Millennium Loftwind
| Title | Sacred Ruler of the Book of Air |
|---|---|
| Affiliation | Sacred Rulers, The Council |
| Home | Galecrest |
| Powers | Air, dragon form |
| Companions | Ferhant |
| Status | Alive |
| First appearance | Sacred: Eslura's Calling |
Millennium Loftwind is the Sacred Ruler of the Book of Air and the governing Ruler of Galecrest, the floating city.[1][2] Book 1 calls her a dragon shifter, and she crosses Eslura in the body of a dragon.[1] The disappearance of the fire from Galecrest's dragons is the first sign anyone in Eslura has that something has happened to the Book of Fire.[1]
Appearance
Millennium is an old woman with windswept grey hair that put Beatrice Tidal in mind of a lion's mane, and thin lips that curl into a smile as warm as the steam off her tea.[3] She wears a puffy wool scarf, thick enough to look out of place in a heated room, and she tucks her chin into it or shifts it up over her mouth when she wants to cross her own city without being stopped for conversation.[3][1]
In dragon form a tail coils out from the base of her spine like a snake, claws stretch from her fingertips, horns thrust from her head, fur runs down her back, and purple scales rise from her skin and reflect the sunlight.[1] The change is marked by grey light: a grey glow bright enough to hurt to look at when she shifts, and a flash of grey when she drops out of the sky or returns to it.[4][5]
Personality
Millennium is warm and unhurried in a way the other Rulers are not. She teases Alpin Loomin about his library, calls people darling, and would ordinarily be more than willing to stop and entertain the citizens who want a word.[3][1]
She is also the one who moves a conversation forward. When Alistair Archibald falls into recriminating himself over the warnings he ignored, she cuts him off and says they can only move on from here.[3] Faced with an enemy force already at the edge of her city she gives her orders without raising her voice and stays behind herself.[2]
Her dragons are the thing that reaches her. Told that they are dying, her heart nearly stops and she runs out of her own castle.[1]
Background
Millennium rules from a castle on a hill above Galecrest, with a bedroom balcony that looks out over the city.[1] Each new moon the children of the city come up to the castle for a recounting of Eslura's ancient tales, read out of a large moss-coloured tome. She calls them her little dragons.[1][1]
Her personal Sacred Guard is Ferhant, who wears a dragon-horned mask and long grey robes. She has known him since her choosing ceremony and has still never seen his face.[1] As a dragon shifter she can feel the pain of Galecrest's dragons directly.[1]
Story
Sacred: Eslura's Calling
Millennium notices from her balcony that the dragons who normally streak through the clouds in blurs of red, blue and green are nowhere to be seen, then puts the thought aside for story time. Ferhant interrupts to tell her they are dying. She finds them huddled in their nests in the lower quarter, scales cold to the touch, and understands that they have lost their flame.[1][1]
With no Ruler presiding over Zybersia since Obellius Kalaar murdered Elmryn, she judges the news too dangerous to send by gully and sets out to warn the other Rulers herself, meaning to check the Guard outside the Zybersia Sacred Chamber first. She steps off the edge of the floating city, lets the power of the Book of Air take her body, and flies.[1]
A flash of golden light nearly blinds her in the night sky, and she recognises the weight it leaves in the air: the same feeling as the last time Eslura claimed a Sacred Head. She changes course and follows the light to Farenworth, arriving down Alpin Loomin's chimney.[1][3] There she meets Bea, speaks up for Bea's predecessor Amelia Lunala, whose last fight she calls the bravest she has seen in any Eslurian, and says that she had set out for Zybersia to check the Guard outside the Sacred Chamber because she fears something has happened to the Book of Fire.[3]
She is waiting on the library steps at Galecrest when Alistair arrives for the High Moon Festival, with the news that Lumikki Otsby has not been seen in Ovallia for days.[6] Nelazgians set fires on the east side of the city that night. Millennium sends her Guard to clear the plaza, shifts, and goes to fight.[4]
Later she finds Reagan Hideaway bleeding in an alley from a Nelazgian claw, carries her off cradled in her forelegs, and returns her healed. Dragon spinal fluid, she explains, has near-magical healing properties.[5] She hosts the whole party at her castle for the meal at which Officer Kazke arrives from Morgaedion to say that Obellius has escaped.[5]
Sacred 2: Flames of the Awakened
Millennium is planning how to move her guests safely out of Galecrest when her Guard Daglow brings in Prylis, the captain of the dragon riders, and her companion Jandaar, who have walked back from the border because their dragons can no longer fly or make fire. They also bring word of an enemy force coming in on dragons of its own, already almost at the eastern edge of the city.[2]
She sends Ferhant to gather the Guard to the east, sets Prylis and Jandaar to moving civilians into the city centre, and tells the rest of the group to take the old lift down out of the city. She stays to defend Galecrest.[2] The last that is heard of her is Alpin's remark on the ground below that she and her Guard are keeping the enemy busy.[7] Neither book says what became of her or of the city after that; she appears again only inside one of Bea's visions.[8]
Relationships
- Ferhant: her Sacred Guard since her choosing ceremony, and the one she turns to first when something is wrong. He follows her out of the castle without being asked, because it is his duty to do just so.[1][1]
- Alistair Archibald: a fellow Ruler and an old acquaintance. They share looks across a room and finish each other's reasoning.[3][5]
- Alpin Loomin: teased affectionately and unimpressed in return.[3]
- Amelia Lunala: her predecessor as Sacred Head, whom she defends without qualification.[3]
- The dragons of Galecrest: she calls them her sweet darlings and her precious beasts, and feels what they feel.[1][2]
- Reagan Hideaway: carried out of a burning city and healed. Alistair tells Tab that there are no safer hands in Eslura.[5]
Behind the scenes
Millennium is called a dragon shifter in Book 1, Ch. 5, and the Shifters appear in Book 2 as a people believed wiped out in the War of Shadows, whose members change either their physical shape or their voice.[1][9] Nothing in either book connects the two, and no character ever raises the question.
Her surname is never used in the prose of either novel. It appears only in the pronunciation guide at the back, which gives Millennium Loftwind as Muh-leh-knee-uhm Loft-wind.[5][10]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.18 1.19 Book 1, Ch. 5.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Book 2, Ch. 3.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 Book 1, Ch. 8.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Book 1, Ch. 25.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 Book 1, Ch. 26.
- ↑ Book 1, Ch. 24.
- ↑ Book 2, Ch. 4.
- ↑ Book 2, Ch. 17.
- ↑ Book 2, Ch. 7.
- ↑ Book 2, Ch. 28.