She gives a little shrug, more to push off the little tingle of self-consciousness that has wormed its way into her. "I haven't known anything else. I mean, truly--my brothers and sisters are all knights, in service to some house or lord or another--or back at our family home in the Ruswold, serving my father. In some ways I was already training, it's just that I changed institutions. The Seekers, not the Harts. And--"

A smile twitches at the corners of her mouth.

"Honestly, I was only six. At the time I was excited to be different than everyone else. My mother had just given birth to my sister Catherine--my third sister--and I remember the day they told me, my brother Ward had trounced me in a silly little game we used to play, and I'd spent the morning crying about it--so the thought of running off and joining the Seekers and becoming more important than everyone suited me just fine."