Slowly, flames curled about Kaindell's hand, weaving between her fingers and casting light over her shadowed form. Large eyes which would normally be a soft gray were hard black, as though her pupils had expanded past their limits.

The flames in her hand gained resolution, becoming more controlled, forming a rough lizard-like shape.

"Yes," she whispered to the salamander, which lifted its head to regard her solemnly. It blinked at her, eyes like tiny pinpricks of sunlight. She leaned close to the elemental, her shimmering ebony hair slipping over her shoulder like a waterfall. She let it fall where it wanted--since it would anyhow. Against her pale skin, the dark strands looked like streaks of paint.

"What are you doing?" came an incredulous voice from behind her.

Kaindell's head snapped up, her pupils suddenly contracting. The creature of fire on her palm vanished into smoke, and she gave a small cry of pain. It had burned her before leaving.

Holding her singed hand against her chest, nursing the small wound as well as her irritation, she turned grudgingly to face her sister. At a casual glance, the two girls did not appear related. Kaindell, with her midnight hair, was a stark contrast to the light blond, green-eyed Tsaiya. Aside from that obvious difference, however, their common lineage was apparent in their facial structure, the way they laughed, the bond they shared.

But at this moment Kaindell was irritated with her sister.

"Gods, Tsaiya. Don't interrupt my concentration like that when I'm dealing with something that could burn the place down around us!"

"That's not the point! You shouldn't be practicing that anyhow, and you know it!" Tsaiya folded her arms, looking stern.

Kaindell groaned and sat back, exasperated. "Mother just said not to do it in the house--I'm not!" She gestured to the hay bales, gardening and harvesting tools around them.

"The barn is hardly the preferred place to summon a fire elemental. What if you'd lost control of it?"

"I did lose control," she replied stiffly, aware of her mistake. "But I wouldn't have if you hadn't interrupted me. And I wouldn't need to hide in the barn if Mother would allow me to practice."

"You admit that you have to hide!" Tsaiya pointed out, her pale green eyes flashing.

Kaindell readied a retort but then sighed, letting it die on her lips, abruptly saddened. "She just doesn't like the thought of necromancy," she said quietly.

Her sister's expression abruptly softened as well, having tasted the same experience. "I know. She didn't expect a gifted daughter--especially not with such a powerful, rare gift."

Kaindell chuckled. "And then you came along and showed an even less well-known gift. We've never been normal children, either of us, and I suppose Mother resents that a little. On my sixth birthday I summoned a ghoul. . . . And on yours, you Saw that earthquake coming."

The strange gifts the girls controlled were whispered about in the nearby town, undercurrents of gossip that were never really spoken of in the open, only behind firmly closed doors in the shadowy hours of the night. That was the main reason their family lived some distance from the village, where fearful glances could not reach. The villagers tried to pretend that the Nai'tor family didn't exist, a group of people so unpredictable that they were pariahs. This isolation was nothing more than a pity to Kaindell and her sister, but often a cruelty to their parents, who had grown up in crowded places and missed having many cheerful friends. They all had adjusted, but there were times when it put a strain on their family.

"I feel sometimes like I missed out on my childhood," Tsaiya said sadly.

"You're only seventeen," Kaindell replied to that. "As for me, I feel as if you were born my big sister, rather than the younger by a year!"

Tsaiya shrugged, and then her expression turned to one of interest. "How did you do that, anyhow? Summon a salamander? You're no pyromancer."

Kaindell grinned, eager to explain. "It took me days to do it properly. I realized that, though elementals are essentially permanent, they must be destroyed occasionally--like if a water sprite doused a salamander, say? And where would that salamander then go?"

Tapping the back of her left hand with her right, Tsaiya said, "To the Outworld!"

"Right, and then I can summon it back. I think, though, that when you startled me, it left for the netherworld again. Otherwise it probably would have burned the barn down, but being so long in the Outworld made it tired and easy to guide. I could probably fool most anyone into thinking I'm a fire mage with this trick."

"Anyone but a real fire mage, eh? Well, I don't see a use for it, but it is handy to know. The--" Tsaiya halted, gasping in a deep breath. Her entire body went rigid, as though some force was roughly pulling at her from all directions, and she threw her head back, eyes wide open--but milky white.

Kaindell leapt up and swiftly crossed the few feet between them, recognizing what was happening and wrapping her sister in comforting arms.

Tsaiya stared at nothing in this world, seeing only the river of time flowing about her, bright with images of the future. She was caught in an eddy and it swirled tightly, showing her pain and suffering so soon to come. A vision of their house, darkness, and shadows moving about like black flames. Frantic, she swam back to Now and jumped, returning to the barn which she'd never really left.

"Gods--" she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut. "Oh, it hurts--there's--death, fire--ohh," she sighed, collapsing into her sister's arms, dragging herself fully into the living world again. She shivered and opened her eyes, clear, pale blue in color. Combined with her fine, light hair, she often appeared washed out and delicate. Kaindell always felt protective of her, as though she might break.

"What happened, Tsai?" the dark-haired girl asked, her voice soft but firm.

"Will happen--our house, there's things coming, they're going to kill us. I felt . . . I felt my own death," she managed with a shudder. It had been her strongest vision ever, and the most awful.

A chill wormed its way into Kaindell's heart and settled there. "When?" she asked hoarsely.

"Soon," the younger girl replied and shivered. "So soon. We have to warn Father and Mother!" Urgently, she pulled away, tugging her sister along.

Kaindell couldn't think, only follow, as they dashed across to the house. Overhead, the autumn sun shone, but to her the day seemed suddenly darkened.

As they reached the door, she stiffened and caught her sister's shirt. She could sense a darkness, a spot of life-yet-not-life, a feeling she was attuned to. "Something's there," she said, fearful. "An Outworlder. We can't--it's already there, we need to hide!"

"But we have to warn them," Tsaiya protested. She broke away and ran to the window, carefully peering inside. Her mother Tayn was making lunch and humming, while Sholl, her father, fixed the leg of a chair. "I see them," she said. "But I don't see anything else." She opened her mouth to continue, to suggest they go in, but before she could speak a gray mass oozed out of her mother's shadow and encircled the woman, twining itself about her neck.

Scared by her sister's frozen silence, Kaindell joined her at the window, watching the kitchen inside.

Sholl cried out and dropped the chair, then picked up a hammer and rushed to his wife, who was covered in the shadow-thing.

Eyes widened, Kaindell cried, "Dad, no!"

He didn't hear and swung the hammer at the black mass surrounding Tayn. But the tool met with no resistance and his momentum continued until there was a dull thud of steel against flesh. Their mother, already weakened by the shade consuming her life, turned a bewildered look on her husband and crumpled.

Kaindell felt with a shock the passage of her mother's spirit from this world to the Outworld, automatically reaching but unable to grasp it. She felt Tayn's essence give her a mental touch, like a last caress, but then she slipped away and was gone.

Her father bent over with a strangled sob as though he'd been hit as well, tenderly brushing the hair away from Tayn's forehead. Oblivious to the danger, he forgot the shade until it shifted its attention to him, a new source of life, and wrapped itself around Sholl with seeming tenderness belied by the pain that flashed across his face before a spasm threw him to the floor.

Flushed with anger and grief, Kaindell, necromancer by birth, threw the door to her house open and strode in. She had no training, no idea how to deal with this threat, but what she lacked in experience she compensated for in instinct and strength backed by the will of rage.

Her eyes blacker than midnight, she reached for the shade with hands forged from power. "Get away from him," she ordered, grasping its small mind and pulling. The shade gave an unearthly shriek and struggled to resist, writhing around the man it held.

Kaindell pulled harder, meeting with unexpected resistance. She felt the shade stretch and finally snap, then let it drop. It dissipated into the shadows, leaving the house a little brighter. Or maybe that was an illusion from the tears shimmering in her vision.

She crouched by her father's side, shifting him so that he could lie more comfortably. He was limp, and so light, she feared he had gone, too.

"Kaindell," he whispered, and her heart leapt with relief--he was alive. He shuddered slightly, lacking the energy for any move more violent. "Hurts," he gasped.

"Quiet," she told him, scanning him visually and probing him with her senses. She was sensitized to death, and he bore too many marks of it.

She glanced back to his face. He was looking at her sadly, unflinchingly staring into her black eyes. "No good, is't?" he mumbled.

"No, we can fix it, we can do something, I'm sure," she babbled, then bit her lip and looked down at her hands resting on his chest, moving up and down so slightly. "It had you for too long, and it was holding you when I--when I broke it," she said softly. "Daddy, I'm sorry, I don't know what to do."

He struggled to lift his hand but was too weak, so she took it between her own. He felt so cold, like marble in winter, a statue of pain. "You'll be . . . fine," he said, wheezing the words out. "Y'mom an' I taught you girls to--take care of y'selves. Didn't expect this, but. . . ." Sholl trailed off and squeezed his daughter's hand, a bare motion of his muscles, nearly imperceptible.

"I don't want you to go!" Kaindell whispered, unable to speak any louder. She felt her lower lip tremble, knowing that his words were a farewell.

"S'alright," he said. "Has t'be like this. Just make it . . . easy on us both?" His words slurred together, but he tried to pronounce these clearly.

"I can't!" she exclaimed, rocking back on her heels, knowing what he meant. "You can't ask me to do that!"

"Hurts t'much," he whispered. "M'dying a'ready. Make it faster." This last was more urgent, his eyes pleading more eloquently than his voice.

Kaindell was silent for a long time, then drew in a shaky breath. She softly agreed, "All right." With one quick motion, she scratched the back of her hand with a fingernail, refusing to flinch at the sting. Blood seeped from the scratch; not much, but enough. "Just look into my eyes. . . ." She placed a hand on either side of his head and drew power into herself, letting it quest into her father's body until it found the place where his spirit was joined. As soft as silk, she slipped into that place, severing the bond and guiding him away with every ounce of her love for him.

"Goodbye, Father."

She walked outside in a daze, turning to face her sister who was huddled next to the door.

Tsaiya's eyes flashed with unshed tears, and though she straightened in subconscious hope, her voice wavered as she spoke. "They're gone?"

"Yes," responded her sister, head bowed with grief.

Tsaiya collapsed to her knees, tears streaming down her face. "No," she said brokenly, disbelief and shock on her face. "They can't be."

Kaindell still held the power, her eyes swirling with black storm clouds, feeling the Outworld all around her. "They can't be," she said, repeating her sister's words. "Can't be." The other world pressed close, as if comforting, and she seemed to slide away.

Shadows wrapped themselves around her, tried to carry her away, drifting to a place that was cold but so welcome, free from grief, free from sorrow--she was pulled along, every second taking her farther away, to something so solid, so real. . . .

"So dark," said Kaindell as if from a great distance. Tsaiya lifted her head, realizing that something else was wrong--something more than their parents' deaths. She blinked a few times, clearing her eyes of tears, and reached out to brush a hand across her sister's face.

Her skin was ice. Black eyes indicated that she was seeing the Outworld, but Tsaiya, suddenly in a panic, knew that there was more to it.

"Kaindell!" She grasped her sister's shoulders and shook. "No! Don't leave me!"

"So easy," the necromancer said, but now her distant voice also had a quality of worry.

"Please, no!" sobbed Tsaiya. "I can't lose all of you--don't leave me, too!"

Kaindell struggled in the grips of shadows, all of them trying to drag her away, but could gain no purchase--suddenly she saw a light, bright but wavering, and she took that to herself. With the light as her guide, she willed herself away, back Inworld.

Suddenly she shivered convulsively, squeezing her eyes shut. When she reopened them, they were silvery gray. She tilted her head to stare at her sister.

"I thought I lost you," Tsaiya said, now wrapping her arms around herself and hugging tightly.

"Gods," said Kaindell, shocked and still so cold, as her blood began to run again. "I think--you nearly did. The Outworld. . . . I tried to lose myself in it."

"Don't leave me," Tsaiya said firmly, but a strand of despair clung to her voice.

"I won't," her sister responded, gray eyes seeming to quiver as they filled with tears.

The two hugged, not really understanding what had just happened, but aware that all they had was each other, now.

Finally, both decided at once to save the tears for later, and they broke apart, the responsibilities and truth of the real world weighing them down.

"We need to do something for them--do you think--should we go find someone in the town?" Tsaiya's voice had a hard, cold quality to it as she distanced herself from emotions, knowing she had to take care of things still.

"No, we can do it ourselves. They never wanted us in their lives before, so why should we ask for help now?"

They walked through the house, stepping lightly on the wooden floors as if any noise would awaken the grief lying in wait for both of them. The situation seemed surreal to Kaindell, as though the people lying on the floor were strangers, and the hands closing their eyes belonged to someone else, not her. Before starting work, they found a shovel and heavy gloves, then went to their backyard to begin.

The two girls worked in silence, trading the shovel between them as each grew tired. The thud of every dirt clod thrown from the hole disrupted the soft tranquility of their backyard, one shovelful at a time. After about an hour, they stared at a sizable hole in the ground, haunted by the emptiness which would soon claim their family.

"We need to do this properly," Kaindell said as if from far away, slipping into the role of leader. She was the one with the most experience in death, after all. Why, then, did she feel so afraid?

Tsaiya went inside and returned with the blanket from their parents' bed, a quilt Tayn had worked on for a winter, lovingly placing every vibrant patch. The colors often clashed, blues laid next to oranges next to purples, but as a whole the quilt was a beautiful work. As a whole, it had balance.

They laid this in the grave, as a barrier against the earth. Next they worked to bring their parents out, struggling with the weight but determined to do it themselves, sharing the burden only with each other.

After what seemed an age, Tayn and Sholl rested in the grave with the quilt folded around them like a cocoon. Kaindell wished that it was indeed a cocoon--that they were merely resting and soon would be born anew. But she, of all people, knew better. Thoughts and memories of the dark, unyielding cold of the Outworld flitted through her mind, but she tried to ignore them, to concentrate on the task at hand.

They threw dirt back down into the grave until the hole was completely filled, and then each girl placed symbols of their favorite memories on top. A flower was Tsaiya's memento, for the many days spent gardening with their mother. Kaindell found a rock she'd saved from a trip to the nearby lake, soft and smooth from years of slow waves.

They stood staring down at the paltry offerings, when suddenly a shriek sounded behind them. A quick black flash swooped past, snatching at Tsaiya as it came.

She fell back with a cry, the thing still attached to her, clinging to her left arm with sharp talons.

It looked like a huge bat, its forelimbs modified into wings, but Kaindell recognized it immediately. It was a gauntling, one of the undead that could be summoned for small tasks, such as delivering a message.

This message was obviously destructive. The gauntling struggled to disengage its talons from Tsaiya's arm, tearing further, until finally it freed itself and flapped away from the girl. She scrambled back, fear apparent in her eyes.

It gathered itself to stoop again, but Kaindell would have none of that. "Damn you," she growled, gathering all her anger and grief and strength to back her power. She did not stop to consider whether her accidental foray into the Outworld would affect her strength now; her actions were mostly reflex.

She grabbed for the gauntling, a move so unexpected it did not try to dodge, and grasped its wings. Before it could realize the situation and strive to escape, she took her raw power and formed it into a blade, which she drove against the simplistic bond that held the creature to this world. It collapsed without even a shudder, and she let it fall into a pile at her feet.

Releasing the power with shock, Kaindell took a step back, looking at the lifeless creature that had attacked them. She hadn't known she had such strength, hadn't meant to be so brutal. She hadn't even needed to draw blood.

She hadn't had such strength. Her near loss in the Outworld must have somehow increased her power. Kaindell shivered, frightened anew.

Tsaiya groaned from where she sat, cradling her arm. Her sister knelt by her, concerned, to help her up and lead her into the house.

"I'm all right," the younger girl said after a short moment, taking in a deep breath and biting her lip against the pain. She was silent as they tended to her wound, which bled continuously from deep furrows--luckily, though, she needed no stitches.

Kaindell frowned, examining the skin, which looked gray and somehow frayed. "This looks infected," she said worriedly.

"Already?"

"It was the gauntling--they probably have a weak curse to spread death through their touch."

"Death!" Tsaiya stiffened, her eyes wide.

"Not like that," her sister soothed, realizing that she shouldn't have brought death up. "Weak death--just an infection. I can probably banish some of the damage, but it'll keep coming back until the wound fully heals." She closed her eyes and wrapped her fingers around Tsaiya's arm, questing through the tissues and pushing the taint of death away. After a few minutes, the gashes still bled, but they looked cleaner. She wrapped a bandage snugly and looped the ends under with an ease that spoke of how many bandages she'd prepared before.

Glancing up, she met her sister's gaze. Tsaiya's mouth twitched as though she tried to smile and failed, sorrow in her expression. "They're after us, Kaindell. I don't think we can stay here."

The admission was painful to hear, but they both recognized it as the truth. Obviously something had sent the shade, and then the gauntling to make sure the job had been done--likely the task assigned to that creature had been merely to spy on the area. "No, we can't stay. I don't have the power to protect us right now, and . . . what is there for us here, anyway? Which way do we go?"

Tsaiya concentrated, sending tendrils of power into the river that was always present around her, around everyone, and her pupils swirled with white as though she were blind. The truth, though, was that she Saw more than anyone could know. "East," she decided. "I can't force a vision, but I just feel that there's something we need to do east of here." As Tsaiya deferred readily to Kaindell's experience with her wound and their parents' burial, Kaindell nodded to her sister and accepted the younger girl's instincts.

The girls hurriedly prepared a couple of bags, taking food, water, clothes, and other supplies. Sadly, Kaindell packed extra bandages, hoping the precaution would be unnecessary. What a change their lives had taken.

In all too short a time, they shouldered their packs and stood outside the house for a last look at the place where they'd grown up.

"We won't forget you," Tsaiya murmured as her vision shimmered with unshed tears, feeling the words inadequate. There was no proper way to say goodbye to their home, to the only place they'd known. Or to their parents, who'd cared for them for years only to be lost in an hour.

It seemed unfair that they could not follow tradition and mourn properly, but instead must depart for an unknown destination, chased by an unseen enemy. An observer would only see the apparent callousness with which the girls dealt with their parents, not knowing the terrible despair both held off by sheer will. Faced with a choice of staying to grieve and being killed, or running away, numb, but living--they chose the latter.

Kaindell and Tsaiya ran off quickly, along the road to the east, through the village though their neighbors stared. Ignoring them, they moved into the forest and traveled doggedly until it got dark.

"We should rest," said Kaindell, breathing deeply of the night air--clean, without any hint of the death that stalked them. "Tomorrow we'll think of something to do. But we're far enough away from home now that they probably won't find us."

Her younger sister voiced her agreement and they set about making camp, finally collapsing on their bedrolls next to each other. The price of holding guilt and despair away from their conscious minds was physical and mental exhaustion, and as they lay staring at dark trees bending over them, their defenses fell.

Tsaiya shook with her silent sobs, clutching the bedroll tightly with her good hand, squeezing her eyes shut.

"Are you all right?" Kaindell whispered, her voice thick.

"No," her sister said, shaking her head with small jerks. "I can't believe it. . . . But it hurts so much," she moaned, pressing her right forearm against her eyes.

Kaindell took her sister in her arms, and they both wept, casting their salty tears on their pillows. Eventually, weary and depleted of energy, sleep took them from their grief.