Aklys (or "Lys," as her family calls her) was born and raised in the House of Black Water, the Islesi manse in the Incas prefecture. Her mother Orphne is the Water-Aspected matriarch of the manse; her father is a mortal from House Peleps who is often absent. She has half a dozen siblings; her oldest brother Phidon is a Water-Aspect who represents Iselsi interests in the Imperial city, while her mortal siblings assist her mother in various ways around the House of Black Water.

Lys was a difficult child, introverted to the extreme. She disliked interacting with her family, preferring the company of books and her imagination. The idea of the Iselsi Vendetta fascinated her and repulsed her in equal measure, and she became frustrated that her mother did not trust her with the deeper secrets of the house.

Lys exalted in her twelfth year, after running away from home in an especially active state of rebellion. She had stolen several books of Iselsi lore and was convinced that she had uncovered a lost family manse, hidden out in the Incas countryside. Lys’ search for the X on the map was interrupted by a violent thunderstorm, but she persevered despite the rain and hail. Just as she was on the verge of success she was struck by a bolt of lightning, but, rather than harming her, the thunderbolt filled her with an intoxicating rush of power. Sparks playing off her fingertips, she opened the door to the lost vault and uncovered the secrets therein.

When Orphne finally found her wayward daughter sleeping on top of a cache of weapons and poisons and family heirlooms she was more bemused than angry. As an exalt, Lys was of the highest value to the house and the Vendetta, and she had to be treated accordingly. Orphne allowed Lys to keep a few of treasures as a reward, and then promptly shipped her off to finishing school at the Spiral Academy.

Even with her brother nearby to keep an eye on her and an exaltation to give her purpose, Lys was no better behaved in the Imperial City than she was in the Incas prefecture, constantly antagonizing her fellow students and rebelling against her teachers. The civil war isolated the city from Incas, as Cathak legions seized the southeastern coast and the city itself suffered under a months-long siege. The students at the Spiral Academy were largely insulated from the fighting, though during the actual siege Lys was spirited out of the city by her brother to an Iselsi safehouse.

With V’Neef on the throne, school resumed and Lys resumed her solo rebellion. The civil war convinced her that the dynasts were all hopelessly corrupt and incompetent, and that the Iselsi Vendetta was too narrow in its aims. What was needed was not a targeted campaign of revenge, but a wholesale cleansing of the Scarlet Dynasty. Obviously it was impractical to just kill everyone, so what needed to be destroyed was not the Dynasts themselves but the systems of power that supported them.

So Lys began to write. First she composed poems and hung them up around the Spiral Academy’s campus. Then she adapted popular plays and distributed across in the Imperial City. She did the same with myths and parables, adjusting them all her to her subversive ends, mocking those in power and questioning the legitimacy of the Scarlet Dynasty that had done so much to ruin her house and the world.

Her instructors at the Spiral Academy had a pretty good idea where the illicit literature was coming from, but they could never catch Lys in the act. Her brother and mother, though, knew exactly what was going on, and they knew that Lys’ exalted status would not protect her when she was finally caught - the new regime could not allow any opposition, and certainly not from an Iselsi.

Lys was far too valuable an asset to House Iselsi to lose in something so pointless as teenage rebellion, so Orphne acted to put her daughter out of harm’s way - far out of harm’s way. The Spiral Academy agreed to let Lys ‘study on sabbatical’ in return for a hefty donation and a promise that the graffiti campaign would stop. Lys would then be bundled off to one of the satrapies, far away from the Blessed Isle and any insulted dynasts in search of revenge, where hopefully she would work through her issues and eventually return to further the Vendetta.

Iselsi Orphne was not optimistic about her daughter ever changing, but, then, the exalted are known for the miraculous...