Brandon SANDERSON - The Bands of Mourning

Marasi leaned against the doorway and watched, tapping her notebook with her pencil. Wayne sounded utterly unlike himself, instead using a sharp, nasal voice with an accent she couldn’t quite place. Easterner, perhaps? Some of the outer cities there had thick accents.

The assistant cooks didn’t question him. They jumped at what he said, bearing his condemnation as he tasted a chilled soup and swore at their incompetence. If he noticed Marasi, he didn’t show it, instead wiping his hands on a cloth and demanding to see the produce the delivery boys had brought that morning.

Eventually, Marasi strolled into the kitchen, dodging a short assistant chef bearing a pot almost as big as she was, and stepped up to Wayne.

“I’ve seen crisper lettuce in the garbage heap!” he was saying to a cringing delivery boy. “And you call these grapes? These are so overripe, they’re practically fermenting! And – oh, ’ello, Marasi.” He said the last line in his normal, jovial voice.

The delivery boy scrambled away.

“What are you doing?” Marasi asked.

“Makin’ soup,” Wayne said, holding up a wooden spoon to show her. Nearby, several of the assistant cooks stopped in place, looking at him with shocked expressions.

“Out with you!” he said to them in the chef’s voice. “I must have time to prepare! Shoo, shoo, go!”

They scampered away, leaving him grinning.

“You do realize the wedding breakfast is canceled,” Marasi said, leaning back against a table.

“Sure do.”

“So why…”

She trailed off as he stuffed an entire tart in his mouth and grinned. “Hadda make sure they didn’t welch on their promif an’ not make anyfing to eat,” he said around chewing, crumbs cascading from his lips. “We paid for this stuff. Well, Wax did. ’Sides, wedding being canceled is no reason not to celebrate, right?”

“Depends on what you’re celebrating,” Marasi said, flipping open her notebook. “Bolts securing the water tower in place were definitely loosened. Road below was conspicuously empty, some ruffians – from another octant entirely, I might add – having stopped traffic by starting a fistfight in the middle of the rusting street.”

Wayne grunted, searching in a cupboard. “Hate that little notebook of yours sometimes.”

Marasi groaned, closing her eyes. “Someone could have been hurt, Wayne.”

“Now, that ain’t right at all. Someone was hurt. That fat fellow what has no hair.”

She massaged her temples. “You realize I’m a constable now, Wayne. I can’t turn a blind eye toward wanton property damage.”

“Ah, ’s not so bad,” Wayne said, still rummaging. “Wax’ll pay for it.”

“And if someone had been hurt? Seriously, I mean?”

Wayne kept searching. “The lads got a little carried away. ‘See that the church is flooded,’ I told them. Meant for the priest to open the place in the morning and find his plumbing had gotten a little case of the ‘being all busted up and leaking all over the rusting place.’ But the lads, they got a little excited is all.”

“The ‘lads’?”

“Just some friends.”

“Saboteurs.”

“Nah,” Wayne said. “You think they could pronounce that?”

“Wayne…”

“I slapped ’em around already, Marasi,” Wayne said. “Promise I did.”

“He’s going to figure it out,” Marasi said. “What will you do then?”

“Nah, you’re wrong,” Wayne said, finally coming out of the cupboard with a large glass jug. “Wax has a blind spot for things like this. In the back of his noggin, he’ll be relieved that I stopped the wedding. He’ll figure it was me, deep in his subcontinence, and will pay for the damages – no matter what the assessor says. And he won’t say anything, won’t even investigate. Watch.”

“I don’t know.…”

Wayne hopped up onto the kitchen counter, then patted the spot beside him. She regarded him for a moment, then sighed and settled onto the counter there.

He offered her the jug.

“That’s cooking sherry, Wayne.”

“Yeah,” he said, “pubs don’t serve anything this hour but beer. A fellow has to get creative.”

“I’m sure we could find some wine around–”

He took a swig.

“Never mind,” Marasi said.

He lowered the jug and pulled off his chef’s hat, tossing it onto the counter. “What’re you so uptight for today, anyway? I figured you’d be whooping for joy and runnin’ around the street pickin’ flowers and stuff. He’s not marrying her. Not yet, anyway. You still got a chance.”

“I don’t want a chance, Wayne. He’s made his decision.”

“Now, what kinda talk is that?” he demanded. “You’ve given up? Is that how the Ascendant Warrior was? Huh?”

“No, in fact,” Marasi said. “She walked up to the man she wanted, slapped the book out of his hand, and kissed him.”

“See, there’s how it is!”

“Though the Ascendant Warrior also went on and murdered the woman Elend was planning to marry.”

“What, really?”

“Yeah.”

“Gruesome,” Wayne said in an approving tone, then took another swig of sherry.

“That’s not the half of it,” Marasi said, leaning back on the counter, hands behind her. “You want gruesome? She also supposedly ripped out the Lord Ruler’s insides. I’ve seen it depicted in several illuminated manuscripts.”

“Kind of graphic for a religious-type story.”

“Actually, they’re all like that. I think they have to put in lots of exciting bits to make people read the rest.”

“Huh.” He seemed disbelieving.

“Wayne, haven’t you ever read any religious texts?”

“Sure I have.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, lots of the things I read have religious texts in them. ‘Damn.’ ‘Hell.’ ‘Flatulent, arse-licking git.’”

She gave him a flat stare.

“That last one is in the Testimony of Hammond. Promise. Least, all the letters are.” Another swig. Wayne could outdrink anyone she knew. Of course, that was mostly because he could tap his metalmind, heal himself, and burn away the alcohol’s effects in an eyeblink – then start over.

“Here now,” he continued, “that’s what you’ve gotta do. Be like the Lady Mistborn. Get your murderin’ on, see. Don’t back down. He should be yours, and you gotta let people know.”

“My … murderin’ on?”

“Sure.”

“Against my sister.”

“You could be polite about it,” Wayne said. “Like, give her the first stab or whatnot.”

“No, thank you.”

“It doesn’t have to be real murderin’, Marasi,” Wayne said, hopping off the counter. “It can be figurative and all. But you should fight . Don’t let him marry her.”

Marasi leaned her head back, looking up at the set of ladles swinging above the counter. “I’m not the Ascendant Warrior, Wayne,” she said. “And I don’t particularly care to be. I don’t want someone I have to convince, someone I have to rope into submission. That sort of thing is for the courtroom, not the bedroom.”

“Now, see, I think some people would say–”

“Careful.”

“–that’s a right enlightened way to think of things.” He took a swig of sherry.

“I’m not some tortured, abandoned creature, Wayne,” Marasi said, finding herself smiling at her distorted reflection in a ladle. “I’m not sitting around pining and dreaming for someone else to decide if I should be happy. There’s nothing there. Whether that’s due to actual lack of affection on his part, or more to stubbornness, I don’t care. I’ve moved on.”

She looked down, meeting Wayne’s eyes. He cocked his head. “Huh. You’re serious, aren’t you?”