Jor looks recognizably like the young Norse nobleman who vanished at sea, but as if the North Sea has kept and remade him. He stands a little taller than his remembered 5 feet 10 inches and is still growing, with a long, lean frame that shifts with a swimmer's balance. His pale blond hair is fading toward near-white, lying in wet ropes against his brow. His skin has the washed-out cast of someone kept from sunlight, and a faint salt sheen gathers at his temples. He remains soaked even after shelter, his ragged clothes heavy and dark with seawater. His webbed hands and feet are easiest to notice when he reaches or steps barefoot; fine, newly formed gill-slits crease his neck and twitch when touched. His jaw has grown broad, and small, bluntly pointed teeth show when he eats. He watches a room by tracking its exits, bowls, and water vessels before he looks at faces. His expressions are unnervingly calm, leaving the impression of a familiar man seen through cold water.

Jor is still capable of the bright enthusiasm that once sent him looking for a guard's uniform, but captivity has taught him to keep his face calm and his intentions hidden. With strangers he is watchful and matter-of-fact; around food he becomes distracted and almost guileless. In danger he is precise and patient, yet a threat to someone he has begun to trust can draw out the old brawler, sudden and reckless. He wants independence, but has learned to survive by obeying people who claim to own his future.

Jor Heimskrsson is Heimskr's fifth son, sent north toward Iceland to claim a name, land, and wealth of his own rather than be swallowed by the family succession crisis. Before the voyage, he was excitable, quick to brawl, and eager to serve in a guard company. Hearing that a succession crisis was coming changed his plans: he chose the sea and a future independent of his brothers. The ship wrecked in the North Sea. Jor survived, but trolls took him from the wreck and kept him captive. They trained him as a spy, taught him their language and practical magic, and remade him into a sea-troll changeling. He has completed his spy training and enchantment, though he conceals how thoroughly he has changed. When he returns, he presents himself as a miracle survivor of the wreck, still dressed in the nobleman's clothes he wore when lost. His captivity has made him slow to trust, but not helpless or foolish. He believes people understand him until they prove otherwise, and then slips into troll speech without noticing. He is trying to learn whether his family still considers him dead, what the trolls intend to do with their trained agent, and whether the old plan of making a life in Iceland can still be his own.