Nyra Cross is a sharp-featured human woman whose face seems carved from old candle wax, with fine lines at the corners of her mouth and eyes despite her relatively young age. Chronic exhaustion has hollowed dark crescents beneath her amber eyes, yet those eyes remain unnervingly alert, darting toward loose stones, half-closed shutters, and the tiny pauses between a witness's words. Her dark brown hair is tied into a severe utilitarian braid, though several strands have escaped and cling to her temples in damp curls. Her movements are economical and nearly silent, with the careful balance of someone accustomed to crossing unstable volcanic ground. She smells faintly of lamp oil, iron filings, and bitter cinder tea. The unexpected contradiction is her hands: scarred, ink-stained, and callused from fieldwork, but meticulously manicured with tiny painted silver crescents at the nails, a private remnant of the elegant life she once imagined for herself.