Brandon SANDERSON: The Hero of Ages

Vin exploited an Allomantic weakness in the koloss revealed to her by TenSoon/OreSeur the kandra, taking control of the koloss in the same way the Lord Ruler once had. She used those koloss to attack Straff’s army when it returned, and she was joined by Cett at the last moment. With Straff dead, Vin forced Penrod, Cett, and Straff’s second-in-command to swear allegiance to Elend, naming him emperor.

The city was saved. However, Vin continued to hear the strange thumpings in her mind. She’d become convinced that she – not the ancient man Alendi – was the Hero of Ages. She soon realized that the Well of Ascension wasn’t actually in the northern mountains, but instead beneath Luthadel. She and Elend investigated this, discovering that beneath Kredik Shaw, there was a large secret cavern stockpiled with food. Beyond that cavern was another, filled with dark smoke. Beyond that, a pool of glowing power. The Well of Ascension.

Sazed, up above, was still reeling from Tindwyl’s death. He had thrown himself into his studies, and discovered – to his alarm – that something was very wrong with the prophecies. He rushed after Vin and Elend, intent on stopping them from taking the power at the Well, but was blocked by Marsh. As the two fought, Vin took the power and did what she thought was the right thing. Though the mist spirit stabbed Elend, Vin didn’t use the Well’s power to heal him. Instead, she released it as the prophecies said she had to do in order to stop the mists from destroying the world.

She made the wrong choice. A dark force imprisoned near the Well of Ascension had altered the prophecies and led Vin to do what was necessary to release it. The thing burst free, leaving Vin with the horror of what she had done. The mist spirit, however, provided a way for her to save Elend by making him into a Mistborn.

The book ended with Vin and Elend on the walls of Luthadel, having saved the city but also having released a terrible force upon the world. Sazed, crushed by Tindwyl’s death, had come to believe that his faith was worthless. Spook was riddled with guilt for abandoning Clubs to die in the city, and both Breeze and Ham bore emotional scars from their seemingly hopeless fight against the koloss. On top of all this, as Sazed had reported, the mists had changed somehow, and they now killed people who went into them.

Elend, however, was determined to consolidate their new empire and find a way to fight the thing that Vin had released. When she asked him what they were going to do now, he had only one answer for her: They were going to survive. No matter what.

One year has passed.