Ushara

Ushara is a Watcher -- a being of pure will from beyond human spacetime, older than the very stars and originally their shepherd. The Vaiartu knew her as "U Sha Ra"; the Cielcin address her as Anscurhae (Serpent) and Caeharush (Watcher). The Judicator Ragama calls her his brother, placing her among the same order as the faithful Watchers before her rebellion. A Watcher dies only when the entire energy pattern is scattered; until then even a fragment can reconstitute the whole.

Awakened at the Vaiartu ruins on Sabratha, she was partially destroyed and escaped as a fragment before Ragama expelled her remnant from Hadrian's mind. She allied with Dorayaica and Miudanar, pursuing war against the Absolute. At Danu she drove populations to madness and possessed Cassandra, who in that state killed both herself and Hadrian. At Cynon she assaulted the Imperial fleet, survived a singularity weapon, and on the surface of Dharan-Tun destroyed Voidmaker -- Hadrian's primary weapon against her -- after surviving its discharge.

Aboard Aurora and Mnemon she seizes soldiers' minds, causes men to speak with double voices, drives others to uncontrolled laughter, and commands Cielcin nahute to fall dead with a silent act of will. In the moment of Astrophage's firing, her shadow -- alongside Miudanar's -- is seen against the sun: a man and a woman, their silhouettes distended and smeared, in what appears to be the Watchers' destruction.