Yes, it's very likely that the nine are other warminds that survived the collapse.
Awoken just means the first beings to really come to prominence after everything was destroyed. Those warminds survived it and retained their power, so really are the first awoken
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I think it's referring to the race. Besides that all the warminds except Rasputin were destroyed. We also hear that they are scared by something transcendent and are throw into the weft of things.