The Bands of Mourning: A Mistborn Novel

In the Terris Village, young Waxillium struggles to belong while insisting on his own sense of right and wrong; when he discovers Forch torturing a child, he defeats him with a desperate, newly inventive use of Allomancy and declares he will find his own way. Twenty-eight years later, now a seasoned lawman, Wax calmly overcomes a gang in a mist-shrouded hideout but leaves the arrests to the constables so he can get to his own wedding, carrying the chapter’s shift from painful self-discovery to wry, hard-earned confidence.

On the morning of his wedding, Wax rushes from a raid to meet Steris at the Survivorist church, carrying grief over Lessie and doubts about whether he is ready to marry again. He chooses to proceed, but refuses a new request from Harmony’s messenger, whose arrival stirs painful memories of betrayal. As the ceremony begins beneath the church’s glass dome, a water tower suddenly topples toward it, and Wax launches himself and Steris away as water crashes through the roof.

After the church’s roof gives way and floods Wax and Steris’s wedding, the drenched couple face the postponement with rueful honesty: Steris accepts the chaos and Wax reassures her, though he cannot fully answer her doubts about his feelings. Across the street, Marasi discovers Wayne arranged the sabotage to stop the wedding, but refuses his encouragement to pursue Wax and insists she has moved on. Their uneasy banter turns serious when a kandra arrives and asks Marasi what she knows about Investiture and Identity.

After his wedding collapses, Wax returns to his mansion and finds Wayne, Marasi, and the kandra VenDell waiting with a proposal: help investigate the Bands of Mourning and recover a missing spike from the wounded kandra ReLuur. As VenDell explains how Identity might unlock the Metallic Arts, Wax resists the mission, still raw from his losses and wary of being drawn into another hunt connected to Lessie. But an image from ReLuur’s expedition reveals Wax’s long-lost sister, Telsin, being held captive, abruptly turning the tense, scholarly gathering into a deeply personal mystery.

As Wax reluctantly agrees to travel to New Seran to investigate his uncle and find his sister, Wayne slips away on a private quest: to make a farewell offering to Ranette. Through comic mischief across Elendel’s canals and streets, he gives her a stolen notebook and manages a tender, awkward goodbye, accepting that wanting someone does not make a relationship possible. He reunites with Wax, Marasi, and Steris at the station and rides toward New Seran, facing forward as Elendel recedes behind him.

As Wax and Steris travel by train through the green, increasingly populated Basin, an angry protest against Elendel’s control of trade prompts Steris to explain the outer cities’ grievances and Wax to confront his own political complacency. Their conversation shifts from duty and the practical terms of their marriage to a tentative intimacy: Wax apologizes for treating their future as a contract and uses Ranette’s hooked sphere to explain how boundaries can make freedom possible. Steris’s enthusiasm for investigating a tiny discrepancy in the household accounts draws Wax into her world, ending the journey’s quiet, awkward warmth on a note of shared curiosity.

On a night train, Marasi studies ReLuur’s frightening sketch of a horned, eyeless creature and the Lord Mistborn’s notes on Hemalurgy, searching for clues to the missing spike while wrestling with her feeling of being overshadowed by Wax. Wayne offers his eccentric, half-relevant comfort, and Marasi later finds a protective earring Wax left for her before discovering him and Steris absorbed in a petty accounting mystery. As the train slows and the cars seem to separate, a gunman appears at the far end of Marasi’s corridor and fires, ending the chapter on sudden danger.

When armed robbers uncouple Wax and his companions’ private car from a speeding train, Wax fights his way through the train and races to reconnect it, then discovers the thieves are attacking a payroll courier car with deadly force and Allomantic help. Marasi protects passengers while Steris reveals she has quietly prepared for danger, but the chapter turns sharply when Wax’s steel reserves mysteriously vanish and, during a desperate rooftop fight above a river, Steris fires Ranette’s punishing shotgun and is hurled over the train’s edge.

Wax rescues Steris from the river, and her exhilaration at the danger softens their banter as they rejoin the moving train. He stops a bandit from controlling the engine, then races across the train to disable a dynamite device and confront the remaining attackers; meanwhile, Marasi tends wounded passengers and discovers a strange metal cube. The chapter ends with Wax finding the bandits frozen inside Marasi’s speed bubble, bringing their separate efforts together amid the train’s violence and urgency.

After a train robbery leaves passengers dead and wounded, Wax searches anxiously for Wayne and MeLaan, only to find them together, safe and oblivious in a hidden compartment. The group discovers the bandits’ leader used a mysterious cube that suppressed Wax’s Allomancy, hinting the robbery may connect to their mission; they choose to continue toward New Seran rather than pursue the gang. Amid the disrupted journey, Wax offers Steris quiet understanding about feeling out of place, and their closeness deepens as the damaged train gives way to a freight ride south.

Wax and his companions arrive in the breathtaking, waterfall-tiered city of New Seran, where he and Marasi soar to the upper terraces before finding a sign that his old enemy Ape Manton has struck again. Wax refuses to be distracted from rescuing his uncle, while Marasi challenges his anger and plans to search for a stolen spike; at their hotel, the exhausted crew’s eccentric preparations and banter lighten the tension as they divide their next tasks.

Wax and Steris arrive at a politically charged gathering in New Seran, where Steris’s careful preparations and Wax’s wary instincts frame their search for clues about the Bands of Mourning. Meanwhile, Wayne and Marasi investigate cemetery workers’ bank records, discovering widespread theft from the dead; Marasi’s calm, unconventional solution is to hire the culprits rather than arrest them. The chapter shifts between elegant social tension and comic, morally murky detective work, revealing the partners’ contrasting methods and growing ease with one another.

At a glittering New Seran party, Wax struggles with society’s rules as he and Steris probe Lord Gave, discover a mysterious coin tied to ReLuur’s findings, and learn that Gave’s interest in archaeology may conceal something. An unexpected scholar’s questions about Wax’s Allomantic abilities deepen his suspicions, while Steris steadies him and helps him pursue an informant. Meanwhile, Marasi and Wayne enter a mist-shrouded cemetery, where Wayne’s disguises and streetwise improvisation win the gravekeeper’s help in opening a grave that may hold the kandra’s remains.

At a New Seran society party, Wax presses informant Devlin about a mysterious coin and learns of a secret building project, political unrest, and a looming civil war; he then deliberately unsettles Lady Kelesina, hoping she will lead him toward Suit. Steris improvises a spectacular distraction by making herself vomit, while elsewhere Marasi reflects on Vin’s legendary reputation as Wayne and a gravedigger excavate a pauper’s grave—until Wayne hurls Marasi into it as gunfire erupts.

In a mist-shrouded graveyard, Marasi and Wayne survive an ambush by using Wayne’s speed bubbles and a dynamite distraction, then uncover a ledger pointing to one more lead. At a reception in New Seran, Wax and Steris fake an illness to slip away and search for Wax’s missing sister; their quiet conversation reveals his regret over losing touch with Telsin, while Steris proves her resourcefulness and resolve to accompany him. The chapter moves between tense action and intimate reflection, with both investigations pressing forward.

Wayne impersonates Death to terrify Templeton Fig into revealing that a stolen spike was sent to Dulsing, while Marasi recognizes the settlement as a possible lead. At a party, Wax overhears Kelesina and his uncle Edwarn discussing the Set’s schemes to distract him, recover a mysterious device, and threaten Elendel; when Wax confronts them, Edwarn has vanished, leaving only the device behind.

Wax’s confrontation with Suit’s plot turns deadly when Kelesina is murdered and Wax is framed, forcing him and Steris to fight their way out of New Seran with MeLaan’s help. Amid their escape, Wax and Steris share a tender kiss above the city’s mist-covered skyline, but the chapter’s warmth gives way to Wax’s anger at Harmony and his struggle over whether to return to Elendel or pursue the conspiracy. He ultimately leads the group toward Dulsing, choosing investigation over the path Suit appears to have laid out for him.

As Wax, Marasi, Wayne, MeLaan, and Steris travel toward Dulsing, a strange cube proves able to amplify an Allomancer’s power, while a gold bracelet reveals a potent, unkeyed metalmind—evidence that the Set may be developing dangerous new technology. The group discovers Dulsing sealed behind a soldier-guarded perimeter and infiltrates a vast construction building, where they find a damaged, enormous warship being secretly repaired; Wax and Marasi split up to investigate while Wayne helps them enter. The journey’s adventurous camaraderie gives way to wary suspense, as Wax’s questions about the Bands and the Set’s ambitions grow more urgent.

Inside the Set’s warehouse, Marasi and MeLaan infiltrate the strange crashed ship searching for a Hemalurgic spike, while Wax and Wayne climb the scaffolding to find Wax’s uncle. Their parallel searches reveal Professor Irich’s desperate pursuit of a life-saving miracle and lead Wax to discover his sister Telsin imprisoned in the warehouse; though he is ready to charge in, Wayne persuades him to try a disguise instead. The chapter’s tense, shadowed stealth is tempered by the friends’ banter and Irich’s painful awareness of his failing body.

While Marasi and MeLaan infiltrate the warehouse to recover a stolen spike, they discover a masked, terrified survivor imprisoned beside evidence of a massacre—and realize he may come from beyond the Basin. Marasi frees him despite MeLaan’s doubts, while Wayne distracts the guards and Wax reaches Telsin, whose reunion is cut short when she shoots an intruder. The chapter shifts from tense stealth and comic misdirection to horror and compassion, ending with gunfire erupting as the rescue turns dangerous.

Wax and Wayne fight through a warehouse full of soldiers and trained Allomancers to rescue Telsin and reunite with Marasi and MeLaan, but Marasi is shot and Wayne is repeatedly wounded. As the group retreats into the strange ship, their masked guide leads them to a concealed escape craft, where medallions grant them the ability to become lighter; Wax’s curiosity persists even amid the danger. The chapter’s desperate, violent flight shifts toward uncertain escape, ending as the small boat detaches and rises into the air.

Wax helps launch the captured airship and reunites with Steris, while Telsin warns that their uncle is pursuing a weapon powerful enough to dominate the Basin. As Marasi recovers from her wound, she and Wax learn from Allik that the southern people survived the Catacendre with the Sovereign’s medallions—and that the Sovereign was likely the Lord Ruler, who left the Bands of Mourning in a hidden mountain temple. Grief for Allik’s lost crew and the revelation of a world beyond their own turn the escape into a race to reach the temple before Suit.

As the skimmer carries Marasi, Allik, and the others south into the Seran Range, Allik shares stories of his people, their masks, and the mysterious Bands of Mourning. His grief over his lost crewmates gives way to a fragile resolve to recover them, while Marasi promises help despite the political complications their technology and the relics may bring. Near the mountains, Allik warns that the temple may have been destroyed, and the group spots a light ahead—evidence that Suit’s expedition may be nearby.

Wayne and the others spot the expedition pursuing them, then crash-land in a brutal snowstorm beside an ancient fortress said to hold the Sovereign’s Bands. The discovery of a spiked statue, murals, and frozen corpses reveals the site’s history of betrayal, while Wax pieces together what happened to the Hunters and Telsin insists on pressing onward. With MeLaan absorbing the lethal traps, the group begins its dangerous descent into the temple; Wayne’s irreverent humor offers a wry counterpoint to the bleak, ominous setting.

While Marasi keeps watch with Wayne and Steris at the snowbound temple, she reflects on justice and discovers a new, daring passion beneath Steris’s careful exterior: her love for Waxillium. Their quiet conversation turns tense when Wayne spots an approaching figure carrying a parley flag. Inside the temple, Wax guides a battered MeLaan through its ingenious traps and questions the purpose of the Bands’ elaborate protection, while Telsin confides her doubts about adulthood and legacy; then Wayne arrives with the startling news that Suit has reached the entrance and surrendered himself for a talk.

Wax’s uncle Edwarn arrives with an armed force and bargains his way into the temple, offering the knowledge needed to open its sealed door. Though Wax distrusts him and keeps him at gunpoint, the group crosses the trap-filled passage and enters the hidden chamber—only to find the relic stolen, leaving their tense alliance overshadowed by defeat and suspicion.

In the temple’s throne room, Wax realizes the Bands of Mourning were taken long ago—then discovers his sister Telsin and Uncle Edwarn are working with the Set. The ambush leaves Wax wounded and trapped in a pit, Wayne fleeing, and MeLaan stripped of her Hemalurgic spikes, while Marasi and the others are taken prisoner. Amid shock and grief, Marasi resolves to find a way out.

Wounded and trapped beneath the temple, Wax discovers a hidden chamber of frozen dead and bracers that seem to be the Bands of Mourning, while Edwarn reveals his ambitions and triggers a ceiling collapse. Outside, Telsin strips Marasi, Steris, and Allik of their medallions and claims the temple’s airship; Wayne reaches Wax, but cannot free him, as Marasi begins to see through the bracers’ deception. In his final moments, Wax realizes the real Bands are hidden here, then dies with Wayne at his side.

As Wayne struggles through grief and hatred beneath the temple, Marasi realizes the supposed spearhead is the hidden Bands of Mourning and unleashes their immense power. Wax meets Harmony in the afterlife, confronting his guilt and the burden of choosing duty, then returns to life when Marasi uses the Bands to save him. Marasi recognizes that wielding such power is not who she wants to be, while Wax accepts his own path and prepares to act; the chapter’s grief and cosmic uncertainty turn toward renewed purpose.

Suit seizes the airship and believes its power will let him bring the Set to rule, while Allik arrives with medallions and weapons to help Jordis’s freezing crew fight back. Armed with the Bands, Wax confronts Suit aboard the ship, rejects his uncle’s invitation to kill him in a duel, and ultimately defeats him by taking the risk of a fall that could save others. As the battle on the snowy plateau turns against the Set, Wayne kills Telsin and helps restore MeLaan’s mind, closing the chapter on battered allies reunited in the aftermath.

As Waxillium brings the rogue airship down safely, Marasi reflects on the darkness she has glimpsed in her companions and accepts that she has chosen a different path. Steris brokers a tense agreement with Captain Jordis: the Southerners may take their ship in exchange for the promise of trade, while the Bands of Mourning are entrusted to MeLaan. At the frozen temple, Wax and Marasi discover Telsin’s body and skimmer are gone; the uneasy relief of victory gives way to the knowledge that the hunt is not over.

As the airship approaches Elendel, Wax and Wayne reflect on guilt, fairness, and the choices that bind them, while Wax shares a quiet moment of gratitude with Steris. The ship’s arrival introduces the city to the wider world, and the group parts from Allik and the Southlanders on warm, hopeful terms. In the penthouse, Wax asks Steris to marry him for love rather than obligation; her tearful acceptance closes the chapter on an intimate note of renewal.

In the aftermath of the conspiracy, Marasi investigates rumors of Trell and red-eyed visitors while Suit’s confidence in the Set’s power ends in a fatal betrayal: the Immortals decide to destroy civilization and detonate a bomb in his cell. In the tower penthouse, Wax wakes beside Steris, savoring their new beginning, then discovers a coin that opens a memory of a ruined, freezing world and a scarred traveler who whispers, “Survive.”