Saskia Valavar IV

Saskia Valavar is the Duchess of Perfugium, a palatine noblewoman whose world and husband were both lost in the planet's fall to the Cielcin. During the siege she confronted Hadrian at the Emperor's command post, demanding an accounting for her thirty million people and supplying precise evacuation figures. The destruction of Duke Gaspard -- shown alive as a captive in Attavaisa's transmission, then killed before her eyes -- left her in shock; Hadrian personally ensured she was evacuated aboard the Tempest.

In the aftermath, she sits in the upper gallery of the makeshift court aboard the Tempest in black mourning clothes and a veil of black lace, stripped of her duchy. Hadrian recognizes her among those gathered and sees in her half-concealed eyes the same grief he carries for Perfugium -- what he calls "the vanished light."