Kharid moves like a river current: deliberate, pulling weight underneath a calm surface. His skin is streaked with a faded tattoo of molten runes that crawled up his right forearm after his initiation into the Children of the Caldera—the black lines still flake like cooled lava. He wears a patchwork of oil-dark leather and salt-stiffened linen, the left sleeve singed away. His quarterstaff looks half-forged from river-iron and half-melted glass, a warped seam of red-black metal running down its length. When he walks he tucks his chin, scanning the horizon with the patient, narrow glance of a man who has learned to expect betrayal. Unexpectedly, Kharid favors tiny ceremonial baubles: a string of polished river-pebbles tied around his wrist and a child's ribbon tied where his hair is shaved into a short topknot—small artifacts of softness tied to a face worn by raids and fire.