Taryn was alone when the darkness fell.

She had been kneeling over something – she'd already forgotten what – when everything around her turned black and formless. It was strange. And if she could think that, she reasoned, then this must not be a dream. But she couldn’t remember how she’d gotten to this place or what she’d been doing there. She remembered most of what her parents had told her earlier that day. At least, she thought it had been earlier that day. And she remembered going to bed, but she didn’t remember waking. It was strange. That meant this wasn’t – Taryn shook herself to free her mind from its thought loop.

Maybe she’d gone blind? No. She could see herself when she looked down. And that didn’t explain why the last thing she remembered was going to bed. Taryn stood, hoping she could find someone to explain what was happening. That’s when she realized she was alone.

It was not like when she played alone in her room while Nayt napped in the next room and her parents busied themselves with chores. Not like when she escaped the cabin to read quietly at the pond. There wasn’t a mind within range of her abilities. There was neither sound nor scent to betray the presence of anything beyond her abilities to detect. She was all that existed in this strange world and that scared her.

Taryn spun, frantic, searching for something – anything – other than the blackness that screamed silence at her. And then – yes! An orange dot no bigger than a star. She started for it – calmly, at first. Until she felt her movements weighed down by some invisible force and urged herself to hurry. She was sure that if she slowed or stopped, even for a second, she wouldn’t be able to move again. As she rushed, something – branches, she thought – scratched her cheeks and snagged on her clothes. In the darkness she tripped over thick roots she wasn’t entirely sure even existed and fell onto a dirt floor that she could hardly feel.

Her arm stung. She could see blood oozing from a fresh cut but she could not see the rock that had cut it. She couldn’t find it when she felt for it on the ground. But her arm stung. The cut ached when she pressed against it. The blood was warm. This injury was real. And despite her earlier assurance that this was not a dream, her pain solidified that truth. Taryn told herself not to panic. Panic would not save her. If saving was what she needed, she would have to save herself.

But try as she might, she could not shake the fear. It held her, forced her to her feet, and drew her more urgently to the light; now as big as an apple seed. And the more she looked at it, the more afraid she became. It was an empathetic fear, she realized. And it worried her that she could feel it so powerfully from so far away.

The closer she got, the stronger the fear, the larger the light grew; from seed to fruit to a melon-sized orb. Then it split off, back into seeds. Dozens of orange dots, each emanating fear or anger, suspended in disbelief or on the brink of panic. Taryn urged herself to run faster.

She was several yards away from the edge of the circle of lights when she stopped running. She couldn’t take another step. Something blocked her path. She studied the lights up close. They were small fires; little candle flames glowing meekly in the darkness, huddled in a circular mass, surrounded by a few gray shadows that were almost invisible against the black.

Before Taryn could think of a way past the invisible barricade, she saw one of the shadows move, fast as the wind, quiet as a breath. Some of the flames in its path flickered violently and Taryn felt a responding soreness and tingling in her arms and along her ribs. Empathetic pain. She shook and rubbed them out.

Another movement made her glance up again. But she was too late to see the shadow, too late to stop it. One of the flames flickered and flared erratically. Something in her mind told her it convulsed. Then it died. Taryn stood, frozen, as she felt the sharp pain of its passing, like a needle in her chest. It stopped her heart and she gasped. When her heart pulsed again it did so with a dull ache that refreshed itself with every beat.

In fury, Taryn focused her mind on the shadows – there were three of them – and stomped into her stance as she swung her arms out to sweep the shadows away. Nothing happened. She tried again with a stronger stance and three jabbing punches. Again, her abilities failed her. As she stared at her hands in confusion, she felt a second needle in her chest, then a third. The sharp pains of their final moments drove her to her knees but she never lost sight of them. She watched the two wisps of smoke rise, disappearing into the darkness. Some of the other flames flared in righteous anger but were forced to seethe in silence by the shadowy sentries.

Taryn counted five seconds. It was all the time she allowed herself to succumb to the pain and fear so she could mourn the loss of the flames and bemoan her failure to save them. Then she let the anger take her. She let it bring her back to her feet and force her to think productively.

Her pain wasn’t real. Her suffering – a pale imitation. She didn’t have to succumb to it. Her abilities weren’t working, but she could fight in other ways. She stepped back to find a way around the invisible barrier.

That’s when one of the shadows saw her.

It was on her in less than half a breath; coils of dark, swirling smoke trapped in a human shape dominated her vision before she could blink. Taryn leaned away. Her hand came up in reflex; whether to grab it or push it she didn’t know. It didn’t matter. She had hardly decided when her hand was forced down against her side. She had hardly shifted her stance when her feet met resistance.

At the shadow’s command, the darkness around her took shape in tendrils reaching out from under and behind her. They felt like a cool liquid against her skin but they wrapped around her like a rusted vise. She tried to pull away but it snaked up her legs and coiled around her arms. Her resistances tipped her over. She fell on her side, into the amorphous darkness that now felt as hard as stone. The collision jarred her bones and in her moment of shock the darkness sprouted fingers to hold her pinned to the floor. She was forced to watch as more of the flames were snuffed out, their smoky remains rising to oblivion.

The needles in her chest had obliterated her heart and now punctured her neck, her limps, her joints. Taryn cried against the pain. She thrashed, she screamed. But she was lost; she could not move and her willing was not yet strong enough. Her teeth did not force the darkness back. Her shouts did not distract the shadows. But still she struggled.

Until finally, she managed to free an arm.

With it she grabbed the foot of the shadow standing over her. She pulled it out and the shadow fell. The darkness abated. She drove her elbow into the shadow’s chest. The darkness released her. The other two shadows were on her now. They tried to recall the darkness but she leapt at them. She slammed her fist into one face, her foot into another. The first shadow rose to face her. She kicked ribs, she pummeled legs, she twisted arms, and she pushed.

Her moving had returned to her and she used it against the shadows. While they busied themselves with her, the flames behind her escaped. Taryn smiled. She could save them. She fought harder. She would save them.

She never noticed the fourth shadow. It approached her from behind and laid a hand on her head. Its touch was fire and ice. Its fingertips resting lightly on her scalp felt like the sharpest metal spikes drilling deep into her skull. The pain pierced her and drained all the fight from her.

That’s when she screamed.

* * * * *

Taryn burned her throat dry and the sound of her anguished shriek vibrated through her whole body. She clutched at her head but the pain was already gone. Someone grabbed her hands and touched her face. A warm, soothing hand. Taryn fell silent, still. She opened her eyes. She wasn’t surrounded by darkness, with shadows looming over her as small flames went out around her. She was safe, curled up in her mother’s arms, in her room at the cabin. It had all been a dream.

Taryn grinned, then laughed. She’d been so terrified and the pains had all felt so real but it was all just a dream. She should have known it when her abilities failed – that was a common element of her nightmares. And the last bit, just before the fourth shadow attacked – her combat skills were always exaggerated in her dreams but they motivated her to strive for excellence in her training.

Her parents stared, confused.

“I’m sorry.” Taryn pressed her lips together to stifle her chortles.

“Are you alright?” Papa asked. He stood over them, tense.

Taryn nodded. “It was just a bad dream – or a good one, considering.” Taryn liked the outrageous stories her mind told her while she slept. In them she could befriend animals and play the games she watched the normal children play. She lived out adventures where she didn’t have to hide her abilities and where she was always – mostly – welcomed as a hero. She thought it was especially clever that this one had went so far as to try to convince her that she wasn’t dreaming – wicked, but still clever.

“You’ve been screaming for the past five minutes,” Mama said. “We couldn’t wake you.”

“Oh.” Taryn noticed her mother’s tears, gleaming in the night’s light. The sight freed her from her amusement. She reached up to wipe them away. “I’m sorry. But I’m fine, honest. It was just a dream.”

Papa sighed and sat on the bed next to them and Taryn knew how bad her screams were; bad enough to worry even him. “What did you dream about?”

“It was dark and I was afraid because I couldn’t feel anyone nearby. I felt lonely. Then, I couldn’t move, even though people were dying and I could feel them and it hurt really bad.” Taryn yawned. She hadn’t forgotten about the flames and shadows. But claiming they were people would spare her from staying up for the next hour describing every little detail and having to listening to her mother explain and try to divine a meaning behind Taryn’s sleeping thoughts. Some mutant dreams were important, her mother believed. But Taryn was exhausted.

“But when I tried to help them, I was caught and trapped and I panicked. Then someone attacked me from behind and I woke up and the most amazing parents in all the kingdom were fretting over me.” Taryn finished with a groggy grin.

“It sounded like you were being tortured,” her father persisted.

Taryn shrugged. “It felt real. At one point, I fell and cut my arm but” – Taryn ran a hand along both her arms; there was no injury. She showed them. – “nothing. It was just a dream.”

“Why didn’t you share Nayt’s dream?” Mama asked.

Taryn groaned, and blinked herself awake. “I don’t always share his dreams.” They had been coming to her every night in recent months. Some nights she would dream her parent’s dreams as well but on rare occasions – maybe less than a dozen times in the past year – she’d dream her own. A few months ago she’d dream she’d joined the First on his adventures as a warrior princess on a mission to rescue her royal parents; that had been a good dream. “Last month I dreamed I’d been cut at the knees and elbows.” She remembered that day she’d strayed too close to the elder Smith. “I bled for hours and when I didn’t die I had to figure out how to get around on four stubs.” That had been a bad dream – even though those amputations hadn’t been nearly as painful as the needles in her chest.

Taryn hugged her mother and kissed her cheek. She moved off her mother’s lap and kissed her father’s baldness before finding her covers. “You have my thanks, gentle Madam, kind Sir, for swiftly rushing to my aid. But I no longer require your services,” Taryn said in her best imitation of a haughty noble.

Her father tickled her until she screamed and her mother smiled. But he left, wishing her sweet dreams, and she lingered.

“Maybe I should stay,” she offered. “Until you’ve fallen asleep.”

“Alright,” Taryn said. She was too tired to argue and wasn’t up for being tucked in besides. It was too reminiscent of the darkness’s shroud and she didn’t want it to incite a recurrence. Better if her mother wrapped her while she slept. “But I promise there won’t be any more screaming tonight.”

The words had hardly passed through her lips when Nayt bellowed from the adjoining room.

* * * * *

Her father had already disappeared into the room and before her mother even thought to move, Taryn was up and after him. She reached out with her mind to touch her brother’s and staggered to a halt in the doorway.

There was her father, a hand reaching into Nayt’s crib in a perfunctory effort to comfort. Taryn felt his irritation over the night’s second disturbance. And there was Nayt, crying ceaselessly. From hunger? Or pain? Or fear? Taryn didn’t know. She felt nothing from him.

Her mother moved past her and lifted the squalling infant from under his father’s inquiring expression. She set about soothing him, rocking him and drawing her fingers in circles on his back. She murmured sweet nothings into his ear but none of this calmed him.

“Something is wrong.” Of that Taryn was certain. She was no longer tired – her brother’s scream had shocked her into full wakefulness – so that couldn’t be it. But she hadn’t sensed his cry’s approach. She knew her father wanted to get back to sleep. She could hear her mother silent musings on what new horrors the night would bring. Her abilities had not failed her so there was no reason she shouldn’t be able to feel her brother. “Something is wrong,” Taryn repeated, loudly to be heard over Nayt.

“What do you mean?” Papa asked, suddenly alert.

“What’s wrong with him?” Mama asked as she sat and rocked Nayt in her lap. He pressed his face into her chest and dug his nails into her arms.

Taryn shook her head. “I don’t know.” Taryn slowly stepped into the room. Maybe, she thought, it would help if she were closer. Maybe then she’d feel him. But no; even though only inches separated them… “I… I can’t feel him.” She looked up at her mother, teary eyed. “I can’t hear him anymore.”

“Try,” Mama said, and turned the boy to face her.

Taryn bit her lip as she watched Nayt twist away from her. She’d never tried to read a mind. It had always just happened; she didn’t know how to force it.

“Taryn,” Mama said, wrestling Nayt still. “Try,” she said again.

So Taryn tried. She pressed her palms into his soft cheeks. Still nothing.

She searched for his eyes, but they were closed. His hands scratched at hers as he tried to jerk his face from her grip. “Nayt,” Taryn said. She felt him settle at her voice. His cries diminished to whimpers when he saw her. “Show me. Please.”

Taryn didn’t know if he understood her, but she felt something, a fleeting plea, a terrified cry for help. And she felt something else; something like a wall that stood between his mind and hers. Taryn pressed her forehead to his, determined to get through it. It hurt. Her head ached and throbbed but she pushed further. She felt shaken and compressed, like she was slamming herself through a hole that didn’t exist. There was an urge to pull back but Nayt was inching closer; she didn’t want her efforts to be wasted.

She didn’t know how long she stayed like this. But eventually an image flickered across her mind. It was her face, lined with pain and obvious discomfort, her teeth were bared and her eyes were shut tight. But she was seeing herself in Nayt’s mind. She’d succeeded.

She felt his concern over her, saw his hand reach out to squeeze her cheek. She was too deep in her brother’s mind to feel the pressure on her face. From where she was it felt like the brush of a feather. But her head still ached. She felt that, along with a pressure all around her. That ‘wall’ that had tried so hard to keep her out seemed to be reaching back to pull her away. She didn’t have much fight left.

She was about to ask about his cries when her face flickered and shifted into another’s, and Nayt snatched his hand away.

Her skin lightened to a pale yellow-brown and her face grew larger to be replaced by the strong features of a young man’s. The colors of his eyes shifted between green and brown. His lips were stretched into a smile. Friendly, harmless.

Then another flicker and his expression changed. His smile distorted into an angry scowl with a long scar appearing across the left side of his face. It was a hideous mark, starting just above his eye socket (for his eye was gone) and ending at his chin. It looked like a savage beast had tried to rip his face off and she saw it happen in reverse. First the scar, aged and healed, with a dark, empty socked where the eye had been. Then a wound, glistening with ointment, leaking pus and scabbing at the edges. Finally – pink flesh, white bone, and blood; pouring like a fountain and drenching his face, leaking from behind the fingers of the hand held up to keep his face in one piece.

The scowl turned into a growl. His dark eyebrows slanted, furrowing his brow and betraying an uncontrollable fury. This was the face of terror and Taryn stared, paralyzed.

It was Nayt’s mind. Taryn knew that. These were his thoughts and she was just a silent and invisible spectator, she tried to assure herself. But this man, this thought, was looking at her. It saw her there, watching him. She felt him. And knew that he wanted to hurt her.

His hand, stained with blood and dirt, shot toward her. It punched through her chest and ripped at her innards like a serrated blade as it twisted through to erupt from her back. Taryn recoiled from her brother’s mind and pulled her hands away from his face. She collapsed onto the floor, her cries and screams adding to her brother’s renewed wails.

The pain in her chest was still there. Her heart raced, her lungs struggled for every breath and she could still see him – that scarred face – standing over her, reaching into her chest, playing with her insides.

When she shut her eyes and tried to will him away she saw the flame of a torch floating above her. It fell upon her and she felt something grab her hands. She fought it but it was strong and easily pinned her skinny arms beside her head. She kicked but her legs were just as readily restrained.

“Taryn,” she heard her father yell through her thrashing. “Hold!”

Taryn froze. She was terrified and confused as to whether or not she was still dreaming. But when her father told her to hold, she held.

“Open your eyes.”

Taryn didn’t want to open her eyes; the flame still hovered, casting waves of heat on her face. She still felt the hole in her chest, the pressures on her limbs. She could still hear Nayt crying.

Wake up, she told herself.

“Open your eyes,” her father repeated, “and look at me.”

She did. And her lungs caught.

Breathe, she told herself.

She did. And she blinked, and she blinked again and again. But the flame was still there, raging behind her father’s forehead. Taryn looked away, to her mother and Nayt. Two more flames.

Wake up, she told herself again.

Her father shook her. She snapped her attention back to him, back to his flame. He shook her again and she noticed his lips were moving.

Listen, she told herself.

“…ear me? Don’t move. Do you understand? Taryn,” – another shake – “do you understand me? I’m going to let you up.”

Taryn nodded. He rose and her legs were free. He held his hands up and she used hers to crawl away from him, her eyes trained on his flame.

“Are you alright?”

“I don’t know,” Taryn confessed. If she focused on him – his eyes or his lips – the light of the flame didn’t bother her so much. But why was she seeing them in the first place?

“What did you see in there?” He pointed a thumb at Nayt.

“Nayt!” Taryn remembered. She forced herself up and into the midst of those flames. There was no hole in her chest. The pain of it was already going for her. But if was real for Nayt… “He’s hurt.” Taryn pressed a hand to his chest. “Somebody hurt him right here.”

“Who?” Her father moved to the window to inspect the forest around the cabin. “Can you still feel them now?”

“He isn’t hurt,” her mother said. “I’ve already checked. Taryn, are you sure?”

Taryn kept her eyes on her brother’s chest. She couldn’t look at any of their faces without thinking about that dream. Some mutant dreams were more than dreams and she didn’t want to think about the moving shadows and dying flames. “Yes, I’m sure,” Taryn said. “And I don’t know who the man was but he had an ugly scar on his face and his eye kept changing from green to brown and back again. He hurt Nayt.”

“Changing eyes? Taryn, was this a dream?” Her father turned away from the window to fix Taryn with an incredulous look.

“Maybe,” Taryn said, thinking.

“Taryn, was that man in this room or not?”

“No.” They could have been anywhere or nowhere if it were a dream. Taryn wiped tears and mucus from her face. “But I felt him. And he saw me. And he hurt Nayt.”

“Taryn, love, you aren’t making any sense.”

“He was a mutant,” Taryn said, as if that explained it all. “He sent Nayt that hideous dream and used it to hurt him.” The more she thought about it, the more plausible it seemed to her, plausible enough for her to decide that it had to be true. Pirate-face wasn’t part of a nightmare; he was a real, living person; a mutant who had somehow reached into Nayt’s mind and telepathically inflicted the pain not on his physical body but on a deeper and more inner part of him. “That’s why it was so hard for me to read Nayt. He was in my way.”

“Taryn, that’s not possible,” Mama said. “Mutants can’t put things into other people’s minds, they can only take.”

“But I felt it,” Taryn persisted, taking another wipe at her runny nose and swaying on her feet. She grasped at the sheets on the bed to steady herself. Feeling lightheaded, she sat down. On the floor, though, not next to her mother on the bed. She couldn’t stand being so close to the flame. “Maybe he’s a different kind of mutant too. One who could do things that no one else can.” Though she didn’t know why he’d want to hurt her brother. “What?” Taryn looked up sharply. Her parents were staring at her, radiating a shocked disbelief. “What is it?”

“Your nose,” Papa said. “It’s bleeding.”

“Wha– ” Taryn stopped in the middle of another wipe to inspect what it was that covered her skin. Blood; even in the dark it was unmistakable. A few thoughts passed through her mind: that this was how her body chose to manage her copious amounts of secarin; that she was dying; that Pirate-face had managed to do this to her; that she was wrong on all counts and that her parents knew what it meant for her nose to bleed this way. “What does this mean?”

Somberly, her mother explained. “With mutants, a nosebleed usually means you have tried to move something beyond your abilities. Or, as a telepath, you have tried to penetrate the consciousness of one more powerful than you are.”

“Pirate-face!” Having her theory confirmed didn’t make Taryn feel better.

“Don’t jump to any conclusions, little monkey. You were exhausted and you know nothing of controlling your reading. It could be just as likely that you made a mistake.”

“It was him,” Taryn said with conviction. It was also likely that Pirate-face was responsible for her own nightmare, that he was the fourth shadow and had sent her these waking visions of flames to torment her. But Taryn didn’t care about why he’d done it. She was going to learn how he’d done it. If there wasn’t some way to protect her baby brother from his mental attacks, she was going to strike back. “Don’t cry, Nayt. I won’t let him hurt you again. I promise.”

And a Sil-Tain always keeps her promises.

* * * * *

Taryn’s mother woke her in the middle of the day; noonish, if the heat in the room was any indication. But the girl woke feeling refreshed, the events of the night temporarily forgotten. The sight of her mother, though – flame floating squarely between her eyes – brought it all back and diffused her drowsy bliss. It was even more unsettling to look at in the daylight. Closing her eyes to it only made it stand out and looking away was little help – she knew it would be there when she looked back.

“How is he?” Mama asked.

Taryn and her parents had spent the better part of an hour trying to soothe Nayt back to peace and had succeeded with dancing petals and breastmilk. Taryn had wanted to be nearby in case Pirate-face tried another attack and had been reluctant to leave him. She was glad, now, to see that her parents hadn’t moved her back to her room when she’d fallen asleep but she was hesitant to plunge into Nayt’s mind.

Luckily, the choice had been taken from her. Pirate-face’s wall had lifted. Hearing her brother’s thoughts and knowing his feelings were as easy as they had always been and Taryn almost convinced herself that it was only the grogginess and exhaustion of the night before that had hindered her. Almost.

“He’s calmer,” Taryn answered. “But he still hurts a little.”

“Did he dream again?”

Taryn forced herself to smile. “Mashed potatoes and dancing petals.”

“That’s good.” Her mother was pleased. Taryn didn’t have the heart to tell her of the whittled toys come to life, with shifting green and brown eyes, that they had destroyed the potato houses and feasted while Nayt cried over being left out with only the dancing petals to console him.

“How are you managing?” Mama asked. “You don’t need to go into the village today if you don’t want to.” Her mother wiped at the grit in Taryn’s eyes. “I know you don’t want to leave your brother.”

“I’m fine.” Taryn pushed her mother’s hand away. “But can we take Nayt with us? Maybe we could take him to see Mr. Sark.”

“If there is nothing physically wrong with him then there is nothing a physician can do. If he’s feeling better, the pain should go away on its own. He’ll have completely forgotten about it in a few days.”

“But we have to do something. What if… do you remember the first night I spent tied to my bed? I was afraid I would need to go but couldn’t. I ended up dreaming about it and woke up in a wet bed. What if it’s like that? What if something really is wrong inside him and it turned into a nightmare?”

Her mother didn’t believe her. (How could a nine-month-old conjure up the images she’d described to them?) But she wanted to. They both did. “Okay, I’ll get him ready. But we will leave in half an hour so don’t spend too much time on breakfast.”

“You mean lunch.” Taryn rubbed Nayt’s back as he slept.

“I mean nothing if you don’t hurry up and get yourself ready to go.”

“Alright,” Taryn drawled. She smiled at her mother’s annoyance then kissed her brother’s ear before whispering to him: “Vrim gala sou shee noe.”