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I don't know why Kwaan betrayed me. Even still, this event haunts my thoughts. He was the one who discovered me; he was the Terris philosopher who first called me the Hero of Ages. It seems ironically surreal that now - after his long struggle to convince his colleagues - he is the only major Terris holy man to preach against my reign.
'''Chapter 16:'''
Many think that my journey started in Khlennium that great city of wonder. They forget that I was no king when my quest began. Far from it.
I think it would do men well to remember that this task was not begun by emperors, priests, prophets, or generals. It didn't start in Khlennium or Kordel, not did it come from the great nations to the east or or the fiery empire of the West.
It began in a small, unimportant town whose name would mean nothing to you. It began with a youth, the son of a blacksmith, who was unremarkable in every way - except, perhaps, in his ability to get into trouble.
It began with me.
'''Chapter 17:'''
Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I'd remained there, in that lazy village of my birth. I'd have become a smith, like my father. Perhaps I'd have a family, sons of my own.
Perhaps someone else would have come to carry this terrible burden. Someone who could bear it far better than I. Someone who deserved to be a hero.
'''Chapter 18:'''
You could say that circumstances forced me to leave my home behind - certainly, if I had stayed, I would now be dead. During those days - running without knowing why, carrying a burden I didn't understand - I assumed that I would lose myself in Khlennium and seek a life of indistinction.
I am slowly coming to understand that anonymity, like so many other things, has already been lost to me forever.
'''Chapter 19:'''
Kwaan and I met by happenstance - though, I suppose, he would use the word "providence."
I have met many other Terris philosophers since that day. They are, every one, men of great wisdom and ponderous sagaciousness. men with n almost palpable importance.
Not so Kwaan. In a way, he is as unlikely a prophet as I am a hero. He never had an air of ceremonious wisdom - nor was he even a religious scholar. When we first met, he was studying one of his ridiculous interests in the great Khlenni library - I believe he was trying to determine whether or not trees could think.
That he should be the one who finally discovered the great Hero of Terris prophecy is a matter that would cause me to laugh, had events turned out just a little differently.
'''Chapter 20:'''
It isn't a shadow.
This dark thing that follows me, the thing that only I can see - It isn't really a shadow. It's blackish and translucent, but it doesn't have a shadowlike solid outline. It's insubstantial - wispy and formless. Like it's made out of a dark fog.
Or mist, perhaps.
'''Chapter 21:'''
"The Hero of Ages shall be not a man, but a force. No nation may claim him, no woman shall keep him, and no king may slay him. He shall belong to none, not even himself."
'''Chapter 22:'''
At first, there were those who didn't think the Deepness was a serious danger, at least not to them. However, it brought with it a blight that I have seen infect nearly every part of the land. Armies are useless before it. Great cities are laid low by its power. Crops fail, and the land dies.
This is the thing I fight. This is the monster I must defeat. I fear that I have taken too long. Already, so much destruction has occurred that I fear for mankind's survival.
Is this truly the end of the world, as many of the philosophers predict?
[[Category:Epigraphs]][[Category:Mistborn]]
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