Annie is one of the dual protagonists of the novel. She is a dragonrider competing for the role of Firstrider and rides an Aurelian dragon, Aela, who is amber-toned in color. Annie has long, red-brown hair and a “pale freckled face” (11). Lee has “thought of Annie as beautiful—strikingly beautiful—for almost as long as [he] can remember, but [he’s] never told her that” (11). She is soft-spoken yet ambitious. She always hunches “as if hoping to take up less space. It’s a jarring contrast to her confidence in the air” (13). Annie’s reserved and deferential nature makes her easily discounted by her peers and authority figures. Despite her top marks in school, she has trouble with public speaking, which a role like Firstrider or the First Protector’s heir would require her to have talent in.

Annie is also an orphan whose parents were executed by dragonfire by Lee’s parents long ago. She later met Lee at Albans Orphanage, shortly after his own dragonborn parents were killed in the revolution and he was sent away by the First Protector. Though Lee believes his true identity is a well-kept secret, Annie has always suspected his identity as the Dragonlord’s son. Though she despises his father and the old regime for what happened to her family and her hometown of Holbin Hill, she still maintains a friendship with Lee.