After twenty years in the frontier lands known as the Roughs, Waxillium Ladrian, a rare Twinborn who can push on metals with his Allomancy and use Feruchemy to become lighter or heavier at will, has been forced by a family tragedy to return to Elendel and take over as the head of a noble house where he learns that the city can be even more dangerous than the plains of the Roughs.