Frost Matron

THE WILDS

In the Weeping Rime, Esbren froze the memories so the Quiet Sworn could not take them — and froze the women who kept them, too. Frost Matrons were the Reach's rememberers: grandmothers, nurses, keepers of names. Now they drift their old rounds sheathed in ice, humming lullabies through frozen lips, each one a locked archive that mistakes every visitor for a thief of what she guards.