Bren

A nineteen-year-old blacksmith's apprentice from Holmford, finishing his training under the old master Doss. Orphaned in a plague a few years back, he raises his younger sister Sela on his own. Lean, with shoulders harder than the rest of his build suggests — five years at the anvil have left their mark. A boy who thinks too much: he watches closely, weighs things, hesitates before he takes a step, and more often keeps quiet than says what he's worked out.

When Maris vanishes in the wildwood, this habit of "watch, don't move" nearly costs too much time. Bren learns to act and to speak in time — he leads the rescue not by any uncommon gift but by patiently putting together what those close to him know: Doss's memory of the old paths, Wit's knowledge of Maris's habits, his own sister's trust. In the end he's still the same over-thinker, but no longer a passive one.