Yaril had committed no guilty word of her own to paper, and so when I replied to her, as I did immediately, I made no direct mention of the enclosure. I did mention that I had heard that first-years were sometimes given a day’s liberty in town at the turn of the semester, and that I would be happy to buy her some lace or other trinkets if she told me what might please her, for it always delighted me to be kind to a sister who had in turn done so many kindnesses for me. Mindful that, even though Carsina’s father might not see it, it was very possible that my sister might be tempted to read my letter before passing it on to Carsina, I spent an agonizing two days composing my first missive to my love.

I tried to balance manliness with tenderness, respect with ardour, and passion with practicality. I spoke of our future together, the children we’d have, the home we’d establish together. I stopped when I realized I had run to five pages of finely written script. I folded it inside my letter to my sister, and sealed it separately from my letter to her, hoping that my parents would notice neither the uncharacteristic length nor promptness of my response. Feeling extremely guilty, I then composed an equally long and detailed missive about classes and the Academy’s decision regarding our mounts and sent it off to my father, hoping that it might prove a distraction from the letter I sent Yaril.

I had never thought that receiving and then replying to a letter from Carsina would prove such a distraction to me. After it was posted, I could not stop thinking about it, and wondering how many days it would take to travel to her on the mail boat, and if it must dawdle long with my sister before a visit brought them together and Yaril could pass it on. At night, I lay awake, imagining her receiving it, wondering if she would open it while Yaril was there or wait for a quiet time alone. I longed for both, for if she wrote a response while they were visiting, Yaril could immediately send it along to me, yet I also hoped she read it privately and kept its contents to herself. It was a delicious agony and a serious distraction from my studies. It became my nightly ritual; evening ablutions, night prayers, and then staring into the darkness, listening to the deep breathing of my slumbering roommates and thinking of Carsina. I often dreamed of her. One night, as I hastened myself toward sleep with thoughts of Carsina, I dreamed, vividly, that a letter had arrived from her. The detail of that dream was extraordinary.

Sergeant Rufet distributed our mail to us. Often we returned from our morning classes to find whatever we had received set precisely in the centre of each bed. In my dream, there was a letter addressed to me in my sister Yaril’s hand, but I immediately knew that it held tidings from Carsina. I slipped it inside my uniform jacket, resolving to open it alone and unobserved so that I could privately savour whatever she had written to me. In the golden last light of the afternoon, I slipped away from the dormitory to a peaceful copse of oak trees that graced an expanse of lawn to the east of Carneston House. There, I leaned against the trunk of a tree and opened my long-awaited letter. Light filtered down through the canopy of autumn leaves. A light layer of fallen leaves on the ground shifted softly in the evening breeze from the river.

I drew the longed-for pages from the envelope. My sister’s letter was a large, golden leaf. As I looked at it, it turned brown, the inked lines fading with the colour change. The edges of the leaf curled in, until it resembled the dry husk of a butterfly’s cocoon. When I tried to unfurl it, it crumbled into tiny brown bits and blew away on the wind.

Carsina’s letter was written on paper. I tried to read it, but her handwriting, once so large and looping, crawled into tiny spidery letters, the characters becoming so ornate they defied my eyes. But within the page was a pressed trio of violets. They were carefully enfolded in a sheet of fine paper. When I opened them and put them on my palm, I could suddenly smell their fragrance as strongly as if they were freshly bloomed. I put my nose close to them, breathing in their perfume and knowing, somehow, that Carsina had worn this tiny bouquet pinned to her dress for a day before she had pressed them and sent them to me. I smiled, for the scent of the flowers was the air of her love for me. I was so blessed, that the woman destined to be mine regarded me with affection and anticipation. Not all arranged partners were so fortunate. My future was gold before me and assured. I would be an officer and I would lead men and acquit myself well in feats of war. My lady would come to me, to be my wife and to fill my home with children. When my days as a cavalla officer were done, we would retire to live out our years in Widevale in a gracious home on my brother’s holding.

As I thought these thoughts, the violets in my hand began to grow. They budded and more blossoms joined the three, and the three eldest blossoms formed tiny seeds, which dropped on the palm of my hand. There they germinated, sinking tiny roots into the lines of my palm and opening small green leaves to the sunlight. Flowers with the faces of children began to open. I watched over them, cherishing them, as I leaned on the trunk of a great oak.

I do not know what made me look up from them. She made no sound. She stood, unmoving as a tree, looking at me with great determination. Tiny flowers bloomed in her hair. The robe that draped her was the gold of birch leaves in autumn. The majestic tree woman shook her head in slow denial. “No,” she said. Her voice was quiet and not unkind, but her words reached my ears with absolute clarity. “That is not for you. That may do for others, but a different fate awaits you. There is a task to be done and you were chosen for it. Nothing and no one shall lead you away from it. You will go to it, even if you must go as a dog that flees from flung stones. It is given to you to turn them back. Only you can do it, soldier’s boy. All else must be put aside until your task is done.”

Her words horrified me. It could not be so. I looked back at the future I held so securely. Cupped in my hand, the foliage of the tiny offspring of our love thrived briefly then, horrifyingly, yellowed and shrivelled. The little faces closed their eyes and grew pale and wan. The blossoms bent, withering, and then suddenly subsided into rotting foliage in the palm.

“No!” I cried, and only then felt how the oak had taken me in. Its bark had grown over my shoulders and engulfed my torso. Years before, my brother and I had left a rope swing tied to the branch of a gully willow. As time had passed, the tree’s limb had swelled up around the rope until the constricting line was invisible. So was this tree engulfing me, growing around me and taking me inside it. It was too late to struggle. Bemused by the flowers in my hand, I had been unwary.

I lifted my head and opened my mouth to scream. Instead, soundlessly, I vomited forth a cascade of green tendrils. They dived into the earth at my feet, and then rose again as saplings. On the lawn before me, a forest sprouted, and I felt them drawing sustenance from my body. As Nevare, I dwindled to nothing, and became instead a green awareness. My tree-selves grew and first encroached on the campus buildings and then enfolded them. My roots buckled the walkways and cracked foundations. My branches thrust into glassless windows. I sent wandering yellow tendrils across the dusty floors of empty classrooms. The Academy fell before me, and became a forest, a forest that slowly began to climb over the walls of the grounds and spread out into the streets and byways of Old Thares.

I felt nothing about all this. I was green, alive and growing, and that meant all was well. Everything was safe. I had protected them all. Then I felt footsteps pacing slowly through me; someone moved through the forest I had become. Slowly I became aware of her. With great fondness, I turned my attention to her.