Amahle stared at Mamao for several heartbeats without blinking as she processed the impossible-sounding news.
Violca, the woman who had succeeded her teacher as the Mother of Storms, had done something almost unheard of among the Great Witches by adopting one of the orphans of her predecessor's coven. In three generations of six witches, it was something that had happened less than five times, and the last person to do so had been the previous Mother of Tides.
The practice wasn't necessarily taboo, though many avoided it for more practical reasons. The trials a witch faced when they were adopted were said to be more than twice as difficult as the ones they'd faced to become a witch in the first place and fewer than half survived the adoption rituals.
