A/N: Hello, everyone! How's your week been? Mine's been pretty good—look at this quick update! Aren't y'all proud of me? :D In other news, the one-and-only Schmo is coming from South Dakota to visit me and Schmurf (our buddy and co-writer for the Funny Farm Chronicles) on Sunday! Woohoo! So anyway, here's Chapter Thirteen, enjoy.

--

"Enwynna! Enwynna!"

Enna looked out into the courtyard at the sound of her name and saw her father waving. "Hello, Pappata!" she cried, returning the gesture enthusiastically.

He held his arms out to her. "Come and show me how your lessons are faring, little larkspur."

She clambered up on the rail and leapt without a second thought, landing right in his arms. "Oh, Pappata," she said, wrapping her arms around his neck. "I'm so tired of lessons. Why can't I just speak this language? Why must I learn Galmanian?"

"Because it's your heritage, Enna," he answered, grinning. "Imagine how pleased your grandfather will be when you greet him with 'Arya muis, Grappata!'"

"I know how to say that," she replied, making a face. "I can say 'hello' and 'goodbye' already. But Teacher Ronstadt is making me learn how to name the constellations in Galmanian. It's quite tedious."

Her father carried her out of the autumn air into the library, where the windows revealed the sea stretching out for thousands of miles under the bright blue sky. "I must admit, that seems a little superfluous."

Enna leapt from his arms and pressed her nose against the glass of the window. "Pappata, when will you take me on a merchant trip with you?"

"If I've told you once, little larkspur, I've told you a million times," he sighed, coming to stand next to her. But Enna wasn't fazed, hearing the pride in his voice. "On your eighteenth birthday, if you aren't wed, you shall accompany me."

Enna smeared her hands over the window in frustration. "But Pappata, that's over ten whole years from now!"

"Merchant trips are dangerous, Enna," he replied.

"But Pappata—"

"Enwynna Stalresin," he said warningly.

Enna shut her mouth.

"Vatorian."

Her father turned, and Enna noticed a shadow of displeasure cross his face before he smiled. "Hello, Sabbie, little brother!"

Enna's heart leapt. "Uncle Sabsestrin!" she cried, running across the room and flinging herself into the younger man's arms. "Arya muis, irdelpho Sabsestrin, guds uin!"

Her uncle grinned and kissed her cheek and nuzzled her neck with his beard until she laughed. "Arya muis, fim juid yerta Enwynna!"

She wrinkled her nose in thought. "I don't know what that means, Uncle Sabsestrin," she said.

Her father took her from his arms and held her close. "Yered verargert kurdis lostra-hren barden, Sabsestrin."

"Kurdis lostra? Hudst jargis gant."

Enna looked back and forth between the two men, confused. "Pappata," she began, but her father set her down on her feet.

"Run along, sweetheart, and play with your mama for awhile."

"But Pappata, her belly's too big!"

"Then bring her a rose and a daisy, Enwynna."

His tone was carefree, but he had used her full name, and so she scampered from the room.

When she was clear of the library, the men began talking. "Vatorian, I've just had it from Roak. The Isles of Endis are opening up for trade."

"Sabbie, how many times must I tell you this? The Isles are too dangerous."

Enna stopped. This sounded interesting! She snuck back along the corridor and stood just outside the door.

"But they're open. Do you know what riches lie within?"

"Yes, little brother," her father answered, sighing. "But they are also notorious. Thieves, pirates, poisonous plants, dishonest citizens…"

"Mere trifles," Uncle Sabbie said. "Emeralds, jade, wool of the finest order, spices, gold."

"I've also had it from Ladendver Brant that the air there is toxic. His cousin took ill with a mysterious fever after going there on the prince's business."

"Old wives' tale," her uncle dismissed it. "Perhaps the sea trip did not agree with him. Think of all the riches, Vatorian! You could send darling Enna away to school, and hire the best doctor in the realm for the birth of your next child."

"I am very rich, Sabbie," her father replied. "I could send Enna away to school sevenfold times and still have enough to care lavishly for myself and my family in our old age. Enna, should my wife never birth a son, will be a very wealthy young lady."

"I thought I was your heir," Uncle Sabbie protested with a surprising crack in his voice.

"I mean to change that," Pappata replied. "Enna has proved to be a highly intelligent young girl, and I am proud of her. There is no reason for her inheritance to be kept from her. Besides. I'm not planning on dying anytime soon. I shall have years to teach her and train her in the ways of money."

"Vatorian!"

"Oh, Sabbie. You're plenty rich from our father. Why do you need my wealth?"

"I don't need it," Uncle Sabbie said evenly. "I just don't think it's wise to give your estate to a girl."

"She's as good a son as I could ever hope for," her father replied.

Enna beamed, and almost ran in to hug him.

"Have you changed your will and testament, then?"

"No, I have not. I must travel to see the prince in order to do that."

There was a brief silence. "About the Isles," her uncle went on. "They're…they're closing again in two weeks. Think of it!"

"I won't."

"The prince has added it to his list of accepted trading posts. The prices will be even. It's only a three-days' sail from here."

"He's added it?" Her father sounded interested.

"Oh, yes. At the top of the list, too."

"Hmm. I might look into it, then."

"You'd better hurry, it closes again in two weeks."

"Well, I might go down and see my ship manager about it. Perhaps I shall go now."

There were footsteps, and Enna leapt to hide behind a potted fruit tree. "Thank you, Sabbie. I owe you one."

The two men walked out of the room. Her father went down the corridor toward the door, and Uncle Sabbie watched him go. Though Enna was hiding in the boughs of a young sapling, she could still see the smile forming on his lips.

--

Enna woke suddenly with a sharp breath to find herself hanging halfway off the cot in the hall where she'd been put the night before. She drew a deep breath and hauled herself back onto the bed, rubbing at her dress where clammily cold sweat had gathered. A few dark shapes nearby mumbled and turned over in their sleep, and Enna shoved her mussed hair back off her forehead, sighing away the sharp ache in her breast as she stared up at the black ceiling.

"Oh, uncle," she murmured. "How could you?"

"Quiet," came an annoyed voice.

Enna turned over and hid her face in her pillow, recalling how her Pappata had come home, rich but oddly weak and feverish. Two days passed and then he was dead.

She remembered how strange his face had looked when they'd buried him in the dune sand: white and limp, nothing like he had been. Mama had cried for days, and then little Laeia, just two weeks old, took sick and was never right in the head after that. Three months later, Mama and uncle were wed, and Enna's inheritance was given away to him.

She shoved the heels of her hands into her eyes, fighting back the rage that struggled to burst forth in a primal snarl. All of it was gone—all of it! Spent on his foolish horses and sent to foreign places to pay faceless creditors for his gambling debts. Not a single ducas was left to Enna or her mother. All her education had come from the finite mind of her mother, in the dark shadows of the night when Sabsestrin was asleep or away.

Someday I shall take my vengeance on him, she thought to herself as her lids began to droop again. Should it kill me or not, I will repay him for what he has done.

--

The next morning brought yet another apology by the youngest queen. "Milady Enna, I am so sorry for the trauma the fire must have caused you," Queen Lucy said, eyeing Enna's bandaged hands when the two happened upon each other in the corridor.

"'Twas nothing, Your Majesty, really," Enna answered, feeling her face heat up.

The queen's eyebrows tilted upwards, but she patted Enna's shoulder with a gentle hand before sweeping off to do some royal thing, no doubt.

Enna sighed as she continued on her aimless walk. Her palms were aching and chafing beneath the bandages, but there was nothing that could be done about that.

"Hello, Enna."

She turned to see Aramir, his hands in his pockets, walking towards her. "Good morning."

"I heard what happened to your tower last night. I'm glad to see you're all right."

"Thank you," she answered.

"It looks terrible," he replied, coming to walk abreast of her. "The tower, I mean. The whole thing crumbled top down, and it seems to have stopped right at your floor. You…you're extremely fortunate, that's all I can say."

He shook his head in private awe. "Someone must really want you to be alive for something."

This reminded Enna nastily of their previous conversation. She decided not to pursue that happy subject again, so she said, "I see. Did you hear it…collapse…from where you slept?"

He shrugged and raked his hand through his short, dark hair. "Honestly, I was asleep. Thought I heard something, but when I woke, nothing was wrong, so I went back to bed. I found out about it this morning."

"You must have been tired, going to sleep so early," Enna said, attempting to be conversational. "The sun was scarcely down when the storm blew in."

He nodded. "I did not go back inside after our…um…after our chat. I instead went down to the docks that the Seacharger moored at to look at the ships there."

Enna looked at her feet, feeling the uncomfortable rise of shame in her throat. She should most certainly apologize for her appalling behavior. "Aramir, I…" But her voice trailed off of its own accord, and she grimaced to herself.

Aramir did not press her. Instead, after a brief pause, he said, "You look terrible."

"Well, thank ye kindly, sir."

He gave a handsome half-grin. "Sorry. What I meant is…is…well, you do look terrible. It might seem as though you haven't slept in days."

Enna shrugged. "It was the smoke. It got in my lungs and I feel ill for it."

Aramir nodded slowly, but Enna could tell that he wasn't convinced. Oh, well. Neither was she.

"I'll be going now, if you don't mind," he said after a while. "I'm going to speak to Peter."

"Who?" she asked blankly.

He raised an eyebrow at her. "The king."

"You're calling him by his first name?" she asked, shocked at Aramir's nerve.

"He asked me to, when we speak in private."

Enna, still surprised, bade him farewell, and they went their separate ways. While Aramir went to speak with the high king, she continued on her lonely walk, lost in thought.

Why did she feel so strange? It was as though her very spirit had left her; she felt limp and emotionally stale. This is a very disconcerting sensation, she thought with a shudder, feeling so...so…detached. That's the word. I feel detached.

The fact that she'd been able to place a word on her mood made her feel a little better, but the lift in mood was all too brief. It was as though a shadow was sitting across her shoulder, and nothing she could do would shake it off.

She shook her head violently. This is all Sabsestrin's fault! she thought heatedly. If only he hadn't—

Enna's pace increased. She must stop thinking of him, she must stop dwelling on the past. I did not escape just to sulk, she thought determinedly, drawing her shoulders back with self-pride.

Starting now, she would do everything in her power to forgot old What's-His-Name back home in Whatever-That-Place-Was-Called. A new life called for new memories. So she would make them here, in Narnia.