“You a Lowlander?” the ginger-haired man asked, leaning towards Anik. His accent was similar to Anik's and Ren found himself wondering just how many Lowlanders there were in Frayne. The children in Isleya, Ilias, the refugees, these travellers. More than he had known, evidently.

Anik answered in their own language and Ren tuned out the soft sound of their voices.

The night was cold and the road was bumpy, but Ren was thankful to not have to travel all the way on foot. His bones and muscles still ached. Any thoughts of food sent his stomach into a twist.

He had really been poisoned. He could have died. The more he thought about it, the more that reality seemed to strike home. He had survived an attempt on his life by some unknown attacker. It could have been anyone.

The poison had been in the second keg. Only he and Sifa had drunk from it. There was a possibility that the contents of the keg had already been poisoned by the time the refugees stole it, but he couldn't think of any reason Skarlans would poison alcohol they were drinking themselves. Ren looked across at Anik. Niklas was still convinced that Anik had been the one to do it, but Anik had a point: if he'd wanted Ren dead, he could have put a sword through his gut at any time. Ren had conveniently supplied him with a weapon with which to do so. Then again, Ren clearly remembered Anik refusing the bowl of kalg poured from the second keg that Sifa had offered him. As if he had known.

Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled again. The sound of the horses' hooves was muffled by the soft forest soil. Other than that, the night was silent.

“What's your name?”

Niklas' voice pulled Ren from his thoughts and he looked across at the young boy swaying in his seat, clearly tired but refusing to succumb to sleep.

“I'm Lyle. This is my sister Ira,” the boy said, gesturing to the young woman next to him before suppressing a yawn. He spoke in a slight country dialect. The bridge of his nose was dusted with dark freckles of the kind that seemed permanently prominent, regardless of the season. The freckles that covered Ren's own nose and cheeks were fainter and faded in the winter.

“What are you doing up here?” Ren asked, leaning his arms against the edge of the wagon.

It was Ira who answered. “Our family owns a farm two days' ride from here. Once a month, we take fresh supplies up to Stag's Run,” she said, angling her chin at the bags of grain. “Our father is stationed there.”

“Isn't it a bad idea to travel through the woods in the middle of the night?” Niklas asked.