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Xanthe, the Dark Mistress, is one of the three boyars sitting on Brencis' Court in The Blood of Dawnwalker, alongside Ambrus and Bakir. Together they stand between Coen and Brencis himself, and normally Xanthe is someone you work towards rather than just stumble into. The usual path to any boyar is clearing out their activities around the region - camps, blood cellars, transports, and the like - until their Anger Level maxes out and they're forced to expose themselves, then duelling them once they've been drawn out.
Trick is, you can actually skip all of that. Xanthe can be found and fought extremely early, well before you'd normally have any business with her Court activities. Here's exactly where to look.
Where She Is
Xanthe is holed up in the Cathedral Complex in Svartrau City. This is the huge gothic cathedral you'll have already spotted looming over the rest of the city, and it's worth climbing early on regardless, since scouting it from height reveals a big chunk of the surrounding points of interest.
Getting into the Cathedral changes depending on the time of day.
During the day, the front gate is open and you can just walk in. Doing so plays a short cutscene of a priest baptising a newborn with blood - the same priest you'll recognise from Laslea. You can talk to him here, but Xanthe is nowhere to be seen at this point.
At night, the front gate is locked. As you climb up to get your vantage point, you'll notice the Cathedral is under renovation, with scaffolding and open gaps in the walls and roof. Those gaps are your way in after dark.
Head inside through the scaffolding at night and make your way down toward the altar. You'll find Xanthe there with three guards, mid blood ritual. Approach and she'll notice you skulking in the shadows almost immediately, at which point the fight kicks off.
There's no quest flag or prerequisite you need to trigger first; she's simply present in the Cathedral at night as soon as you're able to make the climb.
Kill or Drain
Once she's beaten, you get a choice: kill her outright, or drain her blood.
Killing her removes her from the Court menu immediately, but that's it. Draining her blood does the same thing to the Court menu, but also plays an additional cutscene and dialogue that fills in more of who Xanthe actually is. Since she's a Vrakhir, draining her also feeds your Vrakhir Corruption track, which is the one gating the skull-icon Abilities in the Vampirism tree. Specifically, this fight unlocks Blood Surge.
Either way, killing her this early doesn't lock you out of her activities around the region. You can still go and complete them afterward - the only real difference is she won't be around to get angrier about it, since she's already dead.
Quick tip: If you'd rather not spend several in-game days clearing activities just to anger a boyar into showing themselves, this is a great fight to prioritise early. It skips that whole process and frees up days and nights you'd otherwise burn on Court busywork elsewhere.
DON'T MISS!
