Mistborn: Secret History (Mistborn, #3.5)

“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.

“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.”