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Diamanthe Iceshadow
Diamanthe Iceshadow was -- or is, depending on how one chooses to view her current condition -- a legendary elementalist and perhaps the greatest frostmage who ever lived. Her crowning achievement was the Book of Everfrost, in which she recorded her experiences and experiments for those who might choose to follow her path. Seven copies were made, of which two are known to have been destroyed. A third is kept at the Great Library in V'tavia, a fourth in the High King's Castle at Craghail. The whereabouts of the others are unknown.
She was born Dualla of Stepped Stream, the third daughter of a farmer in western Umberwood. Married young, she was seemingly destined for an ordinary life of rearing children and chasing chickens; but an unexpected winter raid out of Ang'arta shattered that world. The Baozites killed her husband and her two young children when they attacked Stepped Stream. Dualla escaped by fleeing onto a frozen lake. The ice cracked underfoot, plunging her into the deadly-cold waters, and the Baozites assumed that she had died there.
Dualla, now calling herself Diamanthe, wandered in the wild Marches until spring. Neighbors assumed she had been deranged by grief. They left food for her out of pity, presuming that she would soon be dead.
She did not die. When spring came and the seasonal raids began, Diamanthe was there to meet them, waging a one-woman war against the Baozites and their mages. She had, by that time, a formidable command of ice magic and a complete inability to use any other type; it is said that she could summon blizzards out of a balmy spring sky and case a man's armor in ice, trapping him inside, but she could not call a spark to light a candle or conjure a breeze to snuff it.
Limited though her spells were, they sufficed to drive the early raiders out of Umberwood. When the Baozites realized that they faced an enemy mage, they pulled back, and then sent wizards of their own to combat her. Diamanthe killed the first few of these, and then was forced to retreat before Idriel, who defeated her decisively and thereby began his own path to prominence.
Aware, now, of the limits of her strength, and suffering from the summer heat, Diamanthe undertook a pilgrimage to the White Seas to further her mastery of the cold. She spent decades wandering the snowy north, occasionally lending a hand to various causes but more often remaining solitary. During the winters she would return to harass the soldiers of Ang'arta, but each spring she went back to colder climes. It was during this period that she began writing the Book of Everfrost, recording the progress of her work for herself and those who might choose to follow.
Eventually her quest took her to the White Keep, where Diamanthe sought to obtain the secrets of truefrost. However, the frost giants -- who had received her courteously in the past -- had been persuaded by the Baozites to betray their old enemy to them. It is possible, too, that the giants were insulted by the arrogance of a human woman who presumed to ask after one of their holiest secrets. Thus, when Diamanthe came to them, the giants wove their own spells about her as she lay sleeping. They imprisoned her in an enormous block of enchanted blue-black ice.
There Diamanthe lies dreaming and may lie evermore, for it is unlikely that the giants of the White Keep will ever let her go.
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