“No, of course I am all right,” said Karin to her father. She tried to stay out of the direct light to hide the tear streaks on her cheeks, but he had already seen them. “I am only upset because Valmar has left.”
“Left! But where has he gone? Has he returned home already?”
At this rate, she thought, swallowing the sobs before they could break out, she could give lessons to Queen Arane. “He has always wanted adventure, I gather, and when we were coming home from the harbor just now we ran into someone-someone I had known before-who gave him an unexpected opportunity. He had to take it immediately.”
“But to leave so suddenly- And I was growing fond of the boy-” He tipped up her face toward his with one finger under her chin, as Hadros sometimes did. “Karin! Are you sure he did not have some kind of accident that you are trying to conceal from me?”
“No! I told you, he simply left!”
“Well,” said King Kardan in wonderment, “I do hope he will be all right. What shall I tell his father?”
“I shall write to Hadros myself, next time there is a messenger or a merchant going from here to the northern kingdoms.”
She turned to retreat to her room, glad now that she had her mother’s private parlor. But her father took her arm. “Karin, I can see you are terribly upset. Are you quite sure you had not set your heart on this boy?”
“Quite sure,” she said, meeting his eyes with an effort of will.
He kept hold of her arm, studying her face. At last he said in a low voice, “Would you like to tell me what really happened? I know there was something more.”
For a second she had the terrifying sense that he suspected her of having murdered Valmar, of having pushed him over the cliff. It was that fear that made her say, even though she knew he would not believe her, “Valmar went to join the Wanderers.”
He shook his head and turned his face away. “I hope that you can learn to trust me again some day,” he said, so quietly she barely heard him.
And then she remembered something the Mirror-seer had told her. “Listen, Father!” she said, wanting to take at least some of that heart-wringing bitterness from him. “You know there is a Wanderer often seen at Graytop at twilight! Well, it’s the same one, I believe, and he-”
But Kardan looked both puzzled and alarmed. “Karin, where have you heard these stories? In all the years I have been king here, within sight of Graytop, I have never heard of a Wanderer walking there, or at least never one visible to mortal eyes.”