Mistborn Trilogy - Brandon Sanderson [640]
“I’m an Allomancer,” Elend said.
She nodded.
“Mistborn, apparently,” he continued.
“I think…we know where they came from, now,” Vin said. “The first Allomancers.”
“What happened to the power? Ham didn’t have a straight answer for me, and all anyone else knows are rumors.”
“I set something free,” she whispered. “Something that shouldn’t have been released; something that led me to the Well. I should never have gone looking for it, Elend.”
Elend stood in silence, still regarding the city.
She turned, burying her head in his chest. “It was terrible,” she said. “I could feel that. And I set it free.”
Finally, Elend wrapped his arms around her. “You did the best you could, Vin,” he said. “In fact, you did the right thing. How could you have known that everything you’d been told, trained, and prepared to do was wrong?”
Vin shook her head. “I am worse than the Lord Ruler. In the end, maybe he realized he was being tricked, and knew he had to take the power rather than release it.”
“If he’d been a good man, Vin,” Elend said, “he wouldn’t have done the things he did to this land.”
“I may have done far worse,” Vin said. “This thing I released…the mists killing people, and coming during the day…Elend, what are we going to do?”
He looked at her for a moment, then turned back toward the city and its people. “We’re going to do what Kelsier taught us, Vin. We’re going to survive.”
THE END OF BOOK TWO
ARS ARCANUM
1. Metals Quick-Reference Chart
2. Names and Terms
3. Summary of Book One
You can also find extensive annotations of every chapter in the book, along with deleted scenes, a very active blog, and expanded world information at www.brandonsanderson.com.
NAMES AND TERMS
ALENDI: A man who conquered the world a thousand years ago, before the Lord Ruler’s Ascension. Vin found his journal in the Lord Ruler’s palace, and thought—at first—that he had become the Lord Ruler. It was later discovered that his servant, Rashek, killed him and took his place. Alendi was a friend and protégé of Kwaan, a Terris scholar who thought that Alendi might be the Hero of Ages.
ALLOMANCY: A mystical hereditary power involving the burning of metals inside the body to gain special abilities.
ALLOMANTIC METALS: There are eight basic Allomantic metals. These come in pairs, comprising a base metal and its alloy. They can also be divided into two groups of four as internal metals (tin, pewter, copper, bronze) and external metals (iron, steel, zinc, brass). It was long assumed that there were only two other Allomantic metals: gold and atium. However, the discovery of alloys for gold and atium has expanded the number of metals to twelve. There have been rumors of other metals, one of which has been discovered. (See also: Aluminum.)
ALLOMANTIC PULSE: The signal given off by an Allomancer who is burning metals. Only someone who is burning bronze can “hear” an Allomantic pulse.
ALLRIANNE: Lord Ashweather Cett’s only daughter.
ALUMINUM: A metal Vin was forced to burn in the Lord Ruler’s palace. Once known only to the Steel Inquisitors, this metal, when burned, depletes all of an Allomancer’s other metal reserves. Its alloy, if it has one, is unknown.
AMARANTA: One of Straff Venture’s mistresses. An herbalist.
ANCHOR (ALLOMANTIC): A term used to refer to a piece of metal that an Allomancer Pushes on or Pulls on when burning iron or steel.
ASCENSION (OF THE LORD RULER): The Ascension is the term used to describe what happened to Rashek when he took the power at the Well of Ascension and became the Lord Ruler.
ASHFALLS: Ash falls frequently from the sky in the Final Empire because of the Ashmounts.
ASHMOUNTS: Seven large ash volcanoes that appeared in the Final Empire during the Ascension.
ASHWEATHER: Lord Cett’s first name.
ATIUM: A strange metal formerly produced in the Pits of Hathsin. It collected inside of small geodes that formed in crystalline pockets in caves beneath the ground.
BIRCHBANE: A common poison.
BOXING: The slang name for an imperial