Editing Character:Evangeline di Borgia (section)

== Character Description ==

Evangeline di Borgia was born on the world of Ilmond, to a mother she never knew and a father who was master of all he surveyed.  The only daughter of the head of one of the Four Families, Evangeline was the Grand Duchess of Venizia, one of the most powerful and wealthy women in the world.  From a very young age, Carleon di Borgia taught his daughter about the importance and power of Family; it was the bond of blood and the loyalty of brothers and sisters that had brought the Four Families to global power and influence, and she must always safeguard that lesson.  What he would not speak about was her mother, and Evangeline learned early on that Carleon’s love for his daughter had it limits – limits defined by the name Deana.

As an only child, Evangeline was spoiled mercilessly, and when she showed talent as an artist in her youth, the finest teachers the di Borgia fortune could supply were brought to her.  Carleon did not skimp her education in other ways either, and by the age of 12 the heiress could field-strip an M-16 in 20 seconds and identify and perform the five most lethal strikes available to a knife-wielder.  By the age of 16, she was giving public showings of her work in the cathedrals of Roma and had three kills to her name, one a bare-handed strangulation.  That one bothered her occasionally; he had been a cousin.  But he had turned against the di Borgias to work for the Kennedys, and that could not be tolerated.  Family was all-important.  Family was all that mattered.

Evangeline’s world changed shortly after her 23rd birthday.  She began to dream of a palace on a hill, surrounded by a vast forest, and of a mind-shattering twisted castle beneath a riotous multicolored sky, perched on the edge of an unutterably deep chasm.  Images of the two buildings began to dominate her art, and she produced a whole series of each.  And then, at the end of an extremely long painting session, concentrating so fiercely on the image of the castle on the hill that her skull began to pound, Evangeline laid her head against the canvas as she dug through a purse for aspirin – and felt a chill radiating from it.  Suddenly there was a breeze, and the hint of pine in the air… and when she raised her head again, she saw that she stood where she had imagined the painting, with the vast forest before her and the palace glittering in the sunlight beyond.  She gasped, and fainted… but when she awoke, it was still there.  Frantically, she drew out her pencil and sketchpad – both tucked away in the purse she still clutched – and drew her bedroom, with as much focus on it as she could muster.  It, too, turned cool, and as she laid her hand on it, she saw a rainbow twinkle in the air around her as she found herself back in her room, just as she’d drawn it.

It did not take her long to discover that she could travel to the places she drew, nor was she surprised to learn that she could touch the minds of the people she sketched once she knew them well enough.  Two more traitors met their ends as she pilfered their minds through her art, and she traveled again to the palace several times, as well as to the yawning chasm at the edge of sanity and several other places her imagination conjured up.

Most recently, however, Evangeline has begun to dream of a woman, dressed in white armor and clutching a battle axe, falling endlessly through a darkness so complete that no light could ever pierce it.  The woman has Evangeline’s eyes, and once she showed a sketch of the woman to Carleon and saw his expression, Evangeline knew who she must be.  But, concentrate though she might, Evangeline cannot make the sketch turn cold so that she can communicate or travel through it.  She will find a way, though.  The woman is Family.  And Family is all-important.  Family is all that matters.