Page 156 of The Well of Ascension

“I don’t know. I haven’t ever really met the man.”

“What do your instincts tell you?”

Noorden hesitated. “No,” he finally said. “He isn’t the type of man who rules by law. He just does what he wants.”

“He would bring only chaos,” Elend said. “Look at the information we have from his homeland and the places he’s conquered. They are in turmoil. He’s left a patchwork of half alliances and promises—threats of invasion acting as the thread that—barely—holds it all together. Giving him rule of Luthadel would just set us up for another collapse.”

Noorden scratched his cheek, then nodded thoughtfully and turned back to his reading.

I can convince him,Elend thought.If only I could do the same for the Assemblymen.

But Noorden was a scholar; he thought the way Elend did. Logical facts were enough for him, and a promise of stability was more powerful than one of wealth. The Assembly was a different beast entirely. The noblemen wanted a return to what they’d known before; the merchants saw an opportunity to grab the titles they’d always envied; and the skaa were simply worried about a brutal slaughter.

And yet, even those were generalizations. Lord Penrod saw himself as the city’s patriarch—the ranking nobleman, the one who needed to bring a measure of conservative temperance to their problems. Kinaler, one of the steelworkers, was worried that the Central Dominance needed a kinship with the kingdoms around it, and saw an alliance with Cett as the best way to protect Luthadel in the long run.

Each of the twenty-three Assemblymen had their own thoughts, goals, and problems. That was what Elend had intended; ideas proliferated in such an environment. He just hadn’t expected so many of their ideas to contradict his own.

“You were right, Ham,” Elend said, turning.

Ham looked up, raising an eyebrow.

“At the beginning of this all, you and the others wanted to make an alliance with one of the armies—give them the city in exchange for keeping it safe from the other armies.”

“I remember,” Ham said.

“Well, that’s what the people want,” Elend said. “With or without my consent, it appears they’re going to give the city to Cett. We should have just gone with your plan.”

“Your Majesty?” Sazed asked quietly.

“Yes?”

“My apologies, but it is not your duty to do what the people want.”

Elend blinked. “You sound like Tindwyl.”

“I have known few people as wise as she, Your Majesty,” Sazed said, glancing at her.

“Well, I disagree with both of you,” Elend said. “A ruler should only lead by the consent of the people he rules.”

“I do not disagree with that, Your Majesty,” Sazed said. “Or, at least, I do believe in the theory of it. Regardless, I still do not believe that your duty is to do as the people wish. Your duty is to lead as best you can, following the dictates of your conscience. You must be true, Your Majesty, to the man you wish to become. If that man is not whom the people wish to have lead them, then they will choose someone else.”

Elend paused.Well, of course. If I shouldn’t be an exception to my own laws, I shouldn’t be an exception to my own ethics, either.Sazed’s words were really just a rephrasing of things Tindwyl had said about trusting oneself, but Sazed’s explanation seemed a better one. A more honest one.

“Trying to guess what people wish of you will only lead to chaos, I think,” Sazed said. “You cannot please them all, Elend Venture.”

The study’s small ventilation window bumped open, and Vin squeezed through, pulling in a puff of mist behind her. She closed the window, then surveyed the room.

“More?” she asked incredulously. “You found more books?”

“Of course,” Elend said.

“How many of those things have people written?” she asked with exasperation.

Elend opened his mouth, then paused as he saw the twinkle in her eye. Finally, he just sighed. “You’re hopeless,” he said, turning back to his letters.

He heard rustling from behind, and a moment later Vin landed on one of his stacks of books, somehow managing to balance atop it. Her mistcloak tassels hung down around her, smudging the ink on his letter.

Elend sighed.

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