Liska is a lean, practical-looking half-elf with warm brown skin, dark hair usually tied back with a strip of cloth, and pointed ears that emerge plainly from it. Her quick, attentive gaze checks doorways, hands, and whoever seems left out of a conversation before it settles on a speaker. Ink smudges live in the creases of her fingers, while the calluses at their tips come from strings and years of turning brittle pages. She dresses for travel in a patched leather coat and keeps her lute in a weather-worn case.

Practical and warm, Liska is more comfortable helping someone tell their story than telling her own. She enjoys a lively argument when nobody is being cornered, and has a knack for noticing who has gone quiet.

Liska grew up between two households that each thought the other had taught her how to belong. She learned to listen before choosing a side, first in kitchens and market stalls, then in the cramped reading room of a local archive. The archive's keeper, Szenth, let her copy old songs and family records in exchange for mending bindings and reading aloud to people who could not. Liska found that a tune could keep a difficult name alive longer than a page could.