Vin reached to the mists, and Kelsier felt the power within him tremble, eager. This was what they’d been meant for; this was their purpose. He felt Vin’s yearning, and felt her question. Where had she felt this power before?

Kelsier rammed himself against Ruin, the powers clashing, exposing his soul. His darkened, battered soul.

“The power came from the Well of Ascension, of course,” Kelsier said to Vin. “It’s the same power, after all. Solid in the metal you fed to Elend. Liquid in the pool you burned. And vapor in the air, confined to night. Hiding you. Protecting you…”

Kelsier took a deep breath. He felt Preservation’s energy being ripped from him. He felt Ruin’s fury pummeling him, flaying him, ravenous to destroy him. For one last moment he felt the world. The farthest ashfall, the people in the distant south, the curling winds, and the life straining—struggling—to continue on this planet.

Then Kelsier did the most difficult thing he’d ever done.

“Giving you power!” he roared to Vin, letting go of Preservation’s essence so she could take it up.

Vin drew in the mists.

And Ruin’s full fury came against Kelsier, slamming him down, ripping into his soul. Tearing him apart.

Chapter 8

8

KELSIER was cloven asunder with a rending, pervasive pain—like that of a bone being pulled from a socket. He tumbled, unable to see or think—unable to do more than scream at the attack.

He ended up someplace surrounded by mist, blind to anything beyond its shifting. Death, for real this time? No … but he was very close. He could feel the stretching coming upon him again, coaxing him, trying to pull him toward that distant point where everyone else had gone.

He wanted to go. He hurt so much. He wanted it all to end, to go away. Everything. He just wanted it to stop.

He had felt this despair before, in the Pits of Hathsin. He didn’t have Preservation’s voice to guide him now, as he had then, but—weeping, trembling—he sank his hands into the misty expanse around him and held on. Clinging to it, refusing to go. Denying that force that called to him, promising peace and an ending.

Eventually it stilled, and the stretching sensation faded away. He had held the power of deity. The final death could not take him unless he wanted it to.

Or unless he was completely destroyed. He shuddered in the mists, thankful for their embrace, but still uncertain where he was—and uncertain why Ruin hadn’t finished the job. He’d planned to; Kelsier had felt that. Fortunately, Kelsier’s destruction had become an afterthought in the face of a new threat.

Vin. She’d done it! She’d Ascended!