Heshina is tall and spring-loaded, balanced on the balls of her bare, dust-marked feet as if a dance step could become a lunge without warning. Warm bronze skin has a soft, burnished sheen; small copper scales stipple her cheekbones, forearms, and throat, roughening the skin like fine hammered work. Her narrow draconic snout ends in a pale-gold tip, and swept-back horns are polished smooth except for small honest nicks. Copper-red hair is tied high with green silk, the loose ends twitching in the palace draft. Amber eyes usually travel to hands, exits, and the palace rail before they meet a face. Her long scaled tail curls around the rail for balance. A heavy chain lies across the polished stone behind her, each link thick enough to bruise a wrist; its dragging scrape follows her like a second, unwelcome shadow. The unexpected detail is a tiny folded paper kite tucked into her belt, patched with a child’s uneven blue stitches.

Disciplined but not obedient in spirit: she follows a command precisely until it endangers someone she considers vulnerable, then acts first and accepts punishment later. With officials she is controlled and economical; with servants she is wry and unexpectedly attentive. She is compassionate but distrusts pity, and her humane instincts can make her reckless when a person is frightened or trapped.

Heshina was born among the kiln-workers of a mountain foothill settlement and sold into palace service after a crop failure left her family owing a debt they could not repay. She was trained first as a page, then as a royal guard because her draconic balance, speed, and endurance made her useful in the palace’s narrow galleries. Her title conceals the fact that she is still legally enslaved. During the Night of Falling Lanterns, a fire swept through the west archive. Ordered to hold a corridor while nobles escaped, Heshina heard a child trapped behind a screen and broke formation to pull him out. The child was Prince Iruvani, now a young heir who still leaves her small paper kites. Heshina was punished for disobedience, and the chain was lengthened so she could patrol but not leave the inner palace. She has since learned the palace’s routines well enough to protect people without appearing to choose sides. Her former instructor, Olanzi, now commands the guard and insists that keeping her chained is the only way to prevent a diplomatic crisis. A palace attendant, Yevani, secretly brings her news from the kitchens. Heshina is currently trying to uncover the original debt record that made her family’s sale legal, while a succession dispute threatens to make her the scapegoat for a planned assassination.