Queen Calanthe

The proud, fierce Queen of Cintra known as the Lioness, mother of Pavetta and grandmother of Ciri.

Calanthe Fiona Riannon was Queen of Cintra, known as the Lioness of Cintra and, in Elder Speech, Ard Rhena, the High Queen. She took the throne at fourteen after the death of her father, King Dagorad, and won her first great battle, at Hochebuz, a year later. Famous for her beauty and courage, she was also stubborn, sharp-tongued and determined to bend destiny to her will. She was the mother of Pavetta and the grandmother of Ciri.

Calanthe and the games
Calanthe died years before the games begin and never appears in The Witcher 3. Her legacy is still everywhere, though: Ciri is her granddaughter and the last heir of Cintra, and the Skellige jarl Crach an Craite was her nephew by marriage, who called her Modron. She also has a card in Gwent: The Witcher Card Game.

In the books
In The Last Wish, Calanthe holds a feast for Pavetta’s fifteenth birthday, hoping to marry her into Skellige. She invites Geralt disguised as a lord, without telling him her real reasons. A helmeted knight called Duny arrives to claim Pavetta under the Law of Surprise for saving her late husband, Roegner. Calanthe tricks him into revealing his hedgehog face, sure her daughter will refuse him, but Pavetta chooses Duny, and her power explodes through the hall, hurling the queen’s throne against the wall. In the end Calanthe blesses the marriage, which breaks Duny’s curse, and finally accepts the proposal of her persistent suitor Eist Tuirseach. Duny would one day be revealed as Emhyr var Emreis.

After Pavetta and Duny were lost at sea, Calanthe raised Ciri herself. She adored the girl but refused to spoil her. In Sword of Destiny, Geralt returns for his Child of Surprise, and Calanthe hides Ciri among a group of boys to test him. They part with her sensing they will never meet again alive.

When Nilfgaard invaded in 1263, Eist fell in battle and Calanthe led the survivors back to the capital. During the Slaughter of Cintra she sent Ciri out through the burning city with a few soldiers, who were caught by Cahir. With the castle about to fall and no one willing to kill her, the Lioness threw herself from a tower window. Her body was never found, and cenotaphs were raised to her in Skellige and in the royal crypt beneath Cintra’s castle.