Princess Academy

Overnight, a snowstorm begins, so Dan decides not to take the girls until the storm is over. The bandits lock Olana and Knut away from the girls. Miri overhears Dan telling the other bandits that he plans to take them to their camp before sending them home after getting the ransom from the prince. During the day, however, he loses his temper and almost strangles one of the girls before being stopped by another bandit, Onor, who tells him that he will have the chance to kill someone later.

Miri becomes afraid that Dan will kill all of them, so she uses quarry-speech to try to get the girls to run. Only half of them follow her, and the bandits grab them and take them back to the academy. Then, Miri and the girls recite the story about when the bandits tried to invade Mount Eskel, which disturbs many of the bandits. However, Dan sees through the plan and binds and gags Miri, threatening to slit her throat if she tries anything else. The girls are then kept in the bedchamber, which is guarded by 11 of the bandits. Miri lies on the floor and tries to use quarry-speech to reach out to her family through the linder. Her memories then draw her mind to Peder, and she tries using quarry-speech to tell him they are in danger. However, she gets no response. She continues trying until she becomes exhausted. One of the bandits allows her to eat some porridge, and then Miri falls asleep. She dreams of climbing a slope.

Miri wakes up in the night while the bandits are sleeping. She receives a message in quarry-speech from Peder, who recalls a memory of the villagers and him hunting a mountain cat. This lets her know that Peder and the villagers are coming to stop the bandits and that the girls must exit the academy before the villagers arrive. Miri relays this message to Britta and then in quarry-speech to the other girls. The girls quietly get ready and open the window. They start leaving, and the villagers arrive. Almost all the girls are out before the bandits wake up. Frid hits one of them with a pot, and she and Miri leave through the window. The bandits start chasing the girls, and the villagers fight the bandits. Miri sees her father, but before she can reach him, Dan grabs her and tells her that he is going to kill her.

Laren knocks out a bandit and prepares to fight Dan, but Dan threatens to kill Miri. Os then offers Dan a deal: He will trade the four bandits whom the villagers have captured in exchange for the nine girls whom the bandits have re-captured, including Miri, Britta, Frid, Katar, Esa, and Gerti. Os says that if Dan does not agree to this, the villagers will kill the bandits. However, Dan demands that he also get a princess to hold for ransom.

However, the bandits start to hesitate, believing that the mountain is alive and cursed. They start setting the girls free. Only Onor, another bandit named Dogface, and four other bandits remain, holding Esa and Britta. Dan says that they will take the three girls and return them in the spring. However, Peder tells him that the villagers will follow them. Miri thinks about how the villagers had all come to save them and realizes that Mount Eskel is her home and that the villagers are her people. She then wishes that she had a weapon and remembers that Peder’s linder hawk is in her pocket. She uses quarry-speech with the villagers, using a memory of Peder falling into the ice to have them corner Dan toward the cliff. The plan works, and Miri stabs Dan in the wrist with the linder hawk. The two fall, with Miri hanging from the cliff bed as Dan holds onto her leg. However, something hits Dan, and he lets go of Miri and falls. Laren then pulls Miri up, and she sees that his mallet is gone.

Following Dan’s fall from the cliff, the other bandits run away. Then, the villagers and the girls free Olana and Knut from the closet, and they all sleep in the bedchamber, having stayed awake all night. When they wake, they find that the winter supply of food has either been eaten or rotted. Thus, the girls cannot stay at the academy for the winter.

During the winter months, Olana begins skinning rabbits for the families, Knut stays with Os, and Miri begins teaching others in the village reading, writing, and other subjects. She wants to start an academy for the whole village and starts holding classes in the chapel, bringing Olana in to help her teach the villagers. Miri wants to learn mathematics to help in trading, Esa wants to have her mother learn as well, and Liana wants to learn more court etiquette. Meanwhile, Olana starts reviewing the girls’ princess lessons in preparation for the prince’s return. Miri is conflicted: She wants to run the village academy and remain with her family and people, but she also desires a life as a princess. Additionally, she wishes to be with Peder but is unsure if she can say no to Prince Steffan if he chooses her. She allows Peder to believe that she wants to marry the prince.

On the first day of spring, Britta shows Miri how to grow vegetables in her garden. Then, a messenger from Danland announces that Prince Steffan has returned to the academy. The academy girls must appear to have him choose his bride-to-be.

The girls go back to the academy, but as they prepare to see the prince, Britta starts to look sick again. When Miri asks her what is wrong, Britta says that she cannot face Steffan because she knows him personally. She explains that her father is a nobleman and that Steffan spent summers in the estate next to hers when they were children. They would play together, and Britta steadily fell in love with him. When the priests decided that Steffan was to marry a girl from Mount Eskel, Britta’s father, who wanted the two to marry, set her up with a family in Mount Eskel. However, Britta did not feel like she deserved to be there and believed that the other girls did not like her. Moreover, she worried that Steffan would still reject her, which was why she pretended to be sick during the ball. Miri, however, is relieved to hear this; she realizes that she does not want to be a princess and wants to be with Peder.

Britta reluctantly joins the other girls, and Steffan immediately recognizes her. He looks happy and excited to see her. He chooses Britta to be the princess. Then, a priest declares that all the girls are academy graduates and ladies of the princess. The girls will also attend Britta and Steffan’s wedding in a year. Steffan and the priest announce that Mount Eskel will become the 16th province of Danland, requiring it to have a chief delegate to represent it. Steffan reveals that he knew that Britta was one of the girls at the academy. When he did not see her at the ball, he could not make his decision. He left to find out why Britta was not there and to settle the issue of her originally being a lowlander with the priests.

Britta initially wants Miri to be the delegate from Mount Eskel, telling her that she would be staying in Asland for most of the year. However, Miri insists that Britta choose Katar, who wants to leave Mount Eskel. She also expresses her desire to return home and run the village academy for a while. Miri promises, however, that she will visit Asland in the future.

Before the girls leave, Britta fully befriends Katar, and Miri buys six of Olana’s books with a gold coin. Olana admits that she was cruel to push the girls in their studies and says that there was no actual house for the chosen girl’s family. It was a lie that she used to motivate the girls. However, because Miri is the academy princess, Olana gives her the painting of the house.

Then, Peder arrives to see Miri. He says that he is happy the prince did not choose her, and she says that she is, too. The two then leave together, holding hands. Peder tells Miri that his father is letting him make and sell his linder carvings, and Miri says that she is going to teach at the village academy. She says that she is willing to let Peder join if he pays her in a linder hawk since she lost hers when it fell over the cliff. He agrees, and they walk on. At home, Miri, Marda, and their father sing a Mount Eskel song. Miri continues to tend to Britta’s garden.