Briska is a compact, athletic young woman with light olive skin, rounded cheeks, a small chin, and enormous glossy deep-brown eyes that make her look gentler than she is. Her forearms are muscled from years of hauling ropes, drawing bows, and climbing quarry faces. Wind reddens her nose and knuckles, while rust-red mineral dust has worked permanently into the creases of her fingertips and palms. Dark chestnut hair is pulled into a severe braided crown, though rebellious curls escape around both ears and twitch whenever she is irritated. She moves with the low, poised balance of a hunting cat, favoring her left side when standing still and shifting her weight in tiny, nearly invisible corrections. The unexpected contradiction is that her hands look like a laborer's, but she handles delicate objects with the precision of a jeweler. Within a minute of meeting her, most people notice the blue wool scarf wound twice around her neck, its lower edge worn nearly smooth where she repeatedly grips it while thinking.