Since we're not told the name of Elspeth's father, I've called him Owyn..

Fire. I lay awake, listening uneasily to my bondmate's steady breathing, staring into the flames. The nightmare had awoken me, though now I could remember nothing of it, but that I was afraid of what it meant and that this was not the first time it had come to me. I shuddered, feeling the shadow of that dark dream across me, and prayed that it was not a truedream, for all it's feel.

Giving up on sleep, I rose, lighting a candle from the flames, treading quiety for Owyn's' sake - he might as well sleep, even if I could not.

Closest to our room was Jes, and I checked on him first. His face was serene in the candlelight, and stern, for all he was only eight years old - a younger version of Owyn. I smiled as he turned in his sleep. Jes was my firstborn, and all that a son should be - responsible, dependable, indeed how Owyn must have been when he was a child.

Closing the door, I walked down the corridor again, to the tiny room where my daughter slept.

Where Jes was  younger version of his father, then perhaps Elspeth was rather like me, forever running wild in the forest, immersed in her dreams as much in waking life as in sleep, and the difference between her and Jes was obvious in the smile that played around her mouth. On impulse, I sat down, reaching out to stroke her dark hair gently. She stirred, looking up at me for a moment through enormous green eyes, then closed them again, lapsing back into the sleep I had inadverdantly interrupted.

Continuing my walk, I entered the kitchen, which was by far the biggest room in the house, and fragrent with the scent of the healing herbs I hung to dry in it.

Selecting bunchs of herbs for an infusion, I crumbled the leaves into a pot, hanging it over the kitchen fire to heat, sitting on the hearth to warm myself.

The kettle began to boil, and I lifted it from the fire, pouring myself a cup, drinking it unsweetened. Outside, a bird warbled, heralding the approach of dawn, and I jumped, realising it must have been later than I thought.

Jes went with his father after firstmeal, off to learn planting for various seeds in our fields, and Elspeth came with me, hunting for the herbs that grew wild in the woods near our home.

Wiping my hands on my skirt, I pushed back my hair, realising Elspeth had dissapeared from my sight. Sighing, I sent out a farseeking probe to locate her. She was in no danger from other people out here, but she was only six years old, after all.

It took me next to no time to locate her - my Talents were resonanably stong, and a mind as strong as her's - far stronger than mine when she learned to control it - was easy to locate.

"Elspeth?" she was seated with her back to a tree, eyes closed.

"Elf?" I said, using the name Jes had given her. She opened her eyes, looking unsmilingly at me across the  space between us, for a second seeming much older than her years.

"Listening to the trees again?" She smiled, and the impression dissapeared.

"Come on - we have to get back." Rising, she took my free hand, pausing once every so often to exclaim over a bird or some woodland animal scurrying away  from us through the undergrowth.

That night I dreamed again, far more vivid than before. I dreamed of Jes, receiving the metal armband of a herder alycote, of him lying gasping, a soldierguard's arrow protuding from his chest. Then the vision changed, and I saw Elspeth, a child still, but her smiles dimmed, standing at the beginning of a dark road such as a person might find on the edge of the blacklands, now older, walking along it hestitantly, then older again, a few years younger than I now, striding along it with a dark horse and wild looking cat beside her, and a great horde of animals behind. I dreamed of warnings, and of danger ahead, and I dreamed of fire. Fire that burned and consumed, obscuring sight and destroying life, leaving nothing but screams, and I knew that it was I who screamed.

"Owyn!"

"Wha'?"

"We have to leave."

"What? Linna, what are you talking about - it's the middle of the night lass!"

"I don't care." I replied, rolling out of bed and lighting a candle. "We have to go."

"Where do we have to go?" He demanded, following me out.

"I don't know. To - to the moors, maybe. We can visit my parents. Or somewhere else. It doesn't matter where, just as long as we go."

"Don't you think people are going to be just a  little suspicious of us leaving in the middle of the night for no apparent reason?"

"So we don't let anyone see us." I retorted, he stared at me in the candlelight, his face clearly showing his confusion.

"Can I at least know why we're going?"
I sighed. "I had a dream."

"A dream? You're acting like this because of a dream? Are you feeling alright?"

"A truedream!" I snapped back at him. It wasn't as if he didn't know of truedreams, after all. He was a misfit, just as I as, as I had known in some way since our first meeting.

"A truedream." He repeated, sitting on the bed. "Are you sure - dreams can often feel like a truedream but never come to pass -"

"I'm sure. I've had it before, though never this vividly. All I know is that if we stay here something terrible - I don't know what - will happen. Perhaps it is already set in motion. We must leave, Owyn."

He rubbed his head tiredly. "Linna, it is but a few hours til morning. Surely this - departure can wait until dawn?"

I shook my head firmly, attempting to show him what I felt with my mind. It was difficult, for I had no empathy to show him my fear, and he none to receive it, coercer that he was.

So engrossed was I in showing him, and he in trying to understand, that neither of us heard the muffled sound of hooves on the track until the thud of someone at the kitchen door brought us both to attention. Whoever it was banged their fist against the door again, and I felt myself grow cold at their words.

"Open, by order of the Council!"

The nightmare had come true, and it was already too late. I heard the crash of the door as they kicked it open, running after Owyn, who tore open the door, demanding to know what they were doing, and the answer was as chilling as the cold eyes of he who spoke it.
"We are here to arrest you for Sedition." He gestured for the two soldierguards flanking him, and as more moved to take their place, they moved towards Owyn as I felt him ready his mind to attack them.

"No!" I sent, my mind voice a shriek. "You cannot - there are too many of them to fight and they will realise what we are  - that cannot happen!"

"They already intend to Burn us, Linna! We have too -"

"Show for all the Land that we are misfits and have Jes and Elspeth Burn with us or die at a councilfarm?" I asked, a question that was really no question at all. The soldierguards were between us and the doors to their rooms, leaving us no possible way for escape. I stood silent as they bound me, and, after more of a struggle, Owyn.

"Ma? Da - what's going on?" Jes emerged from his room, rubbing his eyes, and the captain gave a curt flick of his hand, as another soldierguard moved to grab him and bind his hands, and the last soldierguard appeared, Elspeth in his arms.

She cried out when she saw us, struggling to reach me, and I felt a hot surge of anger as the captain reached out and slapped her, and she began to cry.

"Keep your hands off my child!"

He smiled coldly at me. "People who have just been arrested would be wise to watch their mouth when speaking to a soldierguard captain." He hissed, voice low and sinister.

We rode to the soldierguard barracks in a rough carriage the jostled us about, bound as we were. Two soldierguards had taken Jes and Elspeth when we were shoved in, and I did not know where they had gone - they would have been put in the carriage if they were going with us, surely.

They placed us in a tiny cell, throwing in clothes after us, for which I was thankful - my nightdress was distinctly thin and chilly. I wondered where my children had been taken.

"I'm sorry, Linna. I should've listened."

I stood still for a moment, searching for composure. "There's nothing to be sorry for."

The large councilman's house in the centre of Rangorn doubled as a trial court, and this was where they took us that afternoon. I did not want to think about what had happened in the morning, the endless, endless questions and the long shallow cuts along both my arms. From the looks of him, Owyn had suffered more than I.

The councilman sat at the head of the room, sunlight glinting off his silver hair and beard.

"The charges before you are thus," he said without premamble. "That you, Owyn Gordie, have been an informant for Rebel groups operating in the cities, particully Sutrium, as well as harbouring Rebels, and thus that you are a Rebel yourself, - Sedition. You," and here he looked at me, "Linna Gordie, are accused with your bondmate of harbouring these dangerous Seditioners, and of practising the black arts, through the use of forbidden herb lore."

Herb lore? Who knew of that? I spied the two herders from the village cloister glaring at me from a table near him.

"I have already seen and heard the evidence against you, as have the representatives of the Faction," he waved towards them. "And you are here to receive my judgement. I understand no confession has been brought forth from either of you, but that is of little matter. For the charges of Sedition and the black arts, there can but one punishment. You will be Burnt on the morrow at dawn."

I hung my head, fighting to control my terror at his words - for all my bravado, I was afraid of dying, of the fire that had haunted my dreams. I saw Jes and Elspeth seated together near the back of the court. Jes was pale as death, and Elf, though too young to truly understand what was happing, clung to his hand, her face a mask of fear. The councilman followed my glance, and spoke again.

"The children will be sent to Sutrium, where they will be designated Ophans unless a relitive lays claim to them, and sent whence the council decides."

I didn't sleep that night - how could I, with death facing me with the dawn, and fire in my dreams?

Owyn tried to unlock the doors but there was no possible way to escape a prison set in the middle of a soldierguard barracks.

So I clung to Owyn, told him I loved him, fighting the tears that threatened - tears for my bondmate, who would feel the fire with me, tears for my children, and for the dark futures I dreamt of them, tears for myself and my fear. Towards the dawn I gave in, sobbing silently, Owyn's arms around me.

However much I might wish it not to, and far too soon came dawn.

I struggled when they came for us - we both did, but there were many more soldierguards than us, and they were strong and their ropes tight. As they bound me to the pole I looked up at a smudge of smoke on the horizen, realising with horror that it was our home burning, a twin flame to the one that would soon devour me.

A middle aged herder - one of the two that had been at our trial - came out, his eyes shining with zealotry and triumph.

He began to announce the charges against us to the crowd - some of whom I had once counted among my friends - as three more herders with soldierguards, the same ones as the day before, leading Jes and Elspeth, their faces stained red with herder dyes. Jes stopped dead at the sight of us, and Elspeth's eyes widened with horror.

"Mama!" she screamed, sounding as if her heart was being torn out. "Mama! Da!"

The herder finished his announcements and incantations, and I could the two soldieguards holding back my children as he reached for a burning torch, touching it to the kindling below.

Jes screams and yells joined Elspeth's now, both struggling madly, Elf's face streaming with tears that I could only be glad of, for they must have hid the sight of we two.

I coughed as smoke obsured my sight, crying out as I felt the flames lick at my heals, running along the hem of my dress.

"Mama! Da! Let them go let them go let them go!"

I screamed again, my eyes opening for a brief instant to see Jes wrap his arms around my screaming daughter, turn her face away with his, and felt myself plunge, as I so often had in my healing, downwards, but this time through my own mind, futher than I had ever gone before, seeming to float away from the pain and heat that engulfed me.

Linna ... I heard my name sung out, drawn towards the sound.

Linna ... There is was - the mindstream. I hesitated, close, so close to it, for an instant feeling the pain that had brought me here, and I shied from it, closer to the stream, my hesitation swept away as I allowed myself to sink down, away from the fear, and pain, and merged.