She had pride, too—pride to match Ywain’s own though they were so different. Ywain was all brilliance and fire and passion, a rose with blood-red petals. Carse understood her. He could play her own game and beat her at it.
But he knew that he would never understand Emer. She was part of all the things he had left behind him long ago. She was the lost music and the forgotten dreams, the pity and the tenderness, the whole shadowy world he had glimpsed in childhood but never since.
All at once she looked up and saw him. Her eyes met his—met and held, and would not go away. He saw their expression change. He saw every drop of color drain from her face until it was like a mask of snow. He heard her say:
“ Who are you?”
He bent his head. “Lady Emer, I am Carse the barbarian.”
He saw how her fingers dug into Shallah’s fur and saw how the Swimmer watched him with her soft hostile gaze. Emer’s voice answered, almost below the threshold of hearing.
“You have no name. You are as Shallah said—a stranger.” Something about the way she said the word made it seem full of an eery menace. And it was so uncannily close to the truth.
He sensed suddenly that this girl had the same extrasensory power as the Halflings, developed in her human brain to even greater strength.
But he forced a laugh. “You must have many strangers in Khondor these days.” He glanced at the Swimmer. “Shallah distrusts me, I don’t know why. Did she tell you also that I carry a dark shadow with me wherever I go?”
“She did not need to tell me,” Emer whispered. “Your face is only a mask and behind it is a darkness and a wish—and they are not of our world.”