Leading Ladies: Leetah
by Katherine Sherbo

Leetah, princess of the Sun Village, has undoubtedly grown in maturity and her perception of the world throughout her years more than any other elf. She began her life in the quiet Sun Village, respected by all for her healing abilities. She learned to use her powers so well, that no one died in the Sun Village for years. What she didn’t know was how much her actions would weaken the peaceful tribe.

The Sun-Villagers’ world of peace is shattered the day the Wolfriders rode in, but Leetah’s faith in herself and her independence took an even bigger blow. She finds herself Recognized the to the wolf chief, Cutter, and she sees in that incident her privacy and free will being threatened. So she denies it for as long as possible, leaving Cutter and Rayek to fight over her. When Cutter tries to reason with her after winning a challenge against her jealous lovemate, she simply blows him off saying “I am many times your elder, Wolfrider — and you have much to learn.” [Leetah, Fire and Flight]

But after spying on a Wolfriders’ midnight howl, and learning that maybe there are things she doesn’t know, she admits, “It seems I, too, have much to learn.” As soon as she realizes that, she can accept herself, Cutter, and the changes the Wolfriders have brought.

When we next see Leetah in book two, she is Cutter’s lifemate and the mother and two children, seemingly a very different elf maiden from the Leetah in book one, who feared change and anything she couldn’t control, but she still holds much of the same fears. Soon humans stumble into the Sun Village and Cutter’s curiosity about the world outside becomes too strong to ignore. And so he leaves with Skywise, leaving Leetah and her children in the peaceful haven. Leetah spends her days wondering where Cutter is and if he has succeeded in finding other elves. Moonshade claims that she should have gone with him, and then she confesses to Nightfall the reason she stayed behind - fear.

Throughout the rest of her life, Leetah must face more and more fears as she realizes just how sheltered she really was. She meets Winnowill, the first person who would do her deliberate harm. Her reaction? At first it is absolute shock, but soon she finds in herself the strength to stare right back into those cold eyes, despite how scared she is inside. Winnowill plays word games with her, slowly but surely revealing to the healer the truth behind her stone grins. Winnowill needs a healing, and Leetah believes she is the one to give it.

It is while in an intricate game of wits and words with the healer gone bad that Leetah is forced to come face to face with a fact that she has chosen to ignore - that Cutter is mortal, and one day she will watch him die. Denial is her only savior this time, hiding away that fear, hoping in vain that she’ll never have to face it again.

The next incident that changes Leetah’s life forever occurs when the Gliders abandon the Wolfriders in the Frozen Mountains and an army of trolls rushes out to attack them. Young Ember, eager to be as strong as her father is, rushes out into the battle and is nearly killed by a troll when Leetah’s dagger hits it squarely between the eyes. The healer is horrified at what she has done, for no longer can she tell herself that the world isn’t the kill or be killed world she feared, because she has just made herself a part of it. And not only that, she has broken the healer’s vow - she has shed blood. Though Leetah knows that her actions saved her daughter’s life, she will never be the same.

Leetah has a chance later to fight the death she hates, when her half-dead lifemate is dragged into the Go-Back’s lodge. Straining at the end of her power, Leetah’s knows that she won’t be able to save him alone. That’s when an elf walks in and though Leetah doesn’t know who he is, his help is what she needed to save Cutter’s life. Once the healing is complete; the elf reveals himself as Rayek. His reappearance opens the healer once more to the struggle she went through when choosing a lifemate, but now Rayek seems content to share a hug with her now and them.

Eventually, the tension between the Frozen Mountain trolls and the Go-Backs turns into a war, and the Wolfriders are pulled into the middle of it. Leetah is forced to give what could be her last farewell to Cutter, and watch him walk away into the battle. She then embarks on her own private mission - an attempt to save the preserved One-Eye from death that has almost seized him. It is then that she learns once more that she is not all-powerful, and sometimes, death must win.

But it was not to be so with the elven, warriors, for they win against the trolls and take her to the ultimate prize, the Palace of the High Ones. There the elves learn about the origin of the High Ones and how they came to be on the World of Two Moons. The Wolfriders do not find a haven they had hoped for in the Palace, and Leetah returns to the woods with them, but we never really find out what the healer thought about it all.

In any case, she follows Cutter and the Wolfriders back to live in the Forbidden Grove. There they spend some peaceful years until once again they must enter Blue Mountain to save Windkin from Winnowill. Throughout this venture, Leetah’s goal was to heal the dark healer from whatever sickness she is suffering from, but when the confrontation came, she linked minds with Cutter, Sun-Top, Strongbow, and Rayek to subdue her long enough to wrap her in a Preserver cocoon. For when Leetah attempted to heal her, and Winnowill fought fiercely back, she realized that no one could heal her but herself. Once again, Leetah learns that her healing powers very seldom give her control.

Not much later, Leetah is thrown into something bigger and more terrifying than anything before - Rayek steals her and her children ten thousand years into the future where she is left in confusion with the fact that her lifemate and tribe have long since died. It is then that Leetah first uses her powers of healing in the way Winnowill did, and against her once lovemate, Rayek. And oddly enough, she feels no regret for her second act of deliberate harm.

Not too much later, she finds that the entire tribe is actually alive and well, and here is nothing she can do but embrace her lifemate like her life itself. Unfortunately, however, she is separated from him again, though not as drastically, when the Palace of the High Ones shatters and half of the Wolfrider tribe follows Cutter into war, and the other half follows young Ember, to create a safe haven for the survivors. Leetah is picked to travel with her daughter, and while she misses her lifemate terribly, watching her daughter grow into the chief’s knot helps her find a certain strength of her own. When the life of the tribe is threatened by a creature of Winnowill’s creation, Leetah is given a choice - kill the creature using her reverse healing powers, or refuse to spill the blood of another and watch her tribe die. Finally, Leetah can come to terms with the world she has either hidden from or denied all her life - kill or be killed - and her actions save all of their lives.

And when Cutter arrives at howling Rock with the Palace, the healer rushes to her lifemate’s side. Though she knows that she still some day must watch him die, he’s still alive, as is her daughter’s tribe, thanks to her, and she can continue to heal and save.

Art by Nicole Tadgell

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