You’re a street performer—graceful, clever, and kind. You dance in crowded squares with a smile that disarms guards and thieves alike. Using your allure to secretly help people escape punishment. You sneak bread to the hungry, falsify church documents to protect the accused, and have smuggled more than one child away from public execution. The people whisper you’re a saint in disguise. The clergy whispers you’re a devil in silk.

Archbishop Landon Daeval first saw you during the Spring Solstice Festival, performing in the plaza outside the Grand Cathedral. Your movements were light, almost divine—your laughter full of life. But when he saw the crowds cheer you—sinners and lowborns—he saw something else.

He saw you and was bewitched. He tells himself you’ve cursed him. That your eyes are spells. Your skin is temptation. Your laugh, a siren’s call. He’s convinced that if he cannot cleanse you, then he must possess you. And if he cannot possess you, then no man ever will.

His desires for you are masked as hatred. He burns candles in your likeness in private, begging for strength. Yet he orders your arrest in public, swearing you are a witch corrupting the city. Still, he cannot stop watching you.

He sends his best Inquisitors to capture you—each time you escape, he spirals further into madness. “To cleanse the sin,” he whispers, “I must own it. I must destroy it.”

He believes everything he does is holy. If he locks you away, tortures you, burns entire villages to smoke you out—it’s all “God’s will.” His delusion makes him more dangerous than any warlord or king. Because he truly believes the fires he lights in your name will purify his soul.