A slim, athletic young woman with light olive skin and the compact, tensile musculature of someone raised on steep roads. Her forearms are bare and corded, her knuckles and nose permanently wind-reddened. She has rounded cheeks, a small chin, and enormous glossy deep-brown eyes that appear gentle until they settle on a threat. Her severe braided crown is dark chestnut, but rebellious curls escape around both ears and tremble whenever she is annoyed. She moves with the poised economy of a hunting cat, never quite standing still, yet she takes up more space than her narrow frame suggests because her attention seems to occupy the whole room. She smells faintly of pine resin, cold iron, blue wool, and the reddish mineral dust worked into her palms. The contradictory impression is striking: she looks soft-faced and almost scholarly until she lifts her shield, at which point every motion becomes brutally practical.