Almina

Almina is born in Minalan and Alya's home, the Great Hall of Sevendor Castle, "midmorning, with hardly any difficulty." Minalan describes her as their second daughter (counting Bishi, his daughter with Isily) and his first daughter with Alya. She is a healthy baby, "even larger than her brother had been," with "the most perfectly exquisite bright blue eyes" Minalan had ever seen. A company of fascinated Alka Alon waited in the Great Hall, hoping for further magical effects of the kind that produced snowstone at Minalyan's birth, but no such effects manifested. Lorcus famously vowed on the spot to slay the first man who dared touch her.

Almina is now about three. Across the book she is the quieter, more wary counterpart to her brother Minalyan, who chases the household "Flour Monster" with a stale batard and battles imaginary ogres. Almina watches "wide-eyed and hands over her mouth" from doorways, and runs out into the yard to be chased rather than do the chasing. The book's most-quoted observation about her temperament comes from her grandfather, watching the children play:

"You've got a brave one, there. He doesn't shy away from being scared, like Almina."

— Minalan's father, on his grandchildren (Necromancer)

To which Minalan replies, with paternal indulgence:

"She enjoys being scared too much to attack — she's three."

— Minalan, Necromancer

She and Minalyan stay with their Bovali grandparents at the Sevendor Town bakery for Yule, where they are spoiled rotten with cookies and treats. Late in the book, Minalan notes that when Alya begins her recovery, her smallest mannerisms "remind him more of Almina than anyone else."

Almina is a young child of the household at Spellmonger's Hall through the early Magelaw days. Of the two siblings she copes with Alya's post-Greenflower recovery the most tenderly — "Almina was the first to rush over, give her mother an embrace and assure her that it would be all right." Even when Alya behaves oddly, Almina "very gently and tenderly correct[s] her, in her little-girl voice, like a teaching sister to a misbehaving pupil." Minalan admits he indulges his "delicate little flower" perhaps more than is healthy, walking the dogs around the moss garden together and taking her to market.

When Isily's children are brought into the household, Almina forms an immediate attachment to the youngest, her toddler half-brother Istman:

"I was charmed by how quickly Almina took to caring for him with the nurses, and how pleased she was when she was informed that this was her baby brother. She took a protective attitude over him from that day on."

— Minalan, Thaumaturge

At the climactic family reunion she throws herself at Minalan's knees alongside Minalyan and Ismina, declaring with cheerful approval of her father's new apprentice Ruderal:

"Rudy's fun! He plays the best!"

— Almina, Thaumaturge

At the family dinner table, after Minalan returns from facing the giant Lord Tiny on the field, Almina delivers her most quoted line of the series. When Minalyan declares he can't wait to grow up and "slay giants and dragons," and brushes off Minalan's account with "He's a giant! They're evil!" — Almina objects, with the absolute moral conviction of a small child:

"Daddy didn't slay the giant! It was forced to attack! It wasn't his fault!"

— Almina, Arcanist

And again, a moment later, doubling down with the authority of a child:

"But giants aren't [evil], and I'm sure Lord Tiny is really very nice! He was just mistreated!"

— Almina, Arcanist

Minalan agrees with her — "no more than any man or beast. Not even the gurvani are evil, at their heart. They are just misled and badly informed" — and Alya catches his eye approvingly. The exchange neatly captures the family's moral worldview as much as Almina's own kindness; she takes a defendable but unpopular position and holds it against her older brother and her father both.

Almina is a young girl through the Anghysbel-expedition era. Alya coolly observes that the children "have grown used to not seeing their father for days or weeks at a time" and will endure her own absence too — but Minalan privately notes that "they did miss me when I was gone, Almina in particular. It broke my heart to consider how much they missed me."

At a noble gathering with Estret, Sire Cei's wife, Almina misbehaves badly enough that Minalan has to break off a serious political conversation to discipline her — "Almina! Almina! that is not a nice name! Apologize!" and a moment later "Almina! Almina! Stop that! No hitting!" — a vivid little-girl scene Minalan summarizes wryly as "someone needed a spanking."

Late in the book, after Minalan has spoken with the young dragon Ameras-and-the-others-call-her-something-else in Anghysbel, he tells Alya:

"I really did. And she was nice. But young. It was like talking to Almina or Ismina. She didn't try to eat me, once."

— Minalan to Alya, on the young dragon (Footwizard)

In Preceptor, Almina is just old enough to start trying on identities. After a fair in Vanador with poetry contests and fire-eating acrobats, Pentandra reports back to Minalan:

"Almina told me she wants to be a Brigadine priestess, when she grows up."

— Pentandra to Minalan, Preceptor

Minalan's reply, with paternal affection:

"She'll want to be a Sky Rider next week. Or a pirate. She has quite the imagination."

— Minalan, Preceptor

Earlier in the book Alya remarks fondly that the family's new young apprentice, Larask, "played well with Almina when they were children." Ruderal, comparing Larask to Minalan's own children, observes: "He's not like Minalyan or Almina much" — a subtle confirmation that Almina has already developed a recognisable personal stamp of her own, distinct from her older brother's extroverted leadership.

Almina is a growing young lady of Sevendor as the series closes — the quieter middle daughter, between Minalyan and Ismina on one side and the toddlers Istman and Vanamin on the other. When Minalan returns from one of his Farisian trips, he describes her in the book's most-quoted line about her:

"Almina was just happy to see me, as she was at that glorious stage where a father is akin to a god to a daughter's imagination."

— Minalan, Practical Adept

Two different Farisian women in the book are described as cocking an eyebrow "just like Almina did" — by this point her distinctive expression has become a household reference for Minalan. After his conquest of Farise, the whole family travels south to the city for several days; it is Almina's first time seeing the ocean, and she plays in the white sands with her siblings. Late in the book she has her hair braided by her newly-met half-sister Lemari, the two laughing together as if they had always been family.