It began to rain soon after Enna returned to her room in the castle. She pulled the little rickety chair up to the window and watched the clouds gather over the ocean, and breathed in the sweet, musty air as droplets of water dripped down the opened shutters. The weather matched her mood almost perfectly.
I cannot believe Aramir's nerve, she thought to herself. A crack of lightning split the sky, filling the little room with white light for a fraction of a second. How dare he speculate on why I'm here? The rain continued, beating down on the stone walls with viciousness.
A moment later, a thunderclap rang out and Enna felt the ground tremble beneath her feet. A horse whinnied from afar. Great Gale, this is quite the violent storm, she mused, standing up. Perhaps I should close the window.
At that moment, there was another lightning crack, and the thunder that accompanied it made Enna's ears ring. The ground shook, and she stumbled backwards, nearly dropping the flickering candle in her hand.
There was a sickening crack from overhead. Enna threw her head back, staring at the ceiling.
"By the lion!" came the cry from rooms around hers. The stormy sky outside seemed lit as with an unearthly light.
And then she saw why. Fire!
Flames licked across the oaken ceiling with snaps that sent burning embers plummeting down into Enna's room. She stared in horror at them for a long moment, still sprawled on the floor, the smoking candle clutched in her sweating hand.
There suddenly came a feverish pounding at her door. "Fire! Fire! Flee for your lives!"
Enna found her head again and leapt to her feet. The room was getting unbearably hot, and the damp wind blowing in from the open window did nothing but fan the flames and blow them onto the mahogany desk and from there to her bed. With absolute horror, Enna watched the orange monster creep across the covers to the chest at the foot.
Queen Susan's gowns!
The candle fell from Enna's hand with a thump, and she ran forward with her hands wrapped in her skirts, beating at the flames until beads of sweat rolled down her temples and her lungs burned with smoke. But the fire was too hot for her blistered hands to contain long, and with a loud and stomach-turning pop, the bedpost opposite where Enna was standing succumbed to the flames and toppled backwards, tearing away a curtain and smashing through the open windowpane. The glass tinkled to the floor and the flames ate up the fallen linen.
Enna watched in horror as the bed was consumed in snapping tongues—a lost cause. The chest was not ablaze yet, but she was kept away from it by the fire burning on the little woven rug between them. She wiped the sweat off her brow with the back of her clammy hand, considering the scene before her and coughing the increasing smoke out of her lungs. The door was unbarred and stood between her and safety, but the chest was filled with valuables that might be precious to the king or his three siblings.
The ground abruptly began to shake, knocking the painted scenes off the mantle and onto the floor, where they went up in flame. Enna struggled to keep her balance. Stones were being shaken loose from the walls—!
Suddenly, violently, the tower gave a mighty tremble in the wind, and then the ceiling on the opposite side of the room groaned and gave way. Stones and mortar from the stories above toppled down onto the floor, and spilled out to continue plunging down the outer wall and then into the sea with distant splashes.
Then all was silent. The rain blew into the room in hard sheets with mournful sighs from the gaping hole where the western wall had once been, snuffing out the angry flames that were still snapping and crackling. Hazy smoke rose up from the charred remnants of the desk and bed, and there were soft hisses when a raindrop landed on a glowing ember.
Enna was frozen in disbelief, gazing upon the utter ruin around her. The tower had crumbled in upon itself, and only fate had spared her from death.
The wind was dying and the rain intensified, pouring into the room and quickly soaking her through to the skin. She stood, shivering, for a long moment before going over slowly and picking up the chest, feeling as though she was moving through a dream. Her arms shook as she carried it back towards the door, but it barely registered that it wasn't because of the chest's weight.
Enna opened the door and went out into the deserted hall, where the remnants of the floors and ceiling above littered the ground. It was raining heavily here, too, and she hunched her shoulders and carefully picked her way down the cracked staircase.
When she reached the door that led to the main castle, it briefly crossed her mind that she had come mere inches from the threshold of death, and toed it ever so slightly. One misstep could have pitched her forward into that vast black realm of uncertainty.
She shivered and opened the door.
"Lady Enna!"
A cry rang out through the corridor, where a few dozen people were packed, looking dirty and tired. The high king pushed through the crowd and came just short of running smack into her, his blue eyes raking her up and down and his face white and strained. "Are you injured, Enna? What happened?"
A shudder of exhaustion ran up Enna's spine, and she put the chest down, unable to carry it any longer. "No…no…I'm all right…"
The king looked unconvinced, and he caught her blistered hands, a sorrowful sigh coming from his throat as he looked at them. "Oh…by the Lion, Enna…I'm sorry. This has never happened before…come and get some help."
He led her over to a centaur, who wrapped a blanket around her and began to tend to her red and ravaged palms. "What happened, Enna?" he asked, kneeling beside her.
Enna's throat ached from the smoke, but she wiped the rainwater off her cheeks with the blanket and said, "Well, I think the tower was struck by lightning. Things began to catch fire…"
King Peter looked angry. "By the lion's mane! That has never happened to Cair Paravel, not once. I'm shocked, to say the least."
"It wasn't your fault, sire," Enna said. Then the sudden remembrance of what had happened the day before flashed through her mind. "Though I'll tell you what was!"
The king looked surprised. "Oh?"
She fixed him with a steely look. "You didn't tell me I'd…I'd spilt, sire. You let me go about my business like nothing was wrong!"
He looked genuinely apologetic. "I'm sorry, Enna," he said. "I didn't think anything was wrong. I thought it looked quite amusing."
"Oh, that's bloody all right, then," she snarled. Then, realizing what she'd just said, she winced and added, "I mean…er…" She petered off, not being able to think of a single thing.
"You have my sincerest apologies, Enna," the king said in a wounded sort of way.
Enna was about to respond sharply when the centaur tending her injuries made a wrong movement and twisted at her hands. The inflamed skin split at the site of the blunder, and it was only with the strongest of wills that Enna was able to keep from shrieking in the king's face.
"Be more careful, if you please," he snapped at the poor centaur, who shrank from his sudden fury.
Enna blinked away tears of pain and pinched her lips between her teeth against the raw aching in her palms. She focused on the actions of the centaur dabbing the blood off with a towel. "Really, sir, don't blame her. It was an accident."
She didn't dare look at him, but he gave a barely audible sigh and said, "You're right. I'm sorry, Sodria."
"'Twas nothing, sire," the centaur answered loyally.
The high king put his arms around his legs and rested his forehead on his knees. "By the lion and the Emperor…" he said, his voice muffled. "I'm sorry, Enna, I really am. About last night and today. I swear, I never saw that coming. And you'd just gotten settled in!"
He looked so acutely vulnerable that Enna felt rather pressed to be cheerful. "Oh…don't, sire," she said. "No one knew. And I managed to get that chest out, so that must be worth something, don't you think? And the clothes your sister so kindly commissioned for me were in there. Nothing was burnt! Well, save the furniture…and the ceiling…and those nice paintings on the wall."
He lifted his head and smiled slightly. "My sister painted those. Lucy. She's rather artistic."
Now Enna felt even worse. "Oh…oh, aye, sir, she's very talented."
There was silence, and the centaur finished binding her hands and left before the high king could snap at her again. Then the king rolled to his knees. "Well, Enna, I sincerely apologize, once again. I can only thank the lion no one was killed."
She nodded, flexing her fingers and looking at the strange-feeling bandages.
The king twiddled his fingers, sighed, then got up with a groan and walked away. Enna watched his booted feet go down the crowded corridor, stopping occasionally to speak to a Narnian, then going out the door and disappearing from sight.
Enna put her head down and pressed her aching palms to her eyes. Great Gale…I nearly died. Inches from that fathomless abyss…great Gale. Great Gale.