The Well of Ascension (Mistborn, #2)

by Brandon Sanderson

“You cannot always rely on your woman to protect you. Not only is it embarrassing, but your people—your soldiers—will expect you to be able to fight alongside them.

“You might take Luthadel,” Elend said, “but you’ll lose it! I may have been a bad king, but you’ll be a terrible one. The Lord Ruler was a tyrant, but he was also a genius. You’re neither. You’re just a selfish man who’ll use up his resources, then end up dead from a knife in the back.”

PURRR ELEND VENTURE

The man who looks at them without knowledge of their true nature might think them opposites, for one is meant to open, and the other to keep closed. Yet upon closer examination, he might see that without one, the other becomes useless. The wise man then knows that both lock and key were created for the same purpose.”

None of Sazed’s knowledge gave him comfort. He accepted the religions he knew—believed in their value—but that didn’t give him what he needed. They didn’t assure him that Tindwyl’s spirit still lived. Instead, they made him question. If so many people believed so many different things, how could any one of them—or anything at all—really be true?

Vin screamed from the sky in her duralumin-fueled Steeljump, massive koloss sword light in her hands. She hit Straff directly in the head with the sword, then continued on downward, slamming into the ground, tossing up snow and frozen dirt with the power of her impact. The horse fell into two pieces, front and back. What remained of the former king slid to the ground with the equine corpse. She looked at the remnants, smiled grimly, and bade Straff farewell.

He left ruin in his wake, but it was forgotten, Sazed thought, turning to watch her fly. He created kingdoms, and then destroyed them as he made the world anew. We had the wrong gender all along. THE END OF PART FIVE