Zoya Zhukovsky was born on Диксон (Dickson Island) in the Kara Sea, northern Siberia. Her mother died during Zoya'a birth. Her father couldn't take care of a little girl and brought Zoya to his aunt to raise her.

Zoya lived with her great aunt on the banks of Озеро Байкал (lake Baikal) in eastern Siberia. Zoya's aunt belonged to an ancient family of witches and sorcerers. Her great aunt recognized that Zoya inherited the gift of magic as well.

While she grew up, Zoya learned to recognize herbs with special powers and helped her great aunt making simple healing mixtures, poisons for use in hunting and other elixirs used in matters of love.
At age sixteen her great aunt begun to teach Zoya more powerful spells as well.
Zoya felt her magical powers increase, but then disaster struck. Her great aunt was killed by lightning.

Zoya was left with a small hut, a cupboard full of ingredients and a notebook full of recipes and spells. She would still wander somewhere in Siberia if she had not encountered a young officer in the army of the ruler.
They fell in love and he took her back to the capital where they lived together. Zoya focused on her lover and neglected her magical powers.
One day she received news from her man's comrades, her lover was killed in a duel over a gambling debt.

Zoya was inconsolable and devastated. Now without bonds to the capital she wandered from village to village, from city to city. She made a living by healing people and helping them with their day to day worries and difficulties by casting a simple spell here and there. She became a white witch, focussed on doing good to help the common people of the land.

She ended up far south near the Каспийское море (Caspian Sea). Here she encountered magic of a more powerful nature.
Chatting to the locals in their taverns and inns, Zoya learned that this new magic originated in the lands south of Russia, somewhere in the deserts.
Intrigued, Zoya decided to travel to the far lands of powerful magic.

On her trip, she fell in love again. She encountered a beautiful slave girl, who was filling a bucket of water at a well near the road. Confused by these new feelings for another woman, Zoya used her magic to seduce the girl. The girl was owned by an evil sorceress Natalie. Zoya was captured and refuses to talk about what happened while she was captured until this day.

Several months later Zoya arrived in Ireem. She wore a mask now, always hiding behind it and looking over her shoulder to make sure Natalie was not after her. No longer a pure white witch, determined to learn more powerful spells and potions. Revenge was no longer an alien thought.