Leandra

*For the Shantine Empress, see Leandra Kataph.*

**Leandra**, also known as "**The Omenflame**", is an angel of Kirva. She is the patron angel of the Kataph Dynasty and increasingly rivals Adarnum as Kirva's preeminent angel, which hushed speculation that the Leandran Cult may actively seek to supplant the Sword Arm of Kirva's status of Archangel.

## History

During the 440s-450s A.U., Leandra played a key role in Empress Theoboda Kataph's rise to autocratic power (and descent into madness).

Leandra was a hitherto obscure Kirvan angel, only dimly hinted at in the most generous interpretations of ancient texts, who manifested in the mind of Theoboda after the death of Patriarch Jan of Bishant. Promising Theoboda that she could become a living prophet of Kirva, Leandra exhorted Theoboda to seize leadership of the Kirvan Church. Leandra was revealed to the cosmos during the *Immolation of the Korinthians,* when hundreds of Shantine clergy, including Patriarch Wenceslas of Korinth, and Knights of Adarnum, were burned at the stake on charges of treason against the Empress: Leandra stepped from the cleansing fires that engulfed the Empress's enemies to proclaim Theoboda as a Prophet and the new Patriarch of Bishant.

What followed this divine manifestation was a crisis within the international Kirvan Church, as Theoboda wrested any pretense of independence from the Shantine clergy. Able to declare that her every edict was vetted by an angel of Kirva, and with no apparent contradiction from other accepted Kirvan angels, Theoboda attracted fanatical support from not only the Shantine public but from millions of Kirvans abroad, especially emancipated slaves convinced that the Empress was responsible for their freedom.

In further elaborations of this theology, it was commonly taught that the first manifestation of Leandra occurred because she had at last been made powerful enough by Theoboda's actions as a mortal to reach back into her own life – hence, the greater Theoboda became, the more Leandra could lend her a divine power. In consequence of this unique relationship, the successors of Theoboda to the throne were thought to enter a similar self-fulfillment of prophecy, communing with a divine avatar not only of Kirva but of their own sacred lineage. The destiny of every new monarch was thence to join their forebear as an aspect of Leandra – shrines were raised across the Empire to composite angels, Theoboda-Leandra and Irboda-Leandra (with some fringe groups claiming to already worship the future Leandra-of-Leandra, who would be the posthumous manifestation of the then-present Empress Leandra I).

## Notes

1. ↑ In the traditional hagiography, the passing soul of Jan is held to have made the intercession with Kirva that allowed Leandra to manifest (an act which LeandraA is believed to have confirmed to Theoboda in the successful case to canonize him as Saint Jan). Rumors that Jan, Theoboda's longtime spiritual advisor, was also secretly her father (making Theoboda and her heirs illegitimate), are severely punished as heresy within the Shantine Empire. Rumors that Theoboda had the inconvenient firebrand Jan assassinated are also vigorously prosecuted but bear a rather more uncomfortable harmony with the theological principle that Theoboda was singularly responsible for fulfilling the conditions that would make her a prophet.