Wings of Starlight

As the deuteragonist of Wings of Starlight, Milori is Clarion’s love interest. He’s one of the winter fairies and is extremely pale and has white hair. Milori is stoic yet kind, and his loyalty, sacrifice, and restrained passion help shape the emotional backbone of the story. Milori serves as a mirror to Clarion. Like her, he’s in a position of leadership and is the current Warden of the Winter Woods. Both are burdened by legacy, feel isolated by their positions, and find freedom in one another. While Clarion must learn to take up her mantle as queen, Milori must learn to surrender control and allow himself to dream.

Duty defines his role: He oversees the Winter realm and the imprisoned Nightmares, which demands emotional restraint and physical endurance. At first, Milori embodies winter itself: cool, distant, and composed. However, as Clarion starts to interact with him at the border between their worlds, it becomes clear that Milori feels deeply, though he rarely allows himself to show it.

As the novel progresses, Milori becomes a critical ally in Clarion’s fight against the Nightmares. He guides her to the book that holds the key to defeating them and helps her try to seal the prison at the frozen lake. Their partnership deepens into friendship, unspoken affection, and then a romance that both are afraid to fully acknowledge. Their romance is built on stolen moments and quiet confessions, always tempered by the looming reality of their different worlds.

Even after the Nightmares are defeated and Clarion is crowned queen, the divide between them becomes more entrenched, not less. Her first royal decree is to forbid fairies from crossing the border, a measure designed to protect others from the very fate Milori suffered when he crossed the border to save her life—losing his wings. Though physically distant from Clarion in the end, his support empowers her to rule with both strength and compassion. His sacrifice enables the survival of Pixie Hollow, and their bond teaches her the cost and worth of love.

As the current ruler of Pixie Hollow in Wings of Starlight, Queen Elvina is presented as both Clarion’s mentor and her greatest obstacle. She occupies a semi-antagonistic role in the novel, not because of malice or ambition but because she clings too tightly to the traditions and fears that have defined her long reign. As a result, she serves as a foil for Clarion by embodying the ideology Clarion must outgrow to become the queen that Pixie Hollow truly needs.

Like Clarion, Elvina possesses the golden monarch butterfly wings of all governing-talent fairies. However, Elvina is far older; she has gray streaks in her hair and “something unknowable in her green eyes, the remote and uncompromising look of a fairy who had lived a hundred lifetimes” (28). While all fairies live long lives, governing-talent fairies live even longer. Elvina has outlived many of those she loved, and her insistence on detachment stems from the pain of repeated loss. For her, love is a liability that weakens a ruler’s resolve and endangers the realm. Her life has been shaped by grief, and she attempts, out of misplaced care, to shape Clarion’s reign in the same image. As Clarion’s power grows, Elvina confronts her own fading relevance. This becomes literal when she reveals that her magic is waning and that, like all queens before her, she’ll soon return to the stars. She admits that she failed Clarion by failing to prepare her and by attempting to shape her into a version of herself rather than helping her grow into leadership on her own terms. Paradoxically, Elvina’s legacy lies in the things she feared and thus sought to prevent. Her limitations become Clarion’s lessons. In the end, her final gift isn’t advice or magic but faith: the belief that Clarion will succeed where she once failed.

One of the novel’s secondary characters, Petra is one of Clarion’s closest friends. However, their relationship is strained by the distance Elvina has enforced between the queen-in-training and the other fairies of Pixie Hollow. Petra is a tinker-talent fairy who has vibrant red hair and an excitable personality, oscillating between excitement and panic. However, she’s also known for her inventions. She creates Clarion and Elvina’s crowns and the winter coat that Clarion wears to safely enter the Winter Woods.

However, her involvement in Clarion’s plan creates tension between the two fairies. The simmering tension explodes at the edge of the Coronation Ball. Petra, believing she’s acting in Clarion’s best interest, tries to stop her from seeing Milori. Her fears aren’t wholly without merit, as Clarion is taking significant risks and keeping secrets. At this point, Petra has already had to repair the coat after a Nightmare attack. However, her approach, rooted in panic and overprotection, causes more harm than good. Clarion feels betrayed and infantilized, while Petra feels ignored and dismissed. As a result, she tells Elvina about Clarion’s whereabouts. When Clarion realizes this, her perception of Petra fractures, and the betrayal overshadows any understanding of Petra’s fears or motivations.

However, when the Nightmares break through the sealed prison and attack the Winter festival, Petra doesn’t let her guilt paralyze her. Instead, she arms herself and charges into battle alongside Artemis to help Clarion. The fight raises the stakes when Petra is struck by Nightmare venom. Most prior victims, except Rowan, are unnamed, but Petra makes the conflict even more personal. If Clarion can’t stop the Nightmares and break the curse, she’ll never be able to fully reconcile with her friend. When she defeats the Nightmares and Petra awakens, they apologize to each other. Their reconnection reinforces the idea that strength isn’t about isolation but about coming back together even after hardship. Petra doesn’t erase the past or pretend it didn’t hurt but chooses to move forward anyway.