Like many a good story, Lexi's begins with fire raining from the sky.
Alexiyana's father, Boris Restov, was the headman of a village of lumberjacks, woodworkers, and assorted forestry types. Their village, so small it didn't even have a name, was located in what was once the Grand Duchy of Illyria.
When the Dragon Empire came, Lexi was less than a 10 year old girl, having just barely learned her letters and numbers. she watched as men in scale armor broke into the schoolhouse where most of her friends were hiding, while her mother drug her away by the hand; she still hears their screams in her nightmares.
Like the survivors of other villages, Alexiyana and her mother joined a refugee train headed away from the invading forces. though they stayed together for a time, eventually most people went on their way and it wasn't long before Alexiyana and her mother were captured by bandits; not wanting the girl to watch what came next, the put a bag over her head and then availed themselves of her mother. While she could not see, she heard enough, including the drawing of a blade and her mother's last breath.
For her part, Alexiyana was kept untouched to be sold into slavery, as they knew men would would pay a good price for such a privilege. It was as she was being led through the gates of the city that she saw her chance to escape: one of the bandits was careless. In trying to keep her bound hands hidden to avoid suspiciion, he allowed them to stray too close to the dagger on her belt.
It was on that day that something changed inside of her.
sliding the knife out of it's sheath, she hamstrung the bandit then fled into the city. The city of Zobeck.
Lexi spent the next 3 years living on the street, stealing and killing wantonly, until she picked the wrong pocket; the pocket of a hired killer named Zokhan. When he snatched her hand off his coinpurse, she drew her knife, and he drew his.
Drawing her into an alley, he explained that she had two choices: she could either become his apprentice, or she could die. There was something in his voice, or perhaps his specific choice of words, that terrified Lexi. She accepted, and after taking away her knife, he examined it then replaced it with one if his own, a odd silvered dagger she came to learn was called a Scorpion Stilleto. Thus began her three year apprenticeship into the arts of the assassin. She learned how stalk through the dark, completely unseen, how to pick pockets and track men; even how to use some minor magic.
Less than six months ago, Lexi (she had shortened her name when she became Zokhan's apprentice) awoke in the small apartment they were sharing and Zokhan was gone, having left a note in his terse handwriting that she read You are ready now. Do not fear, or hesitate. -Z
Lexi went out and found work in a variety of jobs, most of them criminal; sometimes, however, she would take bodyguard jobs, both because the pay was good, and because she could learn how best to get around or deal with people in that line of work.
Thus it was that she accepted a job for an evening guarding the 17th daughter of a rich nobleman, who feared for his daughter's safety at a theater that very evening. She explained that his daughter would be kept safe, and she would be practically invisible, as long as his daughter had a private box. the nobleman agreed, and lexi shadowed the girl's carriage to the theater, then slid into her private box and made herself invisible.
The girl noticed nothing when she entered and took her seat.