From my earliest years, I have been marked to serve. When it happened, I was playing a children’s game, though it felt anything but childish to me at the time. That morning had dawned crystal clear, with the ever-present biting cold easing beneath our tent flaps to wake us early. The camp was rousing around me as I stepped from my family’s shelter and scurried across the grounds to relieve myself. I caught more than one dark glance as I made my way, the sunlight reflecting all the shades of fall foliage from my red hair. I paid them no mind as I made my way back, per usual, until the young girl Maibh slid into my path with an armload of firewood, colliding with me and scattering her burden across the earth. Both of us went down in a clatter of sticks and grunts, but I caught a glimpse of t