Anidori-Kiladra Talianna Isilee is a main character of The Books of Bayern and the protagonist of the first book of the series, The Goose Girl. She is Geric's wife, Tusken's mother, Enna's best friend, and a good friend of Razo, Finn, Dasha, and Rinna.
Biography[]
Crown Princess Anidori-Kiladra of Kildenree was born sleeping, only waking when her aunt somehow sensed her birth and came down from her home in the mountains to sing to her. The two became very close.
The aunt was delighted when the little girl displayed a talent for learning language. She told young Ani a story about the creation of the world when everything spoke the language of everything else: as the ages passed, the languages were forgotten, but some people were still born with the potential to learn one. Anidori's own mother was gifted with people-speaking and used her skills well as queen. The aunt herself knew animal-speaking and had talent speaking with birds and horses. Nature-speaking was a rare, or even lost, gift, but the aunt was certain someone would discover it again one day. In the meantime, she taught Ani bird-speaking.
As seasons passed, the aunt's longing for her home in the mountain woods grew too great to ignore. She took her five-year-old niece on one last walk and gently announced her intentions to leave. Knowing that Kildenree was uneasy with anything unusual, she warned Ani that her knowledge of wild things must be kept secret. A final kiss fresh on her forehead and a sensation of emptiness in her heart, Ani watched her aunt walk away from her forever.
Without her aunt, Ani was prevented from going anywhere near any animals for the next two years. Miserable, lonely, and dreaming of the day her aunt would rescue her, Ani was devastated when her mother casually mentioned her aunt's recent death in the winter. Ani resolved to run away, but as the dark world loomed around her she realized that she was simply too young to be on her own. Her dreams crushed again, she cried herself to sleep on the shores of the swan pond. Unfortunately, it was a cool night on the damp ground, and Ani developed a fever. After her recovery, Ani was labeled "delicate" and regarded with deep distrust by the Kildenrean people.
The Goose Girl[]
Fifteen-year-old Ani is determined to be a good future queen. However, she is painfully aware that she just can't seem to act, speak, or think as queenly as her mother. Her lady-in-waiting and only friend, Selia, tries to help her overcome her fears, but Ani is too worried about ruining her reputation further to relax. Her only enjoyment in life comes from horseback riding with her beloved horse Falada, with whom she shares a language similar to telepathy. One day, her father challenges her to a horseback race in an effort to cheer her up. Overconfident, he leads his horse to jump a too-tall fence and falls to the ground, fatally injured.
During his funeral, her mother announces that she is transferring Ani's status as heir to the throne to her eldest son, Calib-Loncris. Shocked and betrayed, Ani confronts her mother and is told that the neighboring country of Bayern is mining the bordering Bavara Mountains. In order to avoid an invasion, the Queen arranged a marriage between Ani and the crown prince of Bayern. Although she admits that her younger daughter Napralina would have been the ideal candidate, she chose Anidori because the people of Kildenree distrust her so much they would never accept her as their queen. Hurt, Ani tries to protest but is no match against her mother's voice.
On the months-long journey to Bayern, Selia's good mood and enthusiasm is a great comfort to the princess, at least at first. However, the closer the escort party gets to Bayern, the more distant and cold Selia becomes. When Ani nervously confronts her lady-in-waiting about this chilly behavior, Selia's composure cracks and she furiously reveals that she had always been bitterly jealous that for all her social skills and leadership talent, it was timid, awkward Ani who would one day be a queen just because she was born Crown Princess. Freed from the biting words she has longed to say for years, Selia rejects Ani's friendship and quits her job as lady-in-waiting, leaving Ani stunned. In the days after their fight, the princess narrowly escapes several deadly accidents that she is reluctant to accept as assassination attempts despite the suspicious behavior of half the guard who noticeably follow Selia and her right-hand man Ungolad instead of the guard captain Talone. Isolated and scared, Ani asks Talone outright if she can trust him. Hurt that she even needed to ask, he pledges lifelong fealty to her. Touched by his sincerity, Ani offers him one of her gold rings. Accepting her gift solemnly, he warns the princess to run to safety at the first sign of trouble for he, too, has noticed Ungolad and the guards' suspicious behavior. Sure enough, when the company is about a week away from Bayern Ani overhears Selia, Ungolad, and half the guard mutiny, declaring that they have chosen Selia to impersonate Ani and be their rightful princess. In the chaos of the fighting that breaks out between her loyal guards and the mutineers, Ani is unable to reach Falada and is forced to abandon him in her escape.
Utterly lost, the princess wanders the deep Forest for days until she eventually stumbles across a hut in the woods and faints from exhaustion near its threshold. The Bayern woman who lives there, Gilsa, recognizes that blonde Ani is foreign to Bayern -a country of dark hair- and can see from Ani's dainty hands that she is nobility. Not unkindly, she refuses to listen to Ani's explanations, figuring that she has enough to think about without getting tangled up in Ani's trouble. Nevetheless she allows the girl to stay with her and her son Finn until he can escort Ani to the city for marketday. In the meantime, Ani makes herself useful by finding the roots that Gilsa uses for dyes and practices the Bayern accent until she can speak it convincingly. When the time comes to leave, Gilsa gives Ani Bayern-style clothes including a head scarf to hide her blonde hair. Ani decides to go by the name Isi (inspired by her grandmother Isilee) and darkens her eyebrows with a piece of charcoal just in case Selia and her allies won the fight and are out there looking for her. Unable to journey alone to Kildenree and figuring that Talone, Falada and the others would be in Bayern if they survived, Ani plans to plead her case the the king of Bayern. Unfortunately, her plans crumble immediately when she spots Selia in the palace wearing one of her royal dresses. When Ani is brought before the king he believes she's just another lost soul in the city looking for a job and offers her the position of goose girl tending the royal geese under Mistress Ideca. Thinking she may yet rescue Falada, Ani accepts. After telling Finn that she's secured a job and requesting that he and his mother keep her existence a secret, Ani buys thornroot on the way to her new home and carefully dyes her eyebrows a dark brown and resolves to keep her long blonde hair hidden in a headscarf to throw Ungolad and the rest of Selia's allies off her trail.
The next morning, she is introduced to Conrad, the goose boy who rolls his eyes at her incompetence as they struggle to lead the birds to the pasture. Ani learns right away that although geese may look similar to swans, their language is vastly different and she struggles to isolate even a single word. Ani notices that three geese are missing, but Conrad reminds her defensively that he's been trying to wrangle fifty birds all alone for a week. That evening in the animal workers' dining hall, the chicken girl Enna tells everyone that she saw the yellow-haired Kildenrean princess with her very own eyes riding a grand white horse upon her arrival. Relieved that Falada is alive, Ani tries to think of a way to rescue him.
As the days slip from summer to autumn, Ani struggles to learn the language of the geese and make friends with her fellow animal-workers. Even if her trust hadn't been drained away, Ani's had very little practice making friends and she feels clumsy in her attempts. But a week after she first arrived to the city, she finds an opportunity in the form of a stray goose. Clearly tired and injured from whatever adventures he'd been on for the past two weeks, the gander allows Ani to nurse him back to health. She names him Jok and lets him sleep in her little room, practicing the language of geese with him. Conrad mocks her for honking like a goose, but the flock does listen to her warnings and commands as she learns more of their language. Annoyed and jealous, Conrad chooses to sulk alone instead of performing his goosekeeping duties.
One day, Ani sees a young man having trouble with his horse. After the horse throws him twice in a row, the goose girl steps in. She orders the man to stay put and approaches the horse, managing to calm it enough to mount it herself. She is painfully reminded of how much she misses Falada and impulsively rides down the length of the pasture, relishing the familiar sensations of horseback riding. The horse's owner runs after her, hardly believing that she just up and took his horse. She soon comes back and apologizes, admitting that she's just a goose girl when the man (impressed by her skill) offers to give her the horse. He apologizes in turn and introduces himself as Geric. Embarrased at the whole event, Ani merely nods and walks away. Even so, she shyly passes the next few rainy days thinking about Geric and her unusual daring. She realizes that she can't keep hiding and must try to make friends if she is to stand a chance at approaching the king without being quietly killed on the way. Gathering her courage, she ventures towards Enna and tries to make small talk. When Enna confides that she likes watching the fire, feeling like its trying to speak to her, Ani says she feels the same way with the wind and remembers a story her Aunt used to tell about the wind. Enna pleasantly demands to hear the story and Ani ends up attracting more listeners until the whole dining hall is paying attention. They request that she tell them all a story every night. Before sleeping, she reflects that although she is nothing like her perfect, powerful mother, she is the one who has handled fifty unruly geese and held a whole room entranced with a nursery story. Feeling an unfamiliar pang of pride, she wonders what more she can do.
The next morning dawns free of rain and Ani is determined to find Falada. Hiding in plain sight as a fellow laborer, Ani searches the stables until she hears the unmistakable Kildenrean accent and overhears two of her traitorous countrymen complaining that they need to lie low until the marriage between Selia and Bayern's prince takes place, the real Anidori is found and silenced, and the two masters' plan for dealing with Kildenree is enacted. Ani, though frightened, resumes her search and finally spots Falada in a paddock bucking off the man trying to ride him, Cold with dread, she tries to communicate with him mentally but he does not respond. She moves gently and speaks softly, and for a moment Falada calms. But something snaps, and he rears back, kicking Ani in the face. The stablehands hurriedly pull her away, saying Falada has gone mad. Heartbroken, Ani is lead away by an attendant and once more brought before the king as a lost supplicant. Remembering her as the goose girl with the fancy curtsy, the king is nonplussed when Ani, too caught up in the tragedy of losing her best friend to notice she may sound odd, explains that she thought she could help the maddened horse, but failed because he is "beyond the place where human and animal share language". A month's pay is taken from her as punishment for trespassing lest the grounds be swarmed with citizens. The ache of Falada's loss pounding in her head and heart, Ani wanders throughout the marketplace until she finds Finn. Relieved to see a friendly, familiar face, she pulls him aside and quietly says that she just needs to tell someone that she's scared, confused, in trouble, and completely alone now that she's discovered her only friend is gone. Finn holds her a moment to comfort her, then reports that two fair-haired men came to his home in the Forest looking for a yellow-haired girl. He teaches her exactly how to get to his mother's house, making her repeat the way several times until she's got it memorized.
Days later, Geric comes to visit her. Mired in awkwardness, Geric mentions that he's been visiting the pasture for the past few days hoping to see her, but she didn't show. He had meant to bring her flowers in an effort to further apologize, but they were battered considerably in the rain. Instead, he presents her with a sack full of food. She assumes he's a kitchen man, but he tells her he's a guard to the prince himself. Learning that Ani hasn't had a midday meal since she began working as a goose girl, he vows to bring her dinner every day. True to his word, he visits every day to enjoy picnics, books, horseback rides, and conversations about goosekeeping and palace life. He mentions that the Kildenrean residents largely keep to themselves, but Ungolad has proved to be a formidable warrior on the training grounds. As for the woman calling herself Princess Anidori, he mentions that she's proven to be witty and courtly, despite some trouble that seemed to surround her arrival.
Feeling that her friendship with Geric may be deepening into something more, she unwinds her pale hair in the safety of her little room and is reminded that she is a secret in hiding, not a simple goose girl. A sudden movement in her periphery causes Ani to whirl around, mirroring Enna's wide-eyed surprise. Ani had forgotten her curtains were open, fully displaying her Kildenrean yellow hair. Pulling Enna inside, she reveals her true heritage and the reason for her secrecy. Enna fires off questions thick and fast, about Kildenree, Ani's bond with Falada, and the dark motives of her former guards. Ani answers them all, feeling safe in the darkness with Jok warm and asleep on her lap. Every question answered, Enna is determined to get Ani's name back, declaring they'll gather the animal workers together and make the king listen. Swearing to protect Ani's secret, she emphasizes that she truly does believe her and even offers to worry and mourn in Ani's place so that the princess-in-hiding may sleep peacefully for once.
Emboldened by Enna's support, Ani plans to tell Geric the truth as well, hoping he may help her convince the prince himself of her identity. Unfortunately, he arrives in a troubled mood that does not encourage conversation. Ani turns the topic to Falada in an offer to distract him, desperate to hear his fate. She is horrified to hear that the order to kill her friend may even have already been carried out. Ani fights hard to keep from crying, unable to tell Geric how much Falada means to her. She pleads with him to try and get the prince to spare the horse and Geric immediately leaves to do so, but not before attempting to stammer out how much his days with her have meant to him. Words having failed him, he looks into her eyes and gently touches her cheek, sending a thrill through her body, before holding her hand and standing quietly for a few moments. She holds his hand in both of her own, but somehow, the moment breaks at her touch and he pulls away. Before he rides off, he gives Ani a heartfelt apology.
Under cover of night, Ani sneaks away to the stables in a desperate attempt to rescue Falada herself. Before she gets too far, her headscarf catches on something just as she spots a man with two pale braids across the field. Panic flooding her body, Ani tears the headscarf off of whatever caught it and right off of her head. Her blonde hair shining in the moonlight, she has no choice but to run. Despair seizes her with the icy knowledge that Falada is lost and the Kildenreans now know she is alive and hiding in the city. Ani stumbles over to the city wall and follows it to her own safe little room where she locks her door and collapses onto her bed. The next day, she awaits Geric to arrive with the bad news. Instead, the pompous young pageboy Tatto delivers a message from Geric essentially breaking up with her. Struggling to suppress her anguish over all the people she has lost throughout her life, she asks Tatto where Falada was taken so that she may say goodbye. He directs her to the knacker, irreversibly confirming her fears. Ani offers the knackerman her last gold ring as payment for a proper burial before fleeing from the horror. Four days later, Ani walks to the pasture with her geese but stops short of the wall above the archway. Fastened to the stones, attached to a polished board of of dark wood, is Falada's severed head. Feeling faint and sickened, Ani slumps against the stones for support, unable to break her gaze from Falada's cold marble eyes.
Without Falada, or Geric, Ani has no more reason to stay in Bayern and plans to earn enough money to travel back to Kildenree and inform her mother of Selia's treachery. Not even the Kildenreans' now-public search for another yellow girl or rumors that there will be a war soon can dampen Ani's excitement at attending the Bayern festival of Wintermoon with her new friends before she leaves them for home in the spring. Dazzled by new sights and sounds, she notices her friends aren't nearly as awed as she is by magic tricks and acrobats. However, she does catch sight of one face that looks just as amazed: Yulan, a member of her traitorous guard. Ani quickly hides among her friends, quietly warning Enna of who she saw. The group approaches the javelin dancers, a ceremony that bequeaths Bayern boys a javelin and shield as a symbol of manhood if they successfully dance blindfolded within a sharp ring of javelins. Forest boys aren't allowed to participate due to Bayern's discrimination against rural folk. Conrad and the sheep boy Razo watch with starry eyes and declare they'd do the dance right then and there if it earned them a javelin. The animal workers' attention is then turned to a group of nobles daintily picking their way through the streets. When the sheep girl Bettin mentions the prince should be among them, Ani is curious to see her would-be betrothed for the first time and leads her friends to follow the nobles until they stop at a game booth where a young boy no more than thirteen happily throws toy spears at a wooden boar. Ani laughs in shock when Razo identifies the little boy as the prince, but her amusement chills when another man steps in to test his skill. Geric lands two spears effortlessly in the boar's wooden neck, but the third flies wildly off-mark when Selia playfully bumps his elbow. Enna is alarmed to see the false princess and tries to tug Ani away, but Geric's spear has fallen not too far from where Ani stands and their eyes meet. Geric silently recognizes her, but Ani melts into the crowd before Selia can too.
Ani wanders throughout the crowd, unaware that she's about to walk right into someone until she feels the impact. As her luck would have it, she's walked right into Yulan and another traitor, Ishta. Instantly, Yulan presses a knife at her back. Spotting a flock of pigeons nearby, Ani quickly calls out a warning to the birds, sending them flying in a commotion of loud, flapping wings. Hoping Enna sees the spectacle and thus, her, Ani renews her efforts to stop their walk, ignoring the press of Yulan's knife blade. Luckily, they are interrupted by the local peace-keepers, a band of common men who take it upon themselves to protect the people of Bayern when the royal soldiers fail. Yulan tries to convince them that nothing is wrong, but the peace-keepers wait for Ani to speak. In her truest Bayern accent, she reports that they're holding a knife to her back. Almost instantly, she is wrested away from her captors. Losing his temper, Yulan attempts to attack the peace-keepers and is killed in the scuffle while Ishta runs away. That evening Enna and Ani regale the thrilling tale to the other workers who look at her in awe. Ani is comforted to feel more at home and among family as a goose girl than she ever did in Kildenree.
Late one winter night, Ani feels restless and goes out to visit Falada's head, remembering when they first met and the first time they ever spoke. Overcome with longing to hear him again, she concentrates so hard on the place in her mind where she would hear his voice and actually succeeds in hearing a faint echo of the last word he ever said to her: Princess. Desperate for the comfort of her friend, she calls out to him again and is startled when a new new voice answers her instead. The winter breeze brushing against her cheek, Ani again hears her name, Princess, and realizes that the wind itself is speaking to her in the place where she always heard Falada. At last, the language that had lain dormant on her tongue since her birth is unlocked, allowing her to hear the rush of words that is the wind's voice. Ani returns to the gate every day after that to practice wind-speaking. In time, she learns how to listen to and interpret the language of wind, discovering that each gust speaks in a series of images of all the things it has touched before reaching her.
As winter melts to spring, Ani becomes aware of Conrad's sullen behavior. She recalls how he once tried to mock her in front of the other workers by telling them that she thinks she can speak goose, but instead of ridiculing her, they asked her for advice with their own avian problems. Instead of wandering off the way he usually does, he stays close to watch her distrustfully. He even tries to convince Razo that she isn't normal only to become even surlier when Razo brushes off his concerns as simple jealousy. One wash day, Ani slips into a copse of trees and lets her damp hair loose and suggests a passing breeze to blow through it. When in actually does, Ani is so completely shocked she managed to speak back to the wind that she doesn't notice Conrad creeping up behind her until he calls her a yellow girl. She tries to make him understand the importance of secrecy, but he relishes the fact that the oh-so impressive goose girl isn't even Bayern. That night, Conrad tries to expose her as the yellow girl the Kildenreans are looking for. Enna rallies to her defense, but Conrad, firmly held back by sheep boys Razo and Beier, challengs Ani to reveal her hair. Enna rallies to her defense, convincingly explaining that Ani's hair burned off in a fire and that she won't allow her to be embarrassed. Conrad angrily declares that he'll prove she's foreign, stomping off when no one responds. Enna reassures Ani that no one will believe him even if he did see her hair, but Conrad refuses to leave her alone. He even attempts to yank a strand of her hair himself, but Ani is able to persuade the wind to blow the hat right off his head. As he chases it around, Ani reflects that the wind is emotionless and very unlike living creatures, but it can still sometimes be directed on new pathways. This comes in handy one day when the wind gives Ani forewarning that a group of men are invading her pasture. Suspecting trouble, Ani warns the geese of great danger so they will huddle together in a defensive position. When Conrad spots the men, each carrying a sack or a pole tipped with a wire loop, he slips through the pasture gate leaving Ani alone. She tries to defend her flock, but the men easily overpower her and begin snaring birds left and right. Trapped, Ani begs the wind to come together until she has a small whirlpool of wind circling the ground, pulling small pebbles into its flow until it becomes as tall and wide as the tree behind them. The men are uneasy at this weird behavior and flat-out run away to the safety of the woods when Ani directs the wind to pelt the men with its earthy ammunition. As Ani honks victoriously with her geese, Conrad arrives with three other workers. They had intended to rescue her and the flock, but are shocked that she apparently fended off five goose thieves single-handedly. They pick up her broken staff in amazement and leave to report the event to Mistress Ideca. Ani thanks Conrad for getting help, mentioning that she initially thought he abandoned her, but Conrad doesn't take it well and snaps that he would've fought them. Later that night, Ani refuses to talk about what happened, leaving her would-be rescuers to tell their much-embellished version to the hall. Some workers are sent to retrieve the tools the thieves left behind for souvenirs, but they return with Tatto instead. The young pageboy proclaims that the king wishes to thank those involved with the protection of his geese, but far from being honored, Ani is terrified. She doesn't want to risk Selia capturing her, not when she's so close to being able to travel back to Kildenree. She tries to bow out, but her friends won't hear of it. With little choice but to go, she asks Conrad to accompany her. When they've walked a few blocks, she insists that he go alone and take all the credit for himself.
Soon after, Enna brings Ani to the dining hall where Tatto is announcing that there will be a war with Kildenree as soon as the pass in the mountains is free of snow. Tatto grandly reports that the princess told the king that she was sent to Bayern as a decoy, but she has grown to like Bayern and wants to warn them about Kildenree's deceit. Ani is horrified, realizing that this war is how Selia plans to keep anyone from discovering her treachery. Razo sees her concern but misinterprets it, reassuring her that Bayern is much stronger than Kildenree and will effortlessly overpower it. Ani knows that he's absolutely right. Her plans to return home now pointless, she needs now more than ever to convince the king of her true identity before this war can start. Worry and fright leave her unable to sleep, so she seeks comfort in the company of Jok and his mate. The birds snugly settle down in her tiny bed, leaving no room for her, but she doesn't care. She slumps down below her window with thoughts all in a tangle, unaware she's fallen asleep until she startles awake. Ani glimpses Ungolad through the sliver in her curtains and watches him carefully enter her home, focused entirely on the bed. As he steps towards it, Ani quietly slips out the door just as he twitches aside the covers. The night explodes in a clamor of squawks, giving Ani the cover she needs to run. Ungolad close on her heels, Ani thinks with her feet and races to the pasture. Just as she passes the gate Falada gaurds, Ungolad lunges wildly for her and manages to stick his dagger in her back on his way to the ground. The pain pushing her even harder, Ani sprints towards the woods and vaults over the wall that separates the royal woods from the true Forest. Hearing no hint of Ungolad on the wind, she tears a makeshift bandage from her tunic before stumbling deeper into the Forest.
Days later, Ani passes out on Gilsa's doorstep. Impatiently waiting for her wound to heal, Ani is shocked to see the ring she gave Talone on the finger of Gilsa's friend Frigart. The older woman says that the man she's been taking care of for months gave it to her as payment, and, filled with hope, Ani insists on accompanying Frigart home. Joyfully reunited with Talone, they agree that their best chance to prevent war is to beg the animal-workers' help in convincing the king of her identity. However, once she finally returns to Ideca's dining hall, she finds that the workers are already determined to join her quest before she even has a chance to beg their help. Enna explains that in the aftermath of Ani's escape from Ungolad, she revealed her true royal heritage to the workers. When Ani asks why they all seem to believe her so readily, she's very touched when they reply that they know her; she's their friend. Even when Conrad tearfully confesses that he revealed her location to the Kildenreans out of spite, Ani forgives him and finally gives him a lock of her hair. Leading her group to the palace, Ani attempts to gain entrance, but the guards refuse to let her through because the royals have already left with the army. Luckily, Ani spots Tatto walking by and asks him to find Prime Minister Odaccar, knowing that if he allows to see her the guards will have to let her go. In no time, Tatto leads her to the section of the palace where respected, elderly servants live in retirement. Feeling set aside and useless, Odaccar is interested to meet with Ani and laments that a war is exactly what he and her mother were trying to avoid. The former prime minister tells her that the king has likely gone to Lake Meginhard for the wedding and writes a very official note to the horse-master stamped with a seal he secretly kept from his time in office to help Ani on her way.
Intending to impersonate her younger sister Napralina to gain access to the wedding, the goose girl needs to look like a princess. She persuades Tatto to lead her and Talone to Selia's rooms and finds one of her very own dresses Selia stole. Just as she finds the shoes to match, she hears the clang of sword-on-sword and peers out the door to see Ishta downright gleeful at the chance to kill his former captain. However, his wild bloodlust proves his downfall, allowing Talone an opening to stab him through the heart. Leaving Ishta to bleed out on the floor, Ani hurries to the royal stables, secures horses, disguises her companions to look as Kildenrean as possible, and at last sets off for Lake Meginhard.
Swallowing her fear at the manor gates, Anidori regally announces herself as Princess Napralina, sent to be witness to the wedding. The guards allow her to enter- and only her. Forcing her escort to remain outside, the guards take Ani straight to Selia in return for a bribe. But before the false princess can do anything to Ani, the king's own guard enter the room and summon "Napralina" to the king's presence. When Ani carefully begins her story by confessing that she isn't actually Napralina, the king instantly orders his guards to remove her, but Geric stops them. Looking closer at her face, he recognizes her as the goose girl Isi but can't understand why she is blonde or why she's pretending to be a Kildenrean princess. Ani accuses the false princess of all her treachery, but Selia merely laughs and skillfully persuades the king that Ani is lying in a bid to claim power. The king takes pity on the boredom of his young son and allows the boy to leave the room but Ani questions why, as the situation concerns his bride. She is left reeling with shock when it is clarified that the princess is of course betrothed to the elder prince, Geric.
The king, growing impatient, suspects treason and asks Selia the Kildenrean punishment for such a crime. Sparkling with wicked glee, Selia invents a punishment involving a barrel full of nails and being dragged through the streets, much to Ani's horror. The king decides to imprison Ani until their invasion of Kildenree is over and he can have time to judge her case, but Geric convinces him to let Ani and her countrymen have some time alone to discuss a suitable resolution. Ani begs not to be left alone with murderers, but she is ignored. The second everyone leaves, Selia kisses Ungolad deeply, delighted at their triumph. She offers Ani an ultimatum: admit to the king that Selia is the true princess, and she will talk the king down from the crime of treason and even send Ani back to her geese. Ani refuses. Using her people-speaking talents to intuit that Ani is in love with Geric and therefor her mind will not be changed, Selia asks Ungolad to cut her so they can claim Ani attacked. An extrememly reluctant Ungolad only agrees to injure his beloved Selia if he can kill Ani first when suddenly Geric, the king, and the guards burst through the tapestry behind the throne. The king reveals a secret passageway concealed by the tapestry which provided the means to overhear every word the Kildenreans said. Ungolad holds Ani tightly with a knife to her throat as Selia attempts to talk her way out, but Ani takes matters into her own hands. Gathering all the whisps of air she can into a windstorm -including the very breath from Ungolad's lungs- Ani encircles herself with wind and declares that Selia's plot is over. Everyone stares at her in awe until Ungolad loses patience and swings his sword at her. The gusts knock his blow aside, giving time for Talone and the animal-workers to burst in and challenge the Kildenreans to battle.
Geric defends Ani from the chaose until she points out that Talone is losing his fight with Ungolad. Geric hurriedly presents himself as a new opponent before Ungolad can deliver the killing blow. Enraged against the man who would have married Selia, Ungolad duels him viciously. Ani grabs a javelin and tries to help, but Bayern soldiers hold her back and explain that it is their prince's first battle; they will not dishonor him by interfering. Geric is a good swordsman, but Ungolad is an experienced killer fueled by manic bloodlust. Thinking honor is a stupid reason to let the prince die, Ani secretly sends a bolt of wind straight at Ungolad's chest, giving Geric an opening to slay Ungolad and end the battle as a whole. The king symbolically snaps a javelin in half and hands his son a sword, marking him as a man. Ani finally has time to look around and notices that Selia has vanished. The king orders his guards to secure the perimeter when an angry shriek erupts from the secret passageway preceding Conrad, proudly dragging a violently-struggling Selia by the hair. She attempts to persuade the king to let her go, but she is far too agitated to make her voice compelling enough. The king sentences her with treason and remarks that she herself has named the punishment. As she is dragged thrashing out of the room, Selia swears vengeance on Princess Anidori-Kiladra.
The next morning, Anidori is once again called to the king's presence. She is greeted by a somber war council that asks her to give them reason to believe that Kildenree is not planning war. Outraged, Ani swiftly disproves Selia's "evidence" and ridicules them all for believing the fraud, traitor, and deceiver who claimed otherwise. Ani tells them that she has seen heavy discrimination against the Forest-born, overcrowding, and peace-keepers who obey their own code of law since the king's soldiers apparently won't. Announcing that she seems to know more about Bayern than they do and certainly knows more about Kilderee, she challenges them to question why a mother would send her eldest child straight into the heart of the enemy before she leaves in disgust. By the time Geric finds her, her anger has melted away into embarrassment. Yet, he praises her for swiftly ending an unnecessary war before it could begin and apologizes for lying about who he was. He acknowledges that their marriage was arranged without her consent and assures her that he'll understand if she prefers to break it off. Nevertheless, he professes his love for her and asks if she'll marry him. Happily accepting, Ani feels that at last, she has found where she belongs.
The Bayern celebrate the end of the war before it could begin and honor Ani's friends by forming them into an offical hundred-band. Ani and Geric are soon married in the Thumbprint of the Gods where nobles and commoners alike can attend the wedding. One of her first acts after her marriage is to take down Falada's head from the wall and have a quiet burial by the goose pasture which is graced by a white stone statue of a young colt and little girl in loving memory of their bond. By late spring, Ani befriends the stable-master and helps aid a mare to give birth. She hears the newborn speak its name, Avlado, and repeats it back to him, sealing their friendship.
Enna Burning[]
Ani's powers have terrible side effects. She cannot focus on anything because the wind's voice is omnipresent. Ani and Enna take a trip to a land where Ani learns fire, and Enna learns wind. Ani gives birth to Tusken.
River Secrets[]
Bayern sends an ambassador down to the country of Tira in an effort to repair their strained relationship.
Napralina-Victery is visiting her sister when the Tiran ambassador, Lord Kilcad, suggests that the king and queen of Bayern travel to the capital city of Tira in order to address the assembly before they vote on the matter of war. Ani decides to leave her beloved son behind in the capable hands of Gilsa, unwilling to inflict such a long journey on a one-year-old, but Napralina is eager to see new sights and happily goes with them. She tells Ani how bored she is with Kildenree and how she wishes that she, too, can be a princess of a foreign land.
Although Ani makes sure that their ship's sails are full of wind, the journey still takes too long for them to make it to Ingridan before the vote. Luckily, the assembly has voted for peace and so they can celebrate along with everyone else. Razo introduces them to His Radiance, the prince of Tira, and Anidori in turn introduces His Radiance to her sister, noticing that the two seem to be mutually charmed by each other.
Forest Born[]
Ani hires a young woman named Cilie to be a nurse-mary to young Prince Tusken after she hears of the woman's tragic past. However, Rin, Razo's sister, claims that something is off with Cilie, causing Ani to demote her (Cilie). When King Geric is attacked, she takes Enna, Dasha, and Rin to investigate the new queen of Kel. It is revealed that the new queen is Selia, who has kidnapped Tusken and wants Ani to give up the eastern provinces of Bayern in order to save her son's life. The four girls manage to defeat Selia.
Physical Description[]
Ani is tall and slender, with long yellow hair that reaches her hips that is later cut to her shoulders in Enna Burning. She has gentle, light green eyes and pale, milky skin. By the time of Forest Born, she has developed queenly grace and beauty similar to - but different from - her mother's . She is occasionally known as the Yellow Lady due to her blonde hair.
Abilities[]
- Ani is exceptionally gifted at hearing tiny differences and imitating them, allowing her to learn languages and accents quickly. She can speak flawlessly in the Bayern accent and can speak some Kelish as well as some of the language of Yasid.
- Ani is a very talented wind-speaker, having managed to teach herself to hear and communicate with the wind. She can:
- Sense images of things that the wind has touched before reaching her.
- Suggest paths for the wind to follow, eventually becoming so skilled that the wind will go wherever she chooses whenever she wants.
- Gather wind around her into a buffeting shield.
- Pull the breath straight out of people's lungs.
- Douse fires by flooding them with wind.
- Ani is also a fire-speaker, after her friend Enna taught her how to speak its language. She can:
- Sense heat from living things and pull it into a special place inside herself, forming it into fire.
- Send fire into anything she chooses, from dead wood to sword hilts.
- Send tiny bits of heat into herself and other people to keep warm.
- Cause wind to dissipate by breaking it up with heat.
- Suck the heat out of things, be it fire or people.
- Due to her closeness with her own horses, Ani is a skilled rider and overall horse-master.
- Ani knows two types of animal-speaking:
- Ani was taught by her aunt at a very young age to speak the language of birds. Although the dialect may differ, birds generally speak the same language.
- Ani can speak the language of horses. The key to unlocking a horse's voice is hearing and repeating the name it speaks only once at birth. She has successfully done this with her horses Falada and Avlado.
Quotes[]
- "I like my geese. Like cats, they can't be told what to do, and like dogs, they're loyal, and like people, they talk every chance they get."
- “Right now I'd like all my troubles to stand in front of me in a straight line, and one by one I'd give each a black eye.”
- "We know it's all just daydreaming. In all likelihood, no one in this forest'll ever get a javelin, and I'll never see my mother's kingdom again, let alone be hailed by crowds as the jewel of Kildenree. Maybe it's vain to wish for it. But sometimes, it'd be nice just to hold something real in your hands that felt like a measure of your worth."
- "In a country where you hang your dead up on walls and pride whether or not a man bears a javelin more than his character, how am I to persuade you out of a war? It would be suicide for Kildenree to war on Bayern and butchery for Bayern to attack Kildenree. If you don't believe me, then send me back. Or if you don't trust me to leave, I'll return to my little room on the west wall and tend your geese, and you can be sure that on my watch no thieves will touch my flock."
- "I've come to realize that air is made up of tiny parts, and wind is a lot of them moving fast. Right now, even in a still room, I can feel the air. I hear it constantly."
- "Once, people could speak to all things, and that means to me that it's possible for us to learn all those languages again."
- "I can depend on Enna for just about anything, but I could never make her a court assassin. She'd fall flat on her face."
Trivia[]
- Shannon Hale used elements of her own relationship with her husband when writing Ani and Geric's relationship.
- Anidori is often compared to birds.
- Ani named Jok after the man in the tale of "the wanderer who always returns".
- Anidori is the only person in The Books of Bayern to have the ability to learn the language of wind since birth.
- Ani always wanted black hair, thinking it exotic.
- Ani remembers the dialect of swans best.
- In the Bayern Justice League, a tactic Shannon Hale used for character development, Anidori is considered to be Superman.