It was the bitterest winter when Kai was found, deep in the woods near the border with Nakraath. The boy way lying in a patch of ground benaath the large ash tree, still covered in birth fluids. The ground was bare of snow and black from the winter wetness and rotting leaves. Child was swathed in a large black cloak, made of softest furs and lined with silk, with not a clues as to child's origin, except two strange blades next to him. The blades were the size of long swords, but single-edged and slightly curved, with chiseled points – but their unusual shape was not the strangest thing about them. One blade was black as the blackest night, and the other was silvery-white. On their scabbards their names were written in elvish script. The black one was named Dead Sister and the silver one Cold Child. And they caused severe uneasy to everyone who looked at them. The long sabers, in lack of a better name, had silver wolf-heads as pommels and when drawn they somehow looked as if they are... waiting.
The child was taken to a nearby bladedancer – an old elf, who was the next best thing to a person of authority in those parts. Ancient blademaster who retired there to die. He was inclined not to accept the burden of raising a foundling and he was determined to send for a magister to take the child from him, but something changed his mind during the first hours he spent with the boy. Perhaps it was the eyes, dark purple, almost black eyes which followed him around the room, even if that was impossible for a child so young. Perhaps the strange sabers changed his mind. No one will never know.
He raised the boy not as a father, but as the strictest of teachers. He trained him in the dance of blades each day, from the earliest morn, and every long night he taught him to reason, to know and to see the world around him.
On that first day, when the magister came to take the boy away, the ancient elf replied that he will keep the boy and train him. The magister was relieved: that meant less work for him, but he had to ask for the boy's name, in order to write it in the ledger of born. Blademaster looked at the child in his arms for a moment and then replied: „Kainanaleninalai. It is a very old name. A concept distilled into one word. It means Ground Bare in Winter as Killing Snow Falls in Wind.”
The child grew into a man. When he left his master, he chose a human name to go with his elvish one. Kai of No Past.
