Ky Hong Tray was an influential leader of the Nyueng Bao De Duang people, and was their last true priestess. Her prophecies would create and help to cement a bond between the Nyueng Bao and the Black Company that would last for at least 23 years following her own untimely death. Her wise husband Ky Dam was the Speaker of their pilgrimage, a group which consisted of about approximately 1,800 Nyueng Bao, who all became trapped during the hellish Siege of Dejagore, as recounted in flashbacks of Bleak Seasons.
Murgen, meeting her in Dejagore, described her as:
| “ | ... a fragile flower time-diminished to little more than skin-covered sticks, though an agile intelligence still burned in her eyes. You would get nothing past this woman. | ” |
Hong Tray was the mother of Ky Gota, the grandmother of Ky Sahra (Murgen's future wife), and the great-grandmother of To Tan and of Tobo. One of her cousins was the mother of Uncle Doj.
Bleak Seasons[]
Hong Tray suffered through the Siege of Dejagore along with many members of the Black Company and their allies. She issued a prophecy that Sahra and Murgen must be together for the sake of both the Black Company and the Nyueng Bao. It is later revealed that Tobo, the child of Sahra and Murgen, is who she foresaw. She supported this prophecy in the face of intense backlash from her own daughter, Gota, and apparently everyone else of her race as well, with the exception of her husband the Speaker. Hong Tray also foresaw the flooding of the city that would be perpetrated by Shadowspinner.
She and her husband were among the approximately 1,200 Nyueng Bao killed by Pal Subhir's band of Taglian soldiers, who were following Mogaba's orders. Her last words, spoken to Murgen, were a request that he treat her granddaughter well. He did not know the meaning at the time. The moment after she passed away, with her husband's body in her arms, Murgen and her grandson Thai Dei rounded up the remaining family and hustled them away from the murderous carnage outside.
Sahra inherited Hong Tray's jade amulet. After her death was faked against her will by Uncle Doj and Mother Gota, the amulet came into Murgen's possession. Doj and Gota conducted themselves in direct contravention of Hong Tray's wishes and prophecies until their ruse was finally exposed in She Is the Darkness.