Katar and the older girls are jealous of Miri's success in class. Miri is at the head of the class and befriends Britta, a lowlander who has recently come to Mount Eskel to live. Miri misses her family and her friend Peder, for whom she has special feelings. Instead of socializing with the girls Miri focuses on her studies and on figuring out the properties of quarry-speech, the telepathy-like communication the workers use to communicate while in the mine.

Miri accidentally causes the girls to miss going home before the big winter snows, effectively turning her into an outcast. The girls are taught by a strict lowlander named Olana, who punishes them harshly when they break rules. Though many of them do not wish to go, their attendance is required by law. The king requires all the eligible girls to attend the princess academy, a few hours' walk from the town. The priests in Asland, Danland's capitol, have declared that the next princess will hail from Mount Eskel. Traders journey up the mountain once in a while to trade their goods for linder, although their prices are getting steeper. Miri, unlike her peers, is not allowed to help in the linder mines, though the exclusion makes her feel inadequate. The main industry in the village is mining linder, a smooth white stone with ribbons that can vary in size and color. Their mountain is called Mount Eskel and it is a territory of the kingdom of Danland. 'Princess Academy' by Shannon Hale is the story of Miri Larensdaughter, a fourteen-year-old girl living with her sister Marda and their father in a mountain village.

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