Art by Dixie McCartney

Leading Ladies: Aroree
by Katherine Sherbo

Her half-closed and mournful eyes have become her trademark, but Aroree was not always the passive and silent elf we know now. When she first shows herself in Book 3 (Captives of Blue Mountain), she is cheerful and open, as is apparent when she takes Skywise on a midnight flight astride her giant hawk – her eyes anything but sorrowful. All that changes when the arrival of the Wolfriders precipitates events that shatter her world, and she witnesses the murder of her Lord Voll by mountain trolls. From then on, even when she smiles, she retains that pained look in her eyes.

She returns to Blue Mountain and soon finds herself under the leadership of Winnowill. Perhaps Aroree likes the security of having a liege, or perhaps Blue Mountain is a crucial part of her, because, given the chance to flee a lord she admits she doesn’t want to return to, she kidnaps Dewshine’s son. Aroree wants to trade the child for her own freedom, one she might have attained by simply not returning. She needed Winnowill’s consent even to run away.

Aroree’s dependence on Winnowill’s leadership may be caused by one of the dark healer’s mind games. Nevertheless, her freedom granted, Aroree runs, even mortally wounding one of her own to do so. This show of strength has never before been seen in the floater, and though she doesn’t realize it, it is a great step on her way to becoming her own again.

Free from Blue Mountain, Aroree runs into a slight detour when Rayek persuades her to take him there. She only takes him as far as the Wolfrider Holt, however, and turns towards the only thing in the world that means as much to her as Blue Mountain – the Palace of the High Ones. When she gets there, she finds only more reason for sorrow.

Aroree sees a battle raging between elf and troll right outside the sacred Palace, and can’t bear to stay. She finds herself with nowhere else to turn but the Holt of the Wolfriders in the Forbidden Grove where she hopes to find Skywise. The Glider finds an abandoned Holt instead, and the Go-Back Chieftess searching for Rayek.

They travel together first to the Sun Village and then to a new continent in pursuit of the Wolfriders and Rayek. Again, Aroree is let down: she arrives after Rayek has stolen Cutter’s family and Skywise into the future. Cheated out of her expectations for a third time, it’s no wonder Aroree keeps her sad eyes for so long.

Yet finally she has a safe place to calm down for a time, though she doesn’t know how long it will be. She stays near her old tribesman, Tyldak, and finds friends in the Wolfriders throughout the five thousand years they spend waiting in vain for the Palace to return. Finally, Cutter decides to wait out whatever the remaining time may be in preserver webbing.

The very fact that Aroree consents to being wrapped with them shows her growing strength and bravery. Because she was a student of Winnowill’s, Aroree learned to spy on others’ dreams. Eventually, she and the rest of the Chosen Eight lost the ability to dream for themselves. Thus, sleeping became a dark and maddening void. This makes her wrapstuff sleep unbearable – until she spies on the Wolfrider’s dreams. Such a leap of faith shows a step in the Glider regaining herself.

When the long wait is finally over, she is to be faced with an even more perilous challenge than she has ever faced before. The Wolfriders are going to war with a human Djun, who has Winnowill at his side, for the Palace of the High Ones. In accompanying her new tribe, Aroree finds herself in the midst of the pain and horror that Blue Mountain had kept her and the rest of the Gliders sheltered from.

Aroree even sees a battle between an elf-wolf and her former lord. And even as Winnowill, the woman responsible for most of the pain behind her eyes, is beheaded, Aroree is still not freed. Once a content Glider, and then a tool for her tormenting lord, Aroree has come a long way in regaining her own – yet she still has far to go.

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