“You did it,” he finally whispered. “What nobody else could have done. You gave yourself up.”
“Well,” she said, “I had such a good example, you see.”
He pulled her tight and held her for a moment longer. Unfortunately, he eventually had to let go.
Ruin stood up nearby, blinking. Or… no, it wasn’t Ruin any longer. It was just the Vessel, Ati. The man who had held the power. Ati ran his hand through his red hair, then looked about. “Vax?” he said, sounding confused.
“Excuse me,” Kelsier said to Vin, then released her and trotted over to the red-haired man.
Whereupon he decked the man across the face, laying him out completely.
“Excellent,” Kelsier said, shaking his hand. At his feet, the man looked at him, then closed his eyes and sighed, stretching away into eternity.
Kelsier walked back to the others, passing a figure in Terris robes standing with hands clasped before him, draping sleeves covering them. “Hey,” Kelsier said, then looked at the sky and the glowing figure there. “Aren’t you…”
“Part of me is,” Sazed replied. He looked to Vin and Elend and held out his hands, one toward each of them. “Thank you both for this new beginning. I have healed your bodies. You can return to them, if you wish.”
Vin looked to Elend. To Kelsier’s horror, he had begun to stretch out. He turned toward something Kelsier couldn’t see, something Beyond, and smiled, then stepped in that direction.
“I don’t think it works that way, Saze,” Vin said, then kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you.” She turned, took Elend’s hand, and began to stretch toward that unseen, distant point.
“Vin!” Kelsier cried, grabbing her other hand, holding to it. “No, Vin. You held the power. You don’t have to go.”
“I know,” she said, looking back over her shoulder at him.
“Please,” Kelsier said. “Don’t go. Stay. With me.”
“Ah, Kelsier,” she said. “You have a lot to learn about love, don’t you?”
“I know love, Vin. Everything I’ve done – the fall of the empire, the power I’ve given up – that was all about love.”
She smiled. “Kelsier. You are a great man, and should be proud of what you’ve done. And you do love. I know you do. But at the same time, I don’t think you understand it.”
She turned her gaze toward Elend, who was vanishing, only his hand – in hers – still visible. “Thank you, Kelsier,” she whispered, looking back at him, “for all you have done. Your sacrifice was amazing. But to do the things you had to do, to defend the world, you had to become something. Something that worries me.
“Once, you taught me an important lesson about friendship. I need to return that lesson. A last gift. You need to know, you need to ask. How much of what you’ve done was about love, and how much was about proving something? That you hadn’t been betrayed, bested, beaten? Can you answer honestly, Kelsier?”
He met her eyes, and saw the implicit question.
How much was about us? it asked. And how much was about you?
“I don’t know,” he said to her.
She squeezed his hand and smiled – that smile she’d never have been able to give when he first found her.
That, more than anything, made him proud of her.
“Thank you,” she whispered again.
Then she let go of his hand and followed Elend into the Beyond.
9
The land shook and groaned as it died, and was reborn.
Kelsier walked it, hands shoved in his pockets. He strolled through the end of the world, power spraying in all directions, giving him visions of all three Realms.
Fires burned from the heavens. Stones crashed together, then ripped back apart. Oceans boiled, and their steam became a new mist in the air.
Still Kelsier walked. He walked as if his feet could carry him from one world to the next, from one life to the next. He didn’t feel abandoned, but he did feel alone. Like he was the only man left in all the world, and the last witness of eras.
Ash was consumed by a land of stones made liquid. Mountains crashed from the ground behind Kelsier, in rhythm to his footsteps. Rivers washed down from the heights and oceans filled. Life sprang up, trees sprouting and shooting toward the sky, making a forest around him. Then that passed, and he was in a desert, quickly drying, sand boiling from the depths of the land as Sazed created it.
A dozen different settings passed him in an eyeblink, the land growing in his wake, his shadow. Kelsier finally stopped on a lofty highland plateau overlooking a new world, winds from three Realms ruffling his clothing. Grass grew beneath his feet, then blossoms sprouted. Mare’s flowers.
He knelt and bowed his head, resting his fingers on one of them.
Sazed appeared beside him. Slowly, Kelsier’s vision of the real world faded, and he was trapped again in the Cognitive Realm. All became mist around him.
Sazed sat down next to him. “I will be honest, Kelsier. This is not the end I had in mind when I joined your crew.”
“The rebellious Terrisman,” Kelsier said. Though he was in the world of mist, he could see clouds – vaguely – in the real world. They passed beneath his feet, surging around the base of the mountain. “You were a living contradiction even then, Saze. I should have seen it.”
“I can’t bring them back,” Sazed said softly. “Not yet… perhaps not ever. The Beyond is a place I can’t reach.”
“It’s all right,” Kelsier said. “Do me a favor. Will you see what you can do for Spook? His body is in rough shape. He’s pushed it too hard. Fix him up a little? Maybe make him Mistborn while you’re at it. They’re going to need some Allomancers in the world that comes.”
“I’ll consider it,” Sazed said.
They sat there together. Two friends at the edge of the world, at the end and start of time. Eventually, Sazed stood and bowed to Kelsier. A reverent motion for one who was himself divine.
“What do you think, Saze?” Kelsier asked, staring out over the world. “Is there a way for me to get out of this, and live again in the Physical Realm?”
Sazed hesitated. “No. I do not think so.” He patted Kelsier on the shoulder, then vanished.
Huh, Kelsier thought. He holds the powers of creation in twain, a god among gods.
And he’s still a terrible liar.
EPILOGUE
Spook felt uncomfortable living in a mansion when everyone else had so little. But they had insisted – and besides, it wasn’t much of a mansion. Yes, it was a log house of two stories, when most lived in shanties. And yes, he had his own room. But that room was small, and it felt muggy at night. They didn’t have glass for windows, and if he left the shutters open, insects got in.
This perfect new world had a disappointing amount of normalcy to it.
He yawned, closing his door. The room held a cot and a desk. No candles or lamps; they didn’t yet have the resources to spare those. His head was full of Breeze’s instructions on how to be a king, and his arms hurt from training with Ham. Beldre would expect him for dinner shortly.
Downstairs a door thumped, and Spook jumped. He kept expecting loud noises to hurt his ears more than they did, and even after all these weeks he still wasn’t used to walking around with his eyes uncovered. On his desk one of his aides had left a little writing board – they didn’t have paper – scratched on with charcoal, listing a few of his appointments for the next day. And at the bottom was a quick note.