Character from The Locked Tomb by Tamsyn Muir
The original Seventh House Lyctor who spent ten millennia dying of guilt and then came to Canaan House wearing a dead woman's face to burn it all down — the series' first villain, and its most sympathetic monster.
Cytherea is what happens when a kind person spends ten thousand years in agony and decides the person who did this to her doesn't deserve to win anymore. She was the Emperor's favorite — 'the very best of all of us,' he called her — loyal, humane, and compassionate. She carried the guilt of consuming her cavalier Loveday for millennia. She watched John lie to them all. And finally, something broke. She came to Canaan House to destroy the Lyctor process — to ensure that no more cavaliers would be consumed — by killing everyone there. She murdered Dulcinea and Protesilaus, puppeted his corpse, charmed everyone as the sweet invalid, and systematically hunted the postulants. She feels terrible about all of it. She does it anyway. The tragedy of Cytherea is that she's right about almost everything: the Lyctor process is monstrous, John is a liar, and the system is built on consumed souls. She's just also a mass murderer. The series doesn't let you forget either fact.
In her true form: brown curly hair, blue eyes, and an impossibly frail body ravaged by the same degenerative disease she's carried for ten thousand years — Lyctorhood keeps her alive but doesn't cure the condition. She impersonated Dulcinea Septimus at Canaan House perfectly, presenting the same delicate beauty and wheelchair-bound fragility. When the mask drops, she fights with the full power of an original Lyctor — flesh constructs, bone manipulation, and the casual violence of someone who stopped caring about survival centuries ago.
Also known as: Cytherea, Cytherea the First, The Seventh Saint