Marie-Marthe Adianthe

### Affiliation

Kingdom of Cadmingham and the Southern Isle (currently).Kingdom of Lumière-Sur-Cendre (formerly).

### Occupation

Queen of Cadmingham.Alchemist.

Dean of the Church of Lumière-Sur-Cendre.

## Personal Information

### Age

23 (Civil war in Lumière-Sur-Cendre)57 (disappearance)

### Family

Jean-Jacques Adianthe (father)
Nadège Adianthe (mother)

Estienne Alexandre Adianthe (older brother)

Jean-Aimé Villeneuve Molinier (first husband)

Shaheen Rautahi (third husband)

Bertram Kourosh Maidenhair (son)

Robert Khorshed Maidenhair (son)

Amoury/Emery Mirza Maidenhair (son)

Thomas Reza Maidenhair (son)

Andvétt Hallinaevi (alchemical creation/biologically related)

**Marie-Marthe Adianthe** is a relevant character in Stillness.

Ruling the Kingdom of Cadmingham with an iron fist, she was both feared and revered until the day of her bizarre disappearance.

## Appearance

Marie is a slender, tall woman. Her towering height makes her figure quite imposing. She is fair-skinned in a pristine, almost unnatural way that resembles porcelain dolls, except for a dark, blueish birthmark that spreads all over her back.

Marie's nose is thin and slightly hooked. Her eyes, almost always half-lidded in an apathetic stare, are grey-blue. She has a mole right under her left eye, which she shares with her mother and plenty more family members. Her ash-blonde hair is carefully curled into ringlets. The two that frame her face are white, and rumor says grey hairs have crowned her head since childhood.

Marie has multiple outfits for every occasion, but they all have one thing in common: they are white. Obsessed with the color her family has long associated with purity and their ancestry, she's religiously white-clad day in, day out.

## Personality

Marie is a woman of impeccable manners and charming smiles that hide a tempestuous, tortured temper. Her thirst for knowledge and urge to be independent were routinely crushed by her conservative family, who valued self-inflicted martyrdom and appearances before innovation. As a result, Marie grew resentful of the world and particularly of her brother Estienne, who was allowed greater freedom than she could ever have dreamed of having.

Ambitious, power-driven, and ingenious, Marie continued to exert her agency behind her family's back, which earned her severe punishments. The violence with which she was treated fueled the fire of her rage, and she quickly became embittered and violent. Nevertheless, although the neglect and cruelty of her family contributed to her ire, she had already been destructive since childhood, and her alchemic experiments were often unethical. Marie was unstable by Nature, and Nurture worsened it.

Marie is callous and goal-oriented, putting her aspirations above anybody else. She is remarkably brilliant, and scheming around obstacles (whether people or laws) is easy enough for her. Marie tends to view people as pawns or tools to use as needed and to be discarded once they are no longer of help. She is a master manipulator and knows to charm her way into people's hearts by utilizing that which they love the most. It is possible for Marie to feel love, affection, and doubt, but scarcely. Every time it happened, she reacted with confusion and quickly dismissed her emotions.

Although seemingly rational, Marie's perception of reality has been altered by the teachings of the Church of the End of Days and a lifetime of familial abuse. The destructive lens with which she views the world is a projection of her deep-rooted, burning self-hatred. Contrary to what people may think, Marie is not a narcissist: she will go to great lengths to exterminate all that reminds her of herself.

## Story

### The Embers Arc

Marie Marthe Dorothée Adianthe was born in Lumière-Sur-Cendre, a kingdom floating in the dead sea of Fault Line 2, on the first of June of the year 40,000 after the fall of the Titans.

She is the youngest daughter of the House of Adianthe, rulers of the kingdom from its creation. Her parents, **Nadège** and **Jean-Jacques**, conceived her as a backup heir in case something happened to her brother **Estienne Alexandre**, whose health at the time was frail. Marie's mother despises pregnancy and childbirth as, in her eyes, it is a breach of her dignity. Already traumatized by the birth of their first child, Nadège loathes Marie as soon as she is born and consigns her care to nursemaids, refusing to hold her or look at her for more than a second.

Marie would spend the entirety of her childhood in solitude, roaming the halls of the royal palace. Without supervision, she made a home of the library, where she would first come in contact with alchemy books. Despite her young age, she engaged in several experiments that often involved sacrificing small animals for alchemical transmutation.

Alchemy is the most revered and ancient practice in Lumière-Sur-Cendre, for they have always tried to transmute base metals into energy sources to sustain their dying nation. Marie's brother Estienne, as the heir to the crown, is quickly made to start alchemy lessons alongside the children of other court nobles. A male-dominated art by tradition, alchemy is forbidden for Marie to learn, despite her brilliance and inherent talent in the field. She is expected to become the Dean of the Church of the End of Days instead, a position traditionally occupied by the females of the royal family. She is thus groomed by her instructors and parents to blindly trust in the Church, and its ideas of self-hatred and martyrdom (the Adianthes, being direct descendants of The Traitor, must punish the others and their lineage) greatly affect Marie. Being only 10 years of age, Marie-Marthe is introduced to the Court and presented in the White Cathedral.

Estienne, 3 years older than Marie, struggles with his education. He is much less intelligent than her, or so he believes, and would rather spend time exercising the arts than alchemy. Despite their differences and Marie's growing disdain toward him,  they strike a deal only known by their classmate and court mate, **Jean-Aimé Villeneuve Molinier**. Marie would secretly do all of Estienne's projects and would have unlimited access to the laboratory. Jean-Aimé and Marie become lab partners.

At age 17, Marie acquires the title of Master Inquisitor in the White Cathedral. Although her job, in theory, only entails dealing with those considered heretics (the Golden Children), she goes one step further and conducts secret experiments on them, after which they are all executed under her orders. Jean-Aimé reluctantly helps her in these experiments. It is at that time that Marie studies the physical properties of the **Tracker subtype,** which reject magic and materialize it. She concludes that Trackers are accumulating magic indirectly until they cannot process it anymore and then liberate it. On the other hand, **Premonition subtypes** like herself completely absorb it. Marie theorizes that an impressive destructive force and imbalance could be caused by extracting magic through a different process: one that would alter it enough for it to be neither liberated nor absorbed but destroyed. After obtaining these results, Marie and Jean-Aimé design the first prototype of the **Golden Blood Extractor**.

A fire accidentally provoked by Estienne devastates the alchemy labs and brings his deal with Marie to their parents' attention. The gig is up: Marie is forbidden from practicing alchemy, stripped of her position as Master Inquisitor, and permanently demoted to a deaconess. During the annual Synod of the Church of the End of Days, Marie is publicly whipped as punishment per her father's orders, and it is announced that, for the first time in Lumière-Sur-Cendre's history, a male would become the Dean of the Church: all of Marie's rights have been given to her brother. Feeling like she has lost control, dignity, and power, Marie-Marthe desperately clings to her faith and becomes increasingly ill-meaning. Refusing to let go of her goals, she determines that she must divide the nation and gain a following, hoping to overthrow her brother once her movement gains enough traction.

Using her position as a deaconess, she starts spreading her own gospel as an underground crusade, and she is charming enough to quickly captivate the attention of many. Meanwhile, she presents her marriage with Jean-Aimé to her parents, who agree to marry her off, given the influence and wealth of the Villeneuves. Marie will use the laboratory in Jean-Aimé's manor to keep working (in utmost secrecy) on her prototype until it is refined enough to function as desired. She tests her magical extractor on Jean-Aimé and herself. Both are significantly weakened by the results.

Around the same time, Jean-Aimés's twin creation of the Golden Blood Extractor is finalized. It receives the name of **Molinier's Drill**. It is a magic-resistant but not repellent iron-like nail that can anchor the extraction caused by Marie's invention to the location of choice, including geographical landmarks and people. The Drill has the characteristic that it is made out of malleable non-matter, hence making it easily bindable to human beings.

As Marie's new following grows steadily, she secretly binds the Extractor to her father with a Drill, and he rapidly falls ill. During the old king's brief yet fatal illness, troubling sentiments had already blossomed within the national army's garrisons. The succession of Estienne Alexandre to the throne was not desired, as his reputation had been tarnished by his behavior, public outbursts, and overall demeanor. General **Delphine de Boisregard** concerts a secret meeting with Marie-Marthe, and pledges allegiance to her, promising to help her claim the throne.

Not even a month passes before the old king is dead. In a state of disarray, the nation mourns, and the court is forced to promptly name Estienne, soft and unfit for ruling, king. At Marie's signal, Boisregard and her troops march into the capital and overtake the White Cathedral and the neighboring Courts, declaring war on Estienne Alexandre Adianthe and protesting Marie-Marthe's rights to the head of the Church and the throne, under the notion that she, and only she, was the rightful heir.

### The Civil War Arc

The war officially commences with the coup d'état of 40,023 by Princess Marie-Marthe Adianthe, supported by the army general Delphine de Boisregard.

Marie-Marthe and Boisregard take over the capital, and Estienne, along with the old court and their half of the army, is forced to flee to mainland Lumière-Sur-Cendre to avoid execution. This way, the country is divided into two parties: The Virginals (Marie's) and The Royalists (Estienne's).

Besides having half of the national army to back her up, Marie, known as Mother M or The Virgin by her followers, was supported by the radical section of the Church of the End of Days, as well as entrepreneurs and traders opposed to Estienne's economic dirigism and refusal to expand Lumière-Sur-Cendre's borders. Her faction promptly received outside help from the Kingdom of Cadmingham of the Southeastern Isle, whose king was interested in the war's outcome and closer to Marie in their religious beliefs. Estienne, on the other hand, calls the Reino dos Ossos for support.

For months the war is waged primarily at sea between mainland Lumière and the capital. The **winter of 40,023**, however, is the harshest winter ever witnessed in Fault Line 2. The Dead Sea surrounding the capital freezes, and naval warfare is brought to a stop. On the mainland, The Royalists suffer considerable casualties, as the climate inland is more extreme, and the cold makes soldiers drop like flies. Nevertheless, they do not waver in their position and establish a blockade across the coast to cut The Virginals' supply of surplus food and medicine from the continent. It is the **Siege of Dautremer**.

With the coming of spring, the sea defrosts, and ships sail out to battle again. The Virginals obtain several victories along the coast and manage to establish minimal outposts, but military support from Reino dos Ossos (as well as The Virginals' weakened state due to the siege) comes in the clutch, granting The Royalists access to incredibly advanced naval technology. Estienne recaptures the capital, and Marie, Jean-Aimé, and Boisregard's troops are forced to flee up north, taking asylum in Cadmingham.

After the winter of '23 and continuous battles, the factions are exhausted. Estienne realizes they won't be able to hold on for longer or reach a satisfying conclusion without a break, and he thus pushes for a truce. In April of 40,024, a small diplomatic ship departs towards Cadmingham, and the envoys expose the situation to Marie: Estienne is willing to remove the blockade along the coast of Lumière and allow for more goods and humanitarian aid to reach Cadmingham in exchange for the head of her husband, right-hand man, and Estienne's former close friend, Jean-Aimé Villeneuve Molinier. Marie accepts, giving a resigned Jean-Aimé away to the enemy. Just days later, he is allegedly executed before an audience in the White Cathedral's plaza.

Not long after the news of Jean's death reaches her, Marie marries the old King of Cadmingham, who had been courting her after his bride's passing from pneumonia during the harsh winter. Their wedding is officiated on the day of Marie's birthday the same year. Secretly, Marie tells her most loyal servant to administer aconitum poison to her husband, whose untimely death is officially attributed to illness and old age instead. The servant is also done away with, his final fate still undetermined.

As per Cadmingham's law, the consort of the former ruler, if the latter is dead, is to claim the crown in the absence of heirs. Marie-Marthe becomes the queen of Cadmingham, gaining access to a new army and new subjects.

Estienne feels conflicted in the face of his sister's newly acquired power. His violence-averse soul has gotten used to peace during the truce, and a small voice inside his heart makes him believe that he and Marie may be able to reach an agreement, forming a joint government that benefits them both. Against his court's best advice, he attempts to rebuild bridges and issues an official meeting for peace negotiations, which Marie promptly accepts. However, she has a scheme up her sleeve.

The small island of Cairne, a piece of land in neutral territory where they are to meet, has been laced with Molinier's Drills by her agents. They are all linked to a magical extractor in her ship's cellar. Being alchemical technology that Estienne does not know about, not even since King Jean-Jacques' death, there is nothing The Royalists can do against it. Once Estienne and Marie meet, unaccompanied by their soldiers as per the previous pact they had made, they have a brief discussion, at the end of which Marie activates the extractor.

The land starts to be bled of its magical essence, which affects Marie and Estienne's physical state, and causes the isle of Cairne to shake in an earthquake. Marie, ignoring the feeling of sickness that overcomes her, unsheathes the dagger she'd taken with her, and the two struggle until she pierces through Estienne's heart. General Boisregard, who had been hidden in Marie's ship all along with several soldiers (breaching the no-army-present pact), rushes out to help her after disconnecting the extractor.

Estienne is dead.

His followers disband, and his court falls. Marie's faction advances over Lumière-Sur-Cendre once more, establishing a kingdom united under one name and under one church. Marie's scheme, however, has taken a toll on her. The exposition to the magical extraction in Cairne did not kill her, but it weakened her, and left her in a state of profound illness for years to come.

### The Reprise of Winter: Hibernation

Marie-Marthe is unresponsive after her fight with Estienne. As her army, under Boisregard's orders, slowly reclaims Lumière's territory, she is taken back to Cadmingham and placed in the chambers of the royal palace in Bloodwell, the capital.

Marie's comatose state seems deep and unable to be interrupted by anything. Boisregard assumes executive authority in her stead and reforms the court. As Marie's lost in her slumber, courtiers use her figure as a religious icon, symbolizing the dormant yet upcoming Cataclysm according to the Church of the End of Days' doctrine. This tale keeps their subjects busy publicly as Boisregard, privately, makes a call to all medical professionals across the Fault Line.

Doctors from all over scramble to Cadmingham and try their hand at healing the Queen, to no avail. A winter as heavy as the one two years prior befalls the isles and the northern part of the Fault Line while Marie sleeps, and Boisregard tries her best to keep the nation going. Factories in Dautremer, the capital of Lumière-Sur-Cendre, start breaking down due to rust and frost. The city is isolated from mainland Lumière, which struggles with an agricultural and food crisis of its own. The cold leaves many dead, homeless, and starving. Lumière-Sur-Cendre's territories are increasingly barren, and mass migrations to southern Fault Line 2 occur, leaving most of the country's territories inhabited and abandoned.

Eventually, any form of government is unsustainable in Lumière-Sur-Cendre, and Boisregard decides to close its borders, officially announcing its fall and status as a ghost nation and reducing Cadmingham to its original frontiers.

In March, year 40,026, the Cadmingham Court welcomes a renowned doctor to the country. *Mohtaram* Shaheen Rautahi is the governor of a province in the Red Rose Empire, a prosperous union southeast of the Fault Line, and the most brilliant among the Emperor's circle of court doctors. According to Boisregard's petition, he visits Marie's sealed bedchambers and starts treating her perplexing illness. Shaheen's knowledge of medicine and alchemy allows him to closely analyze Marie's molecular charge of non-matter and magic, which he tries to stabilize over time. After a month, Marie finally opens her eyes.

### Spring breaks

Marie returns to life from her slumber, and the frost encasing the kingdom dissipates progressively. She is quickly briefed on everything that has happened in her absence and seeks an audience with her court and the doctor responsible for her recovery. Shaheen extends his stay in Cadmingham, now acting as an ambassador for the Red Rose Empire, and often talks to Marie, delighted by her intelligence and charisma. Despite the court's reticence to let a foreigner into their affairs, Marie and Shaheen are soon enamored by one another, and she requests he be granted a title and land near Bloodwell. At that time, Marie begins the construction of the grand garden in her palace in Bloodwell, a paradise of foreign, rare plants and unusual creatures, as a gift for Shaheen.

Shaheen Rautahi and Marie get married in the Fall of year 40,028, and their first son Bertram Kourosh is born on the 10th of June of the following year. The royal couple would go on to have three more children: Robert Khorshed on the 12th of February 40,031; Amoury Mirza on the 5th of November 40,032 and finally, Thomas Reza on the 16th of December 40,035.

Marie, however, is not the same after her period of hibernation. During her sleep, she was tormented by the voices of the Threads of Fate, condemning her lineage and deeds. Their screams haunt her waking days too, and soon Marie cannot escape their wrath. Still clutching onto her faith and alchemy as her only hope, Marie continues her alchemical experimentation while maintaining a pristine image as the Head of their Church. Temples of worship are built across the nation with a Golden Blood Extractor and a Drill in each of them, as she has devised a plan to cause the grand-scale draining of magic that shall put the world to rest. On a personal level, Marie now focuses on finding a way to destroy the magic within her body and bloodline, attempting to escape the torture of the Fates.

General Boisregard grows increasingly alarmed by Marie's seemingly erratic and maddened behavior, which now often leads to witch hunts and mass executions in the name of faith. Knowing that King consort Shaheen is away managing his province with his sister, she attempts a coup by sending two assassins into Marie's palace in Bloodwell late at night, tasked to kill both her and her sons Bertram and Robert, three years old and a newborn respectively at the time. Marie, increasingly paranoid since her awakening, is informed of the attempt by her network of spies and thus catches the assassins, murdering them in cold blood in front of Bertram. Boisregard's conspirations are brought to light, and she is promptly executed, putting an end to her trajectory as Marie's cherished right hand.