Amarantha is the evil and vindictive High Queen of Prythian and the villain of the novel. For the first half of the novel, Amarantha is not named because of the curse she has placed on Prythian. She is ominously referred to as “she” or euphemistically as “the blight”. The term “blight” denotes a disease or a plague on magic, which is exactly what Amarantha is. A frontline warrior in the war between humans and faeries centuries earlier, Amarantha is famed for her cruelty. Amarantha developed her intense hatred for humans when her sister was betrayed and murdered by a human lover, Jurian. In a horrifying display of cruel retribution, she plucked Jurian’s eye out and bound his consciousness to it for eternity. The fact that she still torments Jurian by wearing his eye on a ring hundreds of years later emphasizes the longevity of her grudge. Amarantha is also ambitious, as shown by her desire to control Prythian. She is known as “The Deceiver” because she lied to the High Fae for fifty years in order to steal their powers and place herself on the throne. She is a master manipulator and punishes Lucien when Tamlin refuses to be her lover because she knows it will hurt Tamlin deeply. Amarantha’s greatest weakness is her arrogance, particularly where humans are involved. Amarantha repeatedly underestimates Feyre, which ultimately leads to her downfall.