Karima moves like someone used to threading through markets and farm lanes—quick, deliberate steps, a coil of readiness in her shoulders. Her face is angular with a faint scar that slices the left brow to cheekbone, a pale seam puckered with a permanent squint in sunlight. She wears a patchwork leather vest over a plain linen shirt; the leather is burnished but repaired in dozens of places with mismatched stitching and a scrap of faded purple—Varyth's old county color. Around her throat she keeps a silver coin threaded on cord, edge-smooth and nicked; she fingers it whenever thinking. Unexpectedly, one wrist is wrapped in children's ribbons — bright, frayed lengths she refuses to cut. She frequently chews a sprig of dried lavender when nervous, which perfumes her with a faint, odd sweetness in the middle of smoke and sweat.