Mistborn: The Final Empire

In this epigraph, the Hero of Ages suspects that Rashek resents his leadership because he is not Terris. Rashek believes that only a pureblood Terris should fulfill Terris prophecies.

The crew returns to Clubs’s shop to discuss the next steps of their plan. They will focus on starting a House War which requires collapsing House Venture, as it is the most powerful. Kelsier instructs Vin to use Elend for information, which she agrees to do, although secretly does not want to betray Elend. Ham will gather the troops that stayed behind with Captain Demoux and bring them into the city. They receive a message from Marsh, who has returned to Luthadel with the Ministry acolytes. Kelsier and Vin leave to meet with him.

They wait in an abandoned building across the street from the meeting place Marsh established. Vin questions Kelsier’s motives: “There’s something you’re not telling us, isn’t there? […] A part of the plan” (444). Kelsier only reveals that he does not know how the Eleventh Metal works. They speak of the difference between Allomancy, in which the metal used is the fuel for an Allomancer’s power, and Feruchemy, which uses the body’s fuel for storage in the metal. From the logbook, they speculate that the Lord Ruler must have Snapped into his Allomantic powers at the Well of Ascension. Kelsier has Vin burn the last metal she needs to learn, gold, which conjures a brief vision of the person the Allomancer could have become.

Marsh arrives at the meeting place; Kelsier and Vin join him. Marsh has joined the Steel Ministry and has received their customary facial tattoos. He reports that teams of obligator Soothers are stationed throughout the skaa slums using emotional Allomancy to depress the skaa people. Marsh has tried to gather more information on the Steel Inquisitors but has only found that they have access to all the Allomantic powers. 

The epigraph reveals that the Deepness is sentient. The Hero of Ages writes, “I have sensed it in my mind, such that it is, the few times I have confronted it directly” (457).

Vin attends a ball at Keep Lekal, whose decoration focuses on stained-glass windows that depict more than just religious scenes. The narrator says that Vin is “surprised to see references to things she had read in the logbook” (458) such as a green landscape and the Deepness. To inflame House tensions, Vin plants false information with Lady Kliss, knowing she will spread these rumors. Vin intends to protect House Venture as much as the crew’s plan allows. She suspects Shan Elariel to be plotting against Elend.

Vin and Elend meet in a secluded alcove. Elend intends to kiss her, but Vin points out that he does not know her that well. They walk around the ball with Elend trying to convince Vin to leave Luthadel before the inevitable House War starts. Vin, in turn, attempts to convince Elend to be careful with Shan Elariel. Neither intends to do what the other advises. Vin becomes excited when Elend mentions changing politics after becoming Lord Venture, but Elend has no intention of overthrowing the Lord Ruler. He says, “He’s the Lord Ruler—he’s God. We can’t do anything about him being in charge” (467). He confides that his family’s wealth comes from overseeing the mining of atium at the Pits of Hathsin.

Elend briefly meets with his friends. Jastes Lekal, another heir, expresses the group’s worry about his relationship with Vin. Elend returns home and is interrogated by his father who forbids Elend from seeing Vin any longer. He has arranged a potential marriage alliance with House Hasting. Jastes arrives to speak with Elend: he had Vin’s carriage followed after the ball. His spy reports that Vin was not in the carriage when it left Luthadel for Fellise. Despite his feelings for Vin, Elend worries she might be a spy from another house. He orders his father’s spies to follow her.

Vin reads the final translated section of the Hero of Ages’s logbook. It is the night before the Hero will arrive at the Well of Ascension; he writes of Fedik, a Terrisman, who was attacked by the mist-like figure that has followed the group through Terris. He also writes of Rashek’s belief that the Terris are a superior race and should be “dominant.” Vin and Sazed discuss the end of the logbook. Vin confesses that she is nervous about the job ending and the crew splitting up, as this is the first time she has felt happiness with her life.

Marsh has a detailed map of the Ministry’s stations in the skaa slums from which they use emotional Allomancy to depress the people. He conceals it in a broken table leg that is brought to Clubs’s carpentry shop for repair. On the map is a list of raids the Inquisitors performed on skaa thieving crews. Theron, Camon’s accomplice, and his crew were killed the previous day. The Inquisitors continue to follow Vin.

In this chapter’s epigraph, Rashek continues to speak of the Terris people as “dominant” on Scadrial and deserving to rule every nation.

With tensions between the Great Houses close to the breaking point, Vin attends a ball at Keep Venture. Sazed learns from the other servants that this will likely be the last ball; each of the guests uses this opportunity to plot and form alliances before the outbreak of war. Sazed leaves Vin alone at the ball to inform Kelsier of this. Elend spends the ball at the high table with his father. The prospect of a last ball is depressing to Vin, who has come to enjoy them. The narrator says, “it seemed like the world would be missing something beautiful without the keeps and dances, the dresses and the festivities” (500). Vin catches Elend’s attention and they speak privately. Elend breaks off their relationship, accusing Vin of spying on him. He had her carriage followed and confirmed what his friends suspected.

Reen’s voice becomes prominent in Vin’s mind, reminding her that everyone will eventually leave and betray her. Vin is approached by Lady Kliss who reveals herself to be an informant and not just a court gossip. Vin pays her with the sapphire necklace she wears to learn that Elariel Allomancers, with the help of Straff Venture, plan to assassinate Elend that evening as the first casualty of the House War.

Vin exits the Keep and uses Allomancy to find the room in which Elend is meeting with his friends. Two Mistborns and several Allomancers are gathered near the skylight. One of the Mistborns is Shan Elariel. Vin fights the Allomancers and Mistborns, eventually facing Shan Elarial directly. They both burn atium; Vin tricks Shan into thinking her atium has run out, giving her an opening to kill Shan. Vin flees to Clubs’s shop. 

The crew is in Clubs’s kitchen when Vin bursts in and tells them she killed Shan Elariel. Kelsier is astonished at how quickly her powers have developed. The crew is displeased that Vin risked their House War plans to save Elend, a member of the nobility, but Vin argues that the crew is wealthy enough to live like nobility. They are disconnected from the average skaa. Later, Kelsier and Vin speak on the roof about continuing to love the people that leave their lives. Vin confesses that she still loves Reen despite her brother’s abuse and betrayal. Vin tells Kelsier that the Venture family oversees the empire’s atium mining, betraying Elend. They test Vin’s theory that a strong enough Allomancer can pierce the coppercloud of another Allomancer; she proves herself correct, thereby throwing into question the presumed boundaries of Allomancy.

Elend sits with his friend Jastes as they receive a report from a Venture spy that followed Vin to Clubs’s shop. Vin’s identity as a skaa and member of a thieving crew is revealed. Elend is relieved that Vin was only trying to rob him and excited to discover that the differences between nobility and skaa are minimal.

Vin meets Spook on a rooftop. They watch the fires and fighting from the House War that has started. Vin explains that she cannot be with him because she loves Elend but will keep the handkerchief as a mark of their friendship. Vin meets Kelsier at a skaa slum where he gives a speech on hope. The skaa respond to him as if he is their religious leader, and Vin contemplates how she once lived in such poverty.

Vin and Kelsier are scheduled to meet with Marsh, but when they arrive at the specified location, they find a brutally murdered corpse. Marsha left behind a note describing his fear that the Inquisitors suspect him. The crew must quickly leave Clubs’s shop as its location is most likely compromised and go to the backup lair. In retaliation for his brother’s murder, Kelsier goes to the Pits of Hathsin and destroys the atium-producing crystal geodes.

In this chapter’s epigraph, the Hero of Ages describes how one of the packmen, Fedik, was stabbed by a creature of the mist after discovering a clear blue lake in a valley of the mountains.

While Kelsier is away at the Pits of Hathsin, the crew spends two days in their backup lair, a skaa tenement building. The House War has begun. When Kelsier returns, the crew learns of more public executions to be held in the city’s square. One there, the crew sees that the prisoner carts are full of Lord Renoux’s skaa staff, Lord Renoux himself, and Spook. Kelsier attacks the guards around the carts, but the executions are a trap to draw him out: an Inquisitor arrives to fight with Kelsier and asks where Vin is. Ham leads the remaining skaa rebel soldiers in attacking the guards surrounding the prisoner carts while Vin and Breeze use emotional Allomancy to make the Lord Ruler’s soldiers frightened enough to flee. As Kelsier fights with the Inquisitor, Elend appears, believing Vin in her role as Valette to be in the prisoner carts, too.

Kelsier fights the Inquisitor while helping Ham and the skaa rebels to protect the prisoners from the Lord Ruler’s soldiers. Kelsier frees Spook and Lord Renoux; Elend is there looking for Vin. Kelsier saves him from the Inquisitor’s attack, and the Inquisitor buries his ax in Lord Renoux’s back. The prisoners are all set free.

Kelsier succeeds in killing the Inquisitor. The Lord Ruler arrives and steps out of his carriage as a young man, handsome, and wearing many metal rings. Vin fights against the power of his depressive emotional Allomancy. The Lord Ruler and Kelsier stand before each other, and Kelsier proclaims, “But you can’t kill me, Lord Tyrant. I represent that thing you’ve never been able to kill, no matter how hard you try. I am hope” (573). The Lord Ruler backhands Kelsier, who dies instantly.