As he lay there it slowly reformed, and the pain – at long last – faded. Time had passed. He didn’t know how much, but it had been hours upon hours. He wasn’t in Luthadel. De-Ascending – then being crushed by Ruin’s power – had flung his soul far from the city.
He blinked phantom eyes. Above him the sky was a tempest of white and black tendrils, like clouds attacking one another. In the distance he could hear something that made the Realm tremble. He forced himself to his feet and walked, eventually cresting a hill where he saw – below – that figures made of light were locked in battle. A war, men against koloss.
Preservation’s plan. He’d seen it, understood it in those last moments. Ruin’s body was atium. The plan was to create something special and new – people who could burn away Ruin’s body in an attempt to get rid of it.
Below, men fought for their lives, and he could saw them transcending the Physical Realm because of the body of the god that they burned. Above, Ruin and Preservation clashed. Vin did a much better job of it than Kelsier had; she had the full power of the mists, and beyond that there was something natural about the way she held that power.
Kelsier dusted himself off and adjusted his clothing. Still the same shirt and trousers he’d been wearing during his fight with the Inquisitor long ago. What had happened to his pack and the knife Nazh had given him? Those were lost somewhere on the endless fields of ash between here and Fadrex.
He crossed through the battle, stepping out of the way of raging koloss and transcendent men who could see into the Spiritual Realm, if only in a very limited way.
Kelsier reached the top of a hill and stopped. On another hill beyond, distant but close enough to make out, Elend Venture stood among a pile of corpses, clashing with Marsh. Vin hovered above, expansive and incredible, a figure of glowing light and awesome power – like an inspiration for the sun and clouds.
Elend Venture raised his hand, and then exploded with light. Lines of white scattered from him in all directions, lines that drilled through all things. Lines that Connected him to Kelsier, to the future, and to the past.
He’s seeing it fully, Kelsier thought. That place between moments.
Elend ended with a sword in Marsh’s neck, and looked directly at Kelsier, transcending the three Realms.
Marsh slammed an axe into Elend’s chest.
“No!” Kelsier screamed. “No!” He stumbled down the hillside, running for Venture. He climbed over corpses, shadowy on this side, and scrambled toward where Elend had died.
He hadn’t reached the position yet when Marsh took off Elend’s head.
Oh, Vin. I’m sorry.
Vin’s full attention coursed around the fallen man. Kelsier pulled to a stop, numb. She would rage. She would lose control. She would…
Rise in glory?
He watched, awed, as Vin’s strength coalesced. There was no hatred in the thrumming that washed from her, calming all things. Above her Ruin laughed, again assuming he knew so much. That laughter cut off as Vin rose against him, a glorious, radiant spear of power – controlled, loving, compassionate, but unyielding.
Kelsier knew then why she, and not he, had needed to do this.
Vin crashed her power against Ruin’s, suffocating him. Kelsier stepped up to the top of the hill, watching, feeling a familiarity with that power. A kinship that warmed him deep within as Vin performed the ultimate act of heroism.
She brought destruction to the destroyer.
It ended in an eruption of light. Wisps of mist, both dark and white, streamed down from the sky. Kelsier smiled, knowing that at long last it was finished. In a rush, the mists swirled in twin columns, impossibly high. The powers had been released. They quivered, uncertain, like a storm brewing.
Nobody is holding them….
Kelsier reached out, timid, trembling. He could…
Elend Venture’s spirit stumbled into the Cognitive Realm beside him, tripping and collapsing to the ground. He groaned, and Kelsier grinned at him.
Elend blinked as Kelsier held out a hand. “I always imagined death,” Elend said, letting Kelsier help him to his feet, “as being greeted by everyone I’ve ever loved in life. I hadn’t imagined that would include you.”
“You need to pay better attention, kid,” Kelsier said, looking him over. “Nice uniform. Did you ask them to make you look like a cheap knockoff of the Lord Ruler, or was it more an accident?”
Elend blinked. “Wow. I hate you already.”
“Give it time,” Kelsier said, slapping him on the back. “For most that eventually fades to a sense of mild exasperation.” He looked at the power still coursing around them, then frowned as a figure made of glowing light scrambled across the field. Its shape was familiar to him. It stepped up to Vin’s corpse, which had fallen to the ground.
“Sazed,” Kelsier whispered, then touched him. He was not prepared for the rush of emotion brought on by seeing his friend in this state. Sazed was frightened. Disbelieving. Crushed. Ruin was dead, but the world was still ending. Sazed had thought that Vin would save them. Honestly, so had Kelsier.
But it seemed there was yet another secret.
“It’s him,” Kelsier whispered. “He’s the Hero.”
Elend Venture placed a hand on Kelsier’s shoulder. “You need to pay better attention,” he noted. “Kid.” He pulled Kelsier away as Sazed reached for the powers, one with each hand.
Kelsier stood in awe of the way they combined. He’d always seen these powers as opposites, yet as they swirled around Sazed it seemed that they actually belonged to one another. “How?” he whispered. “How is he Connected to them both, so evenly? Why not just Preservation?”
“He has changed, this last year,” Elend said. “Ruin is more than death and destruction. It is peace with these things.”
The transformation continued, but awesome though it was, Kelsier’s attention was drawn by something else. A coalescing of power near him on the hilltop. It formed into the shape of a young woman who slipped easily into the Cognitive Realm. She didn’t so much as stumble, which was both appropriate and horribly unfair.
Vin glanced at Kelsier and smiled. A welcoming, warm smile. A smile of joy and acceptance, which filled him with pride. How he wished he’d been able to find her earlier, when Mare was still alive. When she’d needed parents.
She went to Elend first, and seized him in a long embrace. Kelsier glanced at Sazed, who was expanding to become everything. Well, good for him. It was a tough job; Sazed could have it.
Elend nodded to Kelsier, and Vin walked over. “Kelsier,” she said to him, “oh, Kelsier. You always did make your own rules.”
Hesitant, he didn’t embrace her. He reached out his hand, feeling oddly reverent. Vin took it, the tips of her fingers curling into his palm.
Nearby another figure had coalesced from the power, but Kelsier ignored him. He stepped closer to Vin. “I…” What did he say? Hell, he didn’t know.
For once, he didn’t know.
She embraced him, and he found himself weeping. The daughter he’d never had, the little child of the streets. Though she was still small, she’d outgrown him. And she loved him anyway. He held his daughter close against his own broken soul.