hole big enough for a metal spike. Kar’s scarred face was pale. Lifeless.

Another spike! Vin thought with wonder. The other Inquisitor pulled it out of Kar’s back, and he died. That’s the secret!

“What?” the Lord Ruler bellowed, standing, the sudden motion tossing his throne backwards. The stone chair toppled down the steps, chipping and cracking the marble. “Betrayal! From one of my own!”

The new Inquisitor dashed toward the Lord Ruler. As he ran, his robe cowl fell back, giving Vin a view of his bald head. There was something familiar about the newcomer’s face despite the spike-heads coming out the front—and the gruesome spike-tips jutting from the back—of his skull. Despite the bald head and the unfamiliar clothing, the man looked a little like Kelsier.

No, she realized. Not Kelsier.

Marsh!

Marsh took the dais steps in twos, moving with an Inquisitor’s supernatural speed. Vin struggled to her feet, shrugging off the effects of her near-choking. Her surprise, however, was more difficult to dismiss. Marsh was alive.

Marsh was an Inquisitor.

The Inquisitors weren’t investigating him because they suspected him. They intended to recruit him! And now he looked like he intended to fight the Lord Ruler. I’ve got to help! Perhaps . . . perhaps he knows the secret to killing the Lord Ruler. He figured out how to kill Inquisitors, after all!

Marsh reached the top of the dais.

“Inquisitors!” the Lord Ruler yelled. “Come to—”

The Lord Ruler froze, noticing something sitting just outside the door. A small group of steel spikes, just like the one Marsh had pulled from Kar’s back, lay piled on the floor. There looked to be about seven of them.

Marsh smiled, the expression looking eerily like one of Kelsier’s smirks. Vin reached the bottom of the dais and Pushed herself off a coin, throwing herself up toward the top of the platform.

The awesome, full power of the Lord Ruler’s fury hit her halfway up. The depression, the anger-fueled asphyxiation of her soul, pushed through her copper, hitting her like a physical force. She flared copper, gasping slightly, but wasn’t completely able to push the Lord Ruler off of her emotions.

Marsh stumbled slightly, and the Lord Ruler swung a backhand much like the one that had killed Kelsier. Fortunately, Marsh recovered in time to duck. He spun around the Lord Ruler, reaching up to grab the back of the emperor’s black, robelike suit. Marsh yanked, ripping the cloth open along the back seam.

Marsh froze, his spike-eyed expression unreadable. The Lord Ruler spun, slamming his elbow into Marsh’s stomach, throwing the Inquisitor across the room. As the Lord Ruler turned, Vin could see what Marsh had seen.

Nothing. A normal, if muscular, back. Unlike the Inquisitors, the Lord Ruler didn’t have a spike driven through his spine.

Oh, Marsh . . . Vin thought with a sinking depression. It had been a clever idea, far more clever than Vin’s foolish attempt with the Eleventh Metal—however, it had proven equally faulty.

Marsh finally hit the ground, his head cracking, then slid across the floor until he ran into the far wall. He lay slumped against the massive window, immobile.

“Marsh!” she cried, jumping and Pushing herself toward him. However, as she flew, the Lord raised his hand absently.

Vin felt a powerful . . . something crash into her. It felt like a Steelpush, slamming against the metals inside her stomach—but of course it couldn’t have been that. Kelsier had promised that no Allomancer could affect metals that were inside of someone’s body.

But he had also said that no Allomancer could affect the emotions of a person who was burning copper.

Discarded coins shot away from the Lord Ruler, streaking across the floor. The doors wrenched free from their mountings, shattering and breaking away from the room. Incredibly, bits of colored glass even quivered and slid away from the dais.

And Vin was tossed to the side, the metals in her stomach threatening to rip free from her body. She slammed to the ground, the blow knocking her nearly unconscious. She lay in a daze, addled, confused, able to think of only one thing.

Such power . . .

Clicks sounded as the Lord Ruler walked down his dais. He moved quietly, ripping off his torn suit coat and shirt, leaving himself bare from the waist up save for the jewelry sparkling on his fingers and wrists. Several thin bracelets, she noticed, pierced the skin of his upper arms.