An old woman, strong, as old skaa needed to be. The weak were often left to die.

A young, freckled man in a fine shirt. He’d stolen that from the lord’s manor, most likely.

Kelsier watched for signs of madness or raving. He’d confirmed that those types could often hear him, though it didn’t always require obvious madness. Many seemed unable to make out his specific words, but instead heard him as phantom whispers. Impressions.

He picked up speed, leaving the townspeople behind. He could tell that this was a well-traveled area from the light of the mists beneath him. During his months running, he’d come to understand—and to an extent even accept—the Cognitive Realm. There was a certain freedom to being able to move unhindered through walls. To being able to peek in at the people and their lives.

But he was so lonely.

He tried not to think about it. He focused on his run and the challenge ahead. Because of the way time blended here, it didn’t feel to him as if months had passed. Indeed, this experience was far preferable to his sanity-grating year trapped at the Well.

But he missed the people. Kelsier needed people, conversation, friends. Without them he felt dried out. What he wouldn’t have given for Preservation, unhinged as he was, to appear and speak to him. Even that white-haired Drifter would have been a welcome break from the wasteland of mists.

He tried to find madmen so he could at least have some interaction with other living beings, no matter how meaningless.

At least I’ve gained something, Kelsier thought. A campfire in his pocket. When he got out of this, and he would get out of it, he’d certainly have stories to tell.

Chapter 4

4

KELSIER, the Survivor of Death, finally crested one last hill and beheld an incredible sight spread before him. Land.

It rose from the edge of the mists, an ominous, dark expanse. It felt less alive than the shifting white-grey mists beneath him, but oh was it a welcome sight.

He let out a long, relieved sigh. These last few weeks had been increasingly difficult. The thought of more running had started to nauseate him, and the loneliness had him seeing phantoms in the shifting mists, hearing voices in the lifeless nothing all around.

He was a much different figure from the one who had left Luthadel. He planted his staff on the ground beside him—he’d recovered that from the body of a dead refugee in the real world and coaxed it to life, giving it a new home and a new master to serve. Same for the enveloping cloak he wore, frayed at the edges almost like a mistcloak.