As both Cal and Liana journey down the long and winding road between adolescence and adulthood, each of them faces difficult challenges that most children never have to cope with. For most of Liana's life, she's viewed her Aunt Helena as a lonely soul in need of at least one person in the universe to care about her. The reason for her aunt's sadness has never been fully explained to her, but she doesn't need to understand the cause to show compassion to someone she cares about. To her, it's more important to make sure her aunt realizes she isn't alone. Although Liana has been groomed from birth to eventually rule Cirrus one day, she still yearns to have a life of her own and hopes to forge her own path and not simply follow in her parents' footsteps. Cal's childhood is made more difficult by his unique physical form. Some people accept his wings as just being a part of him while others shun him for being different. Although his parents try to shelter him from all harm on Laed-i, their overprotectiveness causes Cal to crave adventure and seek out ways to experience new things. It doesn't take him long to discover that being born into privilege doesn't automatically make the world a safe place to live. Although both Liana and Cal stumble during their formative years, each of them leans on the support and love of their families to find the courage they need to discover who they are destined to become.