Iseult

Iseult is an Obrimos mage of the Silver Ladder. She is a member of Alis Aquilae, and is proud to be of the Pure Sovereigns Legacy. Her real name is known by some to be Karen Gordon.

Childhood
Karen Gordon was born with many of life's advantages; a strong family (politically connected), personal wealth set aside in trust by her maternal grandparents and administrated by her financier father, a winning smile and a knack for making people happy.

Her grandparents passed away during her childhood, her grandmother so early on that Karen remembers neither her nor the funeral, her grandfather's death occasioning a sad, unpleasant, confusing day aged nine.

Two years later, the will finally out of probate, her father disappeared from her life and from the family's knowledge, taking with him the money the family was accustomed to and her future inheritance. Karen was shattered; her comfortable life with long-standing friends at her boarding school was gone in an instant. Her mother and she found themselves abruptly with nobody to rely upon but one another, and her mother's words were hard ones.

"The only source of strength you can ever rely on is the one inside you."

She took a job delivering papers, not for her own income but to help keep the food on the table from being too bland while her mother struggled to keep a roof over their heads and power flowing to the lights. She got to the point where she was very, very good at that job, but as she grew older had to jump ship to a small corner shop to bring in that little bit more.

Karen gave up on friendships. They were time she didn't have, they were costs she couldn't afford, and they were no source of anything.

Awakening
One Friday night, aged sixteen, the shop she worked in was robbed. Karen, furious, chased the thief out of the store, his gun being stowed away, and tackled him to the ground. The bag of money went flying and she had every opportunity to take it and run, but she didn't. Delving into his jacket she pulled out the gun. Hot with anger, tears of rage streaming down her face, she wanted to break him as badly as her father's disappearing act had shattered her.

She pointed it not quite at his head, just to one side, and she pulled the trigger.

Nothing should have happened. The safety was on. But the gun barked and blazed and time froze, and Karen was lost in that moment. The flash of light washed over her, the energy and fury and emotion of the moment washed her into the Aether and she was baptised an Obrimos at last.

She took the money and the gun as the thief, dazed, deafened, and permanently blinded by the effect of a shot so near to his face, stumbled away. The money never made its way back into the store; the manager believed her when she said he'd fired and she'd given up the chase. Later, she would come to wonder how it was that there were no witnesses; she would come to hold that it was her Awakening that prevented them, that becoming one of the better people had placed her above judgement.

Mage Society
She wasn't discovered by mages until she made it to university in Bristol, having abandoned her mother to live alone when her mother refused to let her go through sixth form. She saw the Silver Ladder as the birthright she had lost offered again, and she seized it with both hands. By the end of her degree she had joined the Pure Sovereigns, relying on her new Attainment to make it through her degree while working two part-time jobs - she simply did not sleep some days, and slept hardly at all on others, with the resilience of youth and the will of an Awakened.

Lancaster
She came to the Consilium by the Bay not long afterward, arriving in 1999, having chosen the place in the expectation that other struggling students, other worthy ones, would come to her attention.

Those whose soul already burned with the spark of inner strength were worthy to have that spark kindled to a flame. But only those - only those who had learned Karen's lesson.

With that as her stated intent, Perseus welcomed her, finding her a place in the Cabal of Alis Aquilae. Over time, he and his successor would come to regret this decision, though Perseus would never regret it so much as Branwen.

One of Perseus' last acts before handing power to his successor was to give the Proximi into the care of Iseult and (at that time) Dream. She focused attention upon them, determined to provide the strength they so clearly lacked as their care was her duty. When Dream left the Consilium for the pastoral delights of Keswick and Rockefeller was promoted to be Iseult's co-respondent, she and he had passionate arguments about their role in guiding and shaping these families and especially the young potential mages, but they were at impasse.

With Rockefeller's death at the hands of the Hallows Killer, Iseult allowed and encouraged Branwen's distraction, maintaining power over the Proximi without argument. She had found someone with the fire and determination she wanted in an apprentice, taking Ebraucus to her side and promising to induct him into her Legacy.

And then the events of the Argent Agenda unfolded. By their end, Iseult was in hospital recovering from a gunshot wound, Ebraucus had distanced himself from her, and she had been stripped of her control over the Proximi network, seeing it ceded to a bitter political rival - Rowntree, who had beaten her to the role of Factotum during an earlier election - and to Anglerfish. To cap it all, one of the youths for whom she was responsible, the lad now known as Postmortem, was in a coma.

Little has been heard from her since, save that she intends to conserve and marshal her strength before she begins work anew.