Mistborn: The Final Empire (Mistborn, #1)

by Brandon Sanderson

Men like you preach change, but I wonder. Is this a battle we can really fight?” “You’re fighting it already, Goodman Mennis. You’re just losing horribly.”

Sometimes Kelsier felt that a skaa Misting’s life wasn’t so much about surviving as it was about picking the right time to die.

He didn’t realize he was observing his old custom this night until he glanced to the side, expecting Mare to be there next to him, as she always had been. Instead he found only the empty air. Lonely. Silent. The mists had replaced her. Poorly.

“Ah,” Kelsier said, “but being an annoyance is something that I am very good at. In fact, I’m far more than a mild annoyance—people tell me I can be downright frustrating. Might as well use this talent for the cause of good, eh?”

She wasn’t a bad person. She simply believed that everybody else was.

“Tell me, mistress. What is it that you believe?” Vin frowned. “What kind of question is that?” “The most important kind, I think.”

The right belief is like a good cloak, I think. If it fits you well, it keeps you warm and safe. The wrong fit, however, can suffocate.”

“The Lord Ruler is not our god,” he said softly. “And he cannot kill me. He tried, but he failed. For I am the thing that he can never kill.”

“How very adult of you,” Vin said flatly. “I’ve always been quite confident in my immaturity.

“The problem is,” the young man said, “you return to find that your favorite spot has been stolen by a pretty girl. Now, a gentleman would move on to another place, leaving the lady to her contemplations. However, this is the best spot on the balcony—it’s the only place close enough to a lantern to have good reading light.”

During the last four weeks, her every whim and desire had been met. Servants cleaned up after her, primped her, fed her, and helped bathe her. Renoux saw that anything she asked for was given her, and she certainly wasn’t expected to do anything strenuous, dangerous, or even slightly inconvenient. In other words, her life was maddeningly boring.

“I decided that I’d see her dream fulfilled. I’d make a world where flowers returned, a world with green plants, a world where no soot fell from the sky.…” He trailed off, then sighed. “I know. I’m insane.” “Actually,” Vin said quietly, “it kind of makes sense. Finally.”

“What did you do at these parties before you had me to pester?” she asked in an annoyed tone. “See, now, how can I be pestering you?” he asked. “I mean, really, Valette. I’m just sitting here, reading quietly to myself.” “At my table. I’m certain you could get your own—you’re the Venture heir. Not that you were forthcoming about that fact during our last meeting.” “True,” Elend said. “But I do recall telling you that the Ventures were an annoying lot. I’m simply trying to live up to the description.”

“You say these things just to provoke me!” His smile widened. “I’m charming that way.”

This is the Final Empire, Vin, she told herself as the carriage rolled away. Don’t forget the ash because you see a little silk.

One geode; that bought one more week of life. Life beneath the taskmasters’ lashes. Life beneath the rule of a sadistic god. Life beneath the sun gone red.

He forced himself to smile—not out of pleasure, and not out of satisfaction. He smiled despite the grief he felt at the deaths of his men; he smiled because that was what he did. That was how he proved to the Lord Ruler—and to himself—that he wasn’t beaten.

Sazed shook his head. “Men are more resilient than that, I think. Our belief is often strongest when it should be weakest. That is the nature of hope.”

Kelsier strode over to the door. He threw it open, letting in the mist, then glanced back at the crew with eyes as hard as any Inquisitor’s spikes. “They hit me where it couldn’t have hurt worse. I’m going to do likewise.”

“I am what you will soon be,” the stranger said, stepping up to the rift. The ribbons of his enveloping black cloak billowed around him, mixing with the mists as he turned toward Walin. “I am a survivor.”