Marian is eight when the templars catch up with her. It's her own fault, she knows. She isn't supposed to go to the market alone – isn't supposed to show off – isn't supposed to talk to the village children – but she can't help it; one of them is so infuriating that she throws a rock, and then a little spurt of flame comes out of her hand.

For a moment she's ecstatic. She's never made as much fire as that, and she can't wait to run home and tell her father all about it.

Then she remembers where she is, and who is watching her, and what she has very explicitly promised never to do in front of strangers. The other children are staring at her in horror, but the boy she'd thrown a rock at is halfway across the square, shouting for his mother. Adults bring the templars, she knows, and it is all her fault, she'll be caught and her father will be caught and fettered and it is all her fault –

Quicker than thought she is running toward their distant farmhouse, praying to the Maker with all her heart that Carver and Bethany are still playing at the old stump that marks their property line.

She sends the twins scrambling with two words and then stops, watching them go. She knows what she has to do; it is not a new idea, but one born of sleepless nights after her father explained the realities of their life after her first, glorious burst of magic. He has always treated her like an adult. Now she has to act like one.

Marian looks down at her feet, at where the twins were playing. Bethany's marbles and Carver's stuffed toy horse are lying there, abandoned in their mad rush, and on impulse she scoops them up. The pouch of marbles goes around her neck if she ties the strings just right, and she clutches the horse as she flees back to the village square. She hasn't been gone long, but she can see some of the villagers whispering as they see her pass. Rumors are already spreading about her, and probably her family.

She reaches the spot where the children were playing. It's not far to the local chantry, and she needs to be ready when the templars come.

She misses her family already. Marian cannot conceive of a life in which she will never see her mother's face again, or smell the scent of her hair; she already misses the way her father presses her hand when she is upset, and Carver's way of cuddling into any hug he gives. She will never tell secrets with Bethany under the covers again.

She will need a story to tell the templars when they arrive. Marian is not sure what they will be inclined to believe, but she has covered for the twins enough that she knows how to lie. Simpler is better, she decides, squatting in the dirt and carefully tucking Carver's horse into her belt before covering her hands in it. She rubs at her face and knees and elbows, then dusts off her hands on her dress and finds a convenient box to sit on.

She will not have to wait very long, after all.

Marian has heard stories of the templars since the day she first sparked her first spell. In her imagination they are ten feet tall, with swords of fire and ice and shadows that live beneath their helms, ready to suck the magic out of misbehaving mages.

The templar that comes to fetch her is much less impressive. He looks like a normal man, she decides after studying him for a long minute. He could be the baker, or someone's father. He looks like he has dirt under his nails. He talks to the boy's mother for a moment, and then the boy, who points straight at her.

She still doesn't like him. Tattletale.

The templar comes over to her, walking slowly, and Marian reminds herself of the story she plans to tell. His armor makes clashing noises, fighting itself, as he stops in front of her.

"You have been accused of performing magic," he says to her, and his eyes are not unkind. The templar looks tired, like her father after too much magic, and despite herself she starts to like this templar.

"I didn't mean to," Marian says in a small, unsteady voice. "I'm not a mage."

"You are a mage," he says, squatting in front of her. "A mage is someone who can do magic."

"I don't want to be a mage," she says, and in that moment it's the truth. If she weren't a mage, she would be at home right now, helping her mother with dinner. She yearns to be there in that moment so badly that she starts to cry without quite meaning to.

There is pity in his eyes now. "I'm afraid you don't have a choice in the matter," he says, and stands again, glancing around the square. "Where are your parents?"

"I told them what happened," she gets out around her tears. "Mama said – " This is harder than she expected; her mother would never say such things. "She said I was unnatural, and I wasn't ever to come back, and they got in the wagon – " She chokes on another sob, and gratefully takes the opportunity to stop.

The templar's eyes go all flat and tired behind his helm. "Maker," he sighs. "Maybe it's for the best, child. You're for the Circle, in any case."

"Yes, ser." She bites her lip and looks down at her hands. She's not afraid of the Circle, not like she is of the templars, but it's not home. Nothing will ever be right, ever again.

"What's your name, child?"

She looks up at him. "Marian, ser. Marian Amell." Her father was in the Circle before escaping. She knows she cannot use her real last name unless she wants the templars to hunt her family – and that is exactly what she doesn't want.

She accepts the hand that he offers, her hand tiny in his massive armored fist, and he takes her to the chantry for the night. The sisters fuss a little over her dirt-stained knees and elbows and she gets a bath before she's put to bed.

The next morning, the Revered Mother blesses her before breakfast. Her templar, Ser Danneel, is to escort her to the nearest city, where they will meet up with another templar to take her the rest of the way to the Circle.

Marian has spent a miserable night in an unfamiliar bed, with initiates who will not so much as look at her and talk about her as if she's not in the room with them. They call her 'little mage' and she learns that her tiny flame has been exaggerated into a fireball by nervous villagers and malicious gossip. She snorts; it had been barely a handspan high and slightly hotter than the sun on a warm summer's day. Marian sighs. Is this to be her life? She presses her hand against the pouch of marbles under the neck of her dress, and feels the warm pressure of Carver's horse tucked into her belt. Ser Danneel had almost certainly noticed the horse, but had allowed her to keep it. She could hope that all templars would be so understanding, but hope had no place in the real world. She will have to think of some way to hide them.

She gets her wish when it is time to leave. The sisters present her with a rough bag made of straw sacking; inside are a change of clothes, several smallclothes, and a rough wooden doll, well burnished by someone's thumbs. "Thank you," she says to the sisters, so grateful for this small act of kindness that she will start to cry if she does nothing.

Then they leave, and Marian cannot help the last look she gives over her shoulder at their distant farmhouse. Goodbye, she tells it silently.