Yumi stands at attention as if the floor itself has asked for her testimony. Her polished silver-and-gold plate is engraved with fine leaf filigree, its raised lines catching light like frost on a hedge. A tall, feathered crest rises from her helmet, and a long white cape falls almost to her heels, the hem carefully weighted so it hangs straight even in a draft. She moves in deliberate, economical shifts, placing her weight evenly rather than relaxing onto one hip. Her jaw is broad and square; when she laughs, her unusually flat, closely set teeth show in a brief, startlingly childlike grin. She eats with small, exact bites, as if every meal were a formal examination.

Yumi is scrupulous about procedure but distrustful of anyone who invokes procedure to avoid responsibility. In public she is composed and exacting; with tired guards she is practical and unexpectedly funny. She respects courage, yet dislikes theatrical risk-taking. When calm, she asks careful questions; when frightened for someone else, she becomes brisk and directive. Her courtesy is genuine, but never an invitation to treat her post as ornamental.

Yumi was raised in the palace's outer ward, the daughter of a court gardener and a cavalry farrier. She learned to polish armor before she learned the courtly dances expected of an elf of her station, and joined the royal guard after stopping a panicked horse from trampling a visiting delegation. Her defining ordeal came during the Night of the Shuttered Gallery: a fire broke out during a succession dispute, and Yumi had to choose between holding the only clear exit for the royal household and going back for trapped servants. She held the passage, saving the royals and many others, but a junior attendant died behind a jammed door. Since then, she has treated orders as promises that must be examined, not obeyed blindly. She remains close to her mother, who tends the palace's old pear trees, and exchanges unsent letters with her former training partner, a disgraced guard now living under house arrest. Her present problem is that an anonymous note claims the gallery fire was deliberately started, and the palace wants the matter buried before the next succession council.