As Narrated by Frances (15 years old)…

Dear Diary,

Not too long after my dear Master told me that she had fought in a war between the Kingdoms of Erisdale and Lapanteria, I began to become more curious in my master’s life story. I had very abruptly realized that while I love my Master like… a parent figure, I know very little about her past.

When I did ask Edana if she could tell me, she said that she wasn’t quite comfortable recounting her story. She told me this wasn’t because she wanted to hide things from me, but more that she didn’t know how to tell her own story. Edana did tell me that I was free to look into her story myself and that she’d be happy to answer any questions.

To my surprise, for someone who is typically known throughout the Kingdom of Erisdale as its premier mage, my Master’s not actually of the Dale-folk (the people that live in Erisdale). Master Kellyanne, Edana’s colleague, told me that my master grew up in the Republic of Erlenberg, a city-state of humans and Alavari in the northeast that has stayed neutral in the conflict between the human kingdoms and the Kingdom of the Alavari.

Erlenberg’s primary source of income is trade. It takes advantage of its neutral status, its natural harbour, and its position on the eastern coast to exchange valuable goods between Alavaria and Erisdale. Edana was born into the Windwhistler family, one of the Republic’s greatest merchant houses, which operates primarily across Erisdale. This was how Edana’s mother got her admitted as an apprentice in Erisdale’s mage order, the Red Order.

According to Lady Igraine, Earl Forowena, and others I’ve spoken to, even at a young age, my master was a brilliant student, but she was very headstrong and temperamental. The only person who could direct her was her teacher, Master Kirk, the Forest Eater.

It was apparently this temper and her newfound loyalty to the Red Order that led to my master becoming estranged from her family. I don’t know the exact details, and I do not wish to ask my Master about this old hurt, but from what I heard, when the 2nd Erisdalian-Lapanterian war broke out, Edana’s family wanted her to return to Erlenberg. She insisted on serving the Red Order and cut ties with her family, who stopped communicating with her.

The Erisdalian-Lapanterian War over Vertingen and other territories was what propelled Edana upwards in the Red Order’s ranks. With her powerful fire magic, she’d lay waste to Lapanteria’s best mages and armies. From what I heard, by war’s end, the mere mention of her name made Lapanterian commanders pause and shiver their shoulders. Erisdale revered her. She was the Red Order’s golden girl, their best mage and inseparable from the Erisdalian victory. The Red Order even conferred on her the master mage rank, making her at eighteen, the youngest mage to ever become a master mage.

Except, the war had broken the golden girl of Erisdale. People, including my Master’s friends, don’t like to talk about these two years in my Master’s story. And I didn’t want to ask my Master about this, but she insisted on telling me one day over dinner. She told me I had to know what war does to people.

My Master has told me that she’d sunk into a cycle of drinking, partying, and sleeping around for a year after the war’s end. Mostly because she’d killed so many that she didn’t know what else she was good for. She confessed that despite her order’s attempts to help her, and even her own Master’s attempts to comfort her, she rebuffed their efforts, and due to her behaviour, she was expelled from the Red Order.

However, Master Kirk did manage to get Edana a place in the White Order, and an apprenticeship with Archmage Star the Glimmering Light. Having nowhere else to go, my Master accepted.

Archmage Star was not a popular mage. Nobody I have spoken to remembers her fondly, but they do recall her with respect. She apparently forced my master to… “clean up her act” and most importantly, gave her a purpose, educating the young mages joining the White Order. My Master says that in time, she overcame her own guilt, rehabilitated her reputation and once more became confident in herself and her skills.

This was when my Master’s career with the White Order began. It was not as exciting as her time with the Red Order, but no less significant. Her various duties for the next decade included teaching new mages, taking on promising students as apprentices, and assisting Master Star in administering the White Order. But as the tensions between the Human Kingdoms and the Kingdom of the Alavari increased, my Master was called on more and more not only to go on a variety of missions but for her expertise on teaching and administering mages.

She was also asked to mediate disputes. The White Order, being neutral in the affairs of the human kingdoms, was often called upon to be an arbiter of troublesome issues. It was in this field that she managed her most significant triumph, thwarting an assassination attempt on the Queen of Lapanteria, Queen Valeria and the Princess of Erisdale, Princess Pollyanna, while also helping create a treaty that would ensure lasting peace between Lapanteria and Erisdale.

Due to these achievements in peacetime, as well as her wartime achievements, at the age of thirty-one, when Archmage Star finally passed, my Master was elected Grandmaster of the White Order.

Only five years later, The Fourth Great War would break out between the Human Kingdoms and the Kingdom of the Alavari, leading to me and my classmates being summoned.

Having found out about this, I find myself more in awe of my Master than before. That she has no qualms about me finding out the darkest moments in her life is amazing. Moreover, I always thought that it was her achievements in the war that led to her becoming the head of the White Order, but it turns out it was her efforts in a time of peace. That she turned herself from being simply a magical soldier into a leader, a mentor and a trusted arbiter is astounding to me.

If there is only one great regret I believe my Master has about her life, is that she hasn’t reconciled with her family. Oh, she complains to me about her romantic troubles, but I can tell that that does not truly weigh on her heart.

More specifically, my master wishes to reconcile with her mother. Shortly after she became the White Order’s Grandmaster, Edana reached out to her family. Her brother, sister, and father responded to her letters with love and forgiveness, but the letters she’s written to her mother have gone unanswered. She even wrote another letter recently to her sister, asking if their mother has received her letters.

It turns out her mother has never opened the letters she’s been sent. The heartbroken look that my Master had when she read this… I don’t think I can forget it. I wonder if there is something I can do one day to bridge that gap.