Xanthe rules the southeastern corner of Vale Sangora, and the only way to force her out into the open is to keep wrecking her operations until she loses patience. Her court activities are spread across Tantari Woods, The Silts, and southern St. Tyna’s Grove, and they fall into five clear categories: recruiters, excavations, relic transports, prisoner transports, and Blood Guard camps.
Quick answer: Complete at least nine of Xanthe’s court quests to max her Anger Level, then disrupt one more operation. Her guard Leonard will approach you with a lantern that opens Howling Manor and starts her Infamy quest, The Cycle of Love.
How Xanthe’s court activities work
The game holds 41 court activity locations in total, and 15 of them belong to Xanthe. They open up right after the Prologue and function as the main story content: each one you clear raises the target boyar’s Anger Level, and a maxed gauge unlocks their duel quest. Beat all three boyars and Brencis is drawn out.
None of these are marked on your map by default. They sit in the Court menu as “Unknown Activity” until you physically find them in the world, which is why clearing the scouting towers first is worth the detour — towers stamp white question marks over the surrounding activities so you can plan a route instead of wandering.
Every Xanthe court quest costs three time segments. You have 30 in-game days to kill the three boyars and reach your family, and time only moves when you spend it on quests and certain dialogue choices, so a focused run through her region is cheap. Xanthe is the highest-level of the three, recommended at levels 25 to 30, which is why most players save her for last after Ambrus and Bakir.
All Xanthe court quests by category
| Category | Quests | Objective |
|---|---|---|
| Xanthe’s Recruiters | Taste of Power, Just a Bit More, Come Home | Kill the recruiters, then loot or smash the small reliquary of vrakhiri blood. |
| Xanthe’s Transports (relics and goods) | Past Glory, When Two Dogs… | Wipe out the stationed guards and loot the cargo before it reaches her. |
| Xanthe’s Transports (prisoners) | Fair Maiden, Chosen One | Stop the convoy and free the abducted woman being moved. |
| Xanthe’s Blood Guards | Unquenchable Thirst, Teach with Pain, Loophole | Scout the camp, then clear every soldier inside it. |
| Xanthe’s Excavations | Unsealed Secrets, Malevolent Presence, Bloodied Dagger | Explore the dig site, kill the supernatural boss, and collect the research. |
| Aurelius’s Tower | Gargoyle Manufacture, Home Sweet Home | Defeat Svetlana, take the Vault Key, and survive the dream sequence. |
Fastest order to clear them
Two of the five categories only contain two quests each, and both are transport interceptions. Those are the quickest to knock out in real time because there is no dungeon to navigate and no objects to hunt for.
The reliquary choice at recruiter camps
Every recruiter site ends at a small reliquary holding vials of vrakhiri blood. You get two prompts: collect the blood, or destroy it. Taking the vials adds usable consumables to your inventory. Smashing them strips Xanthe of the leverage she uses to bribe new recruits and weakens the court’s defenses. Both options complete the activity, so pick based on whether you need the consumable more than the setback to her operation.
Bloodied Dagger: Using the ritual dagger catalyst
Bloodied Dagger is the one excavation that can stall you. After defeating Armaya, Scholar of the Occult, the chest at the site stays sealed. Equip the Ritual Dagger catalyst and use it to compel the soul of Armaya’s assistant, who tells you how to break the seal. Without that interaction the chest cannot be opened, and the quest’s loot stays locked away.
Aurelius’s Tower and the Home Sweet Home dream sequence
Aurelius’s Tower is the strangest activity in her region and the one with the best single reward. It starts as a straight infiltration and turns into a psychological set piece where Coen has to face his own guilt before he can leave.
How to confirm Xanthe is angry enough
Open the Court menu and watch her Anger Level bar. Nine completed court quests is the minimum needed to fill it. Once it maxes, disrupt one more of her operations and Leonard, one of her own guards, will find you with an offer to see the boyaress dead. He hands over a lantern that grants entry to Howling Manor, and The Cycle of Love begins there.
Note: her activities stay available after she is dealt with, so you can come back and clean up any you skipped.
Skipping the court activities entirely
You can bypass the whole Anger Level process. Xanthe is present at the Cathedral in Svartrau City at night, mid-ritual with three guards at the altar. The front gate is open during the day but she will not be there; after dark the gate is locked and you climb in through the gaps in the scaffolding, since the cathedral is under renovation.
There is a real cost to this shortcut. Fighting her at the cathedral removes the option to spare her, and sparing is the more useful outcome for the endgame. A spared Xanthe sits out the final battle and clears the specters and spirits that would otherwise block your path to Brencis. Killing her is the cleaner moral call and stops the deaths of the girls she abducts, but it also seals her daughter’s fate.
Her fight itself runs in three phases tied to her health bar, adding new attack patterns each time you take off a third, and she will heal herself if you slow down. Whichever route you take to reach her, keep a manual save in a separate slot before the duel — the game supports 54 of them, and holding a save from before the confrontation lets you go back for the outcome you did not pick.
