And . . . those are the annotations! I hope you enjoyed reading them. As you can probably tell, I write them rather quickly. This, of course, is to give them that feel of an improvisational director’s commentary. (And it has nothing to do with the fact that when I work on them for a book, I’m usually about three weeks behind deadline on turning in the copyedit. Why do you ask?)

Joking aside, I’m quite proud of this book and what it does. I think it’s the first time I’ve blended plot twists, humor, worldbuilding, and romance all together in a book the way I’ve wanted to from the beginning of my writing career.

Would I do anything different? Perhaps. I still wish Parlin had a more compelling character, so there could be more emotional impact when he died. I wish the ending had a bit less of a deus ex machina feel to it. But overall, I think the writing here is a big stride forward for me.

Thanks again for reading, both the book and these annotations.

Brandon Sanderson

October 2008

The Phantoms Charge Away

Did they succeed? Yes, they did. The Lifeless were destroyed, and only a couple of the phantoms were lost. That still leaves Hallandren with a very powerful army. Fortunately, Siri and Susebron are the ones in charge of it, so things will be all right for a little while at least.

Vivenna Goes with Vasher

I was always planning this ending for her. She’s still got a lot of growing she can do as a character, and I think she’ll make for a very interesting heroine in a sequel. She could never return to Idris and face her father; doing so would be returning to a lot of people who expect her to be like she was. But she can’t stay with Siri either. She still hates Hallandren and just wants to be free of it—free where she can calm her fury and really explore who she is now that her life is no longer dominated by the need to go marry the God King.

Life has been very unfair to Vivenna. It’s time for her to live for herself. Here we finally have the last reversal of the book. Siri has become the queen; Vivenna is running away from responsibility, out into the wilds. And it (hopefully) feels very natural for them to be in these roles.

Vasher Explains Some Things, but Leaves Some Things Hidden

I’m worried about leaving Vivenna’s two questions unanswered. One is pretty obvious—how Vasher can hide how he looks—but the other is unintuitive. I wish I could explain better in the book, as I said above, but I decided in the end to just leave it hanging. It’s a bit of a violation of Sanderson’s First Law, but not a big one. The reason I feel I can get away with it is because Vasher didn’t use his nature as a Returned to solve any problems. It is more a flavoring for his character than it is important to him getting out of danger or fixing things. He could have done everything he needed to in this book without being Returned. So I feel it’s okay not to explain why he can be Returned and not die when he gives away his Breaths.

Can Vivenna change her appearance more? She can indeed. She could actually stoke that fragment of a divine Breath inside of her and start glowing like a Returned. She can’t change her physical features to look like someone else, but she can change her age, her height (within reason), and her body shape (to an extent). It takes practice.

And yes, the scraggly miscreant is how Vasher sees himself. Not noble and Returned, which is part of how he suppresses his divine Breath.

Events in the second book may change that.

Vasher Finds Vivenna

I’m torn about this ending. It seems like this last chapter is a little anticlimactic, and yet at the same time, there is still the major conflict of the book to resolve.

Or is it the major conflict of the book? Probably not, as I think about it. This book’s major conflicts were character conflicts. Yes, we want to save Idris, and it’s important—but what happens with the characters has overshadowed that. Perhaps that’s why this chapter feels just a bit tacked on. It’s not as bad as the Well of Ascension second ending, however, and I think it’s nearly the best way to format this story. That doesn’t stop it from feeling a little extraneous, though.

Anyway, a lot of important things happen here. Note that Nightblood doesn’t remember being drawn. When he was created, the Breaths gave him sentience as planned. (That was a big part of the goal in making him—to prove the existence of Type Four BioChromatic entities.) However, once he is drawn, his Command takes force and he acts much more like a regular Awakened object—but one with very strange abilities and powers. During this time, his Breath is diverted to creating the powers, and his mind goes fuzzy.

Siri and Susebron Visit the Body of Lightsong

I wanted to have this scene as a little epilogue to Lightsong’s storyline. He was a great character, one of the best I’ve ever written, and I think he fulfilled his place in this book wonderfully.

I often say that I don’t see my endings as sad, even though they do tend to involve the deaths of major characters. In this case, Lightsong’s ending is triumphant because of what he was able to achieve. At least that’s my perspective on it.

What did Blushweaver achieve? In fact, she Returned in the first place to be involved in this ending as well. One thing to note about the Returned coming back is that they do see the future, but when they Return, they aren’t guaranteed to be able to change anything. Before her Return, Blushweaver was a powerful merchant in the city, and very well known. She was assassinated after denouncing a group of dye merchants she’d worked with for their deceptive and criminal practices. Her testimony ended with them in jail, but it got her killed. That’s how she earned the title of Blushweaver the Honest (which, if you’ll remember, she eventually got changed to Blushweaver the Beautiful).

She Returned because she didn’t want T’Telir to fall to the invaders she saw taking it after Bluefingers and the others caused their revolt. That was why she gathered the armies. While she didn’t succeed in her quest as well as Lightsong did, she did help out quite a bit. I think she’s pleased, on the other side, with how things turned out.

Vivenna and Vasher Talk about What to Do

One of the biggest revisions to the ending was what to do with the D’Denir. When first drafting the book, I wasn’t 100% sure on what Awakening could and couldn’t do. I figured that Vasher could have Commands that would Awaken statues, and I wrote the ending that way.

Unfortunately, through revising and developing the story, this ended up not being viable. I was also disappointed in how poorly telegraphed the use of the statues ultimately ended up being. So in revisions, I switched it to make them Lifeless created from bones, something special that Vasher came up with during the Manywar. I then added the concept of Kalad’s Phantoms as a mystery in the book, so that readers would be expecting that army to show up by the end. I think this mitigates the surprise somewhat. (Though not completely; see below.)

Vivenna and Siri Reunite; Vasher Shows Off His Returned Breath

I believe that this is the first time in the book that Vivenna and Siri talk to each other. (Weird, eh?) I knew I couldn’t make their reunion very effusive, since they’re both Idrians, and Siri has learned to control herself. Plus, the situation is very tense. (And beyond that, despite Vivenna’s coming to rescue her sister, the two were never terribly close. They were sisters, but separated by five years or so.)

This chapter focuses on other things, primarily the changes in the God King’s personality and the revelations about Vasher. For the first, I hope they are plausible. Remember, the God King has grown a lot with Siri’s help. Beyond that, he’s been trained to look regal and act like a king, even if he’s not had any practice talking like one. I think he works well here, projecting more confidence and nobility than he really feels, speaking in ways that don’t make him sound too stupid, yet still betraying an innocence.

The bigger surprise is Vasher’s revelation about his nature. I almost didn’t put this in the book, instead intending to hint at it and save it for the second book. The reason for this is that I knew it would be confusing.

The big question is, if Vasher is Returned, why can he give away his Breaths and Awaken things without killing himself?

The answer is simple, in many ways, but I’m not sure if I have the groundwork for it properly laid in the book. (Which is why I hesitated in explaining it.) Remember when Denth said that Awakening was all or nothing? Well, he lied. (I think you’ve figured this out now.) A very skilled Awakener can give away only part of their Breath. It depends on their Command visualizations. So Vasher needs to always give away everything except for that one Returned Breath that keeps him alive. As long as he has that one Breath (which he’s learned to suppress and hide), he can stay alive.

Go to the book.

Siri Is Led Up to a Room with an Altar

Well, welcome to my favorite chapter in the book. (Of course, I do tend to say that about the climactic chapters of each book.) For me, this is the kind of chapter that drives one to write a book. The chance to get to it, and to have things start coming together, is the biggest thrill I get in writing.

The “sacrifice Siri on the altar” image was one of the original ones I’d planned for this book, but by the time I got to this place in the novel, it just felt lame to go through with that. It’s such a clichéd image. That’s kind of the point—Bluefingers is trying for something visceral and exaggerated—but I felt that the imagery of it could undermine the entire scene.

I think I did one draft with her tied down to it, but I revised that out pretty quickly. It was far too Snidely Whiplash for me. I like this version much better, where we find out what Bluefingers is going to do, but Siri stands up to him and bullies him into letting her die with dignity. I also went back and seeded the stories about Hallandren and killing people on altars as a superstitious rumor that some Idrians believe. (There were stories about the Mormons, back in the day, claiming that they sacrificed women on the altars of their temples then threw the corpses out the window into the Great Salt Lake. Sounds ridiculous, I know, but in eras without as much media, people can believe some pretty crazy things.)

Vasher and Denth Spar; Vasher Gets Stabbed

I love scenes in books (when I read them) that imply a great weight of history that we don’t get to see between characters. It gives me a sense that the story is real. That these characters lived before the story, and that they’ll continue to live afterward (or, well, the ones who survive).

When I built this book, I knew that the Vasher/Denth relationship needed a lot of groundwork to give it that sense. I wanted them both to be complicated characters who have a twisted past. It all comes to head here, in this chapter, and we get the ending of a story over three centuries old. Will I ever tell those stories? Probably not. Like the story of Alendi and Rashek in Mistborn, I think the story between Vasher and Denth is stronger as it stands—as something to lend weight to this book. We will go more into the Vasher/Arsteel relationship (particularly as we deal with Yesteel) in the next book, if I write it.

By this point, you should be wondering just who Vasher is. He’s been alive since the Manywar, and Denth implies that Vasher himself caused the conflict. There’s obviously a lot more going on with him than you expect.

Lightsong’s Climactic Scene, with His Vision of the Boat

Lightsong’s vision and eventual death in this chapter are another of the big focus scenes. In fact, I’d say that this little scene here is my absolute favorite in the book. It’s hard to explain why, but I get a chill whenever I read it. It’s the chill of something you planned that turned out even better than you expected. (As opposed to the planning for the Siri/altar image, which turned out poorly and so had to be cut.)

I worked hard to bring this scene in my head to fruition. No other section of the book has been tweaked more in drafting—everything from changing it so Lightsong grabs the God King’s hand as opposed to his foot, to reworking the imagery of the ocean. (That imagery, by the way, came from my honeymoon while standing on the cruise ship at night and staring into the churning white froth above deep black water.)

Many people on my forums called this event ahead of time—Lightsong healing the God King. I’m fine with that. It did seem like a very obvious setup. One character with powers he cannot use until healed, another with the power to heal someone one time. Sometimes it’s okay to give people what they expect—particularly when the result is this scene. I hope they didn’t expect it to be as powerful as it is (assuming readers like the scene as much as I do). I want this one to be very moving.

It’s the final fulfillment of Lightsong’s character. Note that even in the end, his sarcasm and irony come through. He told Siri not to depend on him because he would let her down. Well, Lightsong, you’re a better man than you wanted us to believe. There’s a reason why so many are willing to rely upon you.

Vasher and Denth’s Climax

I wanted to offer Denth the chance for redemption here, though there was no way he was going to let himself take it. His response is honest. He doesn’t feel he deserves it. He has done terrible things; to wipe away the memory of them would be cheating. Better to just get it over with.

There’s a very good chance that after killing Vasher, Denth would have walked over, picked up Nightblood, and let the sword drain his life away. He wouldn’t have been able to live with the guilt.

But that doesn’t happen. When I first designed this magic system, I added to it the idea that taking a lot of Breath shocks you and sends you into a small seizure of pleasure. This is lifted from the magic system in Mythwalker, the story from which I drew Siri and Vivenna. I added the component to Awakening not only because it fit, but because I liked giving one more little nod to Mythwalker.

However, the moment I began writing it, I knew that this twist of giving someone Breath, then killing them, would be an awesome way to pull a reversal with the magic. So I built into the story the entire arc of Vasher beating Arsteel mysteriously, and Denth wanting to duel him to prove that he couldn’t win a duel.

Denth was right. Vasher cheated.

Both of these scenes end with a transfer of Breath. That’s intentional; I placed these scenes together on purpose. I love the parallel of one transfer bringing life and hope, the other bringing death.

And by the way, we don’t see Tonk Fah, Jewels, or Clod again in the book. They’ll come back in the sequel. Without Denth’s control, Tonks is off to start murdering and killing wantonly; by the next book, he’ll have changed quite dramatically.

Jewels, on the other hand, is taking Arsteel (Clod) to his brother, who is a master of Lifeless Commands. (Yesteel invented ichor-alcohol.) She hopes to find a way to restore to Arsteel some of his memories and personality.

Siri Is Rescued

And here we have a big scene that a lot of readers have been waiting for. I apologize for making Siri need to be rescued like this, but I felt it was appropriate to the story. It’s because of her teaching the God King and helping him become the man he is that he’s able to do this.

Remember that the Seventh Heightening (I think that’s the one) grants a person Instinctive Awakening, meaning that once you reach that Heightening, you don’t need any practice to learn to Awaken. Your Commands are obeyed instinctively. This doesn’t mean that everything you try will work, but that you can make most basic Commands (grab things, that sort) work without having to try. In fact, figuring out most of the more complicated, previously unknown Commands requires a person to be of the Seventh Heightening.

This power grew out of me wanting the upper Heightenings to do some very dramatic things. I do worry that this scene is a little deus ex machina. That keeps me from liking it quite as much as the Lightsong climax or the Denth/Vasher climax. But I feel that a story needs a great variety of climactic moments—some internal character moments, some external skill moments, some great twists, some expected payoffs, some big reveals, and some dramatic rescues. This chapter and the next take a shot at trying to cover a lot of those different types.

Go to the book.

Vivenna Saves Vasher—Kind Of

Vivenna has a few things going for her here. First off, Denth has gotten rid of his Breath. He doesn’t want to have it as he tortures Vasher. It made him too aware, too pained. Being a drab as he does it is easier for him. With Tonks dozing, that means that nobody in the room has enough life sense to notice Vivenna hanging outside.

Secondly, Denth doesn’t really like what he’s doing. He feels he took Vasher too easily, and the torture isn’t satisfying. He’d much rather kill Vasher in a fight, as he later realizes. So there’s some hesitance to him in this scene, as you might notice. He doesn’t just stab Vasher or Vivenna. He goes to free Tonk Fah, then hesitates before turning back and challenging Vasher. Denth was actually hoping that something like this would happen. (Plus, he does care for his friend Tonk Fah. Again, Denth is far from purely evil, no matter what he would like people to assume.)

Denth is the better duelist. Even if Vasher hadn’t been beaten and tortured, Denth would have won. Except for the trick Vasher was planning, which Vivenna interfered with. But we don’t know about that yet . . .

I don’t know if you remember that Vivenna put a whole bunch of Breath into Tonk Fah’s cloak accidentally, but it happened during the time when she found Parlin. It might be just a little bit of a stretch here, as I don’t know that people will remember it. As I consider it, I should have mentioned what she’d done one more time.

Also, I hope that you don’t mind the line that goes something like “Vasher is plunging to his doom from a three story window—of course he’ll live!” It’s a little bit self-aware, and I’m not trying to break the fourth wall. Denth has simply known Vasher for a very, very long time, and knows that something so simple isn’t likely to kill his old friend. That, mixed with Denth’s penchant for sarcasm, produced this line.

Vasher Fights the Soldiers and Finally Pulls Nightblood

In my annotations, I’ve often talked about focus scenes. These are the scenes of a book that I imagine cinematically before I sit down and write the novel. They’re part of what drives me to want to work on that book in particular, and I need a few really good ones before I’ll write a book.

This was one of the primary focus scenes for this book. I had this in mind before I developed a lot of the rest of the story. I’m glad that I was able to write to a point where I was able to use it. Vasher, Awakening a rope to save himself, then fighting alongside Awakened sets of clothing. Then finally, at long last, drawing Nightblood. You probably knew that had to happen in this book. I certainly built up to it long enough.

I originally imagined the pulling of Nightblood from a body a little like a dark “sword in the stone” moment. I don’t think that quite made the transition to the final book, but hopefully the image of a black sword leaking smoke is visually potent for you. I ended the scene in my head with Vasher standing amid those puffs of black smoke that used to be bodies, Nightblood at his side, feeding off of him with pulsing black veins.

Denth Finds Vasher and Forces Him to Duel

Note that Denth, way back many chapters ago, mentioned that he felt the only way to defeat Vasher was to get him to draw Nightblood. Denth knew that would leak away all of Vasher’s Breath and thereby leave him unable to use Nightblood any further. (This exchange with Denth and Tonk Fah happened in the D’Denir garden after meeting with the forgers.)

Denth has been planning to find a way to force Vasher to draw the sword and use it. He was hoping that the sword would consume him, which he felt would be a fitting end for Vasher, considering that Vasher killed Denth’s sister with Nightblood. When he didn’t die from pulling the blade, Denth decided that killing him with a dueling blade—as Arsteel should have—would be a fitting end instead.

Go to the book.

Treledees Almost Tells Siri How to Pass On the God King’s Breath

We get to see more of Siri taking charge here. In this tense situation, a lot of others would have been reduced to hysterics, but she’s come into her own, taking command, trying to get the information she needs.

Treledees lies to her here about two things. First off, he does know how a God King can have a child, but he knows that the secret is also held by a secure group of priests on the islands. He doesn’t think letting Siri in on that one for now is a good idea. But he does want to pass on how to get Susebron’s Breaths away from him, should it become necessary. He knows that those need to be passed on, even if the God King does have a child. That’s the greater secret, but the one that needs to be known to Siri. Those Breaths cannot die with Susebron.

So, anyway, he’s lying about the God King not being able to have a child. (Or at least he sidesteps it. He says that the God King can’t sire a child, which is true unless certain steps are taken. He also says that he doesn’t know how the First Returned bore a child, which is true—he doesn’t know for certain if the First Returned used the same method that Treledees knows. He’s also sidestepping the fact that he does believe that the blood of the First Returned flows in the veins of the royal Idrian line.)

So why not bring this up in the book? Well, I learned in Elantris that it’s easy to overtwist an ending by having too many reveals. This is a very small point, and there is good rationalization for why Treledees doesn’t let on what he knows. So I felt it was better to let the story stand as is, without delving into this.

Of course, there is a hint in the text about it—or at least a question. If they depended only on a Returned child taking Susebron’s place, then why were they worried about Siri having sex with Susebron? They didn’t need her to sleep with him unless they expected that sex to do something.

I’m sorry to leave this issue a mystery, and I’m even more sorry to not explain how Susebron can give away his Breaths. It’s not important to this book, and so I felt that having Treledees give the explanation here would just bog things down. I’d rather wait until a sequel, where I detail the magic system in a more complete form, to give you these explanations.

That leaves us with the cliché of someone who almost passes on information, then dies. As I said, I am sorry to do this. I nearly didn’t put it in, but I felt it very important to include something that let you know that the priests did have a way to get those Breaths.

Note that Treledees is not lying about letting Susebron live out his life with Siri in peace. They have allowed previous God Kings to do that, once they had a successor in place.

The Priests Sacrifice Themselves

As I said, one of the reversals for this book is a reversal of my own books, where priests have traditionally been the bad guys. Here, Treledees and his people throw their lives away in an attempt to save Susebron. They’re zealous; I would say too zealous. But they’re good men, trying their best to serve their god. They go to their graves in that service.

Vivenna Sneaks (Poorly) into the Court of Gods

We also show Vivenna being very proactive. Both of the sisters are having a much larger effect on events here than their male counterparts. There are a few interesting things to note.

First is Nightblood’s mention of Yesteel. I believe this is the first mention of him in the book. If you’ve been paying attention, you probably realized that there was one person missing out of the Five Scholars. Vasher, Denth, Arsteel, Shashara . . . and this guy. You’ll see him in the sequel. (And yes, he’s much better at sneaking than Vasher or Vivenna.)

Another note here is that Nightblood can sense where Vasher is. This is because Nightblood has ingested and fed off Vasher’s Breaths in the past. When he does that, it connects him to someone. It’s also, by the way, one of the secrets as to why Vasher doesn’t get sick when holding Nightblood, even though he’s a good person. It’s not simply familiarity (though that is part of it). Nightblood has a built-in test. If he feeds off you and you survive, then you become somewhat immune to his powers.

Vivenna Throws Nightblood at the Soldiers

These men in soldier uniforms, as hinted at by how they react to Nightblood, are just a bunch of Denth’s mercenaries wearing uniforms to hide them. The guards at the front gates, however, are actual court guards. They don’t know that insurgents are now in control of the palace; they’re confused and are taking orders from Bluefingers, whom they see as someone with respect and authority.

The priests of the various gods are not so accommodating. There’s mass chaos among them, though many parts of the city don’t even know something strange is going on. The tunnels out of the Court of Gods are clogged with priests getting their various deities out of danger, which is why Bluefingers is slightly frustrated in the Siri scenes. He can’t get the God King out to the boat he has waiting. (He wants to keep him as a prisoner. Executing him as he outlines to Siri is a backup plan, one he decides to implement.)

Lightsong Notices the Pahn Kahl are Imitating Priests

If you’re still confused about this, most of the priests you’ve seen in the Lightsong sections are Pahn Kahl scribes imitating priests to increase confusion. The skin tone is the clue, and Lightsong noticed it a chapter or two back, but couldn’t figure out what exactly was bothering him.

The previous chapters of the book—everything before the evening of Lightsong’s infiltration of the tunnels—never included Pahn Kahl imitating priests. We’ve only seen them a couple of places, mostly in the Lightsong sections here.

Bluefingers Explains That He Has to Execute Siri

Bluefingers is right when he says that there’s a good chance Idris will do better in the war than everyone assumes. Of course, the main reason they’ll do better is because of how the Lifeless were launched without support or planning.

If this war were allowed to progress, Idris would be able to draw allies from across the mountains (as I mentioned earlier), and Yesteel’s ability to create swords like Nightblood would end with T’Telir falling and then the entire world being cast into chaos and destruction.

Go to the book.

Vivenna Meets with the Beggar, Then Goes to Get Nightblood

She lays it on a little thick here. But hey, if you’re a beggar, sometimes you like to be brownnosed. Plus, she’s new to this kind of thing, and she did give him a very pretty handkerchief. . . .

It was sad to kill off Old Chaps so fast, but at least he went out with style. Besides, he wasn’t a very good person, as you can guess. He quite literally sold out his own mother once. He wanted her apartment, so he pinned a theft on her when he was a teenager. That’s the room where he was still living. He didn’t realize, in his youth, that she didn’t even own the place, and all he ended up inheriting was a rent payment. Not exactly the brightest guy around. But at least he waited until after she had died in prison to tie rocks to her feet and toss her into the bay.

Nightblood was interesting to write in this book as he makes a very nice contrast to Vasher. Vasher doesn’t want to say anything about his past; he’s so tight-lipped about it that he rarely even spends any time thinking about it. Nightblood, however, dwells quite heavily on the past. Though in some ways his mind is very capable, he has the quirk of being an Awakened object. The first hours of his life—during which time he met Shashara, Denth, and Vasher—imprinted heavily on him. It’s like . . . a part of his mind is hard forged in that moment with read-only memory that cannot be changed. Much of him can learn and grow, despite what Vasher says, but he cannot overwrite those initial concepts, states, and understandings that were burned into him during his birth. Shashara was alive then, so he will always think of her as alive, even if thousands of years have passed. Denth will always be pleased with him. Vasher will always be friends with the other two. Those things were some of Nightblood’s first impressions.

Vasher Is Tortured More

It’s very important to note that Vasher is hiding and saving his strength here. Writing his scenes here was tricky, since I knew that he would need to be able to pull off some feats of strength later in the book. I figured that one night of torture wouldn’t do very much to him, though I also didn’t want to spoil the tension by drawing too much attention to that fact.

Denth is frustrated, here, that he’s not enjoying the process of torturing his old friend—much as he’s frustrated with his life as it exists presently. He wants so badly to just be the carefree, work-for-whoever-pays thug. But he can’t. He can’t be like Tonk Fah, and it frustrates him. Hurting Vasher hurts Denth too, as it reminds him of so many things that have been lost.

Siri Is Taken to the God King, Then Discovers Who Is Really Behind the Attacks

I’m hoping that by this point, readers will be very confused about the nature of this third force that is attacking. I hope it’s the good kind of confusion, though.

Let me explain. When I write, I sometimes want to inspire confusion. It helps keep the mysteries of the book shadowed and vague. It helps the reader connect with the characters, who—presumably—are also confused. But there’s a danger here in being too confusing. If the readers think that they’ve missed something, or if they can’t follow what is going on at all, then they will just put down the book.

The trick is to make certain to telegraph that the characters are confused as well, as I mentioned above. If the reader knows that they are supposed to be searching for answers, then it will be all right. (As long as it doesn’t get prolonged artificially.) If, instead, they get the impression that the author has simply made a mistake and isn’t explaining things clearly, they’ll react very differently.

Anyway, I hope that you have the first reaction and not the second. The twist of who is really behind everything should come as a shock, but I hope that it’s also well foreshadowed. The big clincher is the question that, perhaps, you’ve been asking this entire book. If the war is going to be so bad for everyone involved, then who could possibly be pushing for it to occur?

I’ve seeded quite a number of hints about the Pahn Kahl in the book. The first is Vahr and his rebellion, but there are a number of others. The first time that Siri assumes Bluefingers worships the Returned, he purses his lips in annoyance. We’ve got a lot of little hints like that that the Pahn Kahl are frustrated by their place in the empire. They controlled this land long ago; we discovered that from Hoid’s storytelling.

It’s well foreshadowed, but I still worry that it will be too surprising to people. This is primarily because I think that readers will just pass over the Pahn Kahl while reading. They’re forgettable by design. Easy to ignore, and most of the other characters have trouble remembering that they aren’t just Hallandren. They aren’t an angry and vocal minority, like the Idrians. They’re just there, or at least that’s how everyone sees them.

One of my big goals for this book, however, was to have a good reversal for who is the bad guy pulling the strings. It’s not the high priest. It’s not the crafty god. It’s not even the brutal mercenary. It’s the simple, quiet scribe. It’s one of the biggest conceptual reversals in the book. Hopefully it works for you.

Siri Saves Them from Bluefingers

Some people, as I’ve said, have complained about Siri’s damsel in distress place in the book during the next couple of chapters. I want to draw their attention to this chapter, however, which is where she shines. She’s in control and careful. She’s become a leader out of necessity. She’s able to make demands of Treledees and get answers. And she’s gotten good enough at politics to make the connection that nobody else did, seeing through Bluefingers’s ploy.

If she hadn’t acted here in this chapter, this book would have ended very differently. She saved Susebron’s life here. Because of what she did, Bluefingers wasn’t able to implement his plan to sneak the two of them out onto the waiting boat in the Inner Sea. Her delay gave just enough time that Bluefingers had to go with his secondary plan of getting the God King to the dungeons for the next few chapters.

More than that, however, Siri became the person she needed to in these chapters. She was able to grow as much as Vivenna, but she didn’t have to be knocked down for it to happen first.

Lightsong Gives Up

Oddly, Lightsong’s character arc here in this chapter was to give in. To give up, to abandon his mocking and his glibness. To finally accept what he’s been pretending all this time. That he’s useless.

The games are over.

Go to the book.

Vivenna Wonders Where Vasher Is

This is just a quick scene to update you on what Vivenna is doing. It’s approaching morning, so she’s been sitting and stewing all night. I felt we needed to at least get a glimpse of her here. If you can’t tell, the avalanche has begun.

Treledees Takes Siri

At this point, you’re supposed to be confused at whose motivations are what. I’m not sure what you’ll be thinking of the priests at this point in the story. Suffice it to say that Denth’s men were in control of Siri’s chamber, but he left them once he got Vasher. While he’s been torturing Vasher, however, Treledees and his forces seized Siri’s room back and killed the guards out front. Now they’ve pulled her away.

Tonk Fah wasn’t there, as you’ll soon discover. He’s guarding the door to the room where Vasher and Denth are. He’s just outside, and he has orders not to let Denth get interrupted. When things get out of hand in the palace, however, he goes in to inform Denth of what’s going on. We’ll see him there in just a little bit.

Old Chaps

I love having random little viewpoints like these in books. I don’t do them often, usually just once or twice a book. But I was excited to write this one, as Chaps has a very interesting way of thinking. Dance, dance, dance. I didn’t plan him into the book specifically; I simply wrote this scene as it arrived and I knew someone had to fetch Nightblood. I’m always pleased when a little glimpse like this gives us such a distinctive feel and flavor for a character, though.

Nightblood is better at communicating with people who are mentally unhinged. He can influence them more easily. Really, Denth, you should have known to toss Nightblood someplace far deeper than the shallow bay.

Vasher Tortured

Moshe wanted Vasher naked here, but I felt that keeping him in the white shorts was good enough. We’ve had a lot of nudity in this book, both male and female, and I didn’t want to push it any farther and distract from the discussion here.

Vasher is wrong about Arsteel, by the way. Arsteel didn’t need to be killed; Vasher misinterpreted the man’s motives in joining with Denth. It’s unfortunate that the two came to blows, but Arsteel never intended to kill Vasher in the duel, just subdue him and talk some sense into him. (“Sense” as Arsteel saw it. He wasn’t actually right in what he was doing—he didn’t understand Vasher’s reasoning either. All I’m saying is that Arsteel’s motives were, in fact, pure.)

Denth has done a relatively good job keeping Tonk Fah from murdering as often as he used to. Killing is necessary, sometimes, in Denth’s opinion—but there’s no need to go around killing people who don’t need it. He’s managed to rein Tonk Fah in. It’s a slight measure of the good that’s left in Denth.

Vivenna Suits Up and Leaves

Vivenna is in a similar position to Siri here in these last chapters. Things are getting so dangerous that both women (well, and Lightsong too) are rather out of their elements. However, I knew that I had to have them both involved. It would be incredibly frustrating to read an entire book focused on two characters, then have them get pushed around for the entire climax.

So during my outlining, I made certain to build the story in such a way that they could be useful, even if they’re very much out of their elements. I feel this makes the story more tense in a lot of ways, since they’re forced to deal with things for which they’re completely unprepared.

Here, we have Vivenna sorting through her own emotions and finding enough determination left to go out and do something. This is an important moment for her, even though she doesn’t realize it. This is the moment where she takes her first real step toward becoming her new self.

Lightsong Is in Prison

Lightsong here is not giving up, which I think is very appropriate for his character. He still has his sense of confidence. In a way, the priest who kills Blushweaver is right. Lightsong does still see it as a game. His life in the court has taught him that things aren’t ever dangerous for him. This is all just politics, and a big piece of him feels that he’s just on an adventure. He finds it exciting.

That’s why Llarimar blows up at him. It’s not Lightsong’s fault—he’s been trained by the last five years to look at life this way. But here, the games have ended, and it’s suddenly become very real and very dangerous. Llarimar is the type who is very calm headed until you just push him past his snapping point, and then he loses it. It’s hard to get him there, but the current situation is enough.

By the way, this is only the second time Lightsong has landed them both in prison. The first time happened a good twenty years earlier, even if Llarimar has never quite gotten over it. It involved a whole lot of drinking. (Llarimar, already then an acolyte priest of the Iridescent Tones, had never gotten “good drunk” as Lightsong called it at the time. So, he took him out on he day before his ordination as a full priest and got him solidly, rip-roaringly drunk. The embarrassment of what they did, landing themselves in prison for trying to bust into the Court of Gods while wearing only their underclothing, nearly got Llarimar tossed out of the priesthood. Needless to say, he didn’t make full priest the next day. It was three years before he was allowed to apply for ordination again.)

Blushweaver’s Death

My editor was uncomfortable with the way this happened—he felt that the motivations for the killers weren’t solid enough. I tried to put a little more in, which placated Moshe, but I always felt that they were solid.

Bad guys in books often do stupid things, and it annoys me. They’re often not allowed to do the smartest things they could because it would ruin the plot. I wanted them to do the smart thing here, and I felt that the smartest thing was to kill Blushweaver. Just threatening her wouldn’t have worked with Lightsong; he refused to take things seriously. A simple threat would have earned them mockery and frustration. So, not knowing that he loved her, they killed Blushweaver to show how serious they were. Then they grabbed Llarimar, not intending to actually kill him, as they knew he was the best bargaining chip against Lightsong they had. (If he hadn’t talked, they’d have started cutting off Llarimar’s fingers.)

The brutality of that moment of Blushweaver’s throat being slit is supposed to be a major reversal in tone for Lightsong’s sections. I hope that it worked for you; I think I laid the proper groundwork that this story could have things like that happen in it. I think I justified the motivations of the killers enough.

The games are over.

Go to the book.

Lightsong Gathers His Finery in His Palace

Is there a lesson in all of this, as Lightsong accuses Llarimar of teaching? Perhaps. The value of something is indeed in how you treat it. All of the riches in the world could be piled in one place, and they would be unimportant unless you ascribed value to them. I think this is one of the reasons Lightsong has been so flippant all of his life as a god. Before Returning, the things he valued were far more intangible. People, his life’s work, intellectual freedom—all these things were taken from him, then replaced with gold and baubles. To him, they’re inferior replacements, and he can’t help but chafe—unknowingly—at his confines.

I wanted a chance for Llarimar to take off his hat and be just a friend for a time. His belief system is complex, since he knew Lightsong ahead of time. He sees the divine mantle, but he also sees the man.

Siri Is Locked Up, and Her Guards Change

Just a quick reminder here of what’s going on with Siri. I worry about her next few sequences looking too “damsel in distress.” I tried to counteract this in several places, which I’ll mention. Still, I had a problem here. Once things turn to combat and fighting, there is very little that Siri can do. She’s not Vin—she can’t approach things the same way.

However, since Elend got to play damsel in distress fairly often in the Mistborn books, I think I’ve earned the right to put a female protagonist into that role here. It’s appropriate to the plot, and I don’t think it could have worked any other way.

Lightsong Sneaks into Mercystar’s Palace

Here’s the other big place where I cheated just a tad and added Lightsong’s dreams of the tunnels and the moon as a reason to get him into the right place at the right time. I added this in a later draft; originally, this was one of my big personal problems with the book: the fact that Lightsong got into just the right place at just the right time. It was just too coincidental, and it always bugged me.

I wasn’t paying attention to the tools I’d given myself (as I think I mentioned earlier). If I’m going to go to all this trouble to build a magic system that uses prophecy as a major component of its religion, then I might as well use a few of those prophecies as small plot points. I didn’t want them to solve any major problems, but letting Lightsong dream of where he has to be brings nice closure to the entire “What’s in those tunnels?” plot while at the same time playing into his quest to determine if he really is a god or not.

By the way, the grate that Lightsong closes on the tunnel behind them . . . well, it didn’t do any good. There’s a lever and pulley on the other side, in the room beneath Mercystar’s palace—and the locking mechanism is there too. The grate is there to keep people out of her palace, installed by her priests to keep unsavory elements (if there are any) from sneaking in through the tunnels. Vasher had to pull this very grate up before he could sneak into the tunnels himself. Mercystar’s priests don’t follow because they don’t care that Lightsong snuck in and down; they just want to guard their goddess. So they arrange troops up above, waiting for Lightsong to return.

Lightsong Attacks

And we discover that Lightsong is no good with the sword. I toyed with making him able to use it, but I felt it was too much of a cut corner. Knowing who he was before he died, he’d not have needed to know the sword. Beyond that, I felt it would have been too expected. Lightsong himself built it up so much that I feel it would have been a boring plot twist to have him able to use the sword. Beyond that, it would have been just too convenient.

Reversals. I wanted to reverse what you assume about him, and to reverse how this scene would have probably played out in a lot of fantasy stories. Once again, I’m not reversing just to reverse. I’m reversing because it’s appropriate for the characters, setting, and plot—and then finally because it’s more interesting this way.

Go to the book.

Vasher Considers Killing Lightsong

I remember reading a book a few years back where the heroes are separated from one another. One group of them is doing something clandestine, while another group is traveling in the area posing as ordinary peasants. Neither knows what the other is up to.

Well, some soldiers capture the ones posing as peasants, then go and talk to the main group of heroes. The main group says, “Well, I guess we’ll have to kill those poor peasants who inadvertently passed by and discovered we have an army here.” It’s supposed to be dramatic irony, I believe. The protagonists nearly end up killing one another through a cruel twist of fate. (The group posing as peasants avoid death, however, for reasons I can’t quite remember.)

Anyway, I put the book down shortly after. I didn’t remember the scene I’d read until writing this particular one. Why wouldn’t Vasher just kill Lightsong, thereby ending the war?

Because that’s not a good solution. It’s a shortsighted one. If you do terrible things in the name of trying to do what is right, I think you’ll just end up creating bigger problems. Vasher couldn’t have killed Lightsong, not and remain the man he wants to be. He knows this, I think. Even a man with the reputation of Lightsong is not someone you can kill just because he’s inconvenient to you. Not if you want your conscience to go untarnished.

And if innocent peasants happen to spy your good-guy army, there are much better actions to take than deciding to execute them in the name of the greater good. You do that, and you stop being heroes. (That’s not necessarily a book killer. It’s only one if you expect me to keep on reading and still consider your characters heroic.)

Nightblood and Vasher Interact as He Sneaks into the God King’s Palace

Note that Nightblood is capable of more change than Vasher assumes. Vasher has a bit of a blind spot when it comes to Nightblood. He makes assumptions he wouldn’t make regarding other people or elements of Awakening. It’s hard for him to regard the sword without bias. If you want to know more about this, read the sequel. (Er, if I ever write it.) Which is tentatively named Nightblood.

Anyway, Nightblood is named for the smoke he leaks, and he originally had a different name when he was created. Vasher himself dubbed the sword Nightblood after he had used it to kill the woman he loved. The blackness that leaks out is actually corrupted and consumed Breaths, the ones that Nightblood leeches off anyone who draws him.

In this scene, there are some small hints of what it was like during the Manywar—with people Awakening ropes to toss boulders and things like that. It was a pretty dramatic conflict, the first one where Lifeless and Awakeners were put to a great deal of use in battle.

Go to the book.