Abandoned by her parents as an infant and left on the cathedral's doorstep, Yamini is raised by a high priestess until the age of ten. She is then offered apprenticeship under the respected master scribe, Azsherade, which she hesitantly accepts. For a year she learns to read and write, a rare skill within the empire, and studies the history of Rhevise. Azsherade adopts Yamini and considers her his own daughter. She is fast becoming an adept scribe when an unscrupulous politician, Councilman Shahid, outlaws the use of handwriting and script in response to an insurrection orchestrated by messages written in graffiti. Yamini decides that Shahid is a bad man and should be killed for the greater good of Rhevise. Against Azsherade's warnings, Yamini abandons her home and mentor to follow the corrupt politician into the night. After a brief verbal exchange, Yamini slays Shahid and leaves him on a residential stoop.
This action gains the attention of Soliessen, guildmaster to a group of rogues, thieves and assassins. Having nowhere else to go, Yamini reluctantly joins the guild after a tiresome initiation process resulting in the death of a young girl. Her first real assignment, a mission of theft that sends her into the Ka'Dence Estate to recover the valuable memory cube artifact, awakens a shadow spirit within Yamini. This shadow spirit, Narran, becomes her only real companion and gives Yamini guidance by whispering into her mind. For three years Yamini trains and learns the ways of the rogue through Soliessen's and Narran's instructions. Her missions range from thievery and pickpocketry to infiltration and sabotage to murder and assassination. Due to Yamini's severe guilt complex, she turns over influence to Narran during deadly missions. Yamini eventually comes to be called by her codename, "Narran", by guildmates. This eventually leads to an identity crisis that threatens to banish Yamini's soul to the plane of shadow...
