Liora Vaskor is a bronze-skinned young woman with a long, intelligent face, dark freckles scattered over her nose and cheekbones, and bright amber eyes flecked with gold. Her gaze rarely settles on the person speaking. Instead, it measures exits, stairwells, windows, servants, and the empty space behind a listener's shoulder, as if every room might conceal a road. Brown hair with bronze highlights falls in a thick side braid threaded with coral beads, while loose sleepless wisps cling to her temples. She moves with the economical balance of someone accustomed to horseback and palace corridors, shoulders relaxed, chin slightly raised, never quite turning her back on a doorway. Her hands are unmarred and unusually careful, though the fingers of her left hand constantly find the cord at her throat. The unexpected contradiction is that her refined noble composure breaks whenever she sees a child lost in a crowd, at which point she becomes brisk, muddy-booted, and startlingly tender.