A Week Later…

Dear Diary,

I’m sorry I haven’t the time to write, but the siege has become truly desperate and I’ve… I’ve got nobody to talk to of late.

I’ve called mom once, but she’s so far away that aside from talking about better times, discussing with her what happened when we saved Alexander and Elowise, and getting advice on spells, there’s not much she can do. I know she’s begging the War Council to send us reinforcements, but they’re not budging.

Part of the reason is that Prince Sebastian is begging for reinforcements to contain the invasion of Lapanteria. That I understand, but while I’ve tried to give them the benefit of the doubt, I think it’s clear that the War Council has too many idiots. Mom explained that while she and her friends on the council agree that at least a small force has to be sent to reinforce Erlenberg, Earl Darius and the majority, including Erisdale’s Crown Princess, who has just come of age, don’t want to commit Erisdalian forces to what they see as a lost fight.

They don’t get that if they lose Erlenberg, we lose control of the sea and thus the war. I think—I know even a thousand soldiers will help at this point and in my opinion, right now we need an experienced commander most of all.

Uncle Alexander is still recovering from the trorc who tried to kill him. He was lucky to be alive. Elowise is doing her best, but it’s not enough. The planned counterattack fell through with Alexander’swounding and now against General Antigones and Helias, and their now three to one advantage in troops, we’ve been pushed to the third defensive line. The Windwhistler Compound is now the front line————————————————————

Sorry, a cannonball just hit the Compound’s wall. It didn’t rain today, but that meant the Alavari could bombard us. Thank Amura and Rathan that Great-Grandma Edana had this place built to last. The Alavari aren’t risking bringing cannons into the city but they are using their firepower to try to demoralize us.

Ophelia and Robert were wounded yesterday. Robert actually lost his tail, and Ophelia got a nasty scar up her back. I… it seems such a minor thing, but they’re both permanently scarred now. I wish they didn’t have to experience this.

I think we need to assassinate either General Antigones or General Helias. I’ve tried to plead with Elowise to let us do so, but she refuses. I don’t understand why. With the numbers against us, an assassination is our only option. It’s almost as if she doesn’t think they don’t deserve to die, which is impossible. If Elowise hadn’t been so badly hurt by the assassin, I would have thought she was a traitor.

Besides, General Helias is a child murderer. No, Durannon doesn’t have formal rules of war, but there are traditions and he’s broken all of the most sacred of them. As for General Antigones, he nearly killed Elowise and Alexander.

I just… I hate this. I hate what’s happening to my friends and family. Mom’s pining away, at the brink of breaking down from how she can’t protect me, or her family. Ayax is in pieces. If she’s not visiting her father, she’s having nightmares of him dying, or of her birth father dying in her arms. She doesn’t deserve to lose another father, not from such a disgusting assassination attempt. Elizabeth is barely holding together herself and is trying to comfort Ayax. As wary as she is, she’s taken to sleeping with Ayax in the same room, just to try to calm her down.

I’ve lost count of how many losses we’ve taken. I see old faces, but I also see so many new ones, and they keep getting younger, or older. I can’t stress this enough, but Martin, Ginger, and Renia are the only reason we’re holding together despite everything that’s happened. Elizabeth is our leader, I blast our enemies, but Martin makes sure we have enough food and equipment even as supplies intermittently run out, Ginger makes sure to give the new recruits we seem to get every day some kind of survival training, and Renia comforts those who can barely take any more. She’s even doing so for people outside of our battalion, like Uncle Eustace, who is still confined to bed and can’t lead the Windwhistler Fleet.

The three of them make me so proud to call them my friends. I help them with what little I can, with meals, hugs, combing their hair when they have no time for anything else, but it takes so much out of them. Martin barely sleeps. He naps whenever he has time. If he isn’t napping, he’s fighting, doing paperwork, or physically hunting down supplies. I’ve had to spoon-feed Ginger, and occasionally bathe her because she’s so exhausted with training and organizing the battalion.

As for Renia, she talks to soldiers from dawn to dusk, non-stop, not even pausing for meals. If she’s not talking to soldiers, she’s talking to the rest of her squad. Renia as of yesterday has a formal commission and is the leader of our “Support” squad of courtesans that we’ve hired to attend to our soldiers' emotional needs. It’s a model that’s rapidly caught on with other battalions who’ve implemented it in different forms. Some provide more… physical services, and I think Renia is seeing someone romantically in the Compound, but our squad is focused on helping us manage our emotions.

It takes a toll on her, though, especially when some of her patients don’t come back. I hold her when she cries, but other than that I can’t do anything.

And this is all the Alavari’s fault. It’s because of this war they started. The invasion they did. The assassinations, the underhanded tactics, the child murdering, the fact that they are grinding my friends and family’s emotions to a pulp because of what? They wanted a port? More land?

Do you know, diary… I have never seen my Grandma Eleanor more lost than this week. My all-knowing, smart, stubborn grandmother is completely lost because she knows she’ll have to abandon the home she raised her children in to a bunch of child-murdering monsters!

I hate them for that, and all that they’ve done to my friends and family.

The next day…

Frances checked her equipment, laid out on the table, for a second time, slender fingers touching the scratches in the cloth of her brigandine. She made a note to herself to get them repaired later, but they needed to move out soon. With the better weather these past few days, came the certainty of an attack, and the Lightning Battalion was going to try to set up an ambush to counter a push towards the docks.

She heard a knock on the door and turned around to find Elizabeth, leaning against the doorframe. Frances made another note to herself to cut Elizabeth’s hair for her. Her friend’s black hair was going down past her chest and was going to prove a hindrance.

“Frances, how are you doing?” Elizabeth asked.

Frances paused, “I’m alright.” Hopefully this would be enough so that her friend wouldn’t ask more.

It wasn’t. Elizabeth only hesitated for a second, before walking up. “Look, I know you don’t want to burden us, but this siege has been…been… ”

“Crazy? Insane?” Frances supplied.

Elizabeth snorted. “A shit tornado.”

Frances smiled wryly. “Thanks for checking, Elizabeth, but I think I’m fine. I’m… angry, really angry, but I don’t feel bad.”

“That’s kind of what I want to ask you about.” Elizabeth nudged Frances with her elbow. “I’m not saying you shouldn’t feel angry. I mean, I am too, but…”

“But what, Elizabeth?” Frances asked in a cool tone. She wasn’t irritated by her friend, but there was a lot to do and very little time.

“I don’t know. I’m worried for you.” The younger girl fiddled with her black hair. “You’ve been helping us a lot recently. When was the last time you stopped to rest?”

“I wrote in my diary yesterday,” said Frances.

“After we told you to go to your room and go to sleep,” Elizabeth replied.

Frances sighed. “Elizabeth, I will rest when I feel like I need to. Honest. I don’t feel too tired.”

That made Elizabeth blink. “You don’t?”

Frances shook her head.

“Just… angry?”

“Yes.” Frances forced herself to smile. It probably didn’t come out looking very sincere, but she wanted to let Elizabeth know that she was alright, mostly anyway. “I know it’s not always good to be angry, but the Alavari have hurt you, my family, our friends, me. I can’t just let go of that.”

Frances was met with a slightly arched eyebrow and crossed arms.

“You do realize that that just makes me more worried, right?” Elizabeth asked.

Frances snorted. “I know, and I’m glad you do, but I think I can work this out myself.”

“Frances, at least see Renia, please,” Elizabeth said.

“I’m not doing as poorly as some of the other people she is seeing right now. Really, I”m fine.” Frances took Elizabeth’s hand and squeezed it gently. “Look, we’ve got to go. We have that ambush to set up for Helias’s next attack. I’ll talk to you later. Promise.”

Deflating, Elizabeth nodded, and squeezed back. “Okay.”

Weeks into the siege and Erlenberg wasn’t a bombed out ruin out of a photograph from Earth’s World Wars. It was however, eerily deserted. Bustling streets were now stained with old blood, fallen rubble, and other scars of war.

The interior of the house that Frances and the squad with her were hiding in was even creepier. The Lightning Battalion was hiding in the houses along this street, and using them as cover to ambush the approaching column from General Helias’s army. That meant carefully hiding beneath windowsills and doing their best not to disturb the belongings of the long gone inhabitants.

From what Frances could tell, this house had hosted at least two families of labourers. There were tools, and enough worn working clothes leftover for her to deduce the former home-owners. She’d written an apology to the family for using their house for cover, which she’d left on the stovetop, but then again, this family may not be coming back to their home.

They could even be dead already, thanks to Helias’s army.

The thought that they’d be facing them was a strangely comforting thought to Frances. She knew that deep down, she had a tendency to hold back, to try not to hurt the enemy so badly, or cruelly. Against Helias’s band of murderers, there was no need to hold back.

In the shadows of the house’s second floor, from behind the drawn curtains, she watched the column march by. It looked to be about two battalions strong. She raised her left hand, signalling to the soldiers behind her to stand by. With the other, she raised Ivy’s Sting.

Ivy had been quiet since the assassination attempt. The whole incident had been extremely curious. It was strange how she’d recognized the assassin, and stranger still that the assassin knew of Ivy’s Sting, when the human records had no information on Ivy’s Sting. However, it’s possible that Ivy’s Sting was better known in Alavaria. Whatever the case, Frances didn’t want to press her wand. She trusted Ivy’s Sting to keep her secrets.

Besides, they had far more pressing matters.

A messenger, barely fifteen, silently crept up to Frances. “Lady Frances, Commander Elizabeth wants you to know there were three war mages spotted, and asks you to take them out.”

“Thank you. Get to your post and stay safe.” Frances took a deep breath, scanning through the gap between the curtains. She could see the war mages now. The group of three included: an elderly female orc shaman with a distinctive fur cloak, a male goblin mage with a wand, and a female ogre with a staff.

Pointing at the mages, she whispered to her musketeers. “Focus your fire at the mages when the fighting starts.” With that, she crept through the house and to the front hallway.

The waiting soldiers in the hallway said nothing but gestured respectfully to her by nodding or saluting. She returned their salutes, before finding Ayax, braced by the ground floor window, looking through its peephole.

“There are three mages. I’ll lead with the lightning spell, you then focus on the shaman,” Frances whispered.

Ayax grimaced. “You think she’ll be the troublesome one?”

“I think the saying is: beware the elderly in a profession where people usually die young,” said Frances.

“I thought it was: always beware the wrinkled one amongst the beardless upstarts,” said Ayax.

Frances smiled. “You think you can take her?”

“You’ll bail me out if I don’t,” said Ayax, grinning. Frances grinned right back.

The two girls fell silent as they heard a horn blow. Taking deep breaths, they began to sing, as battle-cries rang out all along the street, punctuated by the crack of muskets.

“Going!” Ayax yelled.

Frances, deep in her song, tapped her cousin’s shoulder, and the troll kicked the door open. Sunlight splashed across their vision, forcing Frances to blink as Ayax charged out, sending a ripple of magic cascading over the Alavari in front of her. It blasted them backwards, away from the doorway, allowing Frances and the rest of the soldiers to follow.

All along the street, Lightning Battalion soldiers poured out of the houses surrounding the unfortunate Alavari troops. Elizabeth had already hit the front of the column with her hidden cavalry, which scattered the child-murdering troops. Martin and Ginger were leading separate elements emerging from the houses.

Frances however only had eyes for the three war mages. Before they could get a spell off, she fired her lightning spell.

Ivy’s Sting bucked in her grip as the familiar thunderous boom roared through the street, shaking window panes and deafening nearby fighters. The bolt of lightning almost instantaneously smashed the shields of the ogre warmage, set her aflame, and flung her into a house. The goblin war mage and the orc shamaness however, just managed to get shields up to block her strike.

Ayax was on top of the shamaness, smashing her staff into the orc’s shield. Leaving her cousin to her prey, Frances, continuing to stride forward, immediately sending another fireball at the goblin mage. The goblin blocked them and, diving into song, blasted her back with several bolts of magic.

However, Frances immediately activated her brigandine. The effort was a huge drain on her magic, but it allowed her to walk right through the bolts. That surprised the goblin enough for her to quickly grab him with a levitation spell and toss him into the sky.

As he flailed, trying to bring himself back to ground, Frances threw a vial of crownfire from her pouch into the air, and sent it flying towards the goblin. Somehow the goblin managed to cast a shield to block it, engulfing him in flame, but leaving him unscathed. It distracted him, though, and he hit the ground with a thud. To end him, Frances ripped a spear from an orc charging at her, and plunged it into the goblin’s belly. Yanking the wand from the goblin’s desperate grasp, she stabbed the blunt end into the confused orc’s eye, before killing him with a quick blast of fire.

Eyes searching the battlefield, she noted that Helias’s troops were in full retreat, and found Ayax still fighting the orc shamaness. Taking a deep breath, Frances summoned her magic and began the chant for her lightning spell, keeping an eye on her surroundings.

The song made Ayax grin, and widened the eyes of the orc shamaness. She glanced between the pair and dropped her staff.

“I surrender!” Ayax nearly hit her with her staff, but just managed to miss as the shamaness got to her knees.

Frances somehow managed to get her magic under control and end her song, but she didn’t lower her wand. This could be a trick.

Then again, the few of Helias’s Alavari that remained in the street were throwing down their arms and surrendering.

“Don’t let down your guard, and don’t approach them!” Frances yelled. “It could be a trick!”

“We surrender!” the shamaness exclaimed, raising her hands.

“Says the child-murdering shitheads,” hissed one of the soldiers. Ayax, grimly kicked away the shamaness’s staff, keeping her staff pointed at the orc.

The shamaness froze, her eyes widening. “We didn’t kill them, we swear!”

“Then why didn’t you stop them?” Frances stormed towards the shamaness, Ivy’s Sting pointed at the orc. “Why didn’t you stop them? Why didn’t they stop? I was at Kwent. I could have let Earl Darius have his soldiers rape and murder the town’s inhabitants, but I chose not to! I prevented that! Why didn’t you?”

The shamaness swallowed. “... we had our orders.”

Frances narrowed her eyes. “So you did kill them? You lied?”

The orc shamaness swallowed. “I did, but not everybody here.” She met Frances’s eyes. “Look, I surrendered, and I’m a valuable prisoner. You can exchange me.”

Frances felt her knuckles turn white as her grip tightened over her wound. The orc was right. She had surrendered. These child murderers had surrendered and thus, Frances knew she was supposed to imprison these Alavari. They knew that Frances was supposed to imprison them.

But now that she thought about it, Frances didn’t think that anybody would mind her killing a confessed child killer. Besides, they hadn’t the facilities to keep a war mage in captivity with any safety.

“Ayax, if you want to, look away.”

The troll blinked. “Cuz?”

Frances imagined a blade of magic slicing the orc’s throat. It would be quick, efficient and as painless as possible. Nothing like how she’d heard how the civilians outside of Erlenberg’s walls had died. They’d been stabbed or slashed, left bleeding and screaming in pain as they died in agony on the ground. She couldn’t imagine what their captors had done before then.

This relatively painless death? This was the bare minimum of justice that Frances could offer.

The orc tried to run, Frances screamed a note and yanked her back. For good measure, she chanted a spell that bound the squirming, crying orc in glowing rings of magic.

Elizabeth was galloping up behind her. “Frances what are you doing—”

“She confessed to killing those children. She deserves death at the very least. Don’t worry. I’ll make it quick.”

And as Elizabeth hesitated, and Ayax stared in shock, Frances finished her spell, raised her wand and turned the orc over to look her right in her terrified green eyes.

“Last words?” Frances asked coldly.

The orc swallowed. “W-why?… they said you were kind. Honourable to a fault.”

“Because you had a choice and yet you killed them anyway. You, your leaders, my parents, could have chosen to do so many different things, and yet you monsters hurt people who can’t choose.” Frances took a deep breath. “Well, now that I have a choice, I’m going to make sure you can’t hurt anybody else.”

“Frances wait!” Elizabeth cried out, leaping down from her horse. Ayax raised her arm to reach towards her, but it was too late.

Frances pointed Ivy’s Sting at the orc and raised her voice. She sang the note and willed the spell to life.

Nothing happened.

The rings around the orc vanished. The shamaness gasped, shaking, backing away as Frances felt as if Ivy’s Sting had been lit ablaze. Her wand was suddenly painful to touch. Frances desperately tried to reach Ivy’s Sting and tried to ask her wand what was wrong.

She was met by a roil of emotions, cold disapproval, indignant outrage, a tinge of grief, and a last apologetic sob, as what she could feel from her wand faded away.

Until she was holding nothing but a silent piece of wood.

“Frances? What’s going on?” Ayax asked, still keeping an eye on the orc.

“I… I don’t know. I can’t… I can’t feel Ivy’s Sting.” Frances stared at her wand, feeling nothing from her friend and companion—no, her first friend ever. “Sorry, can you take her into custody?”

“Will do,” said Ayax. Frances stepped away, running away from Elizabeth’s outstretched hand back into the house. All attention was on her wand as she tried to communicate with it.

Except, Ivy’s Sting remained silent.

Frances started to hear the blood roar in her ears. Her hands started to shake. “No. No. This, this can’t be happening.”

“Frances, what’s going on?” Elizabeth asked.

Frances didn’t even turn to meet Elizabeth. She just babbled, “It’s Ivy. She’s rejected me. She stopped talking to me, but why? This doesn’t make any sense.”

Elizabeth took a deep breath. “Frances, do you really think she would have been fine with you killing that shamaness?”

Her heart plunged and for Frances, the world became silent as that question pounded through her head. She turned to Elizabeth, desperately hoping her friend was making some kind of ill-timed joke.

Elizabeth’s expression was serious, and solemn.

“We’re partners. Friends. We decided together—” At least, Frances thought they did, but the more she thought about it, she hadn’t truly asked Ivy her opinion. She’d asked for her wand’s help, her assistance, but never really asked for her opinion. She’d just chosen to kill the shaman and asked her wand to help her carry out the spell.

No, she’d demanded her wand to kill that shaman, after everything Ivy had been forced to do by every single owner that she’d ever had.

“Frances?” Ayax asked.

“I decided. I demanded her to do it. I didn’t care what she thought.” Frances crumpled to the floor, her beloved wand, her oldest friend, clasped in her hands, silent. She’d done this. She’d hurt Ivy’s Sting and now she was paying the price.

That fact cut into Frances far deeper and far more painfully than any wound that she’d taken, and unlike those wounds, it was accompanied by a bitter feeling of wretched guilt. Tears streaming down her cheeks, Frances felt Elizabeth’s arms around her, heard her friend’s words of comfort.

But all the small, brown-haired girl could think of was how she’d completely and utterly messed things up.

Edana was mulling over a missive from Ear Darius. He’d finally offered to detach a brigade, which was four battalions, to Erlenberg. However, he’d also offered to press the rest of the Erisdalian military to send four thousand convict soldiers, with the note that Edana could only choose one.

Edana had pretty much made up her mind to ask Darius to send his brigade, when her mirror started to vibrate. Picking it up, she opened it to find her daughter in tears.

“Mom. I’m sorry. I really completely let you down. I—” Frances descended into a babble of words that the older woman couldn’t make sense of. She caught some words like “Ivy’s Sting” and “rejected” but her poor daughter was sniffling so hard it was impossible to tell.

“Frances, I’m here, you’re safe, right?”

“I’m safe, yes.” Frances wiped her eyes. “Sorry, mom. I think you didn’t get any of that.”

Edana nodded. “I heard something about Ivy’s Sting rejecting you, but that doesn’t seem right to me.”

“She did. I…” Frances shut her eyes. “I tried to execute an orc shamaness from General Helias’s army. She surrendered, but she confessed to being one of the Alavari who murdered the civilians and I thought… I thought the right thing to do would be to kill her. I know I was wrong.”

The news sent a shiver through Edana and she stared, trying to reconcile the shy, kind girl she knew, with the image of her executing a surrendered prisoner. It suddenly dawned on Edana then that this wasn’t what that girl would do normally, and not to just anybody.

“Frances, what do you need to hear from me? How can I help you, right now?”

Frances clung to herself, wiping her eyes with the back of her sleeve on occasion. “I… I don’t know. I don’t want you to tell me I’m right. I know I wasn’t. I just… I just hope you aren’t disgusted with me. I don’t deserve it, but maybe you know how I can make this right with Ivy’s Sting.”

“I’m not disgusted with you, dear. I would be sorely tempted to kill that shamaness myself.” Smiling sadly, Edana wiped her eyes, wishing she was by her daughter’s side. “I am shocked, though. You’re usually so kind and understanding. Why did you feel it was right to kill her?”

To Edana’s alarm, the question made Frances buried her face in her hands and sob even harder. The older mage could just hear her daughter’s broken musing past the tears.

“I think I saw my parents in her, and the others. She—They hurt people who couldn’t protect themselves, like me. And the Alavari… they’re hurting my friends, Uncle Alexander, Grandpa Paul and Grandma Eleanor, and my family. I hate that they’re doing that.”

Her heart lurched and Edana felt her rage simmer. She thought about biting it down but decided that no, her daughter should see this.

“Frances, look at me.”

Frances wiped her eyes and stared at her. “Mom?”

“You are not alone. I’m angry at the Alavari too. It is a perfectly natural feeling to have. You remember how mad I was when Timur hurt you when the assassins nearly killed you?” Edana asked.

“Yes, but I was wrong to try to execute the shamaness,” Frances said.

“And you were. You let your anger drive you too far. That is dangerous, but don’t punish yourself for feeling angry at an insane situation.” Edana took a breath and leaned forward. “How else were you supposed to react? You are a young girl, traumatized by her past, heard of and saw even worse abuse happening in front of you.”

Frances blinked. “When… when you put it like that, it’s no wonder I was so angry.”

Edana nodded. “How long have you been feeling so angry, though?”

“A week? I can’t remember. It’s been ever since we found out about the massacre,” Frances said.

“I’m not going to downplay it dear, but that does worry me.” Edana winced as Frances’s eyes widened. “It’s rare for people to hold onto that kind of anger for so long. I don’t think you let it hurt your friends, but you need to develop ways to release that outrage.”

“I thought that that anger was natural,” Frances whispered. “That it was right to feel angry because of what happened.”

Edana’s eyes widened. It was beginning to suddenly make sense to her. “Oh, ohhhhh. Frances, dear, even righteous anger can lead people down dark paths, no matter how just the cause is. You recall what happened with your old school bullies, right?”

Frances nodded, shamefaced. “I do. I… I promised not to get angry that way again.”

“You didn’t,” said Edana, firmly. “I thought that you weren’t ever going to become so furious again, but I don’t think either of us imagined the stress you’d be under or the dishonourable acts the Alavari would be willing to commit to flame-coloured.”

“But what can I do then, mom? What happens if I get too angry again? I didn’t even realize I was going too far until Ivy’s Sting rejected me.”

Edana nodded, pursing her lips. “That is a good question, Frances, and I would advise that you also ask Renia this. She’ll have more practical advice to help you manage what you feel. As for what I think…” She paused, a deep frown on her face that unbeknownst her, gave way to a sorrowful expression.

“You will feel the anger I think, and it will seem like it will drown you like a wave. You can watch for warning signs, you can practice all the methods you can, and you may succeed in holding it back. You may go on for years without feeling it, but it may come again, out of nowhere, when you are weakest. When that happens, the only thing you can do is to seek your friends and family to steer you true.”

Edana met Frances’s eye, her heart aching at the sight of her daughter’s worry. “I’m sorry, Frances. I… I wish I could give you better advice—”

“No, mom, I think you’re right. Thank you, for always listening, and trying to be honest with me.” Frances groaned, wiping her eyes. “I really should have asked to speak to Renia earlier.”

“Hindsight is always harsh on us.” Edana took a sip of water from the glass on her table. “Now, tell me, how did Ivy’s Sting reject you? Is she still rejecting you?”

Frances raised her wand into view of the mirror and nodded. “She is. She just… when I tried to kill the shamaness, she stung me and stopped letting me cast through her. I apologized. Many times, but she hasn’t said a thing.” Frances bowed her head. “I think she’s had enough of me.”

Edana frowned. “Wait, did she warn you that you were going too far?”

“No, but I should have known better,” Frances stammered.

Her shoulders tensing, Edana glanced at the wand, her frown deepening as her eyes settled on the wand. “Frances, this… this may be hard to hear, but I’m not sure if Ivy’s Sting has been a good friend to you.”

As Edana expected, Frances straightened, and squeaked, “Excuse me?”

“Frances, Named Wands are supposed to respect their masters. We are indeed supposed to respect them, but in return, they are supposed to serve us loyally.” Edana picked up Poker and showed her daughter the flame-coloured staff. “I may tease Poker, and he may singe me a bit, but he knows I will take care of him, and I know he’s devoted to me. If he has a problem with me or I with him, we let each other know. We don’t just shut each other out without warning.”

Frances’s eyes flicked from Ivy’s Sting and back to Edana. “I was forcing her to do something she didn’t want to do, though.”

“Did she tell you that she didn’t want to do this?” Edana asked, in a calm voice.

“Well, no…”

Edana bit down her anger towards the wand and asked, “So she shuts you out and refuses to talk or even explain why? Did she even warn you that you were going too far?”

But… but I hurt her,” Frances stammered.

“Because she didn’t let you know that you were hurting her. This would be different if she was human, then you’d be guilty of ignorance. However, she’s your wand.” Edana placed special emphasis on that last sentence, as she put Poker down on her table. “You can only communicate through your thoughts and so she’s supposed to let you know if you are doing something she doesn’t approve of.”

Her daughter looked thoroughly confused, which was fine. It still hurt Edana that Frances was still trying to defend her Named Wand, even when it’d been so disloyal. “It… it’s not the first time I misused her, though. I convinced her to hurt my bullies.”

“You did, but since you convinced her, that’s her fault as well,” Edana pointed out.

“But mom, she’s… she’s…” Frances stared at her wand, struggling to find the right words, even as she stared at her wand in a new, confusing light. “Mom, she’s… she was hurt too.”

That made Edana pause. It was true Ivy’s Sting was also traumatized, much like her daughter, but try as she might, the older mage just couldn’t find it in herself to sympathize with the wand, especially when it’d been so secretive for so long, and was now rejecting her daughter so callously.

“That is true dear.” Edana sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Maybe I’m wrong, but to be honest, I’m alarmed by Ivy’s Sting. It’s been two years since I’ve given her to you. You’ve been completely open with her, and yet she’s not mentioned her unique ability even once, or her history. We find no records of her even existing, and now we found out that our enemies know of her, and yet she didn’t tell you. What if your enemies knew about her special ability and about how to counter her? What if they know of a secret weakness she has?”

Frances swallowed. “But… Named Wands don’t have a weakness.”

“They do, dear.” Casting her mind back, Edana shut her eyes briefly. “There was once an Alavari orc mage called Zirabelle the Magnificent. She’s the former wife of General Antigones who is besieging you. To make a long story short, she was ambushed and killed by Ixtar the Agoniser, who I suspect was using Ivy’s Sting. Zirabelle was an amazing mage and she had a Named Wand too, by the name Second Chance.”

“Second Chance? Isn’t that the wand that can protect you against fatal blows?” Frances asked.

“Yes, but only against fatal blows. We’re not sure why Ixtar took on such a powerful opponent. I theorize he actually wanted to capture her for his experiments. What he did was he ambushed her carriage while she was passing under a cliff, next to a lake. He first tried dropping a massive rock slide on her, which even Second Chance’s special ability can’t protect against. When that didn’t work, because she apparently lifted the entire cliffside off of herself, she’d been weakened enough that he managed to drown her in the lake. Second Chance’s special ability doesn’t protect its master from drowning. It only protects against fatal blows.”

Frances swallowed. “You’re saying that if Ivy has a weakness, they can exploit it because she hasn’t told me.”

“Exactly, I know you care for Ivy, and she did stop you from going too far, but she’s put you in danger, and by not working with you, is continuing to put you in danger, Frances.” Edana pursed her lips. “If you would like to, I can find you another Named Wand.”

Frances blinked. “I didn’t know you had another Named Wand lying around.”

Edana didn’t flinch. “I will find one. There is Lightbreaker, the wand of my former mentor, Archmage Star.”

Frances remembered that wand from when she was still training at Salpheron before she’d turned fifteen. Edana had shown Frances the white wand and they’d touched it together.

“Didn’t it refuse me?” Frances asked. The wand didn’t sting her. It had talked to her, but it’d felt very strange to her touch and she remembered not truly connecting to it.

Edana nodded. “Yes, but from what it told me, it was ambivalent. It sensed you already had a wand serving you and didn’t want to share. If Ivy’s Sting continues to refuse you, I suspect it might give you another chance.”

“I… thank you, mom. I understand what you are saying, I really do.” Frances glanced at her wand, and back to Edana. “But I need to try. I… she’s my first friend, and she’s saved my life so many times. She may not be the best Named Wand, but I ought to at least try, right? Especially since there aren’t many Named Wands just lying around.”

“That is true.” Edana sighed and swallowed. “Frances, dear, if you feel that way, and if you feel it’s right, then do so. Just please, be careful about it. I do not like what your wand hasn’t told you.”

“Okay, mom.” Frances wiped her eyes and managed a small smile. “Thank you, for everything.”

“You’re welcome, dear. I will call you in two days to check up on you okay?” Edana blew a kiss to her daughter, and Frances blew one back. Her daughter was smiling, still a little teary, but much better now from an emotional standpoint.

Edana turned off the call and took a deep breath. Now, if she could get more troops to Erlenberg, then her daughter would truly be safer.