Chapter One:
Six Feet Under
When I was a boy, my father had dug a grave right next to my mother’s. Whenever I spoke disrespectfully or showed any sign of a rebellious spirit, after beating me, he would throw me down into the pit. It was there that I lost all fear of death.

There were far worse fates to fear.

I traveled along underneath the proud city of Kanet. The grates that lead up to the streets allowed a faint trickle of light to shine down in the dark, wet, smelly sewers. I looked up through them as I passed one and wondered if this was what the dead did. Gaze up from six feet under and watch all the pale creatures of light pass over their graves.

No.

Even the dead rested better.

They had to in the arms of Takai, our Father of Shadow. The dark king protected his resting children from such torment. I found it ironic, that the death god was more merciful than his twin sister, Akasha of light, the bewitching goddess that governed life. However, I was not with the Elohim gods. The Spider Queen Lloth spun her web around me, and even I knew there was no escape. Takai held no place for me in his arms yet.

For that was the reason for my lurking in the underground tunnel of sewers. The Drow were not permitted beyond the borders. So to keep my presence unknown to the white elves and humans, this wet ****ty hole was the road to my goal. I did not belong with those alien people above.

Kanet was built upon a great plateau that rose up from the sea of green grass. It had immense white marble walls reaching out to the blue sky above and surrounding the perimeter of the plateau. The city was stationed in the plains of Ranelu, not far from the Spirit Mountains to the north, and over was the Desert of Suu, the lands of condemned, Delusuu, my homeland.

This land was like a different world to me. Here there was a sea of green, of life. Where as Delusuu was a sea of red sand, blood, vengeance, loathing, deceit, and murderous intent. This was why “Scarlet” was the name of the highest ranked soldiers of the empire, only second to the emperor himself. Red was a color seen often by us. Red was the way of our lives. Red marked the hourglass shape of the Black Widow’s belly, the sigil of the Drow Empire.

Green was a rare and foreign color. My mother’s eyes had been a vibrant shade of jade-green. So had been her small desert garden. A little patch of peace in our harsh environment as her presence had been in the ugliness of my life. So when I came to this green sea of Ranelu, I wondered if it had a patch of withered dry chaos hidden deep within its breast.

I knew nothing of these people. Though as a child I had always dreamed of them and their green home. But the people of Ranelu held no place in their land for me. I was a Drow and hated by them for a past I had not lived in. I was taught to hate them as well. So were the doctrines of the Drow’s goddess, Lloth. Yet, even as I stared up through the grate, the tiny holes of light that hurt my eyes, my heart held no malice for them.

It was empty now. Cold and steady, it pulsed. Even as such thoughts drifted in, and the warmth of the sun touched the black of my skin, none of it stirred me. So I looked away from the light as I passed the grates by. Not even my boots made a sound as I snaked through the sewers, feeling the weight of the gear strapped to my body. The noise of the streets fell upon deaf ears.

I drifted through my life like it was a dream land: vague, numb—disconnected.