The Birth Myth of Garnet: The Ash-Born Dawn

Myth of high Dreadmarch Garnet Virelyssa XZel'Thorna

Goddess of XZiXZiminity Hells, Flame-Seer of the Ashened Orders.

Garnet, they say, was not born.

She rose.

A scream that was so loud and enraged that it split a realm that no one had yet named occured long before Zypharienne's hand carved the Hells and before TCOSA even knew the shape of its future.

The ash came from that split. A figure emerged from the ash. The flame emerged from that figure.

According to myth, she was the only child ever born to a collapsing god and was formed in the center of a dying realm. Too much anger, too much conflict, too much loss had been swallowed by that god, forgotten and unnamed. They exhaled everything in their last moments, including religion, rage, and righteousness, and the smoke from that exhale was used to forge Garnet.

Her umbilical cord was a burning chain. The sky was reduced to cinders by her first cry. She reportedly didn't open her eyes until someone tried to bind her. Even so, only one eye opened. The other remained closed.

The world is seen from the left. The truth is visible to the right.

Since Garnet's closed eye is constantly watching and will unmake everything that was false if it ever opens again, children in the outermost hells are warned not to lie.

The collapse of one of the first undocumented god-beings is the subject of debate among scholars regarding whether this story is symbolic or alludes to a real divine event. This is what has been decided:

• Garnet has never discussed where she came from.
• Price, her mate once asked. Only once. He didn't bring it up again.

What about the air surrounding her?

The faint scent of burned beginnings is still there.