Kestara is a narrow-shouldered young woman with a still, almost sculpted face and the unsettling poise of someone listening to a voice no one else can hear. Her skin is pale olive with faint gray undertones, like stone kept under moonlight. Her hair is black, thick, and cut unevenly at the jaw, with one long section hanging over her left shoulder in a stiff braid threaded with tiny iron beads. Her eyes are completely black at first glance, though candlelight reveals a thin ring of deep violet around each pupil. Heavy charcoal makeup surrounds them, deliberately smudged as if applied after crying. Her lips are painted matte black, but the color has worn away at the center from biting them. She moves with careful, economical steps, never quite shifting her weight where people expect. Despite her severe, funeral-dark appearance, she has a small collection of brightly colored glass buttons sewn into the inside of her coat, and she smiles with embarrassing warmth whenever children show her broken toys.