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Her eyes…They were so honest. She truly believed. Kelsier wanted to believe her. He wanted too, so badly. He wanted to hold this battered woman in his arms and weep. However…that gnawing prickle in the back of his mind. The look in The Lord Rulers eyes, the tone of his voice.
She had betrayed him. There could be no other way.
He looked away from her.
“Kelsier!” She pleaded. “Please! You have to believe me.” He couldn’t look at her. “Kell. Please.” She was crying, head ducked, tears dropping to the ashen ground below. He looked back at her, heart breaking at the sight. Hell, she may have betrayed him but he loved her. He took her head in his hands, lifting her chin, meeting her gaze. Thumbs wiped away tears, leaving ash stains on her cheeks. She managed a smile, only to falter when she saw his eyes.
“You still don’t believe me.”
“I want too.” He croaked. He hadn’t been talking much. “But…Mare…”
“He’s lying!”
“He doesn’t lie…you know that.” She stared at him, the tears welling up in her eyes, falling thick and fast.
“Kelsier, why would I betray you?” He didn’t know. He knew this woman, knew that she was battling herself. A part of her wanted to stubbornly turn away. Another part of her…that part just wanted to hold him. That part won; she reached out, stroking his hair, fingers, still soft, caressing his cheek. He let her, leaning into her touch, desiring it, needing it, as he always had. “I love you. I loved you the moment I saw you.” She pressed closer, laying her head against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her.
They were here now. He had, for some reason, sent Mare here to die with him. A twisted sense of irony? Or just one last laugh as Kelsier got to watch the woman he loved serve in a twisted penal colony? Or…did it always have to be about him? He looked down at her, shaking, sobbing into his chest.
“Mare…” He whispered. She gasped out a few sobs, looking up. “Why did he send you here?” She gazed at him for a moment, before pulling away. That stubborn side won out finally. She looked at him, brow furrowed, tear stains tracking her cheeks.
“How should I know?” Kelsier pressed on.
“What did they do? In the two weeks it’s been?” Mare stared at him, her expression growing distant.
“They…” She shook her head… “They were searching for a family, Kelsier. Torturing me. They figured out quite quickly I had no family.” Kelsier cocked his head. “Kell, this is another reason to believe me: I dind’t betray you. Why would they torture someone they were working with?” She pleaded with him on that last sentence, her tone rising.
“You’re a misting, Mare.” He said, voice hollow. “I can see why, quite clearly.” She let out an exasperated sigh of defeat. He reached out, taking her hand.
“I love you, Mare. Nothing will change that.”
“But you don’t believe me.”
“I desperately want too. But I can’t.” She gazed into his eyes for a long time. In that moment, he flashed back to similar times spent together. Sitting on a roof top before a job. Laying on a hillside, watching the ash falls. Lying in bed after sex, exhausted, exhilerated, lost in each other.
He kissed her. He was filthy, unwashed, unshaven, and her hair was matted, her skin streaked with ash and sweat, but he kissed her. She whined into the kiss, holding him tightly, nails digging into his bneck as she clutched him for dear life.
He sat there, kissing her, for a long while, until the sun came up. Until they would be expected to crawl down into the bowels of the earth. Crawling in the dark. Searching. Hunting. For pain.
His arms stung. He looked at them with sightless eyes. Down here no light reached. He knew where he was, for there was only two directions to go: Up and down. Still, he sat, tucked into a notch dug into the earth, as if some giant person had come and picked this part of the stone free.
He’d found a geode. He sat in his hand, a tiny, rough nugget of grey, shapeless rock. Inside it was…atium. He’d overheard the guards earlier confirming it, though he’d expected as much. Why else would they be fetching these things? Why else would they have prisoners mine the metal? But…couldn’t Allomancy shatter the crystals? He looked up, towards more blackness. Mare was in these hellish cracks, scrambling for dear life. His gut twisted, and he clutched the geode in his fist.
As if hearing his thoughts, he heard the sounds of someone scrambling down the walls of the caverns. A hiss of pain, and a presence. He couldn’t see her, but he could hear her. Smell her. They both stunk of sweat and stale piss, a scent neither of them could help. Still, she entered his small hollow.
“Knew I’d find you here.” She said. “Did you find one?”
“I did.” She sat beside him, taking his hand in hers.
“I was worried you wouldn’t find one.” He grunted. She’d been in the same situation just that morning.
“Do you know what time it is?” He asked. “I haven’t been topside in awhile.”
“Neither have I.” He heard the clink of rock on stone as she set down the geode, then felt her move closer. Hands pressed themselves to his chest.
“What happened to your shirt? She asked.
“Shredded. Just took it off.” He shrugged. She took his arms, feeling still wet blood. “Your arms…aren’t as bad.”
“Smaller.” She whispered. “Kell…” She raised his hand to her lips, kissing the knuckles. “I can’t stand to see you in pain.” He turned away. Not that she could see it.
A soft glow began to permeate the caverns. Mare looked around, but Kelsier was used to it. Just the crystals, singing their mournful, hateful song. A dull pulsing that he felt in his bones. Mare hadn’t experienced it yet. In their soft slow, he could see her, albeit barely.
“They do that.” He explained. “Every few nights or so. Or days. I lose track of time.”
“It’s…” She swallowed. “I don’t like it.”
“It’s hateful.” He whispered. He felt her gaze. He met her eyes, and in them he saw…was that lust? She was gazing at him, a hunger he hadn’t seen for weeks in her eyes, along with a piercing sadness.
“Kell…” She placed a hand to his abdomen. He stiffened. Hell, he wanted this woman. She knew exactly how to please him; where to touch and when. The things she could do with her mouth alone drove him insane.
But no. He was filthy, tired, sore, and bleeding. The betrayal didn’t help either. Still, reached for the ties of his trousers. He pushed her hands away.
“Kell, let me please you.” She begged.
“I haven’t bathed in three weeks, Mare.” He grunted. “Please, no.”
“I’ll use my damn hands, it’s not as if their any cleaner!” She tried again. He pushed her back.
“No Mare.” He picked up the geode she’d left. “Go turn it in. Get another week of life.” She stared at him.
“You truly…” He shook his head. She deflated. He’d never denied her before. Somehow, this was worst when he’d straight out told her he didn’t believe her. She hung her head, slipping out of the hollow, her shadow climbing back up the cavern face.
Kelsier watched her go, a cold hollow spreading in his chest. He could feel her hands, even now, as they worked him. Teased him, the tips of her fingers caressing every sensitive spot, her voice driving him wild. Praising him. Delighting in him. Kissing him and pleasing him.
He felt frustrating tears kiss his cheeks. He wiped them away, smearing blood over his face. Hell.
This truly was Hell.
They let them eat for a few hours in the day. A short break. Couldn’t have the prisoners dropping from hunger and thirst. It was slop, barely edible, but Kelsier forced himself to eat. Mare had joined him. She’d given up trying to speak with him, simply shoving food into her mouth and leaving, defeat plain in her frame. She’d lost so much weight. Kelsier had tried to comfort her, but the betrayal she saw in his eyes stuck. She shook off his attempts, burying herself below.
Footsteps approached. Booted ones. If they brought a prisoner, it would be via wagon, dragged behind. Kelsier turned, curious, noticing five guards. They walked with a self-satisfied swagger, their eyes on Mare, who glared at them, wary. Kelsier didn’t like those leers. He’d seen that look on hungry noble faces when they saw a Ska girl they liked. The realisation of what they were doing fell upon him, and he bolted upright, placing himself in front of Mare.
They backhanded him.
“Lay off, Ska. We’ve come for a prize.” Kelsier staggered, falling to the ground. Mare cried out, standing up.
“Don’t think of fighting back, girlie.” They pulled her by the hair. She snarled, hissing. Weeks of poor food and labor had turned their lean bodies into wasted husks. They beat her back, striking her. Kelsier snarled, turning towards them, ready to fight to the death.
“You’re her husband, right?” One of them jeered. “Make any other moves and I’ll rape her here.” Kelsier froze. “That’s a good lad.” The man was unwashed, unshaven, chewing on something foul. He spat it to the side. “You know, we don’t get a lot of women here. Lucky we got her.” He grinned at her. “Don’t fight back, girlie.”
They began to drag her away. Kelsier roared, lunging for them, before Mare shouted.
“Kelsier, don’t. Just…don’t. I can’t watch them kill you.” Again, he froze, his feet slipping out from under him, falling into the ash. They laughed.
“She has sense!” They continued to drag her away. He met her eyes. She was crying, tears falling down her face as they took her. She shook her head, mouthing words.
I love you.
His heart shattered. He screamed as they dragged her away, impotent, incapable. Unable to do anything to save her. He sat against the hut they slept in through the night, listening to their shouts of glee, her screams of pain, until they finally deposited her in front of him.
“Wasted hte night pining for your wife, huh? Heres her used up husk.” The man spat on the ground before him. “Thief.”
They knew who he was. He raced over to Mare. They’d ripped her clothes; her shirt torn down the front, her pants having been torn off her, the waistline ripped. She shivered at his touch. Her tears were gone, replaced by a blank stare. Her screams had died off towards the end.
He pulled her into his arms, whispering to her, cradaling her.
“Don’t give up, Mare.” He whispered, stroking her hair. She met his gaze.
“Why are you…” She looked at him, expression completely blank. Haunted. “Holding me?”
“What do you mean?” He choked out. “They raped you.” She raised a hand to his face, fingers touching his cheek.
“I betrayed you, though.” He shook his head.
“I don’t care about that, Mare.” She looked him in the eyes. What she saw in them must have upset her, as she turned away. Kelsier held her close, rocking her in his arms.
He’d lost a day.
He never stopped loving her. They truly grew apart in those chasms; it broke them. Mare hated that he didn’t believe her. Kelsier couldn’t help but maintain that seed of doubt. It grew, writhing vines that wrapped around his very soul, choking out any hope he may have had. Instead, he planned. Foolish plans. There was no way he was getting out of this mess. But he had to plan. He had to fight back. The few times he saw his wife he made sure to hold her. And bless her, she let him. She’d kiss him, caress his face, even smile. He had never deserved her.
“All I want…” She croaked out one night, soaked from a rainstorm that had washed the grime from their bodies. “Is to make love to you one last time.” Kelsier didn’t know if he could do that. He shivered in the chill night air.
“I…I can’t.” He managed. She pressed close to him.
“I know. Neither can I.” She raised her lips to kiss his cheek. His mind was a mess. He loved her but doubted her. How could he do that? The woman that had stood beside him for seventeen years? Whom he’d planned, and executed, heist after heist with? Whom he’d married in a spur of the moment event, Sazed officiating? He pulled away from her then, agony spearing through his heart, mixed emotions flooding his chest.
“I’m sorry, Kell.” She whispered, voice harsh. “I was never good enough for you.” He sat up, looking at her. He repositioned himself, sitting in front of her, taking her hands.
“No, Mare.” He took her hands, squeezing them tight. “It was I that was never good enough for you.”
“Still wondering what I chose you instead of Marsh?” She asked, the barest trace of a smirk on her lips. He knew why’d she’d chosen him. A part of him didn’t care. But another part…another part wanted to hear it from her.
“Yes.” He whispered.
“You’re daring. You’re intense; Marsh is too, but you have the raw presence, the charisma, the genius planning. I truly didn’t like you at first.” She looked down. “I hated how arrogant you were; how you were unwilling to work with a woman. And then you won me over.”
“You.” Kelsier began. “Won me over, Mare. Almost instantly. Hell I hated how you contradicted everything I said and yet I loved it.”
“It’s all fallen apart now. Ash in the wind…” She looked away from him, pulling her hands away.
“Get some sleep, Kell.” She curled up, withdrawn, turning away.
He scrambled through the caves, panic coursing through his body. It was the last day. The last day he could find one. He shoved his hands through known empty crystalline holes; tearing his arms afresh, questing for a geode he knew wasn’t there but, just in case…
He was in a daze. FInally, as the last vestiges of light vanished from above, he shrank down in the chasms, realizing the moment he returned to the surface without a geode he would be beaten.
He sat there for a time, thinking and discarding plan after plan, when he heard scrambling. Those pants; that breath. That was Mare. She found him in his cubby.
“Kelsier!” She hissed. “Did you find one?” She’d known he’d had trouble this week locating one.
“No.” He stated, voice hollow. “They’ve all been picked clean.” He could sense her frown.
“Kell…”
“Did you find one, Mare?”
“Yeah.” She paused. “Actually, I found two…” She groped for his hand, finding it, and pressed a round geode into his palm. “Take this one.” Kelsier felt at the rock. So small. Worth more than thousands of boxins; worth the pain and suffering of condemned men.
“Mare…”
“I have two.” She drew in closer, a vague impression the darkness. “I can’t watch them beat you, Kelsier. I…I just can’t.” Her voice broke, the false cheerfulness slipping off, ash in the rain. Kelsier clutched the small geode.
“Thank you, Mare.” He wanted to kiss her. But held back. Mare left, the sounds of her slipping out of the cubby and climbing upwards. Kelsier followed a few minutes later.
As he pulled himself out of the crack, he saw Mare behind held by her upper arms. Panic rose from inside him. No. He thought. Not again. He scrambled out of the crack onto hands and knees. A guard met him, pulling the fist that held the atium up and prrying it from his fingers.
“You found one. Better than your wife.” He kicked Kelsier, who grunted, falling. What did that mean? He rolled over, looking up. They were…They were dragging her away.
“What did she do?” Kelsier croaked out. “She has a geode!” Mare met his eyes. In that moment, he realized what she had done.
“NO!” he stumbled to his feet, rushing after them. “No! Take mine, don’t-!” Pain. Someone had clubbed in the back. He fell into the ash and dust.
“You know the rules, Ska. You gotta find one geode a week. Not that hard to do. She didn’t find one.” Kelsier’s mind whirled. No. He thought, again and again. No no no no! She had two! He’d seen her fist around it.
The reality of what she’d done washed upon him. She’d tricked him; giving him her only geode. Condemning herself. Tears blurred his vision, frustrated, angry, terrified tears as they began to beat her. He screamed her name, attempting to rush forward, only to be held back. A guard grabbed his hair, kicking him in the arms and chest.
“Stay still, Ska! You’re lucky we can’t kill you or I swear, I would have long ago.” Her screams. Screams of agony, of torture as they beat her and beat her and beat her. Leaving a corpse in their wake as they walked off. The guard holding him back joined his fellow, throwing Kelsier into the ash. He crawled forward.
She lay crumbled, several bones broken, her face a bloody mess of bruises and cuts. But it was Mare. It was his Mare. He reached out trembling arms, pulling her close. Her body was still. Warm, but still. No pulse of life from her. He rocked her, backwards and forwards, sobbing as he held the woman he loved in his arms. In that moment, in that one, conclusive moment, Kelsier lost hope. Lost the will to plan. He broke, shattered. A year in the Pits hadn’t broken him, but the sight of Mare, bloody and battered, had. He held her for hours. Rain began to fall, washing away the blood that had pooled on the ground. They came to take her corpse away, dragging him from her. He fought like a snarling animal, teeth bared, hands curled into claws, only for a backhand to smack him across the face. He whirled, vision spinning.
Back into the ash.
He didn’t know how long he laid there. Only that as the rain fell, he made his way into the caverns. Shivering, soul ripped bare. He found his cubby, tears falling silently down his face, pain lacing every part of his body, his heart a bloody pulp in his chest.
He sat there, shivvering, scratching at his arms, feeling everything shatter around him. He wanted it to end, he wanted to disappear. He wanted…he wanted to die. The realization hit him and he stopped crying, growing oddly calm as water dripped, a hollow, echoing sound in the caverns. Pain still throbbed, both physical and emotional. But that thought…that one thought. That escape…
He gasped as a warmth flooded him, a pure, white light invading his conciousness, an impression left upon him. He fell forward, rain dropping off hair and beard as he coughed, sputtering as a single word pervaded his head, an echoing thunder clap that rang between his ears.
SURVIVE!
Survive. Survive. He had to survive. He couldn’t die here, no. He had to escape. He had to tell others of the secret of this place, no. No he needed revenge. He felt a fire burning inside of him. Hot, fiery. Molten.
He began to climb. That word still echoed in his skull, driving him forward. Survive. He had to survive. He had purpose. He would slaughter those guards, dying in the attempt, yes, but he would slaughter them.
He found himself crawling out of the crack in the ground, stumbling towards the guard house. A lonely candle lit the window. He heard laughing from the inside. Anger, white hot, flooded. With strength he didn’t know he had he kicked in the door. The guards stood up, their stools clattering to the floor as they stared at him.
“Ska?!” Kelsier lunged. He back handed the guard nearest to him, his force enough to send the man to the ground. Blue lines pervaded his vision, blue lines he couldn’t place. He ignored them instead, rushing towards a guard who yelped as his feet were ripped from under him, the studs on his jerkin pulled towards him as he laid a fist into the mans face. His nose broke with a crunch. Weapons. He needed a weapon.
Kelsier found carving knife on the table, which he slashed, slicing the throat of a guard who tried to sneak up behind him. Every sense was taut; his vision clear, his hearing acute. The felt the rough grain of the wood underneath the loose wraps that covered his feet, the smooth handle of the knife as he drove it into a another mans chest.
“What’s this?” A guard came out of a back room. Kelsier’s eyes narrowed. This man…this was the man that raped Mare. Men around him groaned. The man he had back handed stumbled to his feet. He tried to reach for Kelsier but he kicked out at him. That warmth in his chest, it fueled him. That raw anger. He spun on the man who had raped his wife, lunging for him. The man held his hands up in a warning, his feet slipping just as the other guard had, and Kelsier caught him by the throat.
“Do you honestly think.” Kelsier hissed, slamming his head against the rough wooden ground. “I would let you get away with violating her?” He slammed him again and again, his fury white hot. He picked him up, throwing him against the wall, the knife clutched in his hands. The man tried to defend himself, but Kelsier was too quick, too agile, to ferocious. Stones used for seats had been dragged inside, and Kelsier slammed the man into it. Slammed him so hard his skull cracked, blood spraying, hot and warm against his hands. The man screamed, hands writhing, clawed, as they tried to reach Kelsier, who screamed in turn, howling as he continued to beat the mans head against the boulder. The guards he had merely incapacitated stumbled towards him as he held a pile of gore in his hands, and he spun, blood spraying, covering him, his hair stained red. They froze. He attacked. He slit ones throat, back handed another, only to fall upon him and do the same.
He crouched there, panting. That warmth in him felt like it was…fading. He sat up, alert for the first time in months. Those blue lines…he cocked his head, uncaring that he sat in gore. He followed a line to a fork that sat unnoticed on the table. He tugged on the line. The fork flew towards him. He ducked, staring at it.
He…He…He studied that warmth, that glow, and realized what he was. Voices from outside; he’d missed a guard. He began to shuffle around in the small cabin, checking pockets. Two guards had metal vials, which he immediately downed. Others had weapons they hadn’t drawn; daggers, a few knives. He clutched them tightly, slipping out of the door. The force of men that guarded the Pits was small, but he knew he had neither the strength nor energy nor metals to take them all. He ran, fueled by allomancy.
For that was what he was. Somehow, Kelsier had snapped. Somehow, he was Mistborn. He ran. He ran until he crested a hill that overlooked the Pits, and turned.
“Mare.” He croaked out. “I wish you were with me. But hell. I escaped.” He growled. “I won’t let you down, my love. I’ll make them pay.” He turned and walked, uncaring of the direction, determined to find someone to train him to be a Mistborn.