Dagna has a compact, work-hardened frame and moves with the economical precision of someone used to making every step count. Her right leg is damaged, stiffening into a short drag when she is tired; on level ground she disguises it with a practiced, measured pace, but stairs expose the hitch. Her prison shirt hangs loose over a square-shouldered stance. Her hands are broad and blunt, with callused palms and permanently dark grime packed into the creases from years of oiling hinges and handling iron. She smells faintly of lamp oil, wet stone, and the sharp medicinal paste she rubs into her knee, and seems not to notice any of it. The unexpected detail is a tiny, meticulously folded paper crane tucked into her shirt cuff, carefully made from a strip of ration wrapper.

Disciplined and unsentimental on the surface, Dagna makes decisions quickly and dislikes comforting lies. Yet she will spend precious time adapting a plan for someone who cannot keep pace, even when she insists that the delay is merely practical. In a crisis she is brisk and steady; when alone, she becomes meticulous about small repairs and avoids talking about the people she could not save. She respects courage but distrusts displays of it.

Dagna served for eleven years as a night guard at the Chain House, where she learned the shift bells, the habits of the wardens, and the half-forgotten service passages built around its oldest cells. She was not a cruel guard, but she believed procedure kept people alive. That belief broke during a winter riot when a warden ordered her to seal a passage with prisoners still on the far side. Dagna disobeyed, hauled two inmates through, and was crushed across the knee by a falling gate. The rescued prisoners escaped; Dagna was blamed for the breach, branded a deserter, and locked in the same prison she had guarded. She now studies rotations from inside and quietly prepares an escape. Her former partner, Shesshi, still works the east watch and leaves small signs when a route is safe. Dagna has not told the other prisoners that her injury may worsen if she makes the long descent through the old drainage run. Her present problem is practical and immediate: the next guard rotation is being changed, and the old routes may soon be sealed.