Complete listed story — includes the ending
Mistborn: The Final Empire
=== Setting ===
Mistborn: The Final Empire is set on the dystopian world of Scadrial, where ash constantly falls from the sky, all plants are brown, and supernatural mists cloak the landscape every night. One thousand years before the start of the novel, the prophesized Hero of Ages ascended to godhood at the Well of Ascension in order to repel the Deepness, a terror threatening the world whose true nature has since been lost to time. Though the Deepness was successfully repelled and mankind saved, the world was changed into its current form by the Hero, who took the title "Lord Ruler" and has ruled over the Final Empire for a thousand years as an immortal tyrant and god. Under his rule, society is stratified into the nobility, believed to be the descendants of the friends and allies who helped him achieve godhood, and the brutally oppressed peasantry descended from those who opposed him, known as Skaa.
Magic is central to the Mistborn world. The most widely known discipline of magic is called Allomancy, which allows users to gain supernatural abilities by swallowing and "burning" specific metals. Allomantic potential is a genetic trait concentrated in the nobility, though skaa Allomancers also exist due to crossbreeding between the nobility and the skaa. Normal Allomancers have access to one Allomantic power, but an incredibly rare subset of Allomancers, called Mistborn, have access to every Allomantic power.
Plot
Three years prior to the start of the novel, a half-skaa thief named Kelsier discovered that he is Mistborn and escapes the Pits of Hathsin, a brutal prison camp of the Lord Ruler. He returned to Luthadel, the capital city of the Final Empire, where he rounded up his old thieving crew for a new job: to overthrow the Final Empire by stealing its treasury and collapsing its economy.
At the beginning of the novel, Vin, a wary and abused street urchin, is recruited by Kelsier's crew after Kelsier is notified by his brother, Marsh, that she is a Mistborn. Vin is trained by Kelsier's crew to develop her Allomantic powers, which include burning pewter to strengthen the body, burning tin to enhance the senses, and burning steel and iron to gain a limited form of telekinesis over metal. She is also given the duty of spying on the nobility by attending opulent balls in Luthadel (the capital and center of the Final Empire), where she poses as Valette Renoux, niece to Lord Renoux, a nobleman working with Kelsier's crew. During these balls, she meets and falls in love with Elend Venture, heir to House Venture, the most powerful of the Luthadel noble houses. Elend flouts the rules of nobility culture and secretly plans to build a better society with his noble friends when they ascend to their respective house titles.
Kelsier hopes to conquer the city by destabilizing it with a house war between the nobility and then invading with a skaa army. Once in control, he hopes to overthrow the Final Empire by stealing the Lord Ruler's hoard of atium, a precious metal which is the cornerstone of the Final Empire's economy. The crew succeeds in starting a house war by assassinating several powerful nobles and recruiting about seven thousand soldiers to join their cause. However, about three quarters of the soldiers are slaughtered when they foolishly attack an unimportant Final Empire garrison with the hopes of divine protection from Kelsier, who has spread rumors of his "supernatural" powers. The remaining soldiers are smuggled into Luthadel by Kelsier, who intends to continue the plan. However, Marsh is discovered and seemingly killed, and Lord Renoux and his estate are seized and he is brought to be executed by the Canton of Inquisition, the police arm of the Final Empire. This Canton is made up of Steel Inquisitors, seemingly indestructible Allomancers with steel spikes driven through their eyes. Though Kelsier's crew manage to free most of Renoux's group and kill an Inquisitor, Kelsier is killed by the Lord Ruler himself in a dramatic confrontation in Luthadel's city square. Though these events appear to leave Kelsier's plan in shambles, it is revealed that his real plan was to become a martyred symbol of hope for Luthadel's superstitious skaa population. The skaa population reacts to his death by rising up and overthrowing the city with the help of Kelsier's army.
Before his death, Kelsier had attempted to unlock the potential of the "Eleventh Metal" that he had acquired, which was rumored to be the Lord Ruler's weakness. He was unable to do so before his death, and left it to Vin to finish the job. With the Eleventh Metal, Vin goes to the imperial palace to kill the Lord Ruler. She is captured by the Canton of Inquisition and left in a cell to be tortured, but Sazed, her faithful Terrisman servant, comes to her rescue. Using a magical discipline called Feruchemy, he helps Vin escape and recover her possessions. Marsh is revealed to be alive, having actually been made into a Steel Inquisitor; he betrays his fellow Inquisitors and slays them before being overpowered by the Lord Ruler. Vin fights the Lord Ruler, whom she recognizes as not the Hero of Ages, but his Terrisman advisor Rashek, who had killed the Hero and taken his place as an incredibly powerful Allomancer and a Feruchemist, the combination of which grants him incredible healing powers and eternal youth. Vin is almost destroyed by the Lord Ruler, but with hints from the Eleventh Metal and the unexpected magical aid of the mists, she manages to separate the Lord Ruler from his Feruchemical bracelets that provide him with constant youth, causing him to age rapidly. Vin uses a spear to execute the Lord Ruler, who with his last words ominously warns her of a great doom. The Final Empire collapses, though Elend is able to avoid total societal collapse by uniting Luthadel under a new system of democratic government.
The Well of Ascension
A year after the events of the first novel, the Final Empire is in turmoil as various regions descend into anarchy following the Lord Ruler's death and the disappearance of the Steel Ministry. Elend Venture has claimed the crown of the capital city, Luthadel, and attempts to restore order, but various hostile forces converge on the city. Three armies lay siege to Luthadel because of its rumored wealth of atium and political influence. The first army is led by Straff Venture – head of House Venture, and Elend's father. The second army is led by Ashweather Cett, self-declared king of the Western Dominance. The third army consists of koloss, massive, brutish blue creatures once controlled by the Lord Ruler, and is led by Elend's former friend Jastes, who is buying the koloss' obedience with counterfeit coins.
Vin and Elend discover a set of discarded bones in their keep, and with help from Vin's shapeshifting kandra, OreSeur, realize that another kandra has taken the form and identity of one of Kelsier's crew to spy on them. Vin becomes increasingly suspicious of everyone around her. At night, she begins sparring with Zane, Straff's Mistborn son and Elend's half brother. In the South, Sazed has come across suspicious deaths that appear to be caused by the mists. Marsh – Kelsier's brother and a Steel Inquisitor – leads Sazed to a Ministry stronghold called "The Conventical of Seran," the former base of the Inquisitors. They discover an engraving that was authored by the Terrisman who once claimed to have found the Hero of Ages, which begins "I write these words in steel, for anything not set in metal cannot be trusted." They leave quickly, Sazed taking a charcoal rubbing. On their way back to Luthadel, Marsh disappears.
The Terris Keeper Tindwyl arrives at Luthadel to train Elend to be a better king. Despite his personal improvements, the Assembly votes to depose Elend, using the very laws written by him, and elect Lord Penrod as their new king. Zane pressures Vin to kill her enemies and flee with him, abandoning the city. Misting assassins attack Elend at an Assembly meeting, and when Vin brutally kills them in front of Elend, their relationship deteriorates. At Zane's urging, Vin lashes out, slaughtering hundreds of Cett's soldiers at his temporary Luthadel mansion. She becomes disturbed by her actions and flees without killing Cett, who decides to leave the city and abandon his siege. Vin decides to choose Elend over Zane and refuses his offer to flee. Zane tries to kill her, and reveals that the real OreSeur is dead, having been replaced by Zane's kandra, TenSoon. TenSoon has grown to like Vin, and he helps her kill Zane before returning to the kandra homeland. Feeling liberated, Vin accepts Elend's longstanding marriage proposal. Sazed and the rest of the crew scheme to get Elend and Vin out of the city before it falls, and Sazed creates a false map to the Well of Ascension, which Vin is convinced may be able to save them.
Sazed and Tindwyl have been studying the mysterious text left by the Terrisman Kwaan, which explains the events of the Lord Ruler's ascent. Kwaan believed he had discovered the Hero of Ages in the person of Alendi, who rose to become a feared general and ruler known as the "Conqueror". However, Kwaan had become fearful for an unknown reason, and started believing that Alendi was not actually the Hero of Ages. Anxious about what would happen when Alendi reached the Well of Ascension and tried to use the power within, Kwaan instructed his nephew Rashek to mislead Alendi or kill him if needed. Rashek obeyed his uncle's command, but instead claimed the power for himself and became the Lord Ruler. Sazed and Tindwyl's research is complicated by their disagreements over the nature of the Hero of Ages prophecy, and Sazed becomes convinced that Vin herself is actually the Hero of Ages. At some point, one fragment of the text Sazed has transcribed from his metalminds is mysteriously ripped off.
Straff withdraws his forces, allowing the koloss army to attack Luthadel, planning to rescue the city after the koloss have destroyed most of it and suffered casualties. Jastes loses control of his army; he flees and is killed by Elend for putting the city in danger. Vin returns to Luthadel just in time to save Sazed and most of the city's civilians, though Dockson, Tindwyl, and Clubs are killed. She discovers that she can control the koloss using her Allomancy; she stops their slaughtering and turns them and Luthadel's army against Straff's army. Vin kills Straff and his generals as Cett decides to ally himself with Luthadel. Vin forces Cett, Penrod, and Straff's last general to swear allegiance as kings under Elend, whom she names emperor.
Vin realizes that the Well of Ascension is in Luthadel itself; Rashek had transferred it from Terris to his stronghold when he had remade the world after claiming the Well's power, ensuring that he could keep it close and hide it from others. Vin, Elend, and Spook find a hidden doorway in the Lord Ruler's castle that leads down to the underground Well of Ascension, where a figure made of mist stabs Elend. Meanwhile, a similar spirit approaches Sazed, revealing the fragment of text which had disappeared from his and Tindwyl's transcription: Alendi must not reach the Well of Ascension, for he must not be allowed to release the thing that is imprisoned there. Sazed attempts to stop Vin but is attacked by Marsh, who appears to struggle with his quest to kill Sazed. Sazed is saved by Ham, and Marsh escapes. Meanwhile, Vin is tempted to use the power in the Well to heal Elend, but ultimately follows the instruction of Sazed's rubbing, releasing the power for the good of the world rather than seizing it for herself. The moment she releases it, a powerful entity escapes, shouting that it is now free. The Mist figure encourages Vin to feed Elend a bead of metal she finds in the room, which turns him into a Mistborn; his life is saved through Allomancy by burning pewter.
Two weeks later, Sazed returns to The Conventical of Seran and inspects the engraving. He discovers that the words of the rubbing have been changed, finally explaining why Kwaan had inscribed it in metal where it could not be altered. Even the text in Sazed's metalminds had been manipulated, presumably by the mysterious entity working to secure its own release. Realizing that he had been manipulated and the entire Hero of Ages prophecy had been a lie designed to release the power hidden in the Well of Ascension, Sazed loses his faith.
The Hero of Ages
The Hero of Ages is the prophesied savior of the Terris people, foretold to find and give up the power at the Well of Ascension in a selfless act to save the world from the Deepness. A thousand years before the fall of the Final Empire, the Terrisman Worldbringer Kwaan believed that he had found the Hero of Ages in Alendi, a blacksmith's son who rose to become the last ruler of Khlennium. However, as Alendi's quest for the Well continued, Kwaan discovered that the Terris prophecies had been altered by a mysterious force called Ruin, whose power was contained within the Well. If the Hero of Ages released the power as the prophecies claimed needed to be done, Ruin would be free to destroy the world. Kwaan betrayed Alendi, instructing his nephew Rashek to kill him. Rashek then claimed the power for himself, remaking the world and forming the Final Empire which he ruled as the immortal Lord Ruler. A thousand years later, the Mistborn Vin defeated the Lord Ruler and, tricked by the same prophecies, released the power from the Well of Ascension, freeing Ruin.
Ruin wanted to destroy the world instantaneously but was too weak, as part of his power had been taken and hidden by the opposing force, Preservation, long ago. Freedom from the Well of Ascension enabled Ruin to directly affect the world more, increasing ashfall from the ashmounts and summoning earthquakes to break the world apart; he could also influence people and control entire koloss armies. He used his thousand years of imprisonment to plot his escape and the subsequent destruction he would reap.
The Lord Ruler, in preparation for such an event, created storage caches containing food and water in cave complexes beneath certain cities, each one providing directions to the next. As Vin and Elend struggle to consolidate the remaining outposts of humanity, they hunt for the storage caches, following hints left by the Lord Ruler. As they journey from cache to cache, the world itself begins to crumble with ash spewing forth in greater quantities, blocking out the sun and preventing crops from growing. The mists continue to act strangely, sickening and killing people who venture into them. The last two major unconquered cities are Fadrex City, which has reverted to the Lord Ruler's old structure of mass oppression under the obligator Yomen, and Urteau, a rebel city where the Skaa are free, the nobility overpowered, and a former commoner titled the Citizen rules with increasing violence.
Sazed tries to establish diplomatic relations with the people of Urteau while continuing to struggle with depression stemming from the recent death of his beloved, the Terriswoman Keeper Tindwyl. He studies religions, but has lost his own faith and yearns to find a religion that makes sense to him. He and Breeze work with Spook (who has developed strange abilities due to incessantly flaring tin) to try and help Elend secretly take over Urteau. Meanwhile, TenSoon the kandra is imprisoned and sentenced to death by the kandra elders, while still trying to convince them that the kandra prophecies of the world ending are now happening, and that they must work together with the humans to save the world.
Vin and Elend try to conquer Fadrex City and discover more about how their world works; they uncover strange patterns in the numbers of people dying after being exposed to the mists, as well as secrets regarding the art of Hemalurgy, which is used to create the koloss, the kandra, and the Inquisitors. Fearing that Ruin will discover their plans, they are unable to discuss their findings with each other. Yomen, the King of Fadrex City, captures Vin during a botched infiltration mission. Elend, left without any choice, takes another koloss army under his control, but the last remnants of Preservation appear to him, warning him to not attack the city. Shortly after, Preservation finally dies. Just before the koloss attack, Vin escapes Yomen's captivity, and Ruin reveals his ability to seize ultimate control over the koloss. Ruin turns the koloss against Elend and Yomen's human armies, but before he can destroy them, Vin leads Ruin's attention and armies away to Luthadel. There, Marsh and the remaining Inquisitors (who are under Ruin's control) battle Vin. On the verge of her death, Marsh briefly reasserts control and removes Vin's earring (which is actually a Hemalurgic spike), allowing Vin to draw upon the true power of the mists, Preservation's power. Vin ascends to become Preservation, trapped with Ruin upon another plane of existence, watching the world.
The kandra finally accept their doom, and Sazed finds his faith in the ancient Terris religion and the Hero of Ages. Urteau is saved, at a great physical cost to Spook, who has discovered that Ruin was influencing him with Hemalurgy. Elend leads the last of humanity to the kandra homeland, the Pits of Hathsin, where Ruin's power, or body, has been stored. Ruin has been fooling Vin and Elend into leading him to his body, which turns out to be the atium stash hidden in the kandra homeland all along. Surrounded and outnumbered, Elend realizes that the mists have been Snapping Mistings, and that he has been provided with an army of atium Mistings. He leads a desperate battle against the koloss in vain. Marsh appears again and battles Elend. Though Elend receives mystical aid from Vin, giving him unlimited metallic power, Marsh fatally wounds Elend. As he is dying, Elend reveals that his soldiers have burnt away all of Ruin's body, the atium, in battle, so that Ruin can never recover his missing power. Vin realizes that Preservation gave of himself to create mankind so that mankind would be able to manifest both Preservation's ability to create and Ruin's ability to destroy. Having both abilities within her, Vin attacks Ruin directly, sacrificing herself and Preservation to finally destroy Ruin.
Vin and many others thought that she was the Hero of Ages, but it is revealed to actually be Sazed. One major prophecy, "The Hero will bear the future of the world on his arms", referred to Sazed's Feruchemical copperminds. He uses the knowledge in these copperminds, along with the combined power of Preservation and Ruin, claimed from the fallen bodies of Vin and Ruin, to reshape the world into a new paradise of blue skies, green foliage, and rainbow flowers. Spook, Ham, Breeze, and the other survivors emerge to this newly reformed world, finding Vin and Elend's reformed but still lifeless bodies in a field of flowers. A thick tome is found, written by Sazed, explaining his role as the Hero of Ages, the history of Ruin and Preservation's conflict, and extensive knowledge about the Three Metallic Arts. A note is also left for Spook, revealing that Sazed had made him a Mistborn and healed the damages he had done to his own body over the course of the book, as well as the revelation that there are two metals and their alloys that have yet to be discovered. Under Spook's leadership, they begin their mission of rebuilding society.
=== Setting ===
Mistborn: The Final Empire is set on the dystopian world of Scadrial, where ash constantly falls from the sky, all plants are brown, and supernatural mists cloak the landscape every night. One thousand years before the start of the novel, the prophesized Hero of Ages ascended to godhood at the Well of Ascension in order to repel the Deepness, a terror threatening the world whose true nature has since been lost to time. Though the Deepness was successfully repelled and mankind saved, the world was changed into its current form by the Hero, who took the title "Lord Ruler" and has ruled over the Final Empire for a thousand years as an immortal tyrant and god. Under his rule, society is stratified into the nobility, believed to be the descendants of the friends and allies who helped him achieve godhood, and the brutally oppressed peasantry descended from those who opposed him, known as Skaa.
Magic is central to the Mistborn world. The most widely known discipline of magic is called Allomancy, which allows users to gain supernatural abilities by swallowing and "burning" specific metals. Allomantic potential is a genetic trait concentrated in the nobility, though skaa Allomancers also exist due to crossbreeding between the nobility and the skaa. Normal Allomancers have access to one Allomantic power, but an incredibly rare subset of Allomancers, called Mistborn, have access to every Allomantic power.
Plot
Three years prior to the start of the novel, a half-skaa thief named Kelsier discovered that he is Mistborn and escapes the Pits of Hathsin, a brutal prison camp of the Lord Ruler. He returned to Luthadel, the capital city of the Final Empire, where he rounded up his old thieving crew for a new job: to overthrow the Final Empire by stealing its treasury and collapsing its economy.
At the beginning of the novel, Vin, a wary and abused street urchin, is recruited by Kelsier's crew after Kelsier is notified by his brother, Marsh, that she is a Mistborn. Vin is trained by Kelsier's crew to develop her Allomantic powers, which include burning pewter to strengthen the body, burning tin to enhance the senses, and burning steel and iron to gain a limited form of telekinesis over metal. She is also given the duty of spying on the nobility by attending opulent balls in Luthadel (the capital and center of the Final Empire), where she poses as Valette Renoux, niece to Lord Renoux, a nobleman working with Kelsier's crew. During these balls, she meets and falls in love with Elend Venture, heir to House Venture, the most powerful of the Luthadel noble houses. Elend flouts the rules of nobility culture and secretly plans to build a better society with his noble friends when they ascend to their respective house titles.
Kelsier hopes to conquer the city by destabilizing it with a house war between the nobility and then invading with a skaa army. Once in control, he hopes to overthrow the Final Empire by stealing the Lord Ruler's hoard of atium, a precious metal which is the cornerstone of the Final Empire's economy. The crew succeeds in starting a house war by assassinating several powerful nobles and recruiting about seven thousand soldiers to join their cause. However, about three quarters of the soldiers are slaughtered when they foolishly attack an unimportant Final Empire garrison with the hopes of divine protection from Kelsier, who has spread rumors of his "supernatural" powers. The remaining soldiers are smuggled into Luthadel by Kelsier, who intends to continue the plan. However, Marsh is discovered and seemingly killed, and Lord Renoux and his estate are seized and he is brought to be executed by the Canton of Inquisition, the police arm of the Final Empire. This Canton is made up of Steel Inquisitors, seemingly indestructible Allomancers with steel spikes driven through their eyes. Though Kelsier's crew manage to free most of Renoux's group and kill an Inquisitor, Kelsier is killed by the Lord Ruler himself in a dramatic confrontation in Luthadel's city square. Though these events appear to leave Kelsier's plan in shambles, it is revealed that his real plan was to become a martyred symbol of hope for Luthadel's superstitious skaa population. The skaa population reacts to his death by rising up and overthrowing the city with the help of Kelsier's army.
Before his death, Kelsier had attempted to unlock the potential of the "Eleventh Metal" that he had acquired, which was rumored to be the Lord Ruler's weakness. He was unable to do so before his death, and left it to Vin to finish the job. With the Eleventh Metal, Vin goes to the imperial palace to kill the Lord Ruler. She is captured by the Canton of Inquisition and left in a cell to be tortured, but Sazed, her faithful Terrisman servant, comes to her rescue. Using a magical discipline called Feruchemy, he helps Vin escape and recover her possessions. Marsh is revealed to be alive, having actually been made into a Steel Inquisitor; he betrays his fellow Inquisitors and slays them before being overpowered by the Lord Ruler. Vin fights the Lord Ruler, whom she recognizes as not the Hero of Ages, but his Terrisman advisor Rashek, who had killed the Hero and taken his place as an incredibly powerful Allomancer and a Feruchemist, the combination of which grants him incredible healing powers and eternal youth. Vin is almost destroyed by the Lord Ruler, but with hints from the Eleventh Metal and the unexpected magical aid of the mists, she manages to separate the Lord Ruler from his Feruchemical bracelets that provide him with constant youth, causing him to age rapidly. Vin uses a spear to execute the Lord Ruler, who with his last words ominously warns her of a great doom. The Final Empire collapses, though Elend is able to avoid total societal collapse by uniting Luthadel under a new system of democratic government.
The Well of Ascension
A year after the events of the first novel, the Final Empire is in turmoil as various regions descend into anarchy following the Lord Ruler's death and the disappearance of the Steel Ministry. Elend Venture has claimed the crown of the capital city, Luthadel, and attempts to restore order, but various hostile forces converge on the city. Three armies lay siege to Luthadel because of its rumored wealth of atium and political influence. The first army is led by Straff Venture – head of House Venture, and Elend's father. The second army is led by Ashweather Cett, self-declared king of the Western Dominance. The third army consists of koloss, massive, brutish blue creatures once controlled by the Lord Ruler, and is led by Elend's former friend Jastes, who is buying the koloss' obedience with counterfeit coins.
Vin and Elend discover a set of discarded bones in their keep, and with help from Vin's shapeshifting kandra, OreSeur, realize that another kandra has taken the form and identity of one of Kelsier's crew to spy on them. Vin becomes increasingly suspicious of everyone around her. At night, she begins sparring with Zane, Straff's Mistborn son and Elend's half brother. In the South, Sazed has come across suspicious deaths that appear to be caused by the mists. Marsh – Kelsier's brother and a Steel Inquisitor – leads Sazed to a Ministry stronghold called "The Conventical of Seran," the former base of the Inquisitors. They discover an engraving that was authored by the Terrisman who once claimed to have found the Hero of Ages, which begins "I write these words in steel, for anything not set in metal cannot be trusted." They leave quickly, Sazed taking a charcoal rubbing. On their way back to Luthadel, Marsh disappears.
The Terris Keeper Tindwyl arrives at Luthadel to train Elend to be a better king. Despite his personal improvements, the Assembly votes to depose Elend, using the very laws written by him, and elect Lord Penrod as their new king. Zane pressures Vin to kill her enemies and flee with him, abandoning the city. Misting assassins attack Elend at an Assembly meeting, and when Vin brutally kills them in front of Elend, their relationship deteriorates. At Zane's urging, Vin lashes out, slaughtering hundreds of Cett's soldiers at his temporary Luthadel mansion. She becomes disturbed by her actions and flees without killing Cett, who decides to leave the city and abandon his siege. Vin decides to choose Elend over Zane and refuses his offer to flee. Zane tries to kill her, and reveals that the real OreSeur is dead, having been replaced by Zane's kandra, TenSoon. TenSoon has grown to like Vin, and he helps her kill Zane before returning to the kandra homeland. Feeling liberated, Vin accepts Elend's longstanding marriage proposal. Sazed and the rest of the crew scheme to get Elend and Vin out of the city before it falls, and Sazed creates a false map to the Well of Ascension, which Vin is convinced may be able to save them.
Sazed and Tindwyl have been studying the mysterious text left by the Terrisman Kwaan, which explains the events of the Lord Ruler's ascent. Kwaan believed he had discovered the Hero of Ages in the person of Alendi, who rose to become a feared general and ruler known as the "Conqueror". However, Kwaan had become fearful for an unknown reason, and started believing that Alendi was not actually the Hero of Ages. Anxious about what would happen when Alendi reached the Well of Ascension and tried to use the power within, Kwaan instructed his nephew Rashek to mislead Alendi or kill him if needed. Rashek obeyed his uncle's command, but instead claimed the power for himself and became the Lord Ruler. Sazed and Tindwyl's research is complicated by their disagreements over the nature of the Hero of Ages prophecy, and Sazed becomes convinced that Vin herself is actually the Hero of Ages. At some point, one fragment of the text Sazed has transcribed from his metalminds is mysteriously ripped off.
Straff withdraws his forces, allowing the koloss army to attack Luthadel, planning to rescue the city after the koloss have destroyed most of it and suffered casualties. Jastes loses control of his army; he flees and is killed by Elend for putting the city in danger. Vin returns to Luthadel just in time to save Sazed and most of the city's civilians, though Dockson, Tindwyl, and Clubs are killed. She discovers that she can control the koloss using her Allomancy; she stops their slaughtering and turns them and Luthadel's army against Straff's army. Vin kills Straff and his generals as Cett decides to ally himself with Luthadel. Vin forces Cett, Penrod, and Straff's last general to swear allegiance as kings under Elend, whom she names emperor.
Vin realizes that the Well of Ascension is in Luthadel itself; Rashek had transferred it from Terris to his stronghold when he had remade the world after claiming the Well's power, ensuring that he could keep it close and hide it from others. Vin, Elend, and Spook find a hidden doorway in the Lord Ruler's castle that leads down to the underground Well of Ascension, where a figure made of mist stabs Elend. Meanwhile, a similar spirit approaches Sazed, revealing the fragment of text which had disappeared from his and Tindwyl's transcription: Alendi must not reach the Well of Ascension, for he must not be allowed to release the thing that is imprisoned there. Sazed attempts to stop Vin but is attacked by Marsh, who appears to struggle with his quest to kill Sazed. Sazed is saved by Ham, and Marsh escapes. Meanwhile, Vin is tempted to use the power in the Well to heal Elend, but ultimately follows the instruction of Sazed's rubbing, releasing the power for the good of the world rather than seizing it for herself. The moment she releases it, a powerful entity escapes, shouting that it is now free. The Mist figure encourages Vin to feed Elend a bead of metal she finds in the room, which turns him into a Mistborn; his life is saved through Allomancy by burning pewter.
Two weeks later, Sazed returns to The Conventical of Seran and inspects the engraving. He discovers that the words of the rubbing have been changed, finally explaining why Kwaan had inscribed it in metal where it could not be altered. Even the text in Sazed's metalminds had been manipulated, presumably by the mysterious entity working to secure its own release. Realizing that he had been manipulated and the entire Hero of Ages prophecy had been a lie designed to release the power hidden in the Well of Ascension, Sazed loses his faith.
The Hero of Ages
The Hero of Ages is the prophesied savior of the Terris people, foretold to find and give up the power at the Well of Ascension in a selfless act to save the world from the Deepness. A thousand years before the fall of the Final Empire, the Terrisman Worldbringer Kwaan believed that he had found the Hero of Ages in Alendi, a blacksmith's son who rose to become the last ruler of Khlennium. However, as Alendi's quest for the Well continued, Kwaan discovered that the Terris prophecies had been altered by a mysterious force called Ruin, whose power was contained within the Well. If the Hero of Ages released the power as the prophecies claimed needed to be done, Ruin would be free to destroy the world. Kwaan betrayed Alendi, instructing his nephew Rashek to kill him. Rashek then claimed the power for himself, remaking the world and forming the Final Empire which he ruled as the immortal Lord Ruler. A thousand years later, the Mistborn Vin defeated the Lord Ruler and, tricked by the same prophecies, released the power from the Well of Ascension, freeing Ruin.
Ruin wanted to destroy the world instantaneously but was too weak, as part of his power had been taken and hidden by the opposing force, Preservation, long ago. Freedom from the Well of Ascension enabled Ruin to directly affect the world more, increasing ashfall from the ashmounts and summoning earthquakes to break the world apart; he could also influence people and control entire koloss armies. He used his thousand years of imprisonment to plot his escape and the subsequent destruction he would reap.
The Lord Ruler, in preparation for such an event, created storage caches containing food and water in cave complexes beneath certain cities, each one providing directions to the next. As Vin and Elend struggle to consolidate the remaining outposts of humanity, they hunt for the storage caches, following hints left by the Lord Ruler. As they journey from cache to cache, the world itself begins to crumble with ash spewing forth in greater quantities, blocking out the sun and preventing crops from growing. The mists continue to act strangely, sickening and killing people who venture into them. The last two major unconquered cities are Fadrex City, which has reverted to the Lord Ruler's old structure of mass oppression under the obligator Yomen, and Urteau, a rebel city where the Skaa are free, the nobility overpowered, and a former commoner titled the Citizen rules with increasing violence.
Sazed tries to establish diplomatic relations with the people of Urteau while continuing to struggle with depression stemming from the recent death of his beloved, the Terriswoman Keeper Tindwyl. He studies religions, but has lost his own faith and yearns to find a religion that makes sense to him. He and Breeze work with Spook (who has developed strange abilities due to incessantly flaring tin) to try and help Elend secretly take over Urteau. Meanwhile, TenSoon the kandra is imprisoned and sentenced to death by the kandra elders, while still trying to convince them that the kandra prophecies of the world ending are now happening, and that they must work together with the humans to save the world.
Vin and Elend try to conquer Fadrex City and discover more about how their world works; they uncover strange patterns in the numbers of people dying after being exposed to the mists, as well as secrets regarding the art of Hemalurgy, which is used to create the koloss, the kandra, and the Inquisitors. Fearing that Ruin will discover their plans, they are unable to discuss their findings with each other. Yomen, the King of Fadrex City, captures Vin during a botched infiltration mission. Elend, left without any choice, takes another koloss army under his control, but the last remnants of Preservation appear to him, warning him to not attack the city. Shortly after, Preservation finally dies. Just before the koloss attack, Vin escapes Yomen's captivity, and Ruin reveals his ability to seize ultimate control over the koloss. Ruin turns the koloss against Elend and Yomen's human armies, but before he can destroy them, Vin leads Ruin's attention and armies away to Luthadel. There, Marsh and the remaining Inquisitors (who are under Ruin's control) battle Vin. On the verge of her death, Marsh briefly reasserts control and removes Vin's earring (which is actually a Hemalurgic spike), allowing Vin to draw upon the true power of the mists, Preservation's power. Vin ascends to become Preservation, trapped with Ruin upon another plane of existence, watching the world.
The kandra finally accept their doom, and Sazed finds his faith in the ancient Terris religion and the Hero of Ages. Urteau is saved, at a great physical cost to Spook, who has discovered that Ruin was influencing him with Hemalurgy. Elend leads the last of humanity to the kandra homeland, the Pits of Hathsin, where Ruin's power, or body, has been stored. Ruin has been fooling Vin and Elend into leading him to his body, which turns out to be the atium stash hidden in the kandra homeland all along. Surrounded and outnumbered, Elend realizes that the mists have been Snapping Mistings, and that he has been provided with an army of atium Mistings. He leads a desperate battle against the koloss in vain. Marsh appears again and battles Elend. Though Elend receives mystical aid from Vin, giving him unlimited metallic power, Marsh fatally wounds Elend. As he is dying, Elend reveals that his soldiers have burnt away all of Ruin's body, the atium, in battle, so that Ruin can never recover his missing power. Vin realizes that Preservation gave of himself to create mankind so that mankind would be able to manifest both Preservation's ability to create and Ruin's ability to destroy. Having both abilities within her, Vin attacks Ruin directly, sacrificing herself and Preservation to finally destroy Ruin.
Vin and many others thought that she was the Hero of Ages, but it is revealed to actually be Sazed. One major prophecy, "The Hero will bear the future of the world on his arms", referred to Sazed's Feruchemical copperminds. He uses the knowledge in these copperminds, along with the combined power of Preservation and Ruin, claimed from the fallen bodies of Vin and Ruin, to reshape the world into a new paradise of blue skies, green foliage, and rainbow flowers. Spook, Ham, Breeze, and the other survivors emerge to this newly reformed world, finding Vin and Elend's reformed but still lifeless bodies in a field of flowers. A thick tome is found, written by Sazed, explaining his role as the Hero of Ages, the history of Ruin and Preservation's conflict, and extensive knowledge about the Three Metallic Arts. A note is also left for Spook, revealing that Sazed had made him a Mistborn and healed the damages he had done to his own body over the course of the book, as well as the revelation that there are two metals and their alloys that have yet to be discovered. Under Spook's leadership, they begin their mission of rebuilding society.
Sources and content license
Source and revision history ↗ · Exact listed stories combined in catalog order. Sources retain their stated license; formatting and headings adjusted. Adapted from Wikipedia contributors, Mistborn: The Final Empire. Section headings and formatting adjusted. Adapted from Wikipedia contributors, Mistborn: The Well of Ascension. Section headings and formatting adjusted. Adapted from Wikipedia contributors, Mistborn: The Hero of Ages. Section headings and formatting adjusted. · Content license