Prelude

"The city I grew up in had no name.

At least, I did not know it as a child. I knew nothing. By blood I was Third Daughter of House Ssarash'i, Twenty-First house of the city of Maeralyn, but I did not know it. No one bothered to tell me, you see. I was the forgotten child, the unwanted brat. For by blood I was also the daughter of the Enemy-whether that was humans or surface elves I was never informed-and so my 'family' despised me.

Now, my friend, perhaps you have heard stories like mine that begin with a romantic prologue where the parents shared a tragic forbidden love that could not last. The father was killed but the mother kept his child to remind herself, even when she came to power, of the time when she loved the light.

Hold no such illusions here.

The bitch that birthed me cared nothing for my father, whoever he was, or for me. The only reason I wasn't sacrificed immediately was because my mother had a much more devious mind. To please Lloth, I was to be denied the release of death. Instead my punishment for being a halfbreed was to suffer both in this world and the next. Subservient to even males, untrained, denied entry into the clergy or any such pursuit, illiterate, half-starved, ally-less, and beaten at every opportunity. I was to live hell on earth."

-Nadezdha Ssarash'i, speaking to her elven companion Findarato.

Halfbreed

As the child awoke, the first things that she became aware of were feelings of cold and pain. That was normal; she was always cold when she woke up. She was cold when she went to sleep too. She slept on the tiled floor of the hall, behind a pillar for protection, with only her simple shift for warmth.

Pain was familiar too. It was a constant companion throughout her days. The flesh on her back and her legs seemed to always burn with it, from the ministrations of her sisters. But that day, the feeling was particularly strong. Her whole being seemed to ache, and she felt dizzy, even lying down. Her yellow eyes fluttering open, the girl let out a small squeak of fright.

Inches from her face was the bloodied, wide-eyed, severed head of a fallen drow warrior.

The ache in her small limbs forgotten, the child scrambled away from the macabre object, only for her hand to come into contact with the head's body. Stifling a shriek, with one hand, she leapt to her feet, the bells tied to her wrists and ankles chiming loudly from the sudden movement.

With practiced composure beyond her short years, the girl choked back the bile rising in her throat and studied her surroundings. Corpses like the headless soldier littered the the entire floor. Blood was splattered on the walls and statues, some of it still glowly faintly in the infrared spectrum.

Keeping her breath as even as possible, the child picked her way among the disembodied limbs and gore towards a body that was relatively intact. She did her best to ignore the mortal wound in the warrior's chest and searched around his throat for his neck-purse. When she had pulled it out from under his clothes she looked inside for the house insignia. She did not recognize it. This came as a minor relief; it meant that these bodies were not of her own house.

Still clutching the symbol, the child sat back on her heels and tried to call back the memories of the previous night. Her mind was filled with flashes of images and feelings. She could remember running through the halls, the ominous gleam of unsheathed blades, the sound of fighting, alarms, and of screams. Closing her eyes, the girl concentrated as hard as she could and attempted to pierce the fog of her shocked mind.

She had felt the tension in the air as though it had been tangible. Both nobles and commoners alike had all been grim-faced and expectant as they'd rushed to prepare and get to their posts. So thick was the feeling that when the magical alarms started it came almost as a relief. Not to her, however. The sounds intensifying the girl's terror, she had sought out the meagre protection of a statue.

She lived in one of the lower, less-defensible levels of the house and it was there that her house had been breached. Had she not moved, the soldiers might not have noticed her, but her hand, sweaty from fear, had slipped an inch along the floor. The movement had caused the accursed bells-tied to her wrists to deny her the innate drow ability of silence-to ring. She was not stupid, though, and the second she made that tiny betraying sound, she had been on her feet and running down the corridor.

Some soldiers, seeking sport, had chased after her, but she knew the house better than they, and by weaving through the labyrinthine halls, she had managed to lose them. Only to blunder into another battle. There, soldiers of both houses, mostly males, struggled against each other. One, a wizard, had unleashed a blast of energy against his foes. The attack ricocheted off the wall, caught the poor child on the shoulder and had sent her spinning to the floor, where she had been knocked unconscious. Through some miracle of luck, she had survived.

Her feet were cold.

Looking around at the dead warriors, an idea occurred to the beleagered child. On hands and knees, she crawled over to the fallen drow's feet. She reached out a small ash-skinned hand to feel the fine leather of the soldier's boots. Her hand hovered over them for a moment as she chewed her lip, trying to make a decision. The expression on her small face hardened and she took ahold of the boots. It took a few strong pulls to get them off, but she did it. With some trepidation at the forbidden act she was commiting, she slipped them on. A moment later, her face crinkled with innocent delight. The boots, apparently enchanted, had molded themselves to fit her little feet perfectly, even over the bells. They were soft, flexible and warm, in all ways a blessing to the child.

She ran her hands over them, examining their beauty in every way. She discovered, on the inside, a hidden sheath, meant to hide an extra weapon. This finding made the girl pause. Did she dare? Weapons, along with almost every other material possession were forbidden to her. But if it was hidden…

Once again, she studied the sheath, memorizing the size and shape. With that she turned her gaze back onto the body. There was the knife, in the left hand of the dead dark elf. Steeling her childish nerves, she picked up the limp hand and began to work at prying apart the fingers, keeping her mind off the reality of the grim task. More than once, she heard a sick crack, but she succeeded in freeing the knife. It was relatively clean, aside from a few rusty stains of dried blood. These she cleaned off with spit and the edge of the drow's tunic. Once clean, she slipped it into sheath, her too-big garment hiding the handle and much of the boots.

For good measure, she padded over to one of her house's own soldiers and unfastened his piwafwi. It was too big for her, but that didn't matter. She wrapped it around her tiny frame, pulled the hood over her head and hid in the shadows of an alcove.

Nestled in a corner with her back to the wall, the half-drow child known as Nadezdha Ssarash'i snuggled in her new cloak and promptly fell asleep.

As she sank into the depths of slumber, Nadezdha's older brother, Dantal, Secondboy of House Ssarash'i stepped silently out of shadows and began the ascent to the upper levels. It was time to pay a visit to his brother. Observing his half-sister had placed an idea in his head worthy of Lloth herself.

Not that it would help her clerics.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed this chapter. After much study of the drow cities I decided to write this story in the little known city of Maeralyn. I chose this city because it is rarely used, and all that is known about it is that the inhabitants follow Lloth and it was recently invaded by the city of Jhachalkhyn. This story takes place before that invasion. In fact this story takes place before a lot of things. Keep reading and you'll find out.

Review and you'll find out faster. Thank you in advance!