Mistborn #03 The Hero of Ages

held up a hand. "I'm just trying to do what you told me, Vin—I'm trying to be realistic. However, I agree that Fadrex will be worth the effort. Even if the atium isn't there, we need the supplies in that store. We need to know what the Lord Ruler left us."
    Vin nodded. She herself no longer had any atium. She'd burned up their last bit a year and a half ago, and she'd never gotten used to how exposed she felt without it. Electrum softened that fear somewhat, but not completely.
    Voices sounded from the other end of the cavern, and Elend turned. "I should go speak to them," he said. "We're going to have to organize things in here quickly."
    "Have you told them yet that we're going to have to move them back to Luthadel?"
    Elend shook his head. "They won't like it," he said. "They're becoming independent, as I always hoped they would."
    "It has to be done, Elend," Vin said. "This city is well outside our defensive perimeter. Plus, they can't have more than a few hours of mistless daylight left this far out. Their crops are already doomed."
    Elend nodded, but he continued to stare out into the darkness. "I come, I seize control of their city, take their treasure, then force them to abandon their homes. And from here we go to Fadrex to conquer another."
    "Elend—"
    He held up a hand. "I know, Vin. It must be done." He turned, leaving the lantern and walking toward the doorway. As he did, his posture straightened, and his face became more firm.
    Vin turned back to the plate, rereading the Lord Ruler's words. On a different plate, much like this one, Sazed had found the words of Kwaan, the long-dead Terrisman who had changed the world by claiming to have found the Hero of Ages. Kwaan had left his words as a confession of his errors, warning that some kind of force was working to change the histories and religions of mankind. He'd worried that the force was suborning the Terris religion in order to cause a "Hero" to come to the North and release it.
    That was exactly what Vin had done. She'd called herself hero, and had released the enemy—all the while thinking that she was sacrificing her own needs for the good of the world.
    She ran her fingers across the large plate.
    We have to do more than just fight wars! she thought, angry at the Lord Ruler. If you knew so much, why didn't you leave us more than this? A few maps in scattered halls filled with supplies? A couple of paragraphs, telling us about metals that are of barely any use? What good is a cave full of food when we have an entire empire to feed!
    Vin stopped. Her fingers—made far more sensitive by the tin she was burning to help her eyesight in the dark cavern—brushed against grooves in the plate's surface. She knelt, leaning close, to find a short inscription carved in the metal, at the bottom, the letters much smaller than the ones up above.
    Be careful what you speak, it read. It can hear what you say. It can read what you write. Only your thoughts are safe .
    Vin shivered.
    Only your thoughts are safe .
    What had the Lord Ruler learned in his moments of transcendence? What things had he kept in his mind forever, never writing them down for fear of revealing his knowledge, always expecting that he would eventually be the one who took the power when it came again? Had he, perhaps, planned to use that power to destroy the thing that Vin had released?
    You have doomed yourselves . . . . The Lord Ruler's last words, spoken right before Vin had thrust the spear through his heart. He'd known. Even then—before the mists had started coming during the day, before she'd begun hearing the strange thumpings that led her to the Well of Ascension—even then, she'd worried.
    Be careful what you speak . . . only your thoughts are safe .
    I have to figure this out. I have to connect what we have, find the way to defeat—or outwit—this thing that I've loosed .
    And I can't talk this over with anyone, or it will know what I'm planning .

Rashek soon found a balance in the changes he made to the world—which was fortunate, for his power burned away quite quickly. Though the power he held seemed immense to him, it was truly only a tiny fraction of something much greater .
    Of course, he did end up naming himself the "Sliver of Infinity" in his religion. Perhaps he understood more than I give him credit for .
    Either way, we had him to thank for a world without flowers, where plants grew brown rather than green, and where people could survive in an environment where