Page 150 of The Well of Ascension

“They’re like that,” Vin said with a nod. “What is it your people have prophecies about, anyway?”

“I don’t think you want to know, Mistress.”

Vin smiled. “They talk about overthrowing us, don’t they?”

OreSeur sat down, and she could almost see a flush on his canine face. “My…people have dealt with the Contract for a great long time, Mistress. I know it is difficult for you to understand why we would live under this burden, but we find it necessary. Yet, we do dream of a day when it may not be.”

“When all the humans are subject to you?” Vin asked.

OreSeur looked away. “When they’re all dead, actually.”

“Wow.”

“The prophecies are not literal, Mistress,” OreSeur said. “They’re metaphors—expressions of hope. Or, at least, that is how I have always seen them. Perhaps your Terris prophecies are the same? Expressions of a belief that if the people were in danger, their gods would send a Hero to protect them? In this case, the vagueness would be intentional—and rational. The prophecies were never meant to mean someone specific, but more to speak of a general feeling. A general hope.”

If the prophecies weren’t specific, why could only she sense the drumming beats?

Stop it,she told herself.You’re jumping to conclusions.“All the humans dead,” she said. “How do we die off? The kandra kill us?”

“Of course not,” OreSeur said. “We honor our Contract, even in religion. The stories say that you’ll kill yourselves off. You’re of Ruin, after all, while the kandra are of Preservation. You’re…actually supposed to destroy the world, I believe. Using the koloss as your pawns.”

“You actually sound sorry for them,” Vin noted with amusement.

“The kandra actually tend to think well of the koloss, Mistress,” OreSeur said. “There is a bond between us; we both understand what it is to be slaves, we both are outsiders to the culture of the Final Empire, we both—”

He paused.

“What?” Vin asked.

“Might I speak no further?” OreSeur asked. “I have said too much already. You put me off balance, Mistress.”

Vin shrugged. “We all need secrets.” She glanced toward the door. “Though there’s one I still need to figure out.”

OreSeur hopped down from his chair, joining her as she strode out the door.

There was still a spy somewhere in the palace. She’d been forced to ignore that fact for far too long.

Elend looked deeply into the well. The dark pit—wide-mouthed to accommodate the comings and goings of numerous skaa—seemed a large mouth opening up, stone lips spread and preparing to swallow him down. Elend glanced to the side, where Ham stood speaking with a group of healers.

“We first noticed when so many people came to us complaining of diarrhea and abdominal pains,” the healer said. “The symptoms were unusually strong, my lord. We’ve…already lost several to the malady.”

Ham glanced at Elend, frowning.

“Everyone who grew sick lived in this area,” the healer continued. “And drew their water from this well or another in the next square.”

“Have you brought this to the attention of Lord Penrod and the Assembly?” Elend asked.

“Um, no, my lord. We figured that you…”

I’m not king anymore,Elend thought. However, he couldn’t say the words. Not to this man, looking for help.

“I’ll take care of it,” Elend said, sighing. “You may return to your patients.”

“They are filling our clinic, my lord,” he said.

“Then appropriate one of the empty noble mansions,” Elend said. “There are plenty of those. Ham, send him with some of my guard to help move the sick and prepare the building.”

Ham nodded, waving over a soldier, telling him to gather twenty on-duty men from the palace to meet with the healer. The healer smiled, looking relieved, and bowed to Elend as he left.

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