A bearded young man in a white uniform and a small young woman in a cloak of cloth strips stand on a ridge of black ash under a hazy red sky, mist in the hollows and an army of huge brutes on the plain below. — Ash at noon, mist that will not lift, and two Mistborn who believe one of them is the Hero of Ages.

The Mistborn Saga · Era One · Book III · 2008

The Hero of Ages

Ash falls at noon, the mists will not lift and have begun to kill, and an emperor and empress race the end of the world from one hidden cache to the next.

The Hero of Ages (Tor, 14 October 2008) is the last novel of Mistborn’s first era, and the one in which the world actually ends. Since Vin released the power of the Well of Ascension at the close of book two, and freed the thing imprisoned there with it, the ash has thickened, the mists linger past noon and have begun to kill, and the earth has started to shake. Elend Venture, now a bearded Mistborn emperor, and Vin, his wife and empress, spend the book racing that thing, Ruin, to the Lord Ruler’s hidden storage caches.

It is the most braided book of the three, and the one with the most chapters: a Prologue, five named parts, eighty-two chapters and an Epilogue, with three plots that run side by side until the last part. Vin and Elend besiege Fadrex City; Sazed, Breeze and Spook try to take Urteau from a tyrant who burns nobles in Kelsier’s name; the kandra TenSoon stands trial among his own people. Underneath runs Marsh, Ruin’s Inquisitor. Every chapter opens with an epigraph by a narrator writing after the end, and the very first gives the game away without anyone noticing: “I am, unfortunately, the Hero of Ages.”

This page summarises the whole book, ending included.

Part 1

Legacy of the Survivor

The Prologue belongs to Marsh, Kelsier’s brother, a Steel Inquisitor since the first book and now Ruin’s to command. He stands over a Terris steward tied to a table, the Inquisitor-to-be lying beneath it. For a moment his own mind surfaces in horror; then Ruin takes him back, and he drives a brass spike through the Terrisman’s heart. Later, lucid for once in a koloss camp, he resolves again to die, feigning obedience so that Ruin will not be watching when the moment comes.

Vetitan, a farming town of some seven thousand behind a freshly dug earthen bulwark, waits for a koloss army to finish it. A lone rider in a dark hooded cloak leaps from his horse onto the top of the gate, the cloak whipping free from a white uniform: Elend, bearded now and weathered. He lets the town believe its leader, Fatren, sent for him, trains the men, and leads them against the koloss, Soothing away their fear. When they falter he points to a speck in the sky. Vin drops into the koloss, kills a thirteen-foot brute with one kick to the head, and she and Elend begin taking the creatures one by one with the secret TenSoon gave her.

Under Vetitan’s Ministry building lies one of the Lord Ruler’s five hidden storage caches: food, the base metals, and a metal plate in his own words. It explains how koloss and kandra can be taken with emotional Allomancy, points to the next cache at Fadrex City, and warns that the enemy can learn anything spoken or written. Only thoughts are safe.

The mists now kill a predictable share of whoever walks in them; the Vetitan refugees who survive, Elend argues, are inoculated. Vin questions her tamed koloss, Human. Sazed reaches the army with Breeze. He no longer wears his metalminds; he carries instead a portfolio of the dead religions he once preserved, marking each one untrue the moment it contradicts itself. He tells Vin how deeply he is still grieving Tindwyl, and she leaves him the worn flower drawing that belonged to Mare, Kelsier’s wife. Elend’s council resolves to take the caches at Urteau and Fadrex.

In the kandra Homeland, TenSoon, who broke his contract in book two to help Vin, lies boneless in a prison cell until the guards begin dissolving him with acid and he forms a mouth to demand judgement under the First Contract. Given a body and brought to the Trustwarren, he argues that by serving Vin, who killed the Father, he served the Contract, and that the kandra should serve her too. KanPaar of the Second Generation shouts him down. Punishment in a month.

A tall bald man with steel discs in his eye sockets stands in lamplight over a robed man lying on a stone table, a brass stake in his fist. — **III · 1 A Brass Spike** The Prologue. Marsh, Kelsier’s brother and a Steel Inquisitor, stands over a Terris steward tied to a table while the Inquisitor-to-be lies beneath it. For one moment his own mind surfaces in horror; then Ruin takes him back, and he drives a brass spike through the Terrisman’s heart. Inquisitors are murdering Terris Keepers to make new Inquisitors, and Marsh, in the rare hours he is himself, can only watch.

A bearded man in a white uniform lands on top of a wooden town gate as his dark hooded cloak whips back, black ash falling over the fields. — **III · 2 The Lone Rider** Chapter 1. Vetitan, a farming town of some seven thousand behind a freshly dug earthen bulwark, waits for a koloss army to finish it. A lone hooded rider comes through the black ash and leaps from his horse onto the top of the wooden gate, his cloak whipping free from a white uniform: Elend, emperor and Mistborn, bearded now. He lets the town believe its leader Fatren sent for him, then trains the men and talks them into attacking first.

A small young woman in a cloak of strips drops feet-first from a hazy sky onto the head of a towering blue-grey brute as ragged soldiers stare up. — **III · 3 Out of the Sky** Chapter 3. Elend Soothes away the townsmen’s fear and leads the charge; when they falter he points to a speck in the sky. Vin drops into the koloss and kills a thirteen-foot brute with one kick to the head. Then she and Elend take the creatures one by one with the secret TenSoon gave her, and koloss begin fighting for the town. A Steel Inquisitor will join the battle before it ends.

In a lantern-lit cavern lined with shelves of stores, a young woman rests her fingertips on an engraved steel plate while a bearded man reads over her shoulder. — **III · 4 The Lord Ruler’s Plate** Chapter 5. Beneath Vetitan’s Ministry building lies one of the Lord Ruler’s five hidden storage caches, with food, the base metals and a metal plate in his own words. It tells how koloss and kandra can be taken with emotional Allomancy, points to another cache at Fadrex City, and ends with a warning that shapes the whole book: “Be careful what you speak, it can hear what you say.”

A small young woman in a strip-cloak looks up at a huge blue-grey brute squatting beside her on a misty canal bank while refugees trudge past. — **III · 5 Big on the Outside** Chapter 8. The mists now linger far into the day and kill a predictable share of whoever walks in them; the Vetitan refugees who survive, Elend argues, are now inoculated. On the way to his army Vin questions her tamed koloss, Human, who tells her, “We’re big on the outside only.” Later he will tell her that the mists hate him, and her too, and she will agree.

In a lamplit tent a tall, grieving bald man sits bowed on a stool while a small young woman holds out a worn paper with a drawing of a flower. — **III · 6 Mare’s Flower** Chapter 10. Sazed reaches Elend’s army with Breeze. He has stopped wearing his metalminds and carries instead a portfolio of the dead religions he once preserved, testing each one and marking it untrue as soon as it contradicts itself. He tells Vin how deeply he still grieves for Tindwyl, and she leaves with him the worn drawing of a flower that once belonged to Mare, Kelsier’s wife.

In a round, metal-walled hall lit by oil lamps, a lone figure stands on a low steel platform before a glassy-skinned judge and rows of watching shapes. — **III · 7 The Trustwarren** Chapter 11. In the kandra Homeland TenSoon, given a body again after his time boneless in a prison cell, stands trial in the Trustwarren, the lamplit, metal-walled chamber at the heart of his people’s caves. He argues that by serving Vin, who killed the Father, he kept the First Contract, and that the kandra should serve her too. KanPaar of the Second Generation shouts him down: punishment in one month.

Part 2

Cloth and Glass

Urteau, House Venture’s old seat, belongs now to Quellion, “the Citizen,” who rules in Kelsier’s name and burns nobles alive. Spook, the youngest of Kelsier’s crew, has flared tin without stopping for over a year, out of guilt over his uncle Clubs, and it has made him a savant: he sees by starlight as if by day, and in daylight must bind a cloth over his eyes. Posing as a blind beggar, he watches the Citizen burn a building full of nobles and whispers to Quellion’s sister, Beldre, that the Citizen will die. Spotted, he fights the guards’ Allomancers, is run through by a sword, and passes out.

He wakes in a burning building. A voice guides him to a desk of Allomantic vials, and a figure that looks like Kelsier appears; Spook finds he can burn pewter now, and the figure tells him to escape and take revenge. When he finds a sliver of the sword still in his skin, “Kelsier” tells him to leave it there. Spook, who wants the Survivor watching over him, obeys.

Elend marches his soldiers into the mists on purpose, to immunize them. Demoux, devout in the Church of the Survivor, asks him not to speak in the Survivor’s name if he does not believe, then falls sick, and lives. The scribe Noorden’s recount finds exactly sixteen percent of the unexposed fall ill. Sazed’s embassy sets out for Urteau by way of the Pits of Hathsin, where the Terris people now live; he refuses to lead them, and learns that no Terrisman has caught the sickness.

At Fadrex City, Cett’s old seat, walled by natural shelves of red and orange rock, Vin scouts alone and senses Allomantic pulses that vanish: a hidden Mistborn? She will not say her plans aloud, for fear of Ruin. So they crash a ball. At Keep Orielle Elend sits down at the high table opposite King Aradan Yomen, an obligator who wears a bead of atium tied to his forehead and believes the Lord Ruler will return. They argue law, the Lord Ruler and divinity; Elend gives his ultimatum; then he and Vin dance, and leave by Steelpushing out over the crowd as Elend offers safe passage to his army to any who want it.

In Urteau Quellion rebuffs Sazed, and Spook, dressed as a soldier, leads the embassy to the empty Canton of Inquisition, with the cache beneath it and the answer to the dry canals: their water has been diverted into an underground lake beside the stores. In the Homeland TenSoon is punished with the wolfhound body he wore for Vin, exactly what he wanted. At his sentencing he interrupts to tell the First Generation that they may soon need to call the Resolution; condemned to imprisonment and death by starvation, he bolts on the dog’s legs.

In a misty night camp a grizzled soldier drops to his knees, shaking, while a bearded man in a white uniform crouches beside him and ranks of soldiers stand behind. — **III · 9 Into the Mists** Chapter 17. To reach the caches Elend needs an army that can march in mist, so he sends his soldiers into it on purpose. Demoux, devout in the Church of the Survivor, asks him not to speak in the Survivor’s name if he does not believe, then falls sick himself. He lives. The scribe Noorden’s recount later finds exactly sixteen percent of the unexposed fall ill, and other samples match the rate to the person.

A dazed young man lies on the floor of a burning room while a pale, wavering figure of a scarred, fair-haired man points him toward a desk of glass vials. — **III · 10 A Figure in the Smoke** Chapter 19. Run through by a sword in his fight with the Citizen’s Allomancers, Spook wakes inside a burning building. A voice guides him to a desk of Allomantic vials, and a figure that looks like Kelsier appears; Spook finds he can now burn pewter, and is told to escape and take revenge. Later he finds a sliver of the sword in his skin, and “Kelsier” tells him to leave it there.

At dusk a small cloaked young woman crouches on a ledge of red-orange rock above a walled city, campfires of an army glowing on the plain beyond. — **III · 11 The Red Rock City** Chapters 25–27. Fadrex City, Cett’s capital after the Collapse, has walls the land built for it: shelves of dark red and orange rock, no trees, and a canyon for an entrance. Elend’s army camps before it while Vin goes in alone to scout. She meets Cett’s informant Slowswift, avoids a humming beggar who unsettles her, and senses Allomantic pulses that vanish as she follows them. A hidden Mistborn, perhaps.

Beside a still underground lake lined with shelves of stores, a tall bald man with a lantern, a portly man with a cane and a blindfolded young man look out over the water. — **III · 12 The Lake Under Urteau** Chapter 29. Quellion refuses Sazed’s offer of alliance. Spook, dressed as a soldier, meets the embassy and leads Sazed, Breeze and the others to the empty Canton of Inquisition. Beneath it lies the Urteau cache, and the answer to an old puzzle: the city’s canals are dry because their water has been diverted into an underground lake beside the Lord Ruler’s stores.

In a candlelit stone ballroom a bearded man in white dances with a small dark-haired woman in a gown, watched from a high table by a shaven-headed man with a bead on his brow. — **III · 13 The Ball at Keep Orielle** Chapters 30–32. Elend and Vin crash a ball in the besieged city. Vin faces down Lady Patresen; Elend sits at the high table opposite Aradan Yomen, the obligator king who wears a bead of atium tied to his forehead, and gives his ultimatum. They argue law, the Lord Ruler and divinity. Then the emperor and empress dance, and leave by Steelpushing out over the crowd as Elend offers safe passage to his army to any who want it.

A huge mottled-grey wolfhound races down a lamplit rock tunnel toward the viewer while a tall guard with glassy skin lunges too slowly behind it. — **III · 14 On the Dog’s Legs** Chapter 33. As punishment the kandra force TenSoon back into the wolfhound body he wore beside Vin, which is exactly what he wanted. At his sentencing he interrupts to tell the First Generation they may soon need to call the Resolution, and is condemned to ten generations’ imprisonment and death by starvation. Instead he bolts on the dog’s four legs, and the guards cannot catch him.

Part 3

The Broken Skies

Marsh walks through a starving town near Mount Tyrian, makes a bronze spike by stabbing a Smoker through the heart, and watches the ashmount pour out lava. At Fadrex an earthquake shakes the siege camp, and Demoux brings Elend more sixteens: one sixteenth of the sick either stay sick for sixteen days or die.

Yomen’s raiders strike the camp. Vin turns the tent stakes into missiles and chases a hidden Mistborn into the city, losing him. The raid was cover: Yomen’s siege engines pelt the koloss with rocks until they turn on one another, and about half of Elend’s twenty thousand koloss die. Following Human afterwards, she watches him strip the spikes from a dead koloss and reach for a sick soldier, and understands how koloss are made. The council puts the rest together: koloss, kandra and Inquisitors are all made by Hemalurgy, and all share the same weakness to emotional Allomancy. Demoux forms the long-sick into a division, the mistfallen. In Luthadel Marsh fights his way into Keep Venture and leaves his new spike in King Penrod’s heart, where the surgeons decide to leave it.

In Urteau Spook counts nine skulls where ten prisoners went into a burning building: the Citizen’s pyres have secret exits, and the skaa already whisper of a new hero, the Survivor of the Flames. At the next execution he kills the soldiers at a bolt-hole and walks out of the fire carrying a young girl, while Allrianne Riots the crowd so he can escape. TenSoon retrieves and absorbs the two iron spikes he took from OreSeur, and sets out to find Vin.

At a second ball, in Fadrex’s Canton of Resources, Vin knocks out the Smoker and Tineye shadowing her and slips below, while Elend keeps Yomen talking. She reaches the cache, and is locked in: every scrap of metal has been removed from the stone door so that it cannot be Pushed. Elend fakes an attack on Yomen, who fights back with atium; Elend counters with electrum, and withdraws. Hours later a note says Vin is captured. In the dark of the cavern she finds Reen.

A tall bald man in black robes with steel discs in his eyes walks down an empty street of huts as a volcano behind him pours glowing lava. — **III · 15 Mount Tyrian** Chapter 34. Marsh walks through a starving town near Mount Tyrian and makes a bronze spike the Hemalurgic way, by stabbing a Smoker through the heart. Behind him the ashmount erupts in a flow of lava. The world is coming apart faster now: an earthquake will soon shake Elend’s siege camp at Fadrex, and before long Marsh will slip into Luthadel to spike its king.

In a misty night camp a small young woman flings out one arm, glowing blue lines running to iron tent stakes that fly toward a mounted raider. — **III · 16 Tent Stakes** Chapter 37. Yomen’s raiders strike the siege camp, and Vin answers by turning the camp’s tent stakes into missiles. She chases a hidden Mistborn into the city and loses him. The raid was cover: Yomen’s siege engines pelt the koloss with rocks until they turn on one another, and about half of Elend’s twenty thousand koloss die.

In a dim infirmary tent a huge blue-grey brute with iron spikes in its fist reaches toward a sleeping soldier as a small young woman steps between them. — **III · 17 How Koloss Are Made** Chapter 37. Following Human after the raid, Vin watches him strip the spikes from a dead koloss and reach for a sick soldier, and understands at last what a koloss is: a person, spiked. The council soon works out the rest. Koloss, kandra and Inquisitors are all made by Hemalurgy, so all share the same weakness to emotional Allomancy, which is why Vin and Elend can take them.

A tall blindfolded young man strides out of a blazing wooden building with a small girl clinging to his neck while a crowd surges at a line of soldiers. — **III · 18 Survivor of the Flames** Chapter 41. Urteau’s skaa already whisper of a new hero, the Survivor of the Flames. At the Citizen’s next execution-by-fire Spook lives up to the name: he kills the soldiers at a secret bolt-hole and walks out of the burning building with a young girl in his arms, while Allrianne Riots the watching crowd so that he can get away. Sanderson calls it one of the two big focal scenes he imagined for Spook.

On an emptied ballroom floor a bearded man in white lunges at a calm, shaven-headed man with a bead on his brow, each trailed by a faint ghostly double. — **III · 19 Atium Against Electrum** Chapters 43–44. At a second ball, in the Canton of Resources, Vin knocks out the Smoker and Tineye shadowing her and slips below to the cache, while Elend keeps Yomen talking and even challenges him to a duel. Then Elend fakes an attack. Yomen fights back with atium; Elend counters with electrum, and withdraws. Hours later a note arrives: Vin is captured.

Part 4

Beautiful Destroyer

Her half-brother is long dead, and this is no kandra. In the dark Vin matches his pulses to the ones she felt at the Well and knows him: Ruin. All things must end, he tells her; he is not her enemy, and he has been with her since she was a child. By touch, in the dark, she reads the Lord Ruler’s last plate: Ruin spoke in his mind, he hid Ruin’s body, and Ruin is not omnipotent. Trapped under a weighted trapdoor, she drinks drugged wine from Telden Hasting, Elend’s old friend and now Yomen’s man, as the price of getting out. She wakes chained and without metals. Yomen examines the one thing she still wears, a silver-and-bronze earring of little use to an Allomancer, and lets her put it back. She is to be tried for the Lord Ruler’s murder, and Ruin whispers to her to kill Yomen.

Elend Steelpushes alone to a village under koloss attack, fights the army by firelight, and takes it with a duralumin Pull. Marching his thirty thousand new koloss back toward Fadrex, he kneels one night in the ash, ready to give up. The mist spirit kneels beside him. By yes-or-no questions (it waves for yes) it tells him not to attack Fadrex and that the mists are not killing people, and points to his metal vial. The next epigraph tells what Elend did not see: minutes later a body, short and black-haired with a prominent nose, fell out of the mists dead into the ash. Preservation is gone. Ruin comes to Vin’s cell to gloat: the bargain is complete, and the end is days away.

In Urteau Spook slips into Beldre’s garden and asks her to leave with him; she screams for the guards, and he goes rather than kill. Sazed, tending metalminds he no longer wears, pulls an engineering book from his copperminds to get the canals flowing again. Beldre comes to plead for her brother and the crew keep her as a hostage; she tells Spook she is half-skaa, and he promises not to harm Quellion. TenSoon, meanwhile, finds Luthadel choked with ash, digs up Kelsier’s bones and wears them, tells the faithful to shelter underground, and runs for Urteau as the wolfhound, carrying the bones.

At Quellion’s next speech riots break out, and Beldre is revealed as a Coinshot. “Kelsier” urges Spook to kill her with a spike, and Spook realizes that Quellion sees “Kelsier” too. He tears a bronze spike out of Quellion’s arm, then the sliver out of his own body, and his pewter and his Kelsier vanish together. With the Canton aflame he runs through the fire to throw the water mechanism, floods the canals to quench the city, and collapses.

In a pitch-black cavern a small young woman crouches with fists raised as a calm young man with a faint smile stands a few paces away. — **III · 20 Reen in the Dark** Chapters 44–45. Locked in the black cache, Vin finds her half-brother Reen, who is long dead, waiting for her. He is no kandra. Matching his pulses to the ones she felt at the Well, she knows him: Ruin. All things must end, he tells her; he is not her enemy, and he has been with her since she was a child. Sanderson lets her see through the false resurrection almost at once.

In a small walled garden of brown-leaved plants, an auburn-haired young woman raises a hand to her mouth as a tall blindfolded young man holds out his hand to her. — **III · 21 Beldre’s Garden** Chapter 46. Spook slips into Beldre’s garden and asks her to leave Urteau with him. She screams for the guards, and he goes rather than kill anyone. She will come to the crew herself soon enough, to plead for her brother, and end up their hostage; she tells Spook she is half-skaa, and he promises her he will not harm Quellion.

In a burning village at night a bearded man in a soot-streaked white uniform fights alone with a sword as huge blue-grey brutes fall back around him. — **III · 22 One Man, One Army** Chapter 51. With Vin a prisoner, Elend Steelpushes alone to a village under koloss attack and fights them by the light of burning houses, in ash and mist, until a single duralumin Pull makes the survivors his. Sanderson counts it among his favourite chapters: Elend’s first real chance to be a Mistborn. He marches thirty thousand new koloss back toward Fadrex, and on the way he will come close to giving up.

On a doorstep in an ash-choked city at night, a tall, scarred, fair-haired man in a dark cloak speaks to two awed guards, one holding a lantern. — **III · 23 The Survivor’s Bones** Chapter 52. TenSoon reaches Luthadel and finds it overcrowded and choked with ash. He digs up Kelsier’s bones and wears them, and as the Survivor himself questions the Church’s guards, learning among other things that King Penrod has gone mad. He tells the faithful to shelter underground, then runs for Urteau in the wolfhound’s body, carrying the bones with him.

In a lamplit stone cell a young woman chained by one wrist watches a shaven-headed man with a bead on his brow study a tiny earring stud. — **III · 24 The Earring** Chapter 54. Vin wakes chained in Fadrex, her metals gone. Yomen examines the one thing she still wears, a small silver-plated bronze stud of little use to an Allomancer, and lets her put it back in. She is to be tried for murdering the Lord Ruler. In her head Ruin whispers that she should kill Yomen. The earring will matter more than anything else she owns.

On a plain of black ash at night a bearded man in white kneels with his head bowed while a figure made of mist kneels beside him, a vast host of brutes behind. — **III · 25 The Mist Kneels** Chapters 55–56. Marching his thirty thousand new koloss back toward Fadrex by night, Elend kneels in the ash, ready to give up. The mist spirit kneels beside him. By yes-or-no questions (it waves for yes) it tells him not to attack Fadrex and that the mists are not killing people, and points to his metal vial. Minutes later, an epigraph reveals, a short, black-haired body falls out of the mists dead.

Inside a burning stone building a tall young man throws his weight against a huge iron lever as water bursts out into a dry canal beyond. — **III · 26 Two Spikes Out** Chapter 58. At Quellion’s speech riots break out, Beldre shows herself a Coinshot, and “Kelsier” urges Spook to kill her. Then Spook realizes that Quellion sees “Kelsier” too. He tears a bronze spike out of Quellion’s arm, then the sliver out of his own body, and his pewter and his Kelsier vanish together. With the Canton ablaze he runs through the fire, throws the water mechanism, floods the canals, and collapses.

Part 5

Trust

TenSoon reaches Urteau. Sazed, who has just rejected the last religions in his portfolio, hears him send his regards to the Announcer, the true title Ruin had altered in Sazed’s own notes. TenSoon reveals that the First Generation of kandra were Rashek’s fellow Feruchemists: the Terris religion lives. As a heavily muscled horse he carries Sazed to the Homeland, where the First Generation show the Announcer what they have kept, the Trust: a pit of atium, Ruin’s body. Their leader, Haddek, tells him that no religion exists that requires no faith, and Sazed decides to believe, just before KanPaar’s faction seizes the First Generation and imprisons him.

In Fadrex Vin realizes that Yomen is a Seer, not a Mistborn, and that every cache lies near metal deposits: Ruin has been using her to find them. When Elend breaks camp rather than attack, Ruin rips the koloss away from him and turns them on his army. Vin Pushes her earring into Marsh’s forehead, breaks into his mind with the mists’ help and sends him fleeing; Yomen opens Fadrex to Elend, who realizes in its infirmary that the sickness is a Snapping: every mistfallen soldier is a Misting. Vin heads for Luthadel.

Spook, half-conscious, writes a warning to Vin in steel at a voice’s urging; Marsh kills Goradel, who carries it, and reads it. At Kredik Shaw thirteen Inquisitors fall on Vin, and Marsh breaks her arms, legs and fingers to make her give up the atium. Then, remembering Spook’s note about metal piercing the body, he rips out her earring. Ruin’s voice stops. The mists stream to her from across the land; she kills twelve Inquisitors, brings down the palace with one Push, pulls one of Marsh’s eye-spikes, and vanishes.

Vin now holds Preservation’s power. Ruin meets her as a cloud of shifting smoke; she seals ashmounts and clears the sky only to scorch the world, and he blocks her from stopping a tidal wave. They are balanced, and will stay so unless Ruin finds his body. The wind whispers to Elend: west, the Pits. There TenSoon frees Sazed and the First Generation; Ruin seizes KanPaar; Haddek cries that the Resolution has come, and the faithful kandra pull their own spikes and fall as mistwraiths. Sazed holds the Trustwarren door against the spiked kandra carrying the atium off for Ruin until Elend arrives, and hundreds of thousands of refugees, who say the Survivor told them to come, take shelter in the caverns.

Demoux burns atium: the mistfallen are Seers. For hours Elend and his men fight the koloss, burning beads by the handful with no thought of running out, while Sazed resupplies them from the cave mouth; between them they burn the whole hoard. Marsh, burning atium, comes for Elend. Elend burns duralumin and atium together and buries his sword in Marsh’s neck as Marsh’s axe takes his chest. Marsh heals; Elend does not. Dying, he tells Marsh the atium is all gone:

“Lost? We’ve won, Marsh.”

Marsh kills him. Vin, watching, turns Preservation’s power on Ruin though it tears at her to do it, and the clash of opposites kills them both.

Under an oven sun, with only the maimed Demoux beside him, Sazed sees two bodies appear beside Elend’s, Vin’s and a stranger’s, white mist and black smoke leaking from them. The prophecy said the Hero would “carry the future of the world on his arms.” Wearing all his copperminds, Sazed sees them on his arms, takes up both powers, and draws out all the knowledge he had stored. With the religions he carried, none of them wholly true and each teaching something true, he remakes the world and its people and keeps the two powers joined, in harmony, as they were meant to be. He is the Hero of Ages, the god later ages will call Harmony, and the narrator of every epigraph.

In the Epilogue Spook climbs out of a cavern trapdoor with Beldre and Breeze into green grass under a blue, ashless sky. Urteau is gone. With Ham and the Fadrex survivors they find Vin’s and Elend’s bodies in a field of flowers. Sazed has left a book of the world’s end and its rebirth, and word for Spook: he has healed him, undone his savantism and made him Mistborn; two Allomantic metals remain undiscovered; and he has spoken with Vin and Elend, who are happy where they are. The last epigraph is Sazed’s verdict on Vin:

“Of all of us who touched it, I feel she was the most worthy.”

Spook keeps Mare’s flower picture, and tells Beldre that everything will be all right.

In a lamplit, metal-walled hall a tall bald man kneels at the edge of a pit full of dark silvery beads while a very old, stooped figure with sagging skin stands over him. — **III · 27 The Trust** Chapter 71. Brought to the kandra Homeland by TenSoon, and proclaiming himself the Announcer, Sazed is shown what the First Generation have guarded: the Trust, a pit of atium, the body of Ruin. These ancient kandra were Feruchemists once, Rashek’s own fellows. Their leader, Haddek, tells Sazed that no religion exists that requires no faith. A few chapters later Sazed decides to believe.

In a rain-lashed courtyard of a black, spired palace, a soaked young woman rises as streams of white mist pour into her and robed figures stagger back. — **III · 28 Kredik Shaw in the Rain** Chapters 72–73. Thirteen Inquisitors fall on Vin in the rain at Kredik Shaw, and Marsh breaks her arms, legs and fingers to make her give up the atium. Then, remembering Spook’s message about metal piercing the body, he rips out her earring. Ruin’s voice stops. The mists stream to her from across the land; she kills twelve Inquisitors, brings the palace down with one Push, pulls one of Marsh’s eye-spikes, and vanishes.

High above a dark, ash-covered world, a vast glowing figure of white mist faces a churning cloud of black smoke as volcanoes glow and a tidal wave rolls in. — **III · 29 Godhood** Chapter 76. Vin holds Preservation’s power now, and her body is gone. Above Luthadel Ruin meets her as a cloud of shifting smoke and welcomes her to godhood. She seals ashmounts and clears the sky, only to scorch the world beneath the sun; he blocks her from stopping a tidal wave. Power for power the two are balanced, and will stay so unless Ruin finds his body.

At sunrise outside a mountain’s cave mouths a bearded man in white leads a thin line of soldiers into a sea of huge brutes while a tall bald man hands out silvery beads. — **III · 30 The Atium Army** Chapter 81. The mistfallen were never only sick: Demoux burns atium and finds they are Seers. Outside the Pits of Hathsin, as a killing sun comes up, Elend and his former invalids fight a sea of koloss while Sazed resupplies them with beads from the cave mouth. They burn atium by the handful with no thought of running out, and still, after hours, they are losing.

On a battlefield of trampled ash a bearded man in a torn white uniform faces a tall robed figure with an axe, a small glowing figure of mist watching from the sky. — **III · 31 Lost? We’ve Won** Chapter 81. Marsh, burning atium, comes for Elend. Elend burns duralumin and atium together, sees his chance, and buries his sword in Marsh’s neck as Marsh’s axe takes his chest. Marsh heals; Elend does not. Dying, he tells Marsh that the atium is all gone: “Lost? We’ve won, Marsh.” Then Marsh kills him. Overhead, a white figure has watched the whole fight.

Over a battlefield of black ash a towering shape of white mist crashes into a cloud of black smoke, the two tearing into each other in a spiralling storm. — **III · 32 The Thing That Can Kill You** Chapter 81. Vin watches Elend die, and turns Preservation’s power on Ruin, though it tears at her to strike with it. She tells him, “You created the thing that can kill you, Ruin.” Preservation against Ruin, opposite against opposite: the clash destroys them both, and the two powers are left with no one to hold them.

Under a blazing white sun a tall bald man with copper bands on his forearms raises his arms as streams of white mist and black smoke pour into him, wings of white and black spreading behind. — **III · 33 The Hero of Ages** Chapter 82. Under an oven-hot sun, with only the maimed Demoux beside him, Sazed sees two bodies appear beside Elend’s: Vin’s and a stranger’s, white mist and black smoke leaking from them. The prophecy said the Hero would “carry the future of the world on his arms.” Wearing every coppermind he owns, Sazed looks at his arms, takes up both powers, and draws out all the knowledge he had stored.

In a green meadow under a blue sky a tall young man climbs out of an open wooden trapdoor shading his eyes, an auburn-haired woman behind him and a portly man with a cane staring at the sky. — **III · 34 Green** The Epilogue. Spook climbs out of a cavern trapdoor with Beldre and Breeze into green grass under a blue, ashless sky. Urteau is gone without a trace. Sazed, holding both powers, has remade the world and its people with the knowledge of the religions he once rejected, keeping the two powers joined, and he has healed Spook, undone his savantism and made him Mistborn.

In a field of bright wildflowers under a blue sky, a man and a woman lie side by side as if asleep while a young man kneels nearby holding a small drawing of a flower. — **III · 35 The Field of Flowers** The Epilogue. With Ham and the survivors of Fadrex, Spook finds a field of flowers and, lying in it, the bodies of Vin and Elend. Sazed has left a book of the world’s end and rebirth, whose first line is this novel’s first epigraph, and word that he has spoken with the two and they are happy. Spook keeps Mare’s little flower picture and tells Beldre everything will be all right.

The metals in this book

Allomancy. Vin and Elend are both Mistborn, Elend since the Well’s bead in book two. Duralumin with emotional Allomancy lets them seize koloss outright, the secret TenSoon gave Vin. Elend answers Yomen’s atium with electrum. Yomen and, at the end, the mistfallen are Seers, atium Mistings. Spook shows what a year of flaring one metal does: a tin savant. The mists themselves are Snapping people into Mistings; the sickness strikes exactly sixteen percent of those newly exposed. The epigraphs count sixteen metals, and Sazed leaves two for people to find.
Feruchemy. Power stored, then drawn on later. Sazed’s copperminds hold the world’s religions and lore: he pulls an engineering book from them to fix Urteau’s canals, taps stored speed, weight and strength to hold the Trustwarren door, and at the end draws out all the knowledge in his copperminds. Inquisitors carry stolen Feruchemy too; Marsh swells with strength as he chokes Vin.
Hemalurgy. The third art, Ruin’s, explained in the epigraphs: a spike driven through one person and into another steals a power, with loss, and placement is everything. Koloss carry four spikes; Inquisitors many; kandra Blessings are pairs of small spikes. Every spike lets Ruin speak to and steer its wearer: Vin’s earring, Spook’s sliver, Quellion’s arm spike, Penrod’s heart spike. Pulling them out is the kandra’s Resolution.
The Shards. Ruin and Preservation each have a physical, spiritual and cognitive aspect. Atium is Ruin’s body, the mists are Preservation’s, and the name Adonalsium surfaces once, in an epigraph.

Continuity notes

Vin dies in chapter 81, holding Preservation’s power, in the act of killing Ruin. Sazed lays her restored body in a field of flowers beside Elend’s.
Elend wears a beard in this book and is killed by Marsh in chapter 81. Era Two’s great city, Elendel, is named for him.
Sazed stops wearing his metalminds, taps them again to hold the Trustwarren door (chapter 80), and in chapter 82, wearing all his copperminds, takes up both powers: the narrator of the epigraphs and the god Era Two calls Harmony.
Spook is spiked, burned and finally healed; Sazed undoes his savantism and makes him Mistborn. He ends the book with Beldre.
Marsh loses one eye-spike to Vin; this book does not show his fate after he kills Elend, but he survives into Era Two.
TenSoon becomes a mistwraith in the Resolution; he and the kandra return in Era Two.
Alive at the end: Breeze, Allrianne, Ham (his family found alive in another cavern), Demoux (missing a hand), Yomen, Beldre, and Human with his koloss in the Homeland tunnels. Dead: Goradel, Penrod, Preservation, Ruin, Vin, Elend. Quellion’s fate is not given.
The world is remade: no ash, a blue sky, green plants and flowers. The survivors gather in what becomes the Elendel Basin, where The Alloy of Law opens about three hundred years later.

Notes

The epigraphs narrate from after the end; only the Epilogue reveals the writer as Sazed, and the first epigraph is the first line of the book he leaves behind.
False resurrections. Reen and Kelsier both seem to come back, and both are Ruin’s masks. Sanderson says he baited the cliché on purpose, letting Vin the realist see through hers quickly while Spook the idealist believes his.
Sixteen is Preservation’s clue, the number Ruin cannot alter: sixteen percent fall sick, one sixteenth of the sick either stay sick for sixteen days or die, and there are sixteen metals.
Echoes of book one: the climax returns to Kredik Shaw in the rain and repeats a line from book one, and Mare’s flower drawing runs from the first book to the last page.
The ending: Sanderson rewrote Elend’s death several times, and Tor’s founder would have preferred he not kill his two leads. Sanderson calls the ending honest rather than tragic, and added Sazed’s note to soften the blow.

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