The Bands of Mourning (Mistborn #6) - Brandon Sanderson Page 0,131

if the man got here? Fight? For how long? Eventually their medallions would run out of heat, and they had almost nothing in the way of supplies.

They’d simply have to count on Waxillium finding the Bands quickly; then they could escape on the skimmer and be away before Suit could do anything. The idea of that infuriating man stuck up here in the snows—having slogged miles and miles to find an empty temple—appealed to her.

At the very least, imagining his reaction distracted her from her own annoyance.

Sit here, Marasi. Stay out of trouble. Babysit Wayne. She knew that wasn’t what he meant, but it was still galling.

Rather than sit and simmer in her own petulance, Marasi dug in her purse, pulling out the little spike that belonged to ReLuur. Such a small thing, and so clean—a shining sliver of … pewter, was it? Staring at it in the light of Steris’s lantern, she wished she didn’t know its history. A person had been killed to make this, their soul ripped apart so a piece could be used to make a kandra.

Even though it had been done long ago, to someone who would have been centuries dead by now anyway, she felt as if there should be blood beneath her fingers, making the spike slippery. It should not be so clean.

Yet, she thought, where would mankind be without the kandra, acting as Harmony’s hands—guiding and protecting us? Such good to come of something so awful. Indeed, according to the Historica, without the work the kandra had done through the ages collecting atium, mankind would likely have been destroyed.

The Lord Ruler is the same, Marasi thought. He was a monster. He created this spike by killing someone. And yet he somehow managed to get to Allik’s people and save their entire civilization.

Waxillium sought justice. He had an open heart—he’d spared Wayne’s life all those years ago, after all—but in the end, he sought to uphold the law. That was shortsighted. Marasi wanted to create a world where law enforcement wouldn’t be needed. Was that why she was so annoyed with him lately?

“You bein’ careful with that?” Wayne asked, nodding toward the spike. “You don’t want to prick yourself and turn into a kandra.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works,” Marasi said, tucking it back into her purse.

“Never can tell,” Wayne said. “I think I should carry it. Just in case.”

“You’d swap it for the first trinket we passed, Wayne.”

“No I wouldn’t.” He paused. “Why? You see somethin’ good back there?”

Marasi rose and walked to Steris, who had settled primly on a stone shelf along the wall of the temple’s vestibule. She sat in a ladylike posture, knees forward, back straight, writing carefully on a notebook by lanternlight.

“Steris?” Marasi asked.

The woman looked up and blinked. “Ah. Marasi. Perhaps you can help me with a topic. How useless am I?”

“Excuse me?”

“Useless,” Steris said, holding her notebook. Not her little pocket one; her larger one, full-sized, which she’d brought in her pack. She used it for brainstorming lists.

Today, she’d been writing on the back of it. “I’ve been trying to quantify it, for reference purposes,” Steris said. “I am under no illusions as to my position in this group. I am the baggage, the accident. The person who needs to be left with the horses, or sent to stay away from traps. If Lord Waxillium could have sequestered me somewhere safe along the way and left me, he certainly would have.”

Marasi sighed, slumping down on the shelf beside her sister. Was this actually something the two of them could relate on? “I know how you feel,” she said. “I spent the first year around him feeling unwelcome, as if Waxillium considered me some little puppy nipping at his heels. And now, when he finally does seem to have accepted me, he treats me as merely a tool to be used or put back on the shelf as required.”

Steris cocked her head at Marasi. “I think you mistake me.”

Of course I do, Marasi thought with resignation. “How?”

“I did not mean to say I minded being treated this way,” Steris said. “I was merely stating facts. I am quite useless on this expedition, and I think that is only fair, considering my personal life experience. However, if I wish to improve, I need to know how far I have to go. Here.”

She turned her notebook to show Marasi the back, where she’d been writing. Why use the back? Either way, she’d drawn a small graph with