Pallia doesn’t talk about her past much. She came from a free family in Balic, but her condition meant that she almost never went outside, and she had only a few acquaintances and no friends. Her family helped to shield her somewhat from the problems of dealing with the outside world, but of course such entanglements eventually become unavoidable in the city.
She somehow avoided being enslaved, which is a bit of good fortune as she would likely have not survived such durance, although on at least one occasion a templar suggested trying to apprentice her to one of the sorcerer-king’s defilers, believing that her unusual appearance indicated some kind of hidden magical power. Avoiding this fate was nearly ruinous to her family, and she left under duress so that she would no longer be a burden to them.
She expected to die out in the sun, but she didn’t. Instead she learned to love it. That which can destroy a thing, controls a thing, and so the sun controls her destiny.
While many sun clerics are evil and hope to destroy the face of Athas, Pallia is not. She believes that it is possible for life on Athas to change, to become inured to the sun, to learn to love it the way that she does and to thrive on the power of the red sun. Thus she is not vindictive or destructive, but instead sees the sun as a power that promotes growth and life.