Axziss

Axziss, during a blizzard ambush on Mariposa.

Axziss was a member of the moth colony living in the Golden Desert during the New Age.  She possessed much greater visual acuity than the average moth, capable of judging details from long distances.  She had green-tinted skin and carried a whip made of bones.

The Lost Treasure of Torlynn

Axziss served as the second-in-command to Lord Xarzuss, though she openly questioned his policy of waging war against humans and butterfly people.  When Xarzuss became obsessed with the idea of destroying all humans, indiscriminately sending moth warriors to their deaths, Axziss stepped in and stopped him, ripping off his wings and then dispatching him with his own bonesword.  Though the butterfly princess, Mariposa, had agreed to turn herself over to the moths, Axziss was impressed with Mariposa's performance and allowed her to go free, noting that they were still enemies.

The Quest for the World-Breaker

Axziss became High Priestess, serving as the new leader for the moth colony, with Syxx serving as her bodyguard.  She disliked the responsibility that came with being leader, but accepted it.  She signed a treaty with King Wheeler of Torlynn Castle that would prevent future hostilities between humans and moths.  At some point, however, she learned of the existence of the World-Breaker and that its scattered pieces were buried in the ground.  With the importance of finding the weapon more important than abiding by the treaty, she began searching for its pieces in Torlynn—torching towns to the ground and then using dragon beetles to root through the ground and cultivate the soil beneath the ruins.  The moth attack on Angel's Crossing finally caught the attention of King Wheeler, who confronted her.  Rather than staying to fight, she called the retreat.

Syxx had disappeared during the battle with the human knights of Torlynn.  After she returned to the colony, the moths could sense that she had been cavorting with humans as well as gorging herself on food that she hadn't shared with the moths.  Intending to send a message to Four, Axziss ordered that Syxx be brutalized and left for dead on a trail that the human king would be sure to find her.

Axziss had competition in searching for the pieces in the form of a group the moths called the Travelers.  After coming across the Traveler airship, Axziss and a band of moth warriors snuck aboard the ship and remained there for days, waiting for its captain, Mirabel Miller, to finish collecting the pieces of the weapon.  They later emerged, surprising the goblin crew and killing them.  After the assembled weapon was inadvertantly activated, Mariposa arrived and confronted Axziss.  She engaged Mariposa in aerial combat, continuing to fight even after losing an arm.  When Syxx betrayed her, Axziss impaled her with her own broken arm-bone.  Axziss eventually fell into the spinning propellers of the airship, her body instantly shredded.

The Curse of the Fate Shifter

Following the death of Axziss, the role of High Priestess was assumed by Nazzis.

Behind the Scenes

Axziss's name was intended to sound like the word "axis," as in Axis of Evil.  A then-unnamed, green-skinned female moth warrior appears in the illustration "Blizzard Ambush," which was drawn before A Butterfly's Tale was written.  She has since become Axziss retroactively. 

While Axziss speaks normally in the original version of A Butterfly's Tale, she adds "bzz" to the ends of her sentences in the junior novel adaptation.