Brynna moves like a carved statue come to life: deliberate, weighty, each step a small negotiation with the earth. Her braided beard is thin and white, threaded with bits of pyrite and a single length of red thread — a ward against rock-sickness. Her skin is the color of river-smoothed granite, freckled with permanent smudges of coal and mineral dust in the creases of her hands and around her mouth. Her left forearm bears an old burn scar that puckers like cooled magma; over it she wears a leather cuff inlaid with tiny hammered plates of copper that glow faintly when she chants to the stone. She favors a battered miner's cap, rim dented from falling chips, and a small iron monocle with a lens ground for close inspection that she flips up when talking to friends. Contradiction follows her: her shadow has a warmth to it — those who stand near her feel less cold, even when she grumbles about cold — and she hums lullabies under her breath while swinging a pick like a battle-cry.