"We were never midwives of fire. We were keepers of ash. And ash does not forget."
— From the Graying Book of the Ninth Mother
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The Ash-Mothers
Before Riftkeep was carved from the black jawbone of a dead god, before kings ruled the skies and cities floated on leywind, the Ash-Mothers wandered the broken world barefoot, cloaked in soot.
They are not nuns. Nor witches. They are not even a unified order.
They are a fractured sisterhood of seers, deathwatchers, and memory-keepers, bound to no kingdom and loyal to no throne. Their only allegiance is to the Ash—that which remains after all else is burned.
In the gleams of godfall, when celestial beasts cracked the sky and kings tried to bargain with stars, it was the Ash-Mothers who buried the divine. Who stitched bones into books. Who wrote prophecy in smoke and guarded it with silence.
Now, they serve Riftkeep as caretakers of orphaned children born with dangerous or undefined magic. But that is a lie of function. Their real task is observation.
They watch for remnants.
They watch for flickers.
They watch for returns.
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Their Purpose
The Ash-Mothers do not teach magic.
They listen for it.
Every child brought to them is studied—not in cruelty, but in ritual. Magic that resists classification—wildfire, mirror-magic, dreamwalking—is of particular interest. These are signs of old blood resurfacing.
The Ash-Mothers believe that when a god dies, its essence bleeds into the Hollow—but its memory seeps into bloodlines, beasts, or broken souls.
They refer to these echoes as Ash-Inheritors.
Most are unstable. Many are dangerous.
Some—like Sylara—are unclassifiable.
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The Unnamed Mother
Among the Mothers, one has no name, no voice, and no shadow. She is called the Ninth, and she is always veiled in wolfbone. It is said she cannot speak because she once spoke to a god… and swallowed its language.
Her chambers are sealed with fur and ash.
Only she may touch the Gray Index—a living codex of all heretic births and unclaimed magics.
She is the first to notice when a child is marked by something older than flame.
She was the one who marked Sylara's dossier with a sigil no one recognized:
A silver eye surrounded by a circle of fangs.
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The Wolf of Dreams: Myrrh
Once, when gods still howled across the sky, there was Myrrh—not a goddess of war or dominion, but of pathways. Of the space between.
She was the Dream-Wolf, who guarded the Veil between worlds, who hunted devourers in the Hollow, who whispered futures to those brave enough to sleep in cursed places.
She was worshipped by rune-binders, flameborn, and wildfolk, for her magic was not flame or void—but wild memory, the ability to dream what was and could be.
She vanished after the Godfall War.
Her temples were crushed. Her followers were drowned. Her name was removed from the Ember Lexicon. To speak of her now is blasphemy.
But the Ash-Mothers never erased her.
They say she vanished not because she died…
But because she hid her blood in something she loved.
A child.
Or a thousand.
Or one, who would be born beneath the Moonvein Eclipse, carrying both flame and flesh, bound to memory itself.
A wolf sleeping inside a girl.
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The Prophecy Hidden in Ash
There exists a whisper among the oldest Ash-Mothers—one never recorded in ink but carved in bone and buried in fire.
"When flame bends and runes bleed
And the child of ash is not burned—
The Wolf shall rise from sleep,
Wearing the name of a girl."
The prophecy has no date. Only a pattern.
Each generation, a girl with broken flame, whispered instincts, and a deep, wild pull toward the stars is found.
Most die young. Some go mad.
But one, they believe, will live.
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And now, Sylara Thorne is seven Turns old.
And she is dreaming of wolves.
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