"Really?" Anawyn was excited and touched. "I didn't know a half-human could be recorded in the Memories."

"Once you wouldn't have been. If you were a boy, you would even now be considered human and not part of Orzammar. But you are your mother's daughter, so as far as Orzammar is concerned, you are a noble caste dwarf. I wouldn't try to get yourself elected queen ... although if they'll elect a formerly exiled warrior caste like me with a surface-born wife, who knows what they'll be willing to consider by the time you're of age." He grinned.

Anawyn smiled back at him. Then the smile faded, and she stood up. "Ser, when my parents come, will you tell them ... I miss them?"

"Tell them?" Gorim stood up, as well, alarmed. "You'll be right here to tell them yourself," he said. "I can't let you go back to that woman."

Shaking her head, Anawyn said, "You have to, ser. It's not just my safety at stake."

"Is it the other girl? I'll have her taken, as well," Gorim said.

"No!" Anawyn stared at him in desperation. How could she convince him how important this was? "Granny will come after us," she said. "Someone will get hurt."

"You let me worry about that," he told her. "Dwarves can handle one old woman, even one who smells as strongly of magic as that one."

"Uncle Gorim, it's important that she be allowed to take us into the Deep Roads."

"The Deep Roads?! Do you know what your mother would do to me if I let you go off into the Deep Roads?"

Anawyn shrugged uncomfortably. "I know, ser, but you have to. There are ... things ... I have responsibilities ..." She flailed her arms, looking for the right words, then a calmness came over her. She stood to her full height, looking at him sadly but with composure. "When my mother comes, tell her that I have a duty. I gave my word as an Aeducan that I would be faithful to that duty. And if I recall what I've heard about Orzammar correctly, does not the word of one Aeducan bind the entire house?"

Gorim opened his mouth to argue, but the look in her eyes reminded him exactly whose daughter she was. Sodding stubborn women, he thought. It wasn't the first time he'd found Thora appointing him head of House Aeducan less a blessing than a burden. "Are you sure there's no other way to fulfill this duty?" Anawyn shook her head, and Gorim's shoulders slumped. "Can you at least tell me to whom you've given your word?"

Anawyn hesitated, the words at the tip of her tongue, then shook her head again. "Uncle Gorim, I don't think you'd believe me if I told you."

Gorim buried his head in his hands. Thora's daughter—and Alistair's—would know exactly what it meant to bind the entire House of Aeducan to an oath, and having seen the old woman and the other girl himself, he could believe that Anawyn felt an obligation to the dark-haired human child. If the girl was as she looked, Alistair's child as well as the daughter of the witch Thora had traveled with during the Blight, Gorim could only speculate on the identity of the old woman based on rumors and stories he had heard when he lived on the surface and comments dropped by Thora. And he had to remind himself that Anawyn was no ordinary 8-year-old. Raised as a Grey Warden, she was familiar with and understood things that most little girls her age had never dreamed of. He threw up his hands. "I can have someone keep an eye on you while you're here. The woman you're with will never know she's being watched. Your mother always hated that about Orzammar, that there's always someone watching, but it's quite useful." His eyes darkened. "But in the Deep Roads, I don't know that I can protect you."

"I can sense darkspawn," Anawyn said. "I'll be fine."

"In that case," he said, "take this." He held out a dagger. It looked old, but had been lovingly cared for. "Your mother used to use this dagger, back when I trained with her. The handle has been treated, so it provides healing as you wield it."

Anawyn took it gingerly, sliding it into her boot. She stood up. "Thank you, ser. Tell my parents ..." She couldn't begin to say all the things she wanted them to know. "Tell them I'm trying to be worthy of them," she said, tears choking her throat.

"I think they'll know that without being told," he said kindly. "Wait here for a moment, I'll have you returned to your room as quietly as you were removed from it. She won't know you were gone." He stepped out of the room, making the arrangements, and watched Anawyn leave with two members of his special forces with a sigh.

Thora was going to tear his beard out for letting Anawyn go, and Alistair would be helping her, he was sure of that. But an oath was an oath, and he felt deep in his gut that the consequences to keeping Anawyn here would have been disastrous. He would trust the little girl for now ... and he would send word to the Legion of the Dead to keep an eye on her. It was all he could do.

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