Zari

A young wind-seller of the Salt Road

Zari is fourteen, sharp as salt, and the best wind-seller at the Ninth Waystation — or so she will tell you, at length, whether you have asked or not. Orphaned young and raised by the bottles, she can name any wind by its weight in the dark and haggle a merchant to tears, and she means, one day, to own the whole striped stall and never go hungry again.

What she wants (and needs)

Wants: enough. Coin, security, the stall of her own, a full belly forever — the fierce, hungry wanting of a child who has known too little.
Needs: to learn that some winds — and some bargains — cost more than their price, and that cleverness without care is just another kind of greed.

The flaw that costs her

Greed, quick and impulsive. Zari will sell any wind to anyone with coin and count the consequences later, if at all. It is what makes her the best seller on the Road, and it is exactly what leads her, in the first tale, to sell the wrong wind to the wrong buyer — and set the whole story blowing.

Voice

Quick, boastful, funny, folkloric; talks to the reader, counts in threes, learns the hard sweet way. First person, past tense.

Appears in

The Girl Who Sold the Wind novelette