Mistborn: secret history

2

Kelsier no longer worried about madness or boredom. Each time he grew weary of his imprisonment, he

remembered that feeling – that humiliation – he’d felt at Drifter’s hands. Yes, he was trapped in a space

only five or so feet across, but there was plenty to do.

First he returned to his study of the thing Beyond. He forced himself to duck beneath the light to face it

and meet its inscrutable gaze – he did it until he didn’t flinch when it turned its attention on him.

Ruin. A fitting name for that vast sense of erosion, decay, and destruction.

He continued to follow the Well’s pulses. These trips gave him cryptic clues to Ruin’s motives and plots.

He sensed a familiar pattern to the things it changed – for Ruin seemed to be doing what Kelsier himself

had done: coopting a religion. Ruin was manipulating the hearts of the people by changing their lore and

books.

That terrified Kelsier. His purpose expanded, as he watched the world through these pulses. He didn’t

just need to understand, he needed to fight this thing. This horrible force that would end all things, if it

could.

He struggled, therefore, with a desperation to understand what he saw. Why did Ruin transform the old

Terris prophecies? What was the Drifter – whom Kelsier spotted in very rare pulses – doing up in the

Terris Dominance? Who was this mysterious Mistborn to whom Ruin paid so much attention, and was he a

threat to Vin?

When he rode the pulses, Kelsier watched for – craved – signs of the people he knew and loved. Ruin was

keenly interested in Vin, and many of his pulses centered around watching her or the man she loved, that

Elend Venture.

The mounting clues worried Kelsier. Armies around Luthadel. A city still in chaos. And – he hated to

confront this one – it looked like the Venture boy was king. When Kelsier realized this, he was so angry he

spent days away from the pulses.

They’d gone and put a nobleman in charge.

Yes, Kelsier had saved this man’s life. Against his better judgment, he’d rescued the man that Vin loved.

Out of love for her, perhaps a twisted paternal sense of duty. The Venture boy hadn’t been too bad,

compared to the rest of his kind. But to give him the throne? It seemed that even Dox was listening to

Venture. Kelsier would have expected Breeze to ride whatever wind came his way, but Dockson?

Kelsier fumed, but he could not remain away for long. He hungered for these glimpses of his friends.

Though each was only a brief flash – like a single image from eyes blinked open – he clung to them. They

were reminders that outside his prison, life continued.

Occasionally he was given a glimpse of someone else. His brother, Marsh.

Marsh lived. That was a welcome discovery. Unfortunately, the discovery was tainted. For Marsh was an

Inquisitor.

The two of them had never been what one would call familial. They had taken divergent paths in life, but

that wasn’t the true source of the distance between them – it wasn’t even due to Marsh’s stern ways

butting against Kelsier’s glibness, or Marsh’s unspoken jealousy for things Kelsier had.

No, the truth was they had been raised knowing that at any point they could be dragged before the

Inquisitors and murdered for their half-blooded nature. Each had reacted differently to an entire life

spent, essentially, with a death sentence: Marsh with quiet tension and caution, Kelsier with aggressive

self-confidence to mask his secrets.

Both had known a single, inescapable truth. If one brother were caught, it meant the other would be

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exposed as a half-blood and likely killed as well. Perhaps this situation would have brought other siblings

together. Kelsier was ashamed to admit that for him and Marsh, it had been a wedge. Each mention of

“Stay safe” or “Watch yourself” had been colored by an undercurrent of “Don’t screw up, or you’ll get me

killed.” It had been a vast relief when, after their parents’ deaths, the two of them had agreed to give up

pretense and enter the underground of Luthadel.

At times Kelsier toyed with fantasies of what might have been. Could he and Marsh have integrated fully,

becoming part of noble society? Could he have overcome his loathing for them and their culture?

Regardless, he wasn’t fond of Marsh. The word “fond” sounded too much of walks in a park or time spent

eating pastries. One was fond of a favorite book. No, Kelsier was not fond of Marsh. But strangely, he still

loved him. He was initially happy to find the man alive, but then perhaps death would have been better

than what had been done to him.

It took Kelsier weeks to figure out the reason Ruin was so interested in Marsh. Ruin could talk to Marsh.

Marsh and other Inquisitors, judging by the glimpses and the sensation he received of words being sent.

How? Why Inquisitors? Kelsier found no answers in the visions he saw, though he did witness an

important event.

The thing called Ruin was growing stronger, and it was stalking Vin and Elend. Kelsier saw it clearly in a

trip through the pulses. A vision of the boy, Elend Venture, sleeping in his tent. The power of Ruin

coalescing, forming a figure, malevolent and dangerous. It waited there until Vin entered, then tried to

stab Elend.

As Kelsier lost the pulse, he was left with the image of Vin deflecting the blow and saving Elend. But he

was confused. Ruin had waited there specifically until Vin returned.

It hadn’t actually wanted to hurt Elend. It had just wanted Vin to see him trying.

Why?

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