The Blood of Dawnwalker: The Cycle of Love Full Quest Walkthrough

The Cycle of Love is the quest that ends Coen’s feud with Xanthe, the boyaress behind the women vanishing across the valley. It takes place almost entirely inside Howling Keep, a manor sealed by red corrupted growths that only retreat when you slot a glowing lantern into the hand of a nearby statue. There are never quite enough lanterns to leave them where you want, which is what makes the keep feel like a maze rather than a corridor.

Quick answer: Max out Xanthe’s anger through her Court Activities, accept Xanthe’s Lantern from the soldiers who approach Coen, then shuttle three lanterns between the statues in Howling Keep until you can place one in each of the two statues at the Painted Door and defeat Xanthe.

How to unlock The Cycle of Love

The quest does not appear on its own. You have to keep hitting Xanthe’s operations through Court Activities — clearing out her blood guards and wrecking her research into the ancient ruins — until her anger toward Coen sits at maximum.

Once that threshold is reached, a pair of Brencis’ soldiers will stop Coen. The one who does the talking is Leonard, and he opens by asking Coen to lower his sword.

Coen in a cutscene conversation with a skip prompt in the lower-left corner — The dialogue scene that starts the quest, with the skip prompt available. Image: Rebel Wolves

Leonard explains that young women in the valley are disappearing without a trace and that he and his companion believe Xanthe is responsible. Agree to look into it and they hand over Xanthe’s Lantern, the item that gets you past her front gate.

Leonard and a second armored soldier explaining the disappearances to Coen — Leonard and his companion lay out the disappearances and name Xanthe as the suspect. Image: Rebel Wolves

Detail	Value
Requirement	Maximum anger with Xanthe via Court Activities
Key item	Xanthe’s Lantern (given by the soldiers)
Location	Howling Keep, southern part of the map, west of Tantari Woods
Time cost	4 segments
Fail state	None
Rewards	500 XP, Corrupted Pendant (legendary amulet), Potent Aetheric Attunement, Blood Surge if you drink her blood

Track the “Get to the mansion” objective to put a marker on your map. Worth knowing: Xanthe also shows up in the Svartrau City cathedral at night, once, fairly early in the campaign. If you are strong enough and lucky enough, you can end her there instead.

How Xanthe’s Lanterns and the red vines work

Howling Keep is full of withered humanoid statues with an open hand. Put a lantern in that hand and the corrupted red growths near it wither, opening whatever door or passage they were covering. Remove the lantern and the growths come straight back.

The whole puzzle is a supply problem. You end up with three lanterns in total, and the final door needs two of them at once, so you constantly have to decide which passage stays open behind you. If you ever find yourself sealed inside a room, the fix is almost always to place a lantern on the outside statue first, then swap the interior one out.

Note: supernatural enemies respawn as you move back and forth through the manor, so expect to fight through the same rooms more than once. On higher difficulties, quicksave often so you are not redoing lantern shuffles after a death.

Howling Keep route: getting three lanterns to the Painted Door

Ride to Howling Keep and clear the enemies waiting outside the gate. Interact with the statue on the left of the entrance and place Xanthe’s Lantern to burn back the growths blocking the door.

Head into the main hall and deal with the enemies inside. Note the layout: one statue on the ground floor, two more at the top of the stairs. Take the staircase at the back on the south side and go through the only open doorway.

Quest tracker showing the Find Xanthe objective with Xanthe's Lantern equipped — The objective tracker updates to “Find Xanthe” once Xanthe’s Lantern is in hand. Image: Rebel Wolves

The second-floor hallway has a statue already holding a lantern. Leave that one alone for now, and step into the side room instead, where you will find a woman named Iasmina who is terrified of the Painted Door at the end of the hall.

Take the lantern from Iasmina’s room and carry it back out to the statue on the balcony overlooking the main hall. Placing it there keeps the hallway door from sealing behind you.

Go back into the hallway and lift the lantern off the statue there. You can now walk out with it, because the balcony statue is holding the door open.

Partway down the staircase, duck into the side room and place a lantern in its statue. This opens the adjoining room, which holds a couple of manuals and a letter signed “L” that points toward the quest A Friend Like This. Collect both lanterns before you leave.

Back on the ground floor, place a lantern in the statue that opens the door on the west wall and push into the yard. Clear the spectral enemies, then enter the small shed at the far end.

Take the lantern from the statue inside the shed. The growths shift to reveal a trapdoor in the floor, and the vines seal the door you came through, so down is the only way out.

Drop into the kennels below and fight through the dogs and zombie-like enemies. This is where the missing women end up. Loot the Key to the Kennels from the glowing body, then use it on the nearby wooden door to climb back into the main hall.

Pull the lantern off the ground-floor statue and kill the wave of enemies that spawns. You should now be carrying three lanterns.

Before the finale, take the stairs on the west side and place a lantern to open the two balcony rooms. There is good loot here, including a legendary amulet. Pick the lantern back up when you are done.

Return to the second-floor hallway and put one lantern back in that first statue so its vines stay clear, then retrieve the one you left on the balcony. Walk to the end of the hall and place a lantern in each of the two statues flanking the Painted Door.

Step through the door. Coen finds a masked girl singing — Chariklea, later revealed to be Xanthe’s daughter. Your replies to her do not change anything. When the dialogue ends, Xanthe attacks and throws Coen back down into the yard for the boss fight.

Notable loot inside Howling Keep

Item	Where it is
Cycle of Ruin Manual, Dirty Trick Manual	Rooms off the staircase in the main hall
Letter from “L” (starts A Friend Like This)	Same staircase rooms
Recipe for Supernatural’s Blood Infusion	Shed in the yard, beside a woman’s body
Relic of St. Dasius (legendary amulet)	On a bench in the left balcony room, west staircase
Recipe for Venom Claws Ampoule, Recipe for Potent Aetheric Attunement	Balcony rooms, west staircase

Xanthe boss fight: attacks and how to counter them

Xanthe fights like the floating witch enemies you have already met, only with a much deeper spell list. She has a yellow bar that you must strip before you can touch her white health bar, and red markers along that white bar trigger her healing phases.

Combat HUD showing a 570 damage hit landing on a highlighted enemy — Damage numbers and the enemy health bar during a fight inside the keep. Image: Rebel Wolves

Attack	How to handle it
Wicked Tendrils	Red tendrils lash from the left, right, or above. Hold block and press the matching direction; chaining perfect blocks staggers her.
Boiling Blood	Glyphs form on the ground and detonate after a short delay. Dodge out of the marked area.
Life Leech	Drains your health to top up hers. Break line of sight and keep moving.
Life Orbs	She teleports away and spawns red orbs that refill her health. Sprint around and destroy them fast; this only happens twice.
Blood Rush	At low health she repeatedly charges Coen and explodes. Dodge through each rush.

Because the healing phases are capped at two, her health pool is finite even though she can recover. Clear the orbs quickly, keep blocking the tendrils, and the fight settles into a repeating pattern until the white bar empties.

Spare Xanthe or refuse her help

Unlike Ambrus and Bakir, Xanthe does not want to die. Beaten, she offers Coen a deal in exchange for leaving her and her daughter alone. Save manually before the dialogue if you want to see both outcomes.

Choice	What it gets you	Later consequences
Spare her	An alliance; Coen is thrown out of the manor and the quest closes	She clears the supernatural enemies from Greifberg Castle during the finale and lets you pass. The epilogue mural shows her still killing women to keep Chariklea alive.
Refuse and kill her	You can drain her blood for the Blood Surge vampirism ability, which detonates a target at a cost of three Activation Charges	Supernatural enemies remain in Greifberg Castle. Chariklea’s fate is yours: leave her alive or mercy-kill her in her room.

If you kill her, you can also invite her soul in Anachora, the same as the other vampire lords, or leave her in vrakhiri limbo. Sparing her costs you the blood drain here, but Xanthe’s blood can be obtained elsewhere as a consumable.

The Dark Mistress achievement and confirming the quest is done

The Cycle of Love wraps up as soon as the post-fight dialogue ends, whichever option you pick. You will see the quest close in your journal, pick up 500 XP and a skill point, and the bronze trophy The Dark Mistress pops. Killing Xanthe is not a requirement for it — defeating her and finishing the conversation is enough.

If the quest never shows up in the first place, the cause is almost always Xanthe’s anger not being maxed out, which means more Court Activities in her territory. And if a door in the keep refuses to open no matter how many enemies you kill, you are simply short a lantern somewhere — retrace your steps and check which statue you emptied.

Coen exploring the dim interior of Howling Keep during The Cycle of Love

Howling Keep is the most claustrophobic stretch of the campaign, and the lantern economy is the only real obstacle in it. Keep track of which statue is holding which door, clear the blood orbs the moment they appear, and the boyaress goes down without much trouble — leaving you a single decision that ripples all the way to Greifberg Castle.