Lady

Allen is not a perfect man: he has a bastard child he refuses to tell her anything about, he's overbearing about protecting her from harm and he still possesses a messed up attitude to other women which leads him to flirt horribly with any female friends he makes, but Celena wouldn't give him up for the world.

What can't Celena tell you about Millerna? Millerna's cleverer than her, as she'd studied to be a doctor until her father banned that path as unbefitting a princess, but still she saved Allen's life. Millerna's so effortlessly feminine, so wise in the ways of what makes an Asturian woman noticed, but she's taught Celena that this isn't a weakness but a power to be used all of its own, to charm and to dazzle and to lull people into false senses of superiority. Millerna loves deeply, but she understands that her position is important enough to the kingdom that she's willing to settle for the friendship of an arranged marriage in order to tie her war-ravaged country together.

Celena might wish to work as a knight, but her ambition is to grow to be a woman as well rounded and admirable as Queen Millerna. She secretly hopes that if she wins the tourney Millerna will choose her to be her personal bodyguard, for surely a woman is more trustworthy than a man.

Celena has very few memories of the golden days before she was kidnapped, but one of those is of Cook, who seemed so large at the time, feeding her an apricot pastry still warm from the oven and tell her how her son grew those apricots in his orchard.

Cook still makes those apricot pastries whenever they are in season, for she remembers just how much Celena adored them as a child. She is one of the only close adults left in Celena's life who is still alive.

Macey is privy to Celena's life in a way no one else is. She's a calm and steady girl, not particularly pretty but one who takes delight in prettying up Celena with elaborate hairstyles. She genuinely admires Celena for her talents and the way she's grown and in turn Celena thinks of her as a way to repent for how she treated her Dragonslayers. She takes her time to listen to Macey's thoughts and woes, giving her the patience she should have given her boys.

Macey was the first to know about Celena's ambitions to try out for the knight's tourney and her duties now include counting Celena's reps as she exercises at dawn and helping to hide the evidence of her activities from Sir Allen.

Celena has very few true memories of her mother, though she retains the general impression of having been loved deeply. One clear memory is of sitting on Mama's lap while Mama brushed her hair and praised for how long it was growing and how pretty it looked. Celena grows her hair now to get it long enough her mother would have considered it beautiful.

Another fragile half-memory is of her mother playing her harp. Celena is unsure whether this memory is a dream or real, but as she began to learn the harp using her mother's old songbooks she's discovered that she has so many golden, peaceful emotional associations with the pieces. She may not retain many memories of her mother's voice or face, but she knows that she must have spent hours tucked by her mother or playing in the same room as she practised her harp.

For Celena her harp is her mother's voice and thus an instrument she bends all her determination into mastering completely.