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I had to grin to that. “It’s an old pattern in my family, sir. My brothers and I always put on a bit of flesh right before we shoot up in height. I’d thought I was finished growing, but I daresay I’m wrong. Perhaps by the time I return home for my brother’s wedding, I’ll be the tallest man in the family.”

“Well, perhaps,” he said guardedly. “But I shall want to see you in my offices every week after classes resume. Your recovery is unique, Cadet Burvelle, and I’d like to document it for a paper I’m writing on the Speck plague. Would you mind?”Advertisement

“Not at all, sir. Anything I can do to help bring an end to the disease is no more than my duty.”

When, a week later, a servant brought me a letter from the King’s Cavalla Academy, I stared at it with misgiving for a long time before I could bring myself to open it. I dreaded that it would contain some final vindictive act from Colonel Stiet, a bad report and a dishonorable dismissal. Instead, when I opened it, it was simply a notice that the new commander had scheduled a reopening date for the Academy. All cadets were to report to their dormitories and be in residence within five days. He was reinstating military protocol regarding the gates to the Academy, and some cadets would be experiencing a change in quarters. I stared at it for some time, and I think that was when I finally realized that disaster had passed me by. I was alive, my health was returning, and I was still a cadet. The life I had always imagined for myself might still await me.

I went down to my uncle’s library and spent the entire night reading through my father’s military journals. If he had ever questioned his fate, it was not confided to paper. He wrote as a soldier should, impassively and concisely. He went there, he fought with those people, he won, and the next day he and his troop rode on. There was a lot of war and very little of life in his accounts. I set my father’s journals back and randomly pulled down several of the older ones. I found cramped handwriting, fading ink, and more accounts of dealing death. I admired Epiny’s ability to read them. Much of it was dull, and it surprised me that the business of killing people could become so commonplace as to be boring.

Toward morning, my uncle came down with a candle and found me there. “I thought I heard someone moving around down here,” he greeted me.

I finished shelving the journals I had pulled out. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to wake you. I couldn’t sleep and so I came here to read.”

He gave a dry laugh. “Well, if those journals didn’t put you to sleep, nothing will.”

“Yes, sir. I tend to agree with you.” Then we stood there, awkwardly.

“I’m glad to see you recovering so well,” my uncle said at last.

“Yes, sir. I plan on returning to the Academy tomorrow. If I may have the use of your carriage.”

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“I think you should ride your horse, Nevare. There will be room for Sirlofty in the Academy stables now. Just yesterday Colonel Rebin held a big auction of the Academy riding horses that Colonel Stiet had acquired.” He actually smiled. “He advertised them as ‘suitable mounts for delicate ladies and very young children.’ I do not think he was impressed with Stiet’s choice of horseflesh.”

“Nor I, sir.” I found myself grinning back at him. It was such a small thing, to be able to ride my own horse in our formations, and yet it lifted my spirits tremendously.

My uncle laughed softly and then said, “Sir this. Sir that. Am I no longer your uncle, Nevare?”

I looked down. “After the trouble I brought into your house, I was not sure how you felt about me.”

“If you were the one who brought Epiny here, it escaped my notice, Nevare. No. I made my own trouble, and spoiled her as she grew. I was far too indulgent with her, and as a result, I have lost her. I wonder if I’ll ever see her again. It is a long way to Bitter-springs, and a hard life that awaits her when she arrives.”

“I think she’ll be up to it, sir-Uncle Sefert.” I found that I believed my own words.

“I think she will, too. Well. Leaving tomorrow. I know we haven’t seen much of each other of late, but I’ll still miss you. So I will still expect you to spend your leave days here, visiting.”

“Will your lady wife be comfortable with that, Uncle Sefert?” I asked the question plainly, wishing to put it all out in the open.

“My lady wife is not comfortable with anything these days, Nevare. Let’s leave her out of it, shall we? Perhaps the next free day you get, you and Hotorn and I can go out and do some shooting together. I think I would like a bit of a holiday away from this city.” pqdm.com