Mistborn: secret history

He’s killing you.

Preservation laughed, a harsh, barking noise. “You keep forgetting which of us is a god and which is just a

poor dead shadow. Waiting to expire.” He waved a mostly unraveled arm, fingers made of spirals of

unwound, misty strings. “Listen to them. Doesn’t it embarrass you how they talk? The Survivor? Ha! I

Preserved them for millennia. What have you done for them?”

Kelsier turned toward Demoux. Preservation appeared to have forgotten that Kelsier couldn’t hear the

speech. Intending to go touch Demoux, to get a view of what he looked like now, Kelsier brushed one of

the corpses on the ground.

A young man. A soldier, by the looks of it. He didn’t know the boy, but he started to worry. He looked back

at where Ham was standing – that figure near him would be Breeze.

What of the others?

He grew cold, then started touching corpses, looking for any he recognized. His motions became more

frantic.

“What are you seeking?” Preservation asked.

“How many–” Kelsier swallowed. “How many of these were friends of mine?”

“Some,” Preservation said.

---

“Any members of the crew?”

“No,” Preservation said, and Kelsier let out a sigh. “No, they died during the intial break-in, days ago.

Dockson. Clubs.”

A spear of ice shot through Kelsier. He tried to stand up from beside the corpse he’d been inspecting, but

stumbled, trying to force out the words. “No. No, not Dox.”

Preservation nodded.

“Wh… When did it happen? How?”

Preservation laughed. The sound of madness. He showed little of the kindly, uncertain man who had

greeted Kelsier when he’d first entered this place.

“Both were murdered by koloss as the siege broke. Their bodies were burned days ago, Kelsier, while you

were trapped.”

Kelsier trembled, feeling lost. “I…” Kelsier said.

Dox. I wasn’t here for him. I could have seen him again, as he passed. Talked to him. Saved him maybe?

“He cursed you as he died, Kelsier,” Preservation said, voice harsh. “He blamed you for all this.”

Kelsier bowed his head. Another lost friend. And Clubs too… two good men. He’d lost too many of those in

his life, dammit. Far too many.

I’m sorry, Dox, Clubs. I’m sorry for failing you.

Kelsier took that anger, that bitterness and shame, and channeled it. He’d found purpose again during his

days in prison. He wouldn’t lose it now.

He stood and turned to Preservation. The god – shockingly – cringed as if frightened. Kelsier seized the

god’s form, and in a brief moment was given a vision of the grandness beyond. The pervading light of

Preservation that permeated all things. The world, the mists, the metals, the very souls of men. This

creature was somehow dying, but his power was far from gone.

He also felt Preservation’s pain. It was the loss Kelsier had felt at Dox’s death, only magnified thousands

of times over. Preservation felt every light that went out, felt them and knew them as a person he had

loved.

Around the world they were dying at an accelerated pace. Too much ash was falling, and Preservation

only anticipated it increasing. Armies of koloss rampaging beyond control. Death, destruction, a world on

its last legs.

And… to the south… what was that? People?

Kelsier held Preservation, in awe at this creature’s divine agony. Then Kelsier pulled him close, into an

embrace.

“I’m so sorry,” Kelsier whispered.

“Oh, Senna…” Preservation whispered. “I’m losing this place. Losing them all…”

“We are going to stop it,” Kelsier said, pulling back.

“It can’t be stopped. The deal…”

“Deals can be broken.”

“Not these kinds of deals, Kelsier. I was able to trick Ruin before, lock him away, by fooling him with our

agreement. But that wasn’t a breach of contract, more leaving a hole in the agreement to be exploited.

This time there are no holes.”

“Then we go out kicking and screaming,” Kelsier said. “You and me, we’re a team.”

Preservation seemed to condense, his form pulling itself together, threads reweaving. “A team. Yes. A

crew.”

“To do the impossible.”

“Defy reality,” Preservation whispered. “Everyone always said you were insane.”

---

“And I always acknowledged that they had a point,” Kelsier said. “Thing is, while they were correct to

question my sanity, they never did have the right reasoning. It’s not my ambition that should worry them.”

“Then what should?”

Kelsier smiled.

Preservation, in turn, laughed – a sound that had lost its edge, the harshness gone. “I can’t help you do…

whatever it is you think you’re doing. Not directly. I don’t… think well enough anymore. But…”

“But?”

Preservation solidified a little further. “But I know where you’ll find someone who can.”

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