Noria Becomes Raven

Another character we meet in the first novel of my Steampunk/Fantasy series “After: Earth”, called “Journey Into The Black City”, is a child named Noria. Bandits kidnap Noria after killing her family and then selling her into slavery to the Cathedral. In the hands of the priests, she is forced into sexual slavery. Rescued by Kel and Lyria, and renamed Raven, is a child with interesting talents. She is both psychic and clairvoyant. She is, what the tribal folk call a ‘seer.’ I really love this character. She grows from a subjugated girl desiring only death as an escape, into a real force by the time of the second novel, Into the Green, and especially the third, Children of the Dawn. Though she is strong, she is…fragile. She suddenly stops and says things unrelated to the present situation, and seemingly without real meaning. While some might simply write her off as ‘crazy,’ Kel recognizes her clairvoyance. Raven is a special girl, with startlingly, and absolutely white hair. She is, as Kel describes her in a shamanic dream at the very beginning of the first book, “… as if a star had come to Earth and was dwelling in the terrifying blackness below him.” Raven, who was once Noria, plays a pivotal role as the story progresses.