From Lotus's journal

I am twelve years old. My age has been a burden to me since my father was assassinated while I hid in his wicker chest, two weeks after my eighth birthday. Too young to fight, to help, to take his place. I fought to be allowed to start school two years early (smaller than any of my classmates), did two years' work in each year, and I am just twelve while my classmates are nearly eighteen. Twelve, and small for my age, but I fight as well as a man. In my martial arts classes, I rank alongside young men of nineteen and twenty.

The sword work is new; I've only gotten tall enough to swing even a short sword in the last year. But I am a good fighter. It comes easily, naturally, even when I'm sparring with opponents who have six inches and a hundred pounds on me.

The point to sparring, War Savant said, was to ingrain the skills into your body, until you can react to threat without thought.

I am twelve years old, and tonight I killed my first man.

He swung at me, and I reacted without thinking, meeting his blade with my own, twisting it out of his hands, the fatal blow to his neck, exactly as I'd practiced dozens, hundreds, thousands of times. This time, though, my blade was sharp and I didn't pull my swing. Grey Waterfall nodded at me, like he was proud.

Mostly I felt sick.

And later on, I dropped a man with a kick to the head. It was so easy, so very easy. Just like I'd practiced.

Maybe I am anathema, after all. How else could I become a killer so easily?