Page 116 (1/2)

Outside, the sun rose into the sky The heat was incredible, like an oven Cries of pain echoed from deep within the cavern behind Sazed Koloss were inside

"She'll come," Sazed whispered

He could see Elend's body It had fallen back down the pile of koloss corpses It was stark, bright white and red against the black and blue of the koloss and ash

"Vin will come," Sazed said insistently

Demoux looked dazed Too an to h they didn't have the direction or frenzy they'd displayed before

"The Hero will co appeared, as if from mists, then slumped down in the bodies beside Elend's corpse It was followed iure, which also fellout of the cavern He dashed past several koloss They tried to swing for him, but Sazed wore his metalminds He felt he should have his copper iht during the siege of Luthadel, for he knew that he ed the koloss attacks Hekoloss, cli up to the scrap of white cloak thatplace His corpse was there, headless

A s Vin by the shoulders Beside her, atop the pile of dead koloss, lay another body It was that of a nored it

For Vin was notfor a pulse There was none Her eyes were closed She looked peaceful, but very, very dead

"This can not be!" he yelled, shaking her body again Several koloss lulanced upward The sun was rising It was getting hard to breathe for the heat He felt his skin burning By the time the sun reached its zenith, it would likely be so hot the land would burn

"Is this how it ends?" he screamed toward the sky "Your Hero is dead! Ruin's power may be broken, the koloss may be lost to him as an army, but the world will still die!"

The ash had killed the plants The sun would burn away anything that remained There was no food Sazed blinked out tears, but they dried on his face

"This is how you leave us?" he whispered

And then, he felt sohtly Not froor, no It was connected to so The twists of ht He could just barely see it

He reached out and touched the mist, and felt an awesome power A power of stability To the side, the other corpse--the one he didn't recognize--was also leaking so A deep black s the smoke, and felt a different power--e

He knelt, stunned, between the bodies And, only then, did it start to ender-neutral, he thought So that they could refer to either a man or a woman, we assumed Orperhaps because they referred to a Hero asn't really either one?

He stood up The sun's power overhead felt insignificant compared to the twin--yet opposite--powers that surrounded him

The Hero would be rejected of his people, Sazed thought Yet, he would save the, but would becoain

Is this what you planned all along?

He tasted of the power, but drew back, daunted How could he use such a thing? He was just a limpse of forces that he touched, he knew that he'd have no hope of using it He didn't have the training

"I can't do this," he said through cracked lips, reaching to the sky "I don't kno I cannot make the world as it was--I never saw it If I take this power, I will do as the Lord Ruler did, and will onlyI am simply aThe heat was terrible, and around Sazed, trees began to pop and burst into flames His touch on the twin powers kept him alive, he knew, but he did not embrace the to the sky

His arolden His copperht of the sun They had been with hie

Knowledge

The words of the prophecy were very precise, he thought suddenly They saythey say that the Hero will bear the future of the world on his arms