On my fifth birthday, I knocked out an assassin with a spinning kick.

My kick was flawless – ostentatious, maybe, but flawlessly executed. I aimed it at the back of the assassin’s knee, which was possible because she was turned away from me facing my baby brother’s crib. Despite my weakness as a child, I targeted it just right so that the assassin crumpled, hit her head on a post of the crib, and fell unconscious.

How, you ask, did a five-year-old do this? At the time, no one had the faintest idea, not even me. I was always an unusual child. Bizarre, even. But I was definitely a child. Apparently, though, I had the instincts and muscle memories of a warrior.

The night of the incident, I was sleeping in my bedroom in the palace. I’m a princess, by the way. A strange one, who causes her parents and caretakers all sorts of trouble. But anyway, I was sleeping in my room, like the little angel I wasn’t, having an odd dream. In the dream, I was an adult, wearing weird clothes and carrying a strange metal device in one hand as I looked around a corner in an oddly shiny, white-lit hallway. I heard loud sounds, bang-bang-bang, and a scream, and I was terrified. Dream-me, though, was deadly calm. She grasped the cold metal in both hands and raised them, moving around the corner to see –

And then I shot up, wide awake, heart racing. I knew something was wrong, and I ran to the adjoining room where my infant twin siblings were sleeping. I didn’t think about anything at all as I ran, slamming the door open. I saw the shadowy figure turning towards me and threw myself at it, body moving independently.

My siblings were all right in the end. Guards came rushing in at the commotion, although at first, they just stood and gaped at me standing over the black-clad, unconscious figure. I guess they had never seen a kid take out an armed intruder before or something.

That’s when the commotion started. My parents and grandmother were alerted and brought over in a rush, along with the captain of the guard, the spymaster, the head mage, and my nanny. There was some blubbering from my father, a lot of chin-stroking and appraising looks from the head mage, flustered order-giving and shouting from the captain, and some skulking around and investigating from the spymaster. My mother just held me tightly, and my grandmother stood as shocked and silent as I’ve ever seen her, albeit still managing to look regal as she did so. For my part, I stood there, calm. A bit bored, really. I didn’t see any point to freaking out, especially since everyone else pretty much had that covered.

I had mentioned I was an strange child. There were a few reasons people thought so. Honestly, if I really thought about it – and I didn’t – I agreed with them. I started speaking full sentences at a year old. I read long adventure books and had an unhealthy fascination with swords, knives, and other weapons. I didn’t get along with other children, usually because I got bored and ignored them. I never cried. In some other ways, though, I was quite normal. I loved sweets (and I went on secret missions at night to steal them and had never been caught). I didn’t understand all that much of the adventure books I read, even if I could read them on my own. I loved to play pretend – mostly as a knight or a spy, usually wrangling the guards into playing along with me. I got bored in lessons. To be fair, I got bored all the time, so maybe that wasn’t a normal kid thing.

All right, so I wasn’t normal. Whatever. But I was not some sort of adult mind inside a child’s body. The way the adults in the room were looking at me – with something almost like wariness – made me think they doubted that, though.

“My daughter, my darling daughter, how did you – what did you – thank goodness you’re all right! Think of what could have happened, of how it could have ended…” My father was nearly howling in distress, loudly enough that my mother loosened the arms she had clasped around me and started patting his shoulder. Her face was a mask of forced calm, and she stood close to me, the nanny standing beside her holding my now-crying siblings.

“Settle down, Eddard,” she told her husband, the crown prince.

“How can I possibly settle down, dear?” he said, affronted, eyes wide. “Our babies were almost killed!”

“Yes, but they weren’t. We have Gardenia to thank for that.”

“She’s just a baby herself!” And with that, he started bawling in earnest, leaning into my mother’s steady hand. She had no rebuttal.

“What on earth happened, Your Highness? What did you see?” The captain of the guard, Alea, had stopped her shouting and was crouched in front of me, her steely blue eyes confused. I just looked at her. It was too loud to answer and be heard, and anyway, I’d already told them.

The head mage, Discordia Metan, was looking at the ground where the assassin had fallen. “Strange…” she muttered, voice quiet. I had always found her pleasant to be around. She was quiet and didn’t tell me what to do. Most people found her distinctly unsettling, with her white irises and her tendency to maintain uncomfortably intense eye contact. I did not care.

Mage Discordia looked at me almost warily, glancing back and forth between me and the crib. “How did you do this?”

I raised my eyebrows at her, offended by the question. I had always appreciated her leaving me alone. Being interrogated made me defensive. I had already told them what happened, after all. 

My grandmother, the Empress, looked at me with speculation rather than wariness. She was a tall woman with white hair and brilliant, clear purple eyes. Her gaze was appraising, and even as a child, I shivered at the implications of it being fixed on me. I was the daughter of the crown prince and was used to attention, but the attention of my grandmother was a serious thing. It meant things were going to happen. Responsibilities and tests and rules. I didn’t want that.

“Tell us one more time, child.”

This time, I answered. You didn’t ignore grandma.

“I woke up. I ran into this room. The woman was standing by the crib. I knocked her over. She stopped moving.”

Silence, except for my father’s teary, hiccupy breaths. The spymaster, Peot, came forward now, looking at me carefully. They were short and slender and very dangerous. Even I knew that.

“Why did you wake up?”

“I stopped sleeping.”

“…why didn’t you call for help?”

I looked at them blankly. “I didn’t need help.”

My grandmother laughed. I had never seen her laugh before. The guards looked terrified, and my father was so startled he stopped crying.

“Indeed, child, you did not.” She looked at my mother, and they seemed to have some sort of silent argument. After a moment, they broke eye contact, my mother’s lips pressed into a thin line of disapproval.

My grandmother came up and looked down at me. I held her gaze defiantly – whatever was coming, I did not want to show weakness in front of her. She did not respect people who flinched.

“Things are going to change for you now, child. Are you prepared?”

No, I thought.

“Yes,” I said.

The Empress smiled.