Miri

Miri is an intelligent and precocious fourteen-year-old girl with a deep sense of fairness and an understanding of right and wrong. Miri loves her mountain village but begins to dream of something more while she attends the princess academy. She has always been mistrustful and suspicious of lowlanders, but realizes in school that much of her mistrust came from ignorance. Miri longs to fit in and be a part of the group, but she feels separated from the others because she does not work in the quarry. She assumes the reason is that she is small and weak and would be a burden rather than a boon. At the academy she misses the companionship of her sister Marda and her friend Peder, for whom she has developed feelings.

Miri's first thought is always for others. She is always trying to help someone else, and even during her lonely...