⚠️ This article contains spoilers for Wingless in the Sky (Book 1), up to and including Act 2.
"NO WAY! Great, great to meet you! My dad here named me Romalina — wild, right? So obviously I just go by Romi instead. What's your name? How old are you? I'm nineteen! You look a bit older, but maybe your face is just too serious. Pretty, though. I finally have someone to envy!"
— Romi, on meeting Lia for the first time
Full name: Romalina Jovandi — though anyone other than her father who uses it will hear about it immediately. "Don't Romalina me!" Romi, exclusively, unless she decides otherwise.
Age: Nineteen
Origin: Born in Lunara; raised on Jovan's trade caravans and ships between the surface and the sky
Father: Jovan Jovandi — chief human merchant in Aeloria, primary food and goods trader between the Midland Empire and the sky cities
Mother: Jerra — lives in Lunara; separated from Jovan when Romi was around ten or eleven, when the constant movement became unsustainable for her
Jovan built his trade empire on movement — caravans, ships, the routes between the surface and the sky cities that keep Highfolk fed and supplied. He is the chief human merchant in Aeloria, which gives him enough leverage to speak to authority without excessive deference and enough practical knowledge of the city to be genuinely useful. He bakes for pleasure and runs businesses for a living; he is warm, protective, funny, and not particularly intimidated by rank. He raised Romi to be the same.
Jerra could not sustain the constant motion. When Romi was around ten or eleven, Jerra and Jovan separated — not with bitterness, but with the mutual recognition that they wanted different lives. Jerra settled permanently in Lunara, one of the Empire's more beautiful cities, and has been there since. Jovan kept his trade routes.
Romi initially stayed with her mother and tried the stationary life: regular home, proper school, roots. It lasted about a year. She was too restless, too used to movement and variety, too constitutionally unsuited to staying still. She missed her father. She missed the ships. She went back.
Jerra let her go. "You're your father's daughter. I see that now." There was practical reasoning alongside the grief: Jovan had no other children, and someone would eventually need to inherit what he had built. Jerra made her peace with it — mostly. The agreement was that Romi would write every week, and that she would visit when routes allowed.
The separation is not hostile. Both parents love Romi, both accepted the outcome, and both are aware that the outcome still costs them something. Jerra has been missing her. Jovan knows it. Romi moves between them as she moves between everything: in motion, carrying pieces of both.
Dark curly hair, bright eyes, pretty in an unconventional way that becomes entirely irrelevant within approximately thirty seconds of meeting her, because what registers first — and second, and third — is the energy. She is small and fills rooms completely. Jovan's description is precise: "A hurricane, isn't she? She takes up too much space for her size."
She moves constantly. Gestures when she talks. Grabs people's hands. Bounces slightly when excited, which is often.
Cheerful, talkative, warm, with no discernible filter between thought and speech. She meets Lia with immediate, unqualified enthusiasm — grabs her hand, fires questions, announces that she finally has someone to envy — and has informally adopted her as a best friend before Lia has fully processed what is happening.
She gossips about Highfolk with the relaxed irreverence of someone who has lived alongside them long enough to find them entertaining rather than intimidating. "See that Celestial, thick gold wings? Totally in love with his cousin. Everyone knows. Scandal waiting to happen." She notices things — who hates whom, who is pretending what, which merchant cheats on weights — and shares them freely because she genuinely finds people interesting and has never quite understood why others don't say these things aloud.
Underneath the brightness she is perceptive and kind in ways she often expresses sideways. She buys Lia a scarf at the market and insists she take it: "Now you have something that's actually yours. Not palace property. Not a diplomatic gift. Just yours." She notices before Lia admits it that her eyes "look tragic. But in a pretty way." She shows up.
She is also, to her own genuine regret, careless with information in a situation that required more caution than she had — she mentions Lia's heart magic to friends without thinking through the consequences, and the news propagates through the city before either of them can stop it. When Lia explains the danger Romi is immediately, honestly sorry: "I'm sorry. I really am. I just… I didn't think." It is not malice. It is not enough, either. She knows it.
The most uncomplicated good thing in Lia's time in Aeloria. Romi talks to her like a person who has always simply been a person, with no hierarchy calculation and no political subtext, and in the context of Aeloria this is rarer than it should be. Lia finds herself laughing with Romi in ways she hadn't expected — "Romi made everything seem absurd and wonderful at the same time" — and the friendship takes hold fast.
She is also the one who asks the question nobody else thinks to ask: "Is she happy? Your aunt?" And listens to the whole answer.
Father-daughter banter, warm and easy, with an undercurrent of mutual respect. Jovan finds her energy both exhausting and clearly delightful. He corrects her when she goes too far — "You will land us in jail, talking like that" — without sounding particularly alarmed about it. He has raised her to be practical, curious, and not overly reverent of authority, which she has taken to heart on all counts.
He calls her Romalina when the occasion seems to warrant it. She considers this her cross to bear.
This article is about a Character — Supporting Character
| All Characters | Character Index |
| Related | Jovan (father) · Lia |
| Race | Human · The Three Races |
| Home | Lunara |
