Zalia's Backstory

Finally! Spring has arrived. A glimmer of light shines through the only window in the basement for the first time in months, it has been a long winter. I can see my reflection in the bowl filled with cloudy water, and the thing looking back has a face only a mother could love. Unfortunately for me, I don’t even have that. I keep wondering why she bothers to keep me down here. The woman could just stop bringing me food and water every week, and all her worries would be gone. Coward!
 
I don’t know who my father was, but he must have been one horny fella. That reminds me, I should trim mine before mother arrives, maybe she’ll give me something to entertain myself with if she can look at me for more than five seconds. Last time she gave me a book, but the pages were blank and I don’t have a pen. Wait a minute, the pages were blank yesterday, but now there is something written. “Kill her!” Kill who? “Kill Lily Sternheart!” Kill my own mother? Why would I do that? “Kill her, Zalia! She is a wrathful, despicable being who deserves to die! I will reward you!”
 
Confused, Zalia closes the book as she hears the turning of a key. Her mother opens the door without saying a word. “Mom, did you bring me something fun today?” Voicelessly, Lily walks down the stairs, unaffected by her daughter. “Maybe I can step outside for an hour?” Lily changes the water and throws some canned food on the floor without answering. “Can you at least look at me, mom?” Without skipping a beat, Lily turns around and heads for the door. “Look at me mom! Look at me!” What else could Zalia do than throw a can of beans at her mother to get her attention? Not much, but keep bashing her scull open with said can after the initial throw might have been a bit excessive.
 
A surge of power never experienced before flowed through Zalia. She didn’t know how she knew this, but instead of grinding her horn across the stone wall, like she always had done, she instinctively just hid them. Her crooked yellow eyes she used to cover, she simply turned blue and her bald head grew long blonde hair. For the first time, when she looked in the bowl of cloudy water, a person stared back. The book laying on the floor opened itself.
“Good job, Zalia! And now for your next target…”
 
This event took place 28 years ago. Now, Zalia is 42 years old, but she makes herself look 20 most of the time, or whatever age she needs to look like to persuade her victims. It took some time before Zalia could become fully independent and leave her birthplace of Maurkin, Zimea, but since then she has been on foot, stealing food or scamming gullible people to stay alive. One peculiar night in Wyrmthrone, her dinner was interrupted by a blue traveler investigating the theft of a sacred relic [or some other crime that suits the story]. The culprit was to be brought back dead or alive, and of course, Zalia agreed to help as long as she could do the killing. A fair trade, her new companion would get the bounty and the soul thirsty patron would quench its thirst. This turned out to be quite the fruitful partnership, one eager detective and one remorseless executor.