Page 3 of The Sorcerer's Alpha
The wizard turned back to Rhododendron, who was busy investigating the collar of his coat. “Tell me who’s in charge of your patrol.”
“Keerti,” Marut said, and then, realizing that would mean nothing to the wizard, added, “I can bring you to him. Or send him here.”
“The guards will know how to find him, I imagine. Thank you,” the wizard said, dismissing Marut as easily as he’d dismissed the guard.
Marut bowed. “Lord Sorcerer.”
He wasn’t intimidated or afraid, but still his heart beat quickly as he walked away, and when he turned a corner at the end of the row of stalls, he paused for a moment to collect himself. The wizard’s scent filled his nose and clung to his tunic, potent as the fragrance of jasmine blossoms, but nothing like jasmine blossoms at all. He set his jaw and went, at last, to take his long-awaited bath.
CHAPTER2
The sun had burned off the mist by the time the patrol departed the city. As Sycamore passed through the deep Bear Gate in the palace’s northern wall, the sun hung high overhead, pale but warm. He offered a silent prayer for the success of the mission and the safety of everyone involved. He was glad to be alive and would be glad of it for however much time he had left, which he estimated to be considerably shortened by this assignment.
The city clung to the southern hillside of a long, broad valley, the brightly painted houses perched on the slopes and the palace rising above, high on its spur of rock. Temple bells rang out to mark the end of the Festival of the Darkest Night. Sycamore turned once to watch the palace growing small in the distance: his home of thirty years.
His horse had a smooth gait and seemed content to follow the horse ahead of her, requiring him to do little other than keep his seat. The patrol followed the main road north from the palace until it turned east-west at the river, and went west from there—no surprise. They weren’t equipped for the warmer weather of the coast, and the border with Skopa was the only other logical destination. Sycamore hadn’t been told what was expected of him, but he could guess at that much.
I place all my trust in you, Aditya had said to him, and the king’s trust was the greatest honor of Sycamore’s life. He would happily die in the hinterlands if that was what Aditya asked of him.
The road narrowed and traffic thinned as the scattered outskirts of the city gave way to farmland and then to wilder country and rolling hills blanketed in forest. Ahead of him, scouts appeared and disappeared as the road rose and dipped again. He began to feel sore in his seat and shifted in his saddle until his horse pulled her ears back toward him, which he interpreted as a sign of displeasure. “Forgive me, madam,” he said, ceasing his squirming, and she flicked her ears forward again.
He came over a rise in the road and saw horses stopped ahead of him, their riders dismounting and leading them down to the nearby river. He pulled experimentally on the reins when he drew near, and his horse slowed and stepped off the road, where she came to a stop. Sycamore sat where he was. He didn’t know how to get down.
No one paid him any mind. The scouts talked to each other or their horses, calling down the road and laughing. Scouts were known to be somewhat feral creatures most at home in the wilderness and no one expected them to have manners or behave in the ways ordinary people did. Even so, Sycamore was accustomed to those around him taking pains to attend to his every need, and was taken aback to be so thoroughly ignored.
He eyed the distance to the ground. That was a long slide onto packed earth. One presumably went down facing the horse rather than turned away from it, but he wasn’t sure how to shift himself around to manage that.
“Let me help you,” a voice said, and Sycamore turned to see a man approaching. He took Rhododendron’s reins in his hand and gazed up at Sycamore, his brown eyes flecked with gold in the sunlight.
Belatedly, Sycamore realized this was the same scout from before, the man who had come to his rooms to fetch his baggage. The man had cut his hair short and trimmed his beard since their previous encounter, and Sycamore hadn’t recognized him immediately.
He was handsome now that he wasn’t so unkempt. Sycamore resisted the urge to drop his gaze as if he were still the chaste maiden he hadn’t been in years. He deferred to no one but the king.
“I must appear to be struggling,” he said grimly. These scouts had no power over him, he reminded himself; they weren’t monitoring him for any show of weakness. Still, it wouldn’t be wise to get in the habit of letting down his guard.
The scout looked away, out toward the river. He held his other hand to the horse’s nose, palm flat for her to snuffle at. “You, ah—you said you don’t ride much.”
“Tell me your name,” Sycamore said, realizing he didn’t know it.
The man glanced at him before directing his gaze to the horse. “Marut. My lord.”
“I would be glad of your assistance, Marut.”
The scout smiled at the horse. The expression transformed his face. It was Sycamore’s turn to look toward the river, hoping for a moment’s reprieve to master himself.
“Your foot in the stirrup here.” Marut touched Sycamore’s heel, encased in the soft leather of his boot. Sycamore couldn’t remember the last time someone had touched him outside of his bedchamber. “Lean your weight on it. Hold the saddle—yes, there. Then swing the other leg over and slide to the ground.”
“You make it sound very simple,” Sycamore said, daunted by the breadth of the horses’s body between his thighs. Nevertheless, he removed his right foot from the stirrup and placed his hand where the scout had said.
“I won’t let you fall,” Marut said, with such quiet confidence that Sycamore looked at him without meaning to. Their eyes met, and Sycamore felt the shock of their gazes connecting strike him down to the bone.
Around them, the other scouts ate and watered their horses and talked with each other. Sycamore was aware of their presence but was unable to bring himself to care. He stared fixedly at his horse’s ears. There were alphas in the palace as there were everywhere in the world and he interacted with them from time to time, but he had never reacted favorably to any.
“Lift your leg over,” Marut said, and Sycamore did, and slithered himself to the ground more or less gracefully. “Well done. Do it in reverse to mount again. Hold the saddle, foot in the stirrup, pull up and swing your leg over.”
“I should have requested a shorter horse,” Sycamore said, and Marut laughed, then looked down at his feet as if embarrassed by his own laughter. He was close enough to touch, and smelled of spring rain.
“You’ll do well,” Marut said. “Try not to hold yourself so stiffly as you ride. Moving with your horse will make everything easier for both of you.”