19
MIKANDRA WOKE UP feeling disoriented. She turned on her back, looking at a ceiling with cracked plaster spotted with age. It took her a while to remember where she was, why she was here and what had happened last night.
The light in the room was still blue and dark as on Miran’s snow days. An unfamiliar rushing sound came in through the open door behind her.
She lifted her head. Her muscles hurt from lying in a fixed position on that hard mattress. She had barely moved throughout the night, and whatever noise the partygoers had produced when they came in, it had not woken her up.
She had no idea of the time of day except it had to be early because all the beds around her were occupied with sleeping people. A young local woman slept next to a Mirani ex-soldier, using his shoulder as
