Page 42 of The Sorcerer's Alpha

The tent stank of him. He prayed neither of its inhabitants was an alpha. The girl came in and put more wood in the stove and used a long pole to open the covering over the hole in the roof a bit wider, to let in fresh air.

Sycamore was somewhat discomfited to have a child in his presence while he was in such a state, but he supposed it was the Sarnoy custom. Their protocols for omegas were no less stringent than in Chedi, and if he were Sarnoy he would likely find the Chedoy customs strange. Still, he stayed where he was on the bed, wrapped in a blanket, as he said, “What is your name?”

She glanced at him. She was somewhere between eight and ten years of age, he guessed, with blue eyes and dark hair worn in twin braids. “It’s Khulan, Chedai. Is it true you’re a wizard?”

He smiled despite himself. “It’s true. Do you have a wizard here?”

“No. My brother has the gift, though, and he went off to Thistle Cliff to study with their wizard. I miss him.” She came to gather the empty plate and cup beside his bed. As she bent forward, he caught sight of a small wooden figurine tucked into her sash, its head long and narrow like a deer or a horse.

“What’s that?” he asked, pointing, somewhat chagrined to be asking after a child’s toy. But it looked like one of the carvings Marut liked to make, and he was still heat-addled enough that all he could think of was Marut.

She drew the object from her sash and showed it to him. “It’s an onager. The man outside made it for me.”

“The man,” Sycamore repeated foolishly. She could be talking about no one but Marut.

“The other Chedai,” she said, confirming his guess. “He’s made toys for all of us. I like mine the best. He made a deer for Arban.” She put the carving back into her sash without explaining who Arban was. “I’ll bring water for your bath.”

“Thank you,” Sycamore said. He lay down again as she went out. The thought of Marut sitting outside the tent for two days as Sycamore longed for him filled him with fury but also furtive pleasure. Who did Marut think he was to wait for Sycamore like a nervous spouse whose wife had gone to childbed? He had no claim on Sycamore. Only the claim Sycamore had given him freely, of his affection, which increased with every day that went by.

He bathed with the water Khulan brought and then slept the deep, heavy sleep of coming out of heat. When he woke in the morning, he was himself again, weary and cold. He gave himself another wipe-down with the remaining water and dressed to go outside.

Although the sun wasn’t yet fully above the horizon, Marut was sitting outside the tent on a low wooden bench, a half-formed carving in his hands. He looked up as Sycamore came through the door. Sycamore looked down at him. Marut’s eyes were warm in the morning light, the rich brown of tea.

“You’ve been outfitting the village children, I hear,” Sycamore said.

“It kept me busy.” Marut set his carving aside and sheathed his knife. On the bench beside him sat one of his saddlebags. He opened it now and removed a small cloth-wrapped bundle. Cheese, Sycamore saw, as he unwrapped it. “Have you eaten?”

“No.” Sycamore regarded him for another moment, feeling a great, churning upheaval within him, roiling like the river below Banuri during the spring melt. Then he sat down at Marut’s side, and they shared the cheese as the sun rose and the village woke.

* * *

Khulan cameto find him later that morning and took him to Erhi’s tent for mare’s milk and blood sausage, which Erhi told him was good for recovering after heat. Sycamore wondered what she knew of omegas but didn’t ask. He sat beside her at the small table and ate obediently. The blood sausage was strangely sweet but not unpleasant, and the fermented milk was growing on him.

Erhi’s tent was more cluttered than Tsetseg’s and the furnishing were shabbier, with bare wood showing beneath chipped paint on corners and edges. Her baby was asleep on the bed with one arm thrown over its face. Near the door, a black dog lay curled up on a rug. Sycamore knew little of Sarnoy manners and let Erhi guide the conversation, hoping he wouldn’t make any grievous errors. She asked after his health, and asked how he was enjoying his food, and then told him a long anecdote about one of her nieces that he didn’t understand and wasn’t sure how to respond to. At last, she put down her cup with an air of finality and said, “What barter will you make with me?”

She drove a much harder bargain than Tsetseg had. Sycamore allowed himself to be fleeced without protest. Whatever antipathy she held for Twin Rams, he couldn’t resolve it, and he didn’t want her to regret her charity to him. He agreed to everything she asked of him and stifled his irritation at her expression of smug satisfaction. Let her think the Chedoy were poor negotiators. Only his pride would suffer.

He and Marut stayed in Roan Horse for another two days as Sycamore worked through his extensive roster of duties. He cast many blessings and also healed an abscess in a horse’s hoof, after providing many disclaimers that he couldn’t promise success. That took him most of a day, but in the end he did manage to cure the infection and was very pleased with himself when the horse struggled to its feet and went off across the meadow, walking with careful steps but no longer visibly lame.

Even before he was fully recovered from his heat, he was impatient to be off again. He could have no privacy with Marut while they were in the village; even their chaste, public interactions garnered judgmental looks from the Sarnoy, and they were interrupted and separated if they spoke unchaperoned for too long. He was grateful to Erhi and her people for the safe harbor they had offered him during his heat, but now that his confinement had ended, he wanted to be able to sleep in Marut’s arms once more.

On the afternoon of the third day after his heat, he finished with his tasks and asked Erhi’s permission to leave, and in the morning they rode out. The sky hung low and gray, with thin clouds clinging to the hillsides as they turned the horses west and retraced their route along the river. Marut got them up and going early every morning and didn’t call a halt until close to sunset, so they made good time. Sycamore found himself wishing that Marut would delay a little, or that he would want to. They would be parted again in Twin Rams, presumably for the remainder of the winter.

The nights were black and endless, and bright with stars when the clouds lifted. Sometimes Sycamore had the thought that he and Marut were clinging upside down on the thin surface of the world and were at risk of falling into the endless sea of sky below them.

The river’s frozen ribbon wended west. The broad floodplain held nothing of interest aside from a few scattered trees. Every evening, Sycamore checked the distance to Twin Rams as they sat beside the fire, and his sense of nostalgia grew increasingly sharp and poignant. He would miss this time with Marut when it was over.

The night before he expected they would arrive, Marut looked at him in the yellow firelight and said, “Will we tell them at Twin Rams that we’re married?”

Sycamore lowered the rind of cheese he was gnawing on. “Oh. I hadn’t considered it.”

Marut shrugged, picking at his own cheese. “The way they watched over us, both here and the first place—we won’t have any time to ourselves. I want to be able to speak with you for more than three minutes without someone coming over to chastise us and send you away. I don’t want to have to sneak off into the hills for trysts in the leaf litter. I can tell you from experience that a bed is more comfortable.”

Sycamore laughed. “Your objections are noted. It’s true the Sarnoy are a far more nosy people than the Chedoy.”

“The opposite, I would say. You’ve been given more leeway than any other omega in Chedi. I saw how the nuns fussed over Purya before he was married. The Sarnoy are neglectful in comparison.”

“Well, be that as it may,” Sycamore muttered. “Very well: you can be my husband, then, if that’s what suits you.”