Half-elven and assigned male at birth, Sorrow was the physical reminder of his mother’s infidelity to her husband, Jojen Granger, and her death. As a result, Granger gave Sorrow to the church almost as soon as the umbilical was cut.
This, the most peaceful part of Sorrow’s life, lasted only seven years before a high-ranking and powerful prelate, Londre Fremissante, happened to hear Sorrow’s singing voice on his visit. Enchanted by the young boy’s voice, he immediately commandeered Sorrow to his own household and changed Sorrow's name to Sandor. But enchantment quickly turned into both obsession and a fear that Sandor’s voice would be ruined by puberty. So he had Sandor castrated, to preserve the high, pure soprano that captured him in the first place.
Though he never touched Sandor in a sexual manner, Londre kept Sandor as one might keep a pet, always at his beck and call, with occasional outbursts of violent temper and forced confinement, when Sandor’s behavior wasn’t to Londre’s wishes. Sandor, in the only manner of rebellion possible at the time, began to pocket and secret away small valuables and monies, stolen from both Londre and the prelate’s cadre of friends, whom Londre would hire Sandor out to as an entertainment.
Sandor poisoned (not fatally) Londre’s drink at such a house party to sicken the prelate and then used both body and money to seduce one of the house bravos to help them escape. The two absconded together and Sandor, who had always been at odds with their body, even prior to the castration, tossed away both her unwanted name and gender identity, eventually reinventing herself as the famed opera singer, Hanaoke Xandoral,