Arya Summerbreeze

The same age as Agrona, Alastar, and Rhiannon, Arya was born in Linwood City, the daughter of Aidan Summerbreeze, a healer, and Artunis Starfall Summerbreeze. Arya was an inquisitive child who enjoyed exploring her father’s herb garden. When she accidentally ripped up her father’s supply of chamomile at the age of four, thinking she was pulling weeds, she ran to hide in the royal garden. It was there that she met and became friends with Agrona.

Arya also showed an early talent for Shadow Walking, a skill she inherited from her mother. Artunis trained her, playing games with her in the shadows. Artunis also taught her archery, at which Arya excelled. When they were not training, Arya listened to her mother’s stories of growing up in Rose Hollow, so close to Linwood’s border with Seos.

When Arya was sixteen, she became the first female member of the royal guard, joining an elite unit made entirely of Shadow Walkers. It was also at this time that she divulged her secret ability to Agrona. In the guard, Arya met Alastar Redleaf, the twin brother of Agrona’s soon-to-be sister-in-law, Rhiannon. Though Alastar courted Agrona for a bit, he eventually began courting Arya, and Arya was saddened that this cost her Agrona’s friendship.

Arya was twenty-five when she and Alastar were captured by a magical trap by a Seosan warlord named Bhimar. He bound them and tortured them both, raping Arya and forcing Alastar to watch, hoping to break them. Neither broke however until Arya, thinking that they were alone, confessed to Alastar that she had hopes of rekindling her friendship with Agrona.

Bhimar used this to his advantage. He used his contacts in Linwood to cause Agrona to miscarry as a display of how easily he could get to those Arya loved. Sadly, Arya and Alastar agreed to steal the Hearts of the Kingdoms. This, however, was just to get them unbound. As soon as they were free, knowing that Bhimar would only try to capture others to steal the Hearts, Arya and Alastar took them, hiding each in another kingdom.

Once the thefts of the Hearts were discovered, the entirety of their unit was accused and disbanded. Using their abilities to slip into the shadows to avoid arrest, Arya, Alastar, and the other guards formed the Thieves Guild. Each took a different nickname. Arya took the name Arrows because of her archery abilities. Just as Alastar kept in touch with his sister, Arya kept in touch with her parents.

Arya led this life for more than seven decades before her hand was caught in the purse of Ryder Greenblade, the son of Didymus Greenblade, who was horse master and head of the Rangers. Ryder recognized her, for they had known each other briefly in childhood, and he convinced her to come to camp and leave the life of a thief behind.

In camp, Arya trained to become a Ranger with Allaria, the bow mistress at the time, as her mentor. When Arya completed her training, Allaria chose to retire and pass on her position to her protégé. As a result, Arya was there for Ryder when Didymus died after a long illness. As Ryder lost himself in mourning, Arya took up the reigns of running the camp while also trying to get Ryder out of the alcohol and the arms of a tavern maid by the name of Cliona. In early spring, she finally succeeded.

Several years later, Arya lost her father when Aidan was killed in the same attacks that killed King Ithel and Queen Rhiannon. Artunis left, as well, and Arya slowly began to turn cold, focusing only on the practical, refusing to let others get close and refusing to take on a protégé of her own.

This changed, however, the day she caught Tesni attempting to take her purse. The eight-year-old  reminded her so much of herself that, even though the girl was too young to train, Arya invited her to camp, surprised to learn that Tesni had fallen in with the Thieves Guild. It was at this point that Arya began communicating with Alastar again.

It didn’t take long for Arya to grow close to Tesni. It also didn’t take long for Tesni to begin getting in trouble and become a target for Agrona. Because of Tesni, Arya began to open up again, and the girl led Arya to admit that she had long been in love with Ryder. Ryder admitted similar feelings, and soon the two were courting. She was shocked when Ryder told her that he had learned that he was, in fact, Tesni’s father as he revealed the news and proposed marriage at the same time, and Arya convinced him to start Tesni’s training early, claiming the girl as a protégé before any of the other Rangers could.

On her step-daughter’s sixteenth birthday, Arya learned that she was pregnant. As a result, she stayed in camp when the rest of the Rangers, accompanied by members of the royal guard and led by Tesni, led an assault of Agrona’s keep. Arya was captured, however, and just as Tesni was about to fire the kill shot, Agrona revealed Arya to her. Tesni quickly freed Arya, however, and Arya tried to help Tesni in the fight but was kept from her by a wall of ice that Agrona threw up. She managed to break through it just as Tesni and Agrona stabbed each other.

Arya attended her step-daughter’s coronation as queen as well as Tesni’s wedding when she married Rowan Firemoon. Later that winter, she gave birth to a son who she and Ryder named Finn. She tested him when he was young for the talent for Shadow Walking, but found that he did not seem to have inherited it. Four years later, she and Ryder became grandparents to Nia, followed five years after that by a grandson, Eogan.

Arya suspected Nia of being a Shadow Walker, but had not tested her for it. She had been going to talk to Tesni about it, but the day she was planning to, Nia was kidnapped. Arya got hold of Alastar, and the two of them finally came clean to Tesni about Shadow Walking and what they suspected.

It was eleven years before Arya, searching the Shadow Realms with Alastar and the other lads of the Thieves Guild, found Nia. They brought the girl home and then helped her to rescue her mentor, Nisha, her mother-in-law, Tanith, and Nia’s new husband, Eskander.

Over the coming days, Arya and Alastar explained everything, though they denied any involvement in the theft of the Hearts. It was during this time that it was revealed that Agrona had been brought back from the dead by Eogan, and Arya seized the opportunity to regain her old friend, going so far as to attend Agrona’s wedding when the sorceress married Lucas, the head of the royal guard.

Later that year, Arya traveled to Seos to attend the marriage of Rowan’s twin sister and Nia’s mentor, Nisha, to Arya’s fellow Ranger, Aeron Windrunner. During this trip, she finally reconciled with her mother, introducing Ryder, Finn, and Tesni to Artunis. She and Agrona were also kidnapped by Bhimar’s son, Drusus and spent two long months as captives. Arya allowed herself to be beaten, refusing to fetch the Hearts for Bhimar, but Agrona, who was pregnant, did as Bhimar ordered, making a potion and giving it to a mysterious slave girl named Pari.

Arya was all too happy to be rescued and was surprised when Pari, rescued with them and now no longer taking the potion that silenced her and altered her appearance, turned out to be Cliona, her rival for Ryder’s affections and Tesni’s mother.

That winter, Arya went with Alastar to fetch the rest of the Hearts. In Uqressa, a small river town in the southern kingdom of Halmar, the two of them ran into guards. Arya was killed almost immediately. She was buried next to her father, not two months before her son earned his blade.