Characters
Fen
Atop A Wall · Book 1
Sixteen, careful, and raising his little sister on his own. He has never been far from home.
Fen is up before the stars have gone. By the time the rest of Briar stirs, he has fed the ember-pot, set out breakfast, and folded his bedroll square in the dark. His hands do most of it without asking him. He has a lot of habits, and nearly all of them exist to keep one person safe.
That person is Lira. She carries the Thread, and in Briar that is a thing you hide. Fen has spent years making sure nobody sees it: not the neighbors, not the traders who come up the ladder, and not the sky. He has never quite forgiven Sorrel for thinking otherwise.
He is not fearless. That was always Lira. His antennae are longer than most, and they give him away, pressing flat whenever he is frightened. On the road, that is often. What Fen has instead is a refusal to stop walking.