Brandon SANDERSON: The Bands of Mourning

Waxillium should have loved it here.

The group of five youths soon approached the Synod’s Lodge, where the ranking Terris elders had their offices. Telsin waved for the group of them to wait while she hurried up to a particular window to listen. Waxillium found himself looking about, anxious. Evening was approaching, the forest growing dim, but anyone could walk along and find them.

Don’t worry so much, he told himself. He needed to join in their antics like his sister did. Then they’d see him as one of them. Right?

Sweat trickled down the sides of his face. Nearby, Kwashim leaned against a tree, completely unconcerned, a smirk growing on her lips as she noticed how nervous he was. Forch stood in the shadows, not crouching, but rusts – he could have been one of the trees, for all the emotion he showed. Waxillium glanced at Idashwy, with her large eyes, and she blushed, looking away.

Telsin snuck back to them. “She’s in there.”

“That’s our grandmother’s office,” Waxillium said.

“Of course it is,” Telsin said. “And she got called into her office for an emergency. Right, Idashwy?”

The quiet girl nodded. “I saw Elder Vwafendal running past my meditation room.”

Kwashim grinned. “So she won’t be watching.”

“Watching what?” Waxillium asked.

“The Tin Gate,” Kwashim said. “We can get out into the city. This is going to be even easier than usual!”

“Usual?” Waxillium said, looking in horror from Kwashim to his sister. “You’ve done this before ?”

“Sure,” Telsin said. “Hard to get a good drink in the Village. Great pubs two streets over though.”

“You’re an outsider, ” Forch said to him as he stepped up. He spoke slowly, deliberately, as if each word required separate consideration. “Why should you care if we leave? Look, you’re shaking. What are you afraid of? You lived most of your life out there.”

You’re an outsider, they said. Why was his sister always able to worm her way into any group? Why did he always have to stand on the outside?

“I’m not shaking,” Waxillium said to Forch. “I just don’t want to get into trouble.”

“He’s going to turn us in,” Kwashim said.

“I’m not.” Not for this anyway, Waxillium thought.

“Let’s go,” Telsin said, leading the pack through the forest to the Tin Gate, which was a fancy name for something that was really just another street – though granted, it had a stone archway etched with ancient Terris symbols for the sixteen metals.

Beyond it lay a different world. Glowing gas lamps marching along streets, newsboys trudging home for the night with unsold broadsheets tucked under their arms. Workers heading to the rowdy pubs for a drink. He’d never really known that world; he’d grown up in a lavish mansion stuffed with fine clothes, caviar, and wine.

Something about that simple life called to him. Perhaps he’d find it there. The thing he’d never found. The thing everyone else seemed to have, but he couldn’t even put a name to.

The other four youths scuttled out, passing the building with shadowed windows where Waxillium and Telsin’s grandmother would usually be sitting and reading this time of night. The Terris didn’t employ guards at the entrances to their domain, but they did watch.

Waxillium didn’t leave, not yet. He looked down, pulling back the sleeves of his robe to expose the metalmind bracers he wore there.

“You coming?” Telsin called to him.

He didn’t respond.

“Of course you’re not. You never want to risk trouble.”

She led Forch and Kwashim away. Surprisingly though, Idashwy lingered. The quiet girl looked back at him questioningly.

I can do this, Waxillium thought. It’s nothing big. His sister’s taunt ringing in his ears, he forced himself forward and joined Idashwy. He felt sick, but he fell in beside her, enjoying her shy smile.

“So, what was the emergency?” he asked Idashwy.

“Huh?”

“The emergency that called Grandmother away?”

Idashwy shrugged, pulling off her Terris robe, briefly shocking him until he saw that she wore a conventional skirt and blouse underneath. She tossed the robe into the bushes. “I don’t know much. I saw your grandmother running to the Synod Lodge, and overheard Tathed asking about it. Some kind of crisis. We were planning to slip out tonight, so I figured, you know, this would be a good time.”

“But the emergency…” Waxillium said, looking over his shoulder.

“Something about a constable captain coming to question her,” Idashwy said.

A constable ?

“Let’s go, Asinthew,” she said, taking his hand. “Your grandmother is likely to make short work of the outsider. She could be on her way here already!”

He’d frozen in place.

Idashwy looked at him. Those lively brown eyes made it hard for him to think. “Come on,” she urged. “Sneaking out is hardly even an infraction. Didn’t you live out here for fourteen years?”

Rusts.

“I need to go,” he said, turning back to run toward the forest.

Idashwy stood in place as he left her. Waxillium entered the woods, sprinting for the Synod Lodge. You know she’s going to think you’re a coward now, part of him observed. They all will.

Waxillium skidded to the ground outside his grandmother’s office window, heart thumping. He pressed against the wall, and yes, he could hear something through the open window.

“We police ourselves, constable,” Grandmother Vwafendal said from inside. “You know this.”

Waxillium dared to push himself up, peeking in the window to see Grandmother seated at her desk, a picture of Terris rectitude, with her hair in a braid and her robes immaculate.

The man standing across the desk from her held his constable’s hat under his arm as a sign of respect. He was an older man with drooping mustaches, and the insignia on his breast marked him as a captain and a detective. High rank. Important.

Yes! Waxillium thought, fiddling in his pocket for his notes.

“The Terris police themselves,” the constable said, “because they rarely need policing.”

“They don’t need it now.”

“My informant–”

“So now you have an informant?” Grandmother asked. “I thought it was an anonymous tip.”

“Anonymous, yes,” the constable said, laying a sheet of paper on the desk. “But I consider this more than just a ‘tip.’”

Waxillium’s grandmother picked up the sheet. Waxillium knew what it said. He’d sent it, along with a letter, to the constables in the first place.

A shirt that smells of smoke, hanging behind his door.

Muddied boots that match the size of the prints left outside the burned building.

Flasks of oil in the chest beneath his bed.

The list contained a dozen clues pointing to Forch as the one who’d burned the dining lodge to the ground earlier in the month. It thrilled Waxillium to see that the constables had taken his findings seriously.

“Disturbing,” Grandmother said, “but I don’t see anything on this list that gives you the right to intrude upon our domain, Captain.”

The constable leaned down to rest his hands on the edge of her desk, confronting her. “You weren’t so quick to reject our help when we sent a fire brigade to extinguish that blaze.”

“I will always accept help saving lives,” Grandmother said. “But I need no help in locking them away. Thank you.”

“Is it because this Forch is Twinborn? Are you frightened of his powers?”

She gave him a scornful look.

“Elder,” he said, taking a deep breath. “You have a criminal among you–”