Page 160 of The Well of Ascension
“What do you mean?” he said, stepping forward.
She looked up at him. “I love Elend, Zane. I really do.”
And you think that means you can’t feel anything for me?Zane thought.What of that look I’ve seen in your eyes, that longing? No, it isn’t as easy as you imply, is it?
It never is.
And yet, what else had he expected? He turned away. “It makes sense. That’s the way it has always been.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” she demanded.
Elend….
“Kill him,” God whispered.
Zane squeezed his eyes shut. She would not be fooled; not a woman who had grown up on the streets, a woman who was friends with thieves and scammers. This was the difficult part. She would need to see things that terrified Zane.
She would need truth.
“Zane?” Vin asked. She still seemed a bit shaken by his attack, but she was the type who recovered quickly.
“Can’t you see the resemblance?” Zane asked, turning. “The same nose, the same slant of the face? I cut my hair shorter than he, but it has the same curl. Is it so hard to see?”
Her breath caught in her throat.
“Who else would Straff Venture trust as his Mistborn?” Zane asked. “Why else would he let me get so close, why else would he feel so comfortable letting me in on his plans?”
“You’re his son,” Vin whispered. “Elend’s brother.”
Zane nodded.
“Elend…”
“Doesn’t know of me,” Zane said. “Ask him about our father’s sexual habits sometime.”
“He’s told me,” Vin said. “Straff likes mistresses.”
“For more than one reason,” Zane said. “More women means more children. More children means more Allomancers. More Allomancers means more chances at having a Mistborn son to be your assassin.”
Breeze-blown mist washed over them. In the distance, a soldier’s armor clinked as he patrolled.
“While the Lord Ruler lived, I could never inherit,” Zane said. “You know how strict the obligators were. I grew up in the shadows, ignored. You lived on the streets—I assume that was terrible. But, think of what it would be like to be a scavenger in your own home, unacknowledged by your father, treated like a beggar. Think of watching your brother, a boy your same age, growing up privileged. Think of watching his disdain for the things you longed to have. Comfort, idleness, love…”
“You must hate him,” Vin whispered.
“Hate?” Zane asked. “No. Why hate a man for what he is? Elend has done nothing to me, not directly. Besides, Straff found a reason to need me, eventually—after I Snapped, and he finally got what he’d been gambling to get for the last twenty years No, I don’t hate Elend. Sometimes, however, I do envy him. He has everything. And still…it seems to me like he doesn’t appreciate it.”
Vin stood quietly. “I’m sorry.”
Zane shook his head sharply. “Don’t pity me, woman. If I were Elend, I wouldn’t be Mistborn. I wouldn’t understand the mists, nor would I know what it was like to grow up alone and hated.” He turned, looking into her eyes. “Don’t you think a man better appreciates love when he has been forced for so long to go without?”
“I…”
Zane turned away. “Anyway,” he said, “I didn’t come here tonight to lament my childhood. I came with a warning.”
Vin grew tense.
“A short time ago,” Zane said, “my father let several hundred refugees through his barricade to approach the city. You know of the koloss army?”
