A young woman in a tasselled cloak crouches on a rooftop in thick night mist, staring at a man-shaped figure made of mist a few paces away, with campfires glowing beyond the city wall. — Vin on watch above Keep Venture, and the figure made of mist that has started watching her back (Chapter 3).

The Mistborn Saga · Era One · Book II · 2007

The Well of Ascension

The Lord Ruler is dead and Elend is king — and now an army is at Luthadel’s gates, and the mists have started coming by day.

The Well of Ascension (Tor, 21 August 2007) is the second Mistborn novel and the middle of Era One: Sanderson’s book about what happens after the rebels win. The Lord Ruler is a year dead, Elend Venture rules Luthadel alongside an Assembly his own law code created, and three armies come for the city and the atium cache everyone believes is hidden in it. At some 244,000 words it is longer than The Final Empire, and slower on purpose: a long, political siege whose last hundred and fifty pages come down like an avalanche.

Vin, Elend and Sazed carry most of it — Coppermind’s chapter lists give them 39, 31 and 22 viewpoint chapters, Epilogue included — with Straff, Breeze, Zane, Allrianne and a few others taking turns. Under the siege runs a second story, told in the chapter epigraphs: the steel-plate testament of a Terris scholar named Kwaan, which Sazed finds and copies in Chapter 12. Sanderson called this book his look at prophecy as fantasy uses it, and the copies turn out to be the point.

Six named parts, fifty-nine chapters and an epilogue, no prologue; the parts are the movements below.

Part 1

Heir of the Survivor

A year after the Lord Ruler’s death, Luthadel has a king and a parliament. Elend Venture, the bookish heir who took the throne when the empire fell, rules the Central Dominance alongside the Assembly he created — eight nobles, eight merchants, eight skaa workers — and from the city wall he and Ham watch his father’s army dig in across the plain. Straff Venture has brought some fifty thousand men to take the city and the atium cache everyone believes the Lord Ruler left behind. Elend’s real fear is behind him: an Assembly that might surrender to avoid a slaughter. Breeze is missing.

Vin, Mistborn and Elend’s bodyguard — and the woman who has turned down his proposal — spends her nights in the mist. On her way to meet OreSeur, her kandra, once Kelsier’s, she is ambushed by eight Allomancers sent by Ashweather Cett, the self-declared King of the Western Dominance. She kills them all, burning her last bead of atium, with a little help from a stranger watching from the dark. Soon after, guarding Elend, she sees a figure made of mist standing near her on a rooftop. When she Pushes coins at it, it vanishes.

Far away in the Eastern Dominance, Sazed is teaching skaa villages for the Keepers’ Synod. In one village a man stood in the mist by daylight, shook as if something had seized him, and died. Then Marsh — Kelsier’s brother, now a Steel Inquisitor — finds Sazed and asks him to search the archives of the Conventical of Seran, an emptied Ministry stronghold. The mists, Marsh says, are coming in the daytime.

In the city, believers of the Church of the Survivor follow Vin through the siege market calling her Lady Heir; she flees. She buys a wolfhound as OreSeur’s new body — he wanted a human one — and receives a shipment of duralumin, an alloy whose Allomantic use nobody knows. Burned with tin while she chases the watcher, it flares the tin all at once and blows out her senses. The watcher asks whether she really killed the Lord Ruler and why she plays the nobles’ games, calls himself an insane enemy, and leaves.

Elend wins an Assembly vote to parley with Straff before anyone votes on the city’s fate. Then a second army arrives: Cett’s. From the wall, Vin uses duralumin-flared Steelpushes to rescue a rider fleeing Cett’s archers. It is Breeze, who has been advising Cett and steered him here on purpose, so that two armies would hold each other in check. And in the palace, guards find two skeletons left by a kandra, one very fresh. Someone in Elend’s inner circle has been replaced.

Two men stand on a city wall at dusk looking out over a vast army camp spread across the plain. — **II · 1 The Army on the Horizon** Chapter 1, on Luthadel’s wall. A year after the Lord Ruler’s death Elend Venture is king, and his father’s army — some fifty thousand men — is digging in across the plain. Ham keeps him company; Breeze is missing. Elend’s worst fear is behind him, in the Assembly he created, which might hand the city over to avoid bloodshed. Sanderson rewrote this opening about five times before the wall scene became the first one.

A young woman in a tasselled cloak twists through night mist as a spray of coins streaks toward her and dark figures close in. — **II · 2 Coins Out of the Mist** Chapters 1–2. On her way to meet her kandra, OreSeur, Vin is ambushed by eight Allomancers — Thugs, a Coinshot, a Lurcher, a Smoker and a Mistborn. She kills them all, burning her last bead of atium, with a little help from a stranger watching from the dark. Ham later learns who sent them: Ashweather Cett, the self-declared King of the Western Dominance, whose army reaches Luthadel in Chapter 10. OreSeur’s borrowed body is left badly broken.

A tall bald man in striped robes kneels by a covered body in a poor village while a frightened man watches and pale mist lies in a hollow by day. — **II · 3 Death in the Daytime Mist** Chapter 4, far from Luthadel in the Eastern Dominance. Sazed, sent by the Keepers’ Synod to teach the skaa, kneels by a man named Jed, who stood in the mist by daylight, shook as if something strong had gripped him, and died. Sazed buries him with the rites of a long-gone religion and stays to teach. The mists are not supposed to come out by day; Sanderson brings this thread back at the book’s end.

A small young woman and a big muscular man circle each other with wooden staves while a few men watch from the edge of a stone yard. — **II · 4 The Sparring Bout** Chapter 6. Vin, burning nothing but pewter, spars with Ham using staves, and the crew makes a sport of it: Clubs bullies Elend into betting on Ham, then he and Spook — over six feet tall now, his street cant dropped — put their money on Vin. She wins on dexterity. It is the crew at its easiest, and the book will not let it last; meanwhile rumours of an atium cache in Luthadel are spreading.

A huge grey wolf-like dog sits bolt upright on a rug while a young woman in a tasselled cloak studies it with folded arms. — **II · 5 The Wolfhound** Chapters 5–6. In the siege market Vin flees a knot of believers who hail her as Lady Heir, then buys a wolfhound and kills it, apologizing in her head, as a new body for OreSeur; he protests that he wanted a human one. Back in her rooms the kandra has finished becoming the dog, as formal and correct as ever. Soon he opens a cavity in his shoulder to carry her metal vials, and goes everywhere with her.

A young woman on top of a black city wall thrusts out her arm, and glowing blue lines hurl pursuing horsemen backward as a portly rider gallops toward the gate. — **II · 6 Breeze Comes Home** Chapter 11. A second army has arrived — Cett’s — and while Elend, Clubs and Vin scout it from the wall, a rider breaks from its lines with archers after him. It is Breeze. Vin, who learned by accident in Chapter 8 that duralumin flares any metal burned with it all at once, throws his pursuers aside with it. Breeze explains he has been advising Cett, and steered him here so that two armies would stall each other.

Part 2

Ghosts in the Mist

At the Conventical, past a massacre’s remains and down past a chamber where Inquisitors were made, Sazed finds a steel plate engraved in old Terris by Kwaan — the Worldbringer who first named Alendi the Hero of Ages and then tried to stop him. Sazed takes charcoal rubbings. Every chapter of the book opens with a passage from that plate, and its first line is the book’s warning label:

“I write these words in steel, for anything not set in metal cannot be trusted.”

The mists come earlier every evening. Vin hunts the mist spirit to a third-floor window; something cold grips her arm, pain stabs from her ear into her mind, and she falls, saving herself with tin and pewter. In Alendi’s logbook she finds that the same thing once followed him.

The crew decides to ally with neither army and play them off against each other. They also catch a Terriswoman eavesdropping: Tindwyl, a Keeper who studies the lives of great leaders, come to teach Elend to be a king whether he likes it or not. Vin distrusts her on sight. Tindwyl starts with the outside — a white uniform, his curls cropped like a soldier’s, a crown — and works inward.

“‘Good men can make terrible kings,’ Tindwyl noted.”

Sazed finds the village of Urbene starving, too afraid of the daytime mist to go out, and races for Luthadel on his steelmind. Koloss capture him and take him to their master, Jastes Lekal, Elend’s old friend, who sends him on with an offer of alliance. Sazed brings the news: twenty thousand koloss, and mists that kill.

The watcher is Straff’s messenger. He calls himself Zane; he is Mistborn and Elend’s half-brother, and a voice in his head keeps telling him to kill Elend. Vin tells Elend that Zane is Mistborn, but not that she has been sparring with him above Keep Hasting, where Zane tells her Mistborn belong in the mists, not among nobles. The impostor hunt goes on: Vin uses bronze to clear Breeze (he is Soothing Elend) and tests Ham. Cett’s daughter Allrianne turns up asking for asylum, and for Breeze. Tindwyl takes Vin shopping for a gown in a city under siege — Sanderson called the chapter a gamble — until drums send Vin racing to the walls against a test assault.

The parley in Straff’s tent turns dangerous. Elend bluffs with the atium; Straff demands surrender and calls for soldiers; Elend warns him he will not survive Vin. Straff lets them go, then orders Zane to kill her, lending him his half-skaa Misting children. On the ride home a note arrives: the Assembly has voted no confidence. Elend is no longer king.

A tall bald man kneels by lamplight in a rough rock chamber, rubbing charcoal over a sheet of paper pressed against a large engraved steel plate. — **II · 7 Kwaan’s Steel Plate** Chapter 12, deep under the Conventical of Seran. Marsh goes alone to the Inquisitors’ quarters; Sazed descends past a chamber used to make Inquisitors and finds a steel plate engraved in old Terris by Kwaan, the scholar who first named Alendi the Hero of Ages and then turned against him. Sazed takes charcoal rubbings, and the plate’s words open every chapter of the book. The rubbing is paper, not steel. That will matter.

A young woman in a tasselled cloak tumbles backward out of a dark upper window into thick night mist while a figure made of mist leans out after her. — **II · 8 The Thing at the Window** Chapter 13. Vin has been seeing a figure made of mist since Chapter 3. Tonight she hunts it to a third-floor window of an apartment block. It steps toward her; something cold grips her arm, a pain stabs from her ear into her mind, and she falls, flaring tin and pewter to survive. She begins to fear the mists — and in Alendi’s logbook she finds that the same thing once followed him.

A young man in a white military uniform stands straight in a stone room while a tall grey-haired woman appraises him and an assistant offers a simple circlet. — **II · 9 The Making of a King** Chapter 16. Tindwyl, a Keeper who has made her study the lives of great leaders, has come to teach Elend to be a king whether he likes it or not. She starts with the outside: a white uniform he is to wear and nothing else until the war ends, black boots, a cape, a dueling cane, his wind-blown curls cut short like a soldier’s, and a plain crown of silver-painted wood — a mark of authority, not wealth. Sanderson called it Elend’s first change.

Two figures shoot upward side by side through thick night mist above a stained-glass tower, glowing blue lines running down from each of them. — **II · 10 Two Mistborn over Keep Hasting** Chapter 17. The watcher turns out to be Straff’s messenger: he names himself Zane and offers a parley in Straff’s camp. Vin tells Elend that Zane is Mistborn — but not that she has been sparring with him. Above the abandoned Keep Hasting the two of them hold a contest of Steelpushes, and Zane presses his case: Mistborn belong in the mists, not among nobles. The next chapter reveals the voice in his head, and it wants Elend dead.

A young woman with golden hair in a red gown seizes the hands of a startled portly gentleman while two men look on. — **II · 11 Cett’s Daughter** Chapters 20–21. Cett’s daughter Allrianne, a Rioter in a fashionable red gown, comes into besieged Luthadel asking for asylum — and for Breeze, whom she hugs, to everyone’s surprise. Dockson suggests keeping her as a bargaining chip against her father. Vin, who has not yet met her, puts the question her own way: “What was that pink thing I just passed in the hallway?”

In a lantern-lit tent a young man in white and a young woman in a royal-blue gown sit across a table from a tall, cold-faced older nobleman. — **II · 12 Parley in Straff’s Tent** Chapters 26–27. Elend walks into his father’s war camp to parley, Vin beside him in a royal-blue gown altered so she can move and hide weapons in it. Elend bluffs with the rumoured atium cache. Straff, a Tineye who flaunts it, demands surrender and calls for soldiers, and Elend warns him that he will not survive Vin. Straff lets them go — and orders Zane to kill her. On the ride home a note arrives: Elend is no longer king.

Part 3

King

Tindwyl berates Elend for writing the very law that let the Assembly depose him; he refuses martial law and reads the law for a way back. Vin reads Sazed’s transcription and proposes that the mists are the Deepness, the evil Alendi set out to defeat. At the Assembly, Elend gets Lord Ferson Penrod made chancellor. Nominations for king go to Penrod, to Elend — and to Lord Cett, who has slipped into the city and sits among the onlookers in his chair; he cannot walk. Cett is allowed to quarter a thousand soldiers in the empty Keep Hasting.

Zane attacks Vin on a rooftop burning atium, then stops, offers to take her away, tells her he is Elend’s brother, and warns that the koloss are a day out. Vin, in a gown made for a Mistborn, dines with Cett, who offers food for atium and lets Elend go because a deposed king is worthless as a hostage. Breeze, Soothing refugees and friends alike, sees what Sazed and Tindwyl will not say: they love each other. Vin follows Captain Demoux to a secret Survivor meeting and hears him preach that she will restore the world; afterward he speaks of an ash-free sky and a yellow sun. Tindwyl means to leave; Sazed asks her to stay, and she stays.

On election day Elend tells the Assembly he follows the Survivor. Half a dozen Allomancers — Straff’s Misting children, sent through Zane — burst in to kill him and Cett. Vin kills them, holding back for the bystanders and badly hurt for it, and Elend is horrified at how brutally she finishes the last. Her pewter runs out and she collapses. When the Assembly reconvenes, two lords change their votes and Penrod is king. Sanderson meant the part’s title to be ironic: this is where Elend learns to be a king, and where he loses the crown.

In a crowded assembly hall a young man in white turns from a lectern toward a bearded man seated in a plain wooden chair, while a white-haired lord presides. — **II · 13 A King in the Gallery** Chapter 31. Deposed, Elend comes to the Assembly with his whole crew, gets Lord Ferson Penrod made chancellor, and declines to fight his removal; he means to win the throne back under his own law. Then come the nominations for king: Penrod, Elend — and Lord Cett, who has slipped into the city and is sitting among the onlookers. Cett cannot walk. Vin suspects the chair is a cover for a Mistborn. It is not.

A young soldier speaks with fervour to a small crowd of seated workers in a candlelit room while a young woman watches from a dark doorway. — **II · 14 A Sermon in the Dark** Chapter 36. Hunting for the kandra spy, Vin tails Captain Demoux of Elend’s guard to a secret night meeting of the Church of the Survivor — and hears him preach that she, the Survivor’s Heir, will restore the world. Confronted afterward, he speaks of an ash-free sky and a yellow sun. Vin, who fled the believers in the market, did not ask to be anyone’s saint. It is a promise the trilogy will have to keep.

A tall bald man at a lamplit table looks up and half reaches toward a tall grey-haired woman who has risen and paused on her way to the door. — **II · 15 Two Keepers** Chapter 37. Two Keepers over one scrap of history: Sazed and Tindwyl puzzle over a fragment of a biography of King Wednegon, and she says she means to leave Luthadel. He asks her not to, and she stays. They have argued since she arrived about the Synod he defies, and Breeze, Soothing the two of them along with everyone else, has already seen what neither will say: they love each other.

In an assembly hall in uproar a young woman lands crouched between a young man in white and a charging attacker while a big grey dog lunges at another. — **II · 16 Knives at the Election** Chapter 38. On election day Elend tells the Assembly he follows the Survivor, and half a dozen Allomancers burst in to kill him and Cett. Elend fights one off by instinct; Vin, with the wolfhound’s help, kills them all, holding back for the bystanders and badly hurt for it, and Elend is horrified at how brutally she finishes the last. Then her pewter runs out and she collapses. When the Assembly reconvenes, Penrod wins the crown.

Part 4

Knives

Straff has lost six of his children and gained an understanding with King Penrod. Zane claims to have poisoned him; his mistress Amaranta’s remedy saves him, and Straff decides Zane must die. Vin wakes in a sickbed, and Elend flinches at her touch. Zane brings her a lie — Cett sent the assassins — and a nugget of atium. The kandra admits his people were made by the Lord Ruler with a built-in means of control; burning duralumin with brass, Vin Soothes him, which should be impossible.

Elend, out of power, still acts like a king. He slips out through Ham’s passwall, walks alone into the koloss camp and argues with Jastes, who will not take the koloss away. Elend stabs him, uses him as a hostage to get out of the camp, and kills a small koloss, keeping its sword and its pouches of coins. Zane feeds Vin another story — Demoux is betraying Elend for Cett — and the two of them cut through some three hundred of Cett’s men at Keep Hasting. Cett proves no Mistborn, and Vin asks mercy for him; Zane leaves in disgust. Cett’s army withdraws. Elend finds Vin hiding in Camon’s old lair, the thieves’ den she worked from before Kelsier found her; she tells him how she got her earring and says she must go north, to Terris.

Tindwyl finds the same sentence torn from every copy of the transcription, and from the rubbing itself. Sazed resolves to get Elend and Vin out before the city falls; Breeze, Clubs, Ham and Dockson agree in secret to stay and fight. Zane takes a Mistborn cloak he has never worn.

Vin hears a distant thumping no one else can — the Well of Ascension, filling with power. Zane asks her to leave with him; she refuses; he attacks. She orders her wolfhound to give her the atium it carries, and it obeys Zane instead. It is TenSoon, Zane’s kandra, who killed OreSeur and took his place when the dog body was made: the impostor. A cry from TenSoon helps her seize him with duralumin and brass; the bead Zane gave her is a lead ball thinly coated in atium, but she turns Zane’s dependence on atium into a feint and stabs him in the neck. Dying, Zane learns that the voice never told him to kill Vin. It tells him:

“You’re not insane. You never were.”

TenSoon refuses Zane’s body, asks Vin’s forgiveness, and goes home to his people. Bleeding, Vin tells Elend she has killed his brother, then proposes; he accepts, and Sazed marries them with a brief Larsta ceremony. Then Sazed sends them north to find the Well in the Terris mountains, with Tindwyl and Spook. He knows he is lying.

A young man in a white uniform walks alone between enormous blue-grey creatures with red eyes in a vast camp on an ashen plain. — **II · 17 Alone Among the Koloss** Chapter 42. No longer king, Elend acts like one anyway. He slips out of the city through Ham’s passwall and walks alone into the koloss camp to argue with their master, his old friend Jastes Lekal. When Jastes will not take the koloss away, Elend stabs him, uses him as a hostage to get out, kills a small koloss and keeps its huge sword and its pouches. The pouches hold coins — a clue to how Jastes is paying his army.

In a high chamber ringed with stained glass a young woman with a lowered dagger faces a bearded man in a wooden chair and a young nobleman, while a man in black turns away. — **II · 18 The Raid on Keep Hasting** Chapter 43. Fed lies by Zane — Cett sent the election assassins, Demoux is selling Elend to him — Vin goes with Zane to Keep Hasting, and the two of them cut through some three hundred of Cett’s soldiers and hazekillers. She shoves Cett and his son to see whether either is secretly Mistborn; neither is. She asks mercy for them, and Zane leaves, saying she is still being controlled. Sanderson wanted the horror of it on the page, not just the spectacle.

In an abandoned underground den a young woman sits against the wall with her knees drawn up while a young man in white crouches nearby holding a lamp. — **II · 19 Camon’s Old Lair** Chapter 44. After Keep Hasting, Cett’s army pulls out of the city, and Vin hides in Camon’s old lair, the thieves’ den she worked from before Kelsier found her. Elend finds her there. She tells him how she came by her earring, and that she has to go north, to Terris. Neither of them knows yet how much that earring will matter at the Well.

In a dim room filling with mist a young woman and a man in black crouch facing each other with daggers while a big grey dog stands between them, its head turned to the man. — **II · 20 The Last Fight with Zane** Chapter 47. Zane asks Vin once more to leave with him; she refuses, and he attacks, burning atium. She orders her wolfhound to hand over the atium it carries — and it obeys Zane. The dog is TenSoon, Zane’s kandra, who killed OreSeur and has worn wolfhound bones in his place since Chapter 6. A cry from TenSoon helps her seize him with duralumin and brass; Zane’s gift of atium is a coated fake, but she turns his trust in atium into a feint and stabs him in the neck.

A bandaged young woman sits holding the hand of a young man in white who kneels before her, while a tall bald man in striped robes raises a hand over them. — **II · 21 A Wedding in a Hurry** Chapter 48. Wounded, Vin tells Elend she has killed his brother — and then proposes, turning round the question she once refused. He says yes, and Sazed marries them on the spot with a brief Larsta ceremony; Sanderson notes that some readers found it too quick. Sazed then sends the newlyweds north to the Well of Ascension in the Terris mountains, with Tindwyl and Spook. He is lying, to get them out before Luthadel falls.

Part 5

Snow and Ash

Tindwyl berates Elend for abandoning his people and stays behind. Allrianne talks her way into the party, then parts from it to find her father. In his camp Straff realizes that Amaranta, not Zane, has been drugging him; he strangles her, brews his own antidote and collapses, then pulls back to let the koloss do his work. In the city Sazed gives Clubs the token of a forgotten faith; he and Tindwyl argue, and embrace, and the alarm sounds.

On the road, Vin sees the mist spirit hovering over the sleeping Elend and stabs at it; it vanishes. At Luthadel the koloss, inflamed by a huge brawl, attack. Vin finds Jastes in a camp trailing the party — he has deserted his koloss after their coin carts burned — and Elend executes him for leaving them leaderless. Spook confesses Sazed’s trick, and Vin understands: the Well is in Luthadel. They turn back.

The battle takes a single day. The Zinc Gate breaks first. At the Steel Gate, Sazed’s post, the skaa who call him the Holy First Witness refuse to leave him; when the koloss break through he taps his pewtermind and kills a giant with one punch, and later holds the gate shut with the weight of his ironmind. Tindwyl’s Tin Gate falls. A koloss cuts down Clubs as he saves Breeze, and Breeze runs and hides. The koloss storm Keep Venture and kill Dockson. Cett refuses Allrianne’s pleading. Straff waits.

Vin runs back on a pewter drag, covering the last stretch by Pushing off horseshoes. At dusk she reaches Sazed, his pewtermind spent, and Pushes on his gate to smash the koloss around him while the skaa chant. Then, out of pewter and barely conscious in a burning city, she flares duralumin and Pushes on the koloss — and they are hers. The Lord Ruler built that weakness into them. With her new army she makes Penrod, who has shut refugees out of Keep Hasting, send out his soldiers. Sazed searches for hours, finds Tindwyl’s body, and cannot choose a rite to say over her.

Next morning Straff finds koloss and the city’s soldiers lined up against him, and Vin flying at him on a duralumin Steelpush. She comes down on him with a koloss sword and kills him and his horse. Allrianne charges alone to force her father’s hand, and Cett’s army joins in. Vin makes Penrod, Cett and Straff’s general Janarle accept Elend as their Emperor, leaves Sazed in charge, and goes to rest.

Inside a small tent at night a figure made of mist bends over a sleeping young man while a young woman springs up and thrusts a dark dagger at it. — **II · 22 Something in the Tent** Chapter 51, on the road north. Vin wakes to see the mist spirit hovering over Elend as he sleeps and stabs at it; it vanishes. In the same chapter she raids the camp of the men following them and finds Jastes, who has deserted his koloss after their coin carts burned; Elend executes him for leaving them leaderless. Then Spook confesses Sazed’s trick, Vin realizes the Well is in Luthadel, and they turn back.

At a broken city gate a tall bald man swollen with huge muscle draws back his fist at an enormous blue-grey creature while ragged townspeople stand behind him. — **II · 23 The Holy First Witness** Chapter 52. The koloss have attacked Luthadel, and the Zinc Gate has already broken. At the Steel Gate, Sazed’s post, the skaa who call him the Holy First Witness refuse to leave him. “We are not here to die, Holy First Witness,” an old man tells him. When the koloss break through, Sazed taps his pewtermind, swells with stored strength, kills a giant koloss with a single punch, and leads the soldiers into the fight.

On a broken gatehouse an older man shoves a portly gentleman aside as an enormous blue-grey creature swings a huge sword down at them. — **II · 24 Clubs at the Zinc Gate** Chapter 53. Clubs, who boasts that in twenty years he never lost a battle with koloss on his side, is fighting them now. At the Zinc Gate, when a koloss sword comes down on Breeze, Clubs shoves him clear and is cut down himself; Breeze runs and hides. The koloss storm Keep Venture and kill Dockson, who grabs a sword and charges before he dies. Tindwyl’s Tin Gate has fallen. Sanderson wanted readers to believe Sazed would be next.

In a burning street at night an exhausted young woman stretches out one hand and an enormous blue-grey creature stops mid-stride before her, more huge shapes halted behind it. — **II · 25 The Koloss Obey** Chapters 52–54. Vin has run back to Luthadel on a pewter drag, covering the last stretch by Steelpushing off horseshoes gathered from a village. She arrives at dusk in time to smash the koloss around a spent Sazed with a Push on his gate. Then, out of pewter and barely conscious as the city burns, she flares duralumin and Pushes on the koloss’s emotions, and they stop. The Lord Ruler built that weakness into them. Now they are hers.

In a ruined, smoky street at night a tall bald man in torn robes kneels beside the still body of a grey-haired woman. — **II · 26 Sazed Finds Tindwyl** Chapter 54. When the fighting stops, Sazed searches for hours and finds Tindwyl among the dead. He has spent his life gathering the beliefs of vanished peoples so that he can offer each person a faith that fits, and kneeling by her he cannot choose a single rite to perform. Sanderson said her death is what breaks Sazed’s faith; the Epilogue finishes the job.

At dawn on an ashen plain a young woman in a tasselled cloak, a huge sword in her hands, hurtles down out of the sky toward a tall nobleman on a warhorse who looks up in horror. — **II · 27 Vin Comes for Straff** Chapter 55. At dawn Straff, who held back to let the koloss do his work, finds koloss and the city’s soldiers lined up against him — and Vin flying straight at him on a duralumin Steelpush. She lands with a koloss sword and kills him and his horse. Allrianne charges alone to force her father’s hand, and Cett’s army joins in. Vin makes Penrod, Cett and Straff’s general Janarle accept Elend as their Emperor, leaves Sazed in charge, and goes to rest.

Part 6

Words in Steel

On the road back, the mist spirit meets Elend, points north and seems to push him. Terris refugees bring news that Steel Inquisitors have killed the Synod at Tathingdwen. In Luthadel the crowds cheer the king’s return, and Vin tells Elend he is Emperor. Sazed realizes that the skaa’s title for him, Holy First Witness, comes from the prophecies — and finds the missing scrap of his transcription in his own hand: Alendi must not be allowed to take the power for himself.

Vin leads Elend, Ham and Spook into Kredik Shaw, where a duralumin Pull opens a hidden door in the Lord Ruler’s study onto a store of food and a metal map of the Final Empire, Statlin City circled. The mist spirit leads Sazed past a skaa who has died in agony, and denies killing him. Inside the palace Marsh is waiting, wishing he knew why he has to kill Sazed. He breaks Sazed’s rib and arm and Pushes his metalmind rings into his flesh; Sazed fights back until they run dry, and Ham cracks a dueling cane over the Inquisitor’s skull.

Below, in a vast smoky cavern, Vin and Elend find the Well: a glowing white pool of liquid metal only a few feet across. Elend picks up a small bit of metal set in a disk of clay. Then the mist spirit stabs him in the gut. As he lies dying, Vin walks into the pool. The power floods her; a flare of pain makes her tear out her earring; a voice tells her she knows what she must do, and that the Deepness is the killing mists. She gives the power up, and something cries out:

“I am FREE!”

Holding Elend, Vin despairs, until the mist spirit urges her toward the bead. She washes it down his throat with a vial, and he burns pewter and lives: Mistborn now, like her.

In the Epilogue Sazed holds his rubbing against the plate at the Conventical. They do not match: the steel’s last line forbids something else entirely, and the prophecies were altered by a malevolent force; only words set in metal are safe from it. Grieving Tindwyl, Sazed loses his faith. On Luthadel’s wall Vin tells Elend that she released what was trapped in the Well. Elend says they will survive.

In a dark stone hall a tall bald man slumps against the wall, facing a black-robed figure with discs for eyes, while a muscular man creeps up behind it with a cane raised. — **II · 28 The Inquisitor in Kredik Shaw** Chapters 57–58. The mist spirit leads Sazed to Kredik Shaw past a skaa who died in agony, and inside waits Marsh, who says he wishes he knew why he has to kill Sazed. He breaks Sazed’s rib and arm and Pushes his metalmind rings into his flesh; Sazed taps them and fights back until they run dry. Then Ham comes up behind the Inquisitor and cracks a dueling cane over his skull. Marsh is out cold — for now.

In a smoky cavern lit from below a young woman stares into a small pool of glowing white metal while a young man in white examines a clay disk and a figure of mist rises behind him. — **II · 29 The Well of Ascension** Chapter 58. Behind a stone door Vin dragged open with a duralumin Pull, past a store of food and a metal map with Statlin City circled, Vin and Elend find a vast smoky cavern and, in a shallow dip in its floor, a pool of glowing liquid metal only a few feet across. Elend reassures her and picks up a small bit of metal set in a disk of clay. Then the mist spirit stabs him in the gut.

A young woman stands in a small glowing pool with her arms spread as a pillar of white light and churning mist pours up around her. — **II · 30 The Power at the Well** Chapter 58. With Elend dying behind her, Vin walks into the pool and the power pours into her. A flare of pain makes her tear out her earring. A voice tells her she knows what she must do, and that the Deepness is the killing mists. She gives the power up, and something cries out: “I am FREE!” Sanderson called this book his look at prophecy; this is where the prophecy springs its trap.

In a cavern lit by white light a young woman kneels holding a small vial to the lips of a pale young man lying on the rock, while a figure of mist points down at them. — **II · 31 A Bead of Metal** Chapter 59. Holding Elend as he dies, Vin despairs — until the mist spirit, the thing she has feared all book, urges her toward the bead of metal from the clay disk. She washes it down his throat with a vial, and Elend burns pewter and lives. The man who was never an Allomancer is now Mistborn. What the bead was, and who the spirit was, are questions the next books answer.

A tall bald man stands in a rock chamber by lamplight holding a sheet of paper up beside a large engraved steel plate, his face hollow with grief. — **II · 32 The Words Don’t Match** Epilogue. Sazed goes back to the Conventical and holds his rubbing up against Kwaan’s plate. They don’t match. Where his copy said Alendi must not take the power for himself, the steel reads “…for he must not be allowed to release the thing that is imprisoned there.” A malevolent force has been altering words not set in metal: Sazed’s copies, even the one in his memory, and the prophecies themselves. Grieving Tindwyl, Sazed finds he has lost his faith.

A young woman and a young man in white stand together at the parapet of a black city wall at dusk, a burned city behind them. — **II · 33 On the Wall** Epilogue. On Luthadel’s wall, over a city with broken gates and burned districts, Vin tells Elend the truth: she released what was trapped in the Well. Elend, Emperor now and Mistborn, says they will survive. A book that opened with an army on the horizon ends with something far worse loose in the world, and leaves it for *The Hero of Ages*.

The metals in this book

Duralumin (new in this book). Vin receives a shipment of it, an aluminum alloy, from the metallurgist Terion (Ch. 5). Burned alone it seems to do nothing; burned with another metal it releases that metal’s power all at once, as she learns when it blows out her tin-enhanced senses (Ch. 8). With steel and iron: Pushes that scatter Cett’s horsemen (Ch. 11), the leap that brings her down on Straff (Ch. 55), the Pull that opens the Well’s hidden door (Ch. 57). With emotional Allomancy: enough force to seize a kandra (Ch. 40, 47) and then the koloss (Ch. 54). Sanderson: it is a real-world alloy, kept unknown by the Lord Ruler’s control of information.
Atium. Vin burns her last bead in Ch. 2; Zane burns it freely; the bead he gives her (Ch. 40), which the wolfhound carries for her, proves to be a lead ball with a thin coat of atium (Ch. 47), and she beats Zane by turning his reliance on atium into a feint.
Pewter. Vin spars on pewter alone (Ch. 6), collapses when it runs out after the election fight (Ch. 38), and runs back to Luthadel on a pewter drag (Ch. 52).
Bronze. Vin hears Allomantic pulses — enough to catch Breeze Soothing Elend (Ch. 20), and at last the Well’s own thumping as it fills (Ch. 47). Coppermind traces her knack for hearing through copperclouds to her earring, a reveal for later.
Steel and iron. Coin barrages in the mists, and the horseshoes Vin gathers to Push herself the last stretch home (Ch. 52).
Feruchemy. Sazed taps steel for speed (Ch. 15) and pewter for the one-punch koloss kill (Ch. 52); with iron he stores weight to drift down into the Conventical’s crater (Ch. 12) and taps it to hold the Steel Gate shut (Ch. 53). Against Marsh, Feruchemy meets Allomancy; Sanderson says the Feruchemist will almost always win with enough stored power (Ch. 58). Even the copy in Sazed’s coppermind turns out to carry the altered words.
Hemalurgy, glimpsed but not yet named. The chamber under the Conventical where Inquisitors were made; Marsh’s eye-spikes; the spike in Zane’s chest; kandra and koloss as creatures the Lord Ruler made with a built-in weakness to emotional Allomancy; the pain at Vin’s earring when she holds the Well’s power. The Hero of Ages explains the system.
The Well and the bead. Only Vin hears the Well’s pulse as it fills with power (Coppermind puts its cycle at 1,024 years); when she holds that power, a flare of pain makes her tear out her earring. The bead from the clay disk, which the series later names lerasium, turns Elend Mistborn.

Continuity notes

Elend: king → deposed by the Assembly (Ch. 27) → loses the election to Penrod (Ch. 38) → Emperor (Ch. 55–57). Untidy curls and loose suits until Tindwyl’s makeover in Ch. 16; after it, a white uniform, cropped hair, a crown of silver-painted wood. Married to Vin (Ch. 48); Mistborn after the bead (Ch. 59).
Vin: Elend’s Mistborn bodyguard; badly wounded in Ch. 38 and Ch. 47; marries Elend at eighteen (Ch. 48); tears out her earring at the Well and releases what was imprisoned there.
Sazed: defies the Synod; left in charge of the city (Ch. 55); broken rib and arm from Marsh (Ch. 58); loses his faith in the Epilogue.
Deaths: Zane (Ch. 47), Amaranta (Ch. 49), Jastes (executed, Ch. 51), Clubs and Dockson (Ch. 53), Tindwyl (Ch. 53–54), Straff (Ch. 55). OreSeur was killed by TenSoon when the dog body was made (Ch. 5–6); the reader learns it in Ch. 47.
TenSoon: the wolfhound Vin takes for OreSeur from Ch. 6 on (a second dog body after the election fight, Ch. 40); his Contract void, he goes home to face the kandra.
Marsh: knocked out by Ham in Kredik Shaw (Ch. 58) and escapes; the Terris Synod has been killed by Inquisitors at Tathingdwen (Ch. 56).
The rest: Penrod, Cett and Straff’s general Janarle swear to Elend; Allrianne is safe; Breeze is shaken by Clubs’s death; Spook, over six feet now, burns too much tin on the road home; Ham survives.
Into The Hero of Ages: the thing from the Well is free; a storage cache and a metal map with Statlin City circled lie under Kredik Shaw; Luthadel is half burned, its gates broken, its koloss obeying Vin.

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