Breeze shrugged. "Well, the Church of the Survivor teaches that Vin will someday cleanse the sky of ash and the air of mists. I figure while she's at it, she might as well bring back the plants and the flowers. Seems like a suitably feminine thing to do, for some reason."
Sazed sighed, shaking his head. "Lord Breeze," he said, "I realize that you are simply trying to encourage me. However, I have serious trouble believing that you accept the teachings of the Church of the Survivor."
Breeze hesitated. Then, he smiled. "So I overdid it a bit, did I?"
"A tad."
"It's difficult to tell with you, my dear man. You're so aware of my touch on your emotions that I can't use much Allomancy, and you've been so . . . well, different lately." Breeze's voice grew wistful. "Still, it would be nice to see those green plants our Kelsier always spoke of. After six months of ash . . . well, it makes a man at least want to believe. Perhaps that's enough for an old hypocrite like me."
The sense of despair inside Sazed wanted to snap that simply believing wasn't enough. Wishing and believing hadn't gotten him anywhere. It wouldn't change the fact that the plants were dying and the world was ending.
It wasn't worth fighting, because nothing meant anything.
Sazed forced himself to stop that line of thought, but it was difficult. He worried, sometimes, about his melancholy. Unfortunately, much of the time, he had trouble summoning even the effort to care about his own pessimistic bent.
The Larsta, he told himself. Focus on that religion. You need to make a decision.
Breeze's comments had set Sazed thinking. The Larsta focused so much on beauty and art as being "divine." Well, if divinity was in any way related to art, then a god couldn't in any way be involved in what was happening to the world. The ash, the dismal, depressing landscape . . . it was more than just "unimaginative," as Breeze had put it. It was completely insipid. Dull. Monotonous.
Religion not true, Sazed wrote at the bottom of the paper. Teachings are directly contradicted by observed events.
He undid the straps on his portfolio and slipped the sheet in, one step closer to having gone through all of them. Sazed could see Breeze watching out of the corner of his eye; the Soother loved secrets. Sazed doubted the man would be all that impressed if he discovered what the work was really about. Either way, Sazed just wished that Breeze would leave him alone when it came to these studies.
I shouldn't be curt with him, though, Sazed thought. He knew the Soother was, in his own way, just trying to help. Breeze had changed since they'd first met. Early on—despite glimmers of compassion—Breeze really had been the selfish, callous manipulator that he now only pretended to be. Sazed suspected that Breeze had joined Kelsier's team not out of a desire to help the skaa, but because of the challenge the scheme had presented, not to mention the rich reward Kelsier had promised.
That reward—the Lord Ruler's atium cache—had proven to be a myth. Breeze had found other rewards instead.
Up ahead, Sazed noticed someone moving through the ash. The figure wore black, but against the field of ash, it was easy to pick out even a hint of flesh tone. It appeared to be one of their scouts. Captain Goradel called the line to a halt, then sent a man forward to meet the scout. Sazed and Breeze waited patiently.
"Scout report, Lord Ambassador," Captain Goradel said, walking up to Sazed's horse a short time later. "The emperor's army is just a few hills away—less than an hour."
"Good," Sazed said, relishing the thought of seeing something other than the dreary hills of black.
"They've apparently seen us, Lord Ambassador," Goradel said. "Riders are approaching. In fact, they are—"
"Here," Sazed said, nodding into the near distance, where he saw a rider crest the hill. This one was very easy to pick out against the black. Not only was it moving very quickly—actually galloping its poor horse along the road—but it was also pink.
"Oh, dear," Breeze said with a sigh.
The bobbing figure resolved into a young woman with golden hair, wearing a bright pink dress—one that made her look younger than her twenty-something years. Allrianne had a fondness for lace and frills, and she tended to wear colors that made her stand out. Sazed might have expected someone like her to be a poor equestrian. Allrianne, however, rode with easy mastery, something one would need in order to remain on the back of a galloping horse while wearing such a frivolous dress.
The young woman reared her horse up in front of Sazed's soldiers, spinning the animal in a flurry of ruffled fabric and golden hair. About to dismount, she hesitated, eyeing the half-foot-deep layer of ash on the ground.
"Allrianne?" Breeze asked after a moment of silence.
"Hush," she said. "I'm trying to decide if it's worth getting my dress dirty to scamper over and hug you."
"We could wait until we get back to the camp . . ."
"I couldn't embarrass you in front of your soldiers that way," she said.
"Technically, my dear," Breeze said, "they're not my soldiers at all, but Sazed's."
Reminded of Sazed's presence, Allrianne looked up. She smiled prettily toward Sazed, then bent herself in a horseback version of a curtsy. "Lord Ambassador," she said, and Sazed felt a sudden—and unnatural—fondness for the young lady. She was Rioting him. If there was anyone more brazen with their Allomantic powers than Breeze, it was Allrianne.
"Princess," Sazed said, nodding his head to her.
Finally, Allrianne made her decision and slipped off the horse. She didn't quite "scamper"—instead, she held up her dress i1n a rather unladylike fashion. It would have been immodest if she hadn't been wearing what appeared to be several layers of lace petticoats underneath.