The Story of Lissandra
Lissandra is the oldest lie in the Freljord. She was there when the Watchers — ancient, incomprehensible beings from beyond reality — first pushed through the ice at the top of the world, and she was there when a coalition of her tribe defeated them and drove them back. What the legends don't say, because Lissandra has spent millennia ensuring they don't say it, is that she made a deal: she would feed the Watchers the magic they need to survive their imprisonment, and they would give her power in return.
The Frostguard — the tribe she leads with religious devotion from the outside and manipulated purpose from within — believes it is the ancient institution protecting the world from the Watchers' return. It is, in fact, the institution that is slowly feeding the world to them. Lissandra has been doing this for so long that she may have convinced herself it is mercy — a slow, managed end is better than what a sudden awakening would mean. Or she may simply have been doing it for so long that stopping would require acknowledging what she has been.
Anivia knows. The cryophoenix has been her adversary across the full length of this deception. Lissandra respects this, in the way she respects everything that has managed to survive her plans. She is blind — her eyes were given as part of her original bargain — and she sees through the ice magic she commands. She is impossibly old. She is possibly the most dangerous single person in the Freljord. And she has already won in every timeline except the one that requires her to be stopped before the preparation is complete.