“She writes in footsteps what others dare not speak.”

Lady Ilys was once a mortal dancer—or so the story goes. A prima ballerina who danced her final performance for an audience that did not blink. When she bowed, she found herself still on stage, but the curtain never fell. Applause echoed in reverse. The world had changed. She had crossed into the Pale Country.

Now, she is the Silencekeeper—head of the Queen’s Oracular Circle and guardian of the unspoken. Her tongue was taken as a condition of her elevation, braided into a locket of white gold that hangs near Queen Elidore’s hollow heart. But Ilys does not need to speak. Her movements speak volumes. When she walks, the floor hums. When she dances, the court listens—and fate aligns itself accordingly.

Lady Ilys interprets the will of Elidore through motion: slow pirouettes for approval, a bowed head for judgment, a raised toe in still air to signal execution. She has memorised more than a thousand ritual phrases in step and gesture, and invented hundreds more. Her body is a living lexicon.

Few have seen her rest. Even when seated, her hands perform faint, intricate twitches—silent ciphers, unfinished thoughts. The mute oracles she oversees, known as the Pale-Tongued, rely on her as their anchor. It is said their minds fray without her guidance, their prophecies leaking into the stones unless carefully choreographed.

Lady Ilys wears a mask of fine silver gauze that obscures her face but magnifies her eyes, which are pale as salt and show images no one else sees. Some claim that to look into her gaze is to see the hour of your own death—or the moment you were meant to love but failed.
Occasionally, a mortal will dream of a silent woman in a great white hall, dancing through rising tides of candlelight. These dreams always end the same way: the dreamer wakes with aching feet and a single crystal tear beside their bed.

The FDG recovered one such tear. Analysis revealed it was composed of bone dust and impossible pressure. One operative claimed to hear faint music when holding it. Another vanished upon contact, leaving behind a scrawled phrase: “I watched her dance the end of the world, and it was beautiful.”

Lady Ilys does not rebel. She does not waver. But those closest to her say there’s something new in her steps lately—an unfamiliar rhythm.
A hesitation.
A secret being danced into form.