A wide-eyed Irish exchange student, Ashlyn O'Connor had the misfortune to fall very much in love with Nathan Stone, an Australian intelligence services officer and member of the Archer Foundation who took advantage of their relationship to 'guide' her into joining the Hand of Glory (so he could later turn her as an Archer mole once she'd passed their initiation tests). Naturally, things eventually went horribly wrong and Ashlyn's cover was blown. Though Stone swooped in to rescue her from being killed in the nick of time, the mystically augmented torture she'd undergone in the month before the rescue left her scarred in every way imaginable.

      Running, Ash lost herself in the backwaters and cultural undergrounds of the world, trying to piece herself back together. The only things known for sure about this period of her life is that it marked the beginning of her ongoing relationship with the individual named Cathayan, and that she appeared on the radar of Lothario Algernon. Both of these have been pegged as the reason for Ash's sudden reappearance on her seducer's doorstep demanding a place in the Conspiracy and the opportunity to... aggressively negotiate... with the Hand and other similar menaces. It was a request that had the full backing of the Lord of Chance.

      Over the years, Koschei never really forgave Stone for putting her where he did, though the two of them managed a tolerable working relationship within the Foundation. Even before joining the Hand she found it hard to make any sort of emotional connection with most people, and afterwards it was almost unheard of: she's been described as being as heartless as her codename. Certainly, she's brutally ruthless in the pursuit of her agenda, which as the end of the Conspiracy approached took her increasingly into Cathayan's orbit.

      Caitlyn's conception came as an astounding surprise, mostly due to the physical inability to bear children following her ordeal with the Hand. Having been granted this miracle - and being forced literally through Hell to ensure her daughter's birth including a momentary case of death as a result of the psion plague - she will go to extraordinary lengths to protect it. Lengths that have included engineering her elevation to Lord of Eternity shortly before the Cloak was destroyed. Since the fall of the Conspiracy she has been operating largely in conjunction with Cathayan.

      The only two people in her life she trusts are Cathayan (Caitlyn's eccentric uncle/aunt) and Valentina (Caitlyn's other mum). But if she had to choose her daughter over them, she wouldn't hesitate even though she'd hate herself. And when the legacy of her daughter's origin came back with a thunder crash that's exactly what she did, leaving them behind to make a Faustian deal with the Assassins and the Guardians of the Whispering Knife decimated.

      She's back in circulation now, with a daughter almost a decade and half older than she has any right to be. With the Hand a fading memory and control over some of their key assets, she's rapidly consolidating a position of considerable power she has allied with that of Cathayan's organisation.