Sam Garrand is a broad, weather-beaten man whose presence feels heavier than his body should allow. Dusty sandy blond curls spill irregularly around his ears, usually powdered gray by the mines, and his scruffy dark brown beard is threaded with pale grit that never quite washes out. His skin is sun-browned and scored by fine white lines from years of quarry work. One cheek bears a shallow depression as if someone pressed a thumb into wet clay and left it there. He walks with a measured, heel-first certainty, testing floors and bridges through his soles before trusting them. His hands are enormous and scarred, with blunt nails permanently darkened by ore. Unexpectedly, his eyes are soft and almost shy, and he keeps a small blue ribbon tied around one wrist, an incongruous touch of delicacy against his miner's bulk. People remember him less as a large man than as the person in the room who makes everyone else breathe more slowly.