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The schoolbus won’t arrive for some time yet. Bored, the girl skims the newspaper.
The Avatar, the cover story announces, is recuperating after an attempt on her life by a previously unknown terrorist cell. An ancient monastery has fallen in a harrowing battle. There have been many injuries and several deaths.
Accompanying the article, the face of the only member of the cell's inner circle taken alive. Craggy, defiant, unfamiliar but somehow not. The girl wonders if she’s seen him before, but dismisses that as silly—he’d been incarcerated since before she was born.
She’s twelve now. Gangly, awkward, too tall; her father’s height already, and—if an increasingly ravenous appetite and the sleeves of her school uniform coat falling short of her bony wrists are any indication—still growing. It’ll be summer when she turns thirteen; the flames she can call into being seem to emphasize that.
Nonetheless, her earliest memory is one of bone-crushing cold.
She’d asked her parents, once, about the people who’d brought her into the world. They hadn’t been told names—only that they were better off not knowing.
The girl supposes the same holds true for her. But still, she can’t help but wonder.