My grandfather was gone for the rest of the week, and Mother didn't seem particularly unhappy about it.

"He can't take her," she would mumble to herself. "She is my daughter, and if he wants her power, he'll have to wait until she's old enough to choose." Father would lay a hand on her shoulder and reassure her, their fighting halting when they were faced with something neither wanted: a future where their daughter became a weapon.

Remember I didn't know any of this then. But I began to understand it afterwards, as all children eventually understand all the harsh realities that they didn't notice when they were growing up.My father was a LightningSifter. He wasn't from any Lord's families, but his family in Silvera was powerful nonetheless, politicians and merchants. My grandmother had been a relative of the Cathay Lords, back when the Silverians had more good will amongst Asriel, when we were starting to win a war because of our powers were very necessary. The valkyrie prisoners were very devoted to keeping silent. (Again, I knew none of this. If I had...), and their secrets were very valuable to the Archipelago.

The riots continued throughout the week, but I thought little about them. They were bangs in the night, days when her mother came home late and tired. I did not understand why they were happening, or why they were so serious. I did not understand how shaky our grip on Silvera was. If I had, Mother would have wiped all the pain away.

Secretly I was practicing my illusions. After my grandfather had showed me how to create them, I couldn't stop. The power was addictive and wonderful, and all my troubles could be easily wiped away by watching my dreams pass by me in waking hours.

I soon learnt to do what my grandfather did and influence my sleep. I could make myself sleepy if I ever lay awake at night, or wish away my nightmares.

I did not tell my mother what I was doing. I knew that she would only be angry, and I didn't want to be angry again. I persisted in believing that if I could just get a little better, if I could learn to make the illusions a little clearer, she would realise that I should learn. I thought that she would be proud of me for learning. All elven parents want their children to be powerful. Elven blood is essential: the more gifted your child, the easier they can climb the ranks of a society. Elves born poor could rise to marry Lords if they could add to the bloodline, and even if your child didn't climb society with the help of their gifts, they could easily create a career of a powerful, useful magic. Why didn't Mother want me to be good at MindWeaving?

As the days passed, my magic started to grow impatient. It had finally gotten a taste of real power with illusions, and it wanted more, just like Grandfather.

I was getting older, and more powerful, like any elven child does. My magic became insistent; if an elf doesn't use their abilities, their abilities will eventually use them. My mother had ignored this, tried to run away from it. But my magic started to want more, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop that.

For a powerful MindWeaver amongst a crowd, stopping yourself from slipping into minds is like walking on water. By day I kept afloat, but at night I fell into minds.

At first, someone's mind takes shape as some sort of landscape. That's what a MindWeaver sees, before they reach out for memories, emotions, thoughts.

For some people, that place is a garden, with memories tucked in the branches of trees, and emotions rippling in ponds. For others it's more orderly-a library of everything they've ever thought and seen and remembered. I've been inside mine. MindWeavers often do-these places are refuges for people like me.

I started falling into these places as I slept. At first I didn't understand what was going on-how could I? They seemed a lot like dreams at first, but when you reflected on them in your waking hours, you realised they were too vivid, too real. In the beginning I wandered these dream landscapes, playing in the gardens and libraries of thought. Some of them terrified them-dark mazes of twisted minds. Once I fell into the mind of someone who had gone insane, and I had gotten myself lost in a labyrinthine world of hallucinations and madness. Then I started looking closer into the minds, and I realised, slowly but surely, what they were. I reached out for memories without meaning to, and found myself wandering the corners of someone's existence. I pieced together flashes of their memories. I was young, then, my power still growing, so I couldn't reach much further from the palace, but I saw every corridor, every twisting street nearby.

I began to reach further out as my power developed, finally allowed to grow and stretch. My consciousness inevitably found its way into the minds of the rioters, and I began to understand so much more about the precarious nature of Silvera.

Every night, I would see the fear that seeped through their thoughts. I saw how it twisted into hatred, and I finally saw my parents through another's eyes.

An important thing to note: our minds are not particularly organised things. They lack system; they lack reason. Elves, valkyries and humans alike do not store things neatly and tidily. Our memories merge with our wishes and our regrets. Our emotions and our thoughts intertwine. Every memory is tinged with a different perspective. No mind is entirely accurate, but they are a treasure trove of information nonetheless.

One of the first memories I saw of my parents through another's eyes was then standing on a podium, giving a speech. The memory was tinged with hate and fear, enough that it changed the light of the memory. Light in memories is most easily tampered with. Warm, yellowish lighting can appear in scenes that were actually touched with cold, blue light.

The scene was cold and pale, and in the memory my parents' faces were cruel and sharp. My mother smiled; the memory twisted into a cold, mocking smirk. My mother made some speech, and the thoughts intertwined the memory screamed at her: liar! Liar!

A crackling fire breathed to life underneath the stage, and my mother screamed. A man in the audience, a FireBreather froze still under her piercing MindWeaver gaze. The fire flickered to nothing, the unwilling work of its creator. He went in chains to the palace, and the holder of the memory had tinted the scene with his rage.

I did not tell my mother about any of what I saw. The minds were usually more happy than the rioters', and I loved to explore the different nooks and crannies of a person's whole existence. Vaguely, I could feel threads in their minds that I knew I could pull, but I didn't see why. Later I would realise that I could have used mind control by fiddling with those threads.

It wasn't long before I began to explore minds in my waking hours as well. I slipped my way into the minds of classmates and found fear, like an electric shock, whenever they would turn to see me. I left those ones quickly; I didn't want to see their fear, their hate.

The Silver Guard and Court were more interesting minds for me to explore. Given they served the most powerful MindWeavers in the archipelago, they did not defend their minds. It was easy for me to enter them, a silent intruder. There I witnessed their dedication to my family, their worries for the city-state. I liked their minds best. They were the ones determined to save me, and a few even had a fondness for me, the little girl who they knew so long that they didn't really think much about the power crawling beneath her skin.

And how much power there was. Orion, Selene and I were the most gifted Lords and Ladies of our generation, the most gifted for centuries. Of course, I didn't know Orion and Selene then. Or Midas.

Eventually I grew bored with mind-reading and illusions. I wanted to do what Mother did-to soothe my fears, send myself to sleep, warm my frozen hands in the midst of a Silvera winter.

I experimented. I grew. I branched out, learning all the wonders and terrors my ability granted me. Mind-control remained unattempted and unwanted, but the other branches of MindWeaving flourished. I learnt to influence my mind into numbing pain and wiping away cold. Unconsciously, I placed shields against another mind slipping into mine. I made the most unwanted of vegetables taste like chocolate melting in my mouth, made unpleasant odours smell like fresh-baked bread and turned crippling weight into nothing at all. These kinds of things are dangerous of course. If you don't feel pain, hunger, cold or exhaustion than you can forget to tend to them. I almost frightened my parents to death one morning by pulling out a tooth just starting to wiggle without a hint of pain, even though there was blood in my mouth and the tooth was far from ready.

That was when my mother found out. I told her everything: how it started with illusions, and only gotten stronger, how I'd fallen into people's minds by accident and stayed by curiosity, how I had learnt everything from watching her and Grandfather. When I was done she was pale.

"Oh Vivienne, it's not your fault. I was a fool for thinking I could stop you learning," she said at last. "But you have to know that it's wrong to go into people's minds."

"I don't mean to!" I protested. "But when I go to sleep..."

"You have to try to stay out, Vivienne." My father said wearily. "That's all we ask. Now let's get some of the blood cleaned up..."

"Stop," rumbled a voice from outside the door. Grandfather. "Mariee, have you lost your mind? Did you listen to what Vivienne can do?"

"She's just a girl!" Mother shouted at him. "She's nine years old, Father. She's afraid, and she can't control it, and I don't want my daughter growing up to become your weapon."

"Vivienne is the future of a dynasty," Grandfather argued passionately. "She could change everything...no rioters would ever threaten the balance of Silvera with her at the helm. Daughter, Vivienne is the future. Not just for our dynasty. For the elven archipelago. With her, we can force the valkyries back."

"I. Don't. Care." Father growled and took Mother's hand. "Vivi is nine years old, Carlo. It doesn't matter what she can do. She is just a child."

"Hundreds of lives will be lost if this city-state falls!" Grandfather yelled. "Some of them will be children. Your precious girl will be among them, and so will we."

"That's not what it's about. Saving Silvera from insecurity is not what this is about. It's all about power."

"Vivienne's magic will consume her if we do not train her," Grandfather protested.

"You don't love her!" Father accused. "I do not care if you do not like me, old man, but Vivienne is your granddaughter."

No. I'm portraying my grandfather all wrong. He did love us: Mother and Father and I. He always did. He loved us more than power. Sometimes, though, he lost sight of things. He loved power very much, and sometimes he fought with us because of it. But he still loved us.

And he didn't enjoy killing people, wrenching into their minds and ripping them apart. No matter what they say, Grandfather wasn't a monster. He was just a man, with flaws and weaknesses but good things too.

"Of course I love her," he said weakly. "I love you too, Maurice. And I love you, Mariee. All I want is to keep you safe-to keep us all safe. To strength us-our dynasty. All I do is for you!"

"I know that, Father." My mother said wearily. "And all I do is for Vivi."

That ended the argument for a while, neither able to go on with a rift that broke them apart, but the same fight would go on and on, in the final weeks of the Silverian dynasty.