“You’llpay,” I replied harshly. “You head will pound like hammers on anvils tomorrow. And you probably won’t remember a minute of Dark Evening.”

I banged the knocker a dozen times on the colonel’s door before I heard any stir within. The man who answered the door had his collar loosened and smelled plainly of mulling spices. I suspected the servants left in charge of the house tonight were having their own Dark Evening celebration. He did not look inclined to end his festivities, even when I stepped aside and showed them a sodden Caulder on the doorstep.

“Dr. Amicas said to tell you to see him into his bed, but don’t let him sleep until you’ve put a couple of pints of warm beef broth down him. He’s colder than he should be, and he’s drunk far too much. The doctor said he has seen young cadets die of drinking this much all at once.”

Just as I finished, Caulder leaned to one side and vomited down the steps. The smell that wafted up turned my stomach. The serving man blanched. He turned his head and bellowed, “Cates! Morray!” When two younger men appeared, he ordered them, “Take the young master up to his bed, strip him, and get him into a warm tub. Tell cook to make beef broth for him. One of you get a stableboy to come wash down the steps before that vile mess freezes on them. And you! What is your name, sirrah?”

I had been turning to leave. I turned back reluctantly. “My name is Cadet Nevare Burvelle. But I only brought Caulder home. I didn’t get him into this state.”

The man didn’t appear to care. “Nevare Burvelle,” he said carefully and disapprovingly, as if my name were part of Caulder’s bad smell. The other servants had dragged Caulder in, and he followed them, shutting the door behind him without so much as a thanks or a farewell.

I went down the stairs carefully, avoiding the slimed steps, and crossed the foreboding night campus. The cold and the dark both seemed stronger and bleaker here. The only sound was the crunching of my boots on the half-frozen snow. When I reached Carneston House, a single feeble light greeted me by the door. I entered to find the main floor lit only by the embers in the great fireplace. No one was at Sergeant Rufet’s desk. I went up the stairs, blessing the lights that burned on each landing. Our rooms were all in blackness. “Spink!” I called, but there was no response. He hadn’t returned, and so whatever misadventure he and Epiny were involved in was continuing.

I found my bunk in the darkness, let my clothing fall to the floor, and climbed in. I was chilled through and the layers of bitter disappointment fell over me like heavy blankets that did not warm me but only pressed me deeper into despair. I slept fitfully, twitching from one nightmare to the next. I was naked at the carnival and everyone knew that I had been culled from the Academy. My father was there. “Be a man, Nevare!” he charged me sharply, and instead I wept like a little child. I dreamed disturbingly of Rory and the Speck woman. I woke once or twice as other stragglers came in. They were laughing and the smell of wine or beer on them made my stomach turn. After my evening with Caulder, I suspected it would be a long time before I wanted to drink again. I rolled over and finally fell into a deeper sleep, and with it, a vivid and carnal dream.

All young men have such dreams. There is no shame in them. My dream was heavy with sensuality and detail. I tasted, I smelled, I heard, I touched, and I saw. Every sense I possessed was inundated with the woman. I rested between her thighs and lazily traced the mottled patterns on the skin of her breasts. Her nipples were dark and erect. Her tongue was dark, too, and her breath smelled of flowers and earthy forest and tasted like sun-ripened fruit on a warm summer day. Her body engulfed mine in female suppleness. We mated as animals mate, without hesitation or inhibition.

She was my reward for betraying my people. I lay on her mountainous softness, nuzzling my face against her soft drooping breasts. I wallowed in her flesh, fascinated by the yielding folds and mounds of her. Afterward, she held me still inside her, trapping me in her embrace. She kissed me with a sensuality that surpassed all intimacy I’d ever dreamed. Her hands held and caressed my shaved scalp and then clutched my tarred topknot of hair. “You have crossed the line and you are mine,” the tree woman murmured.

I woke with a gasp. Despite the holiday, the drums thundered the next morning. Briefly, the eroticism of the voluptuous woman lingered in my mind and flesh. The next moment, I felt as disgusted with myself as if my dream had been real. No man can control what he dreams at night. Despite that, I felt shamed that I could even imagine such a thing, let alone be aroused by it. Around me, the others groaned and cursed, and we put our pillows over our heads. No one got up. I dropped back into a real sleep, and slept until true light came in at the windows, and then grudgingly rose to a cold morning. I was better off than most of my comrades. I was still tired and dejected, but at least I didn’t have a hangover. Just before it was time for the noon meal, I got dressed in my uniform, still damp from the night before. The tables in the mess hall were half empty. Spink was one of the few who joined me there. I had seen little of him before that meal, for he had arisen early and gone out for a walk in the crisp, cold day. He was smiling to himself and humming as he sat down next to me. I asked him quietly, “Epiny?”