Page 54 of The Sorcerer's Alpha
“Sleeping,” Sarangerel said. The ash and lapis began to swirl slowly, and Sycamore held perfectly still, afraid to do anything to disrupt Sarangerel’s concentration. Her eyes opened, and she stared intently at the ice. The catalysts swirled more rapidly, then sank into the ice and vanished, leaving a perfect, clear image of Sarangerel’s nephew as he lay on a bed, wrapped in a blanket and looking around with dark eyes, his small hands moving erratically through the air.
“There you are,” Sycamore said, beaming.
“I did it,” she said, turning her wide-eyed gaze to him, and the image disappeared as her focus broke. “Oh! I ruined it.”
“You’ll need to avoid distraction until you’re more practiced. But you did indeed do it, and now we know you’re able.” He smiled at her. “You see? We just had to find the right way to teach you.”
“Temur told me you wouldn’t give up until I learned,” Sarangerel said. “He says you’re very stubborn.”
“Did he? Temur is more stubborn than five goats, so he would know.” Sycamore sprinkled out another circle of ash. “Let’s try again.”
Sarangerel was successful twice more, then failed to see anything on the fourth attempt, and on the fifth attempt the catalyst powders remained inert on the ice, and she sat back and rubbed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I think I’m too tired.”
“It’s hard work to learn something new.” Sycamore smiled at her. “We’ll stop for today, then. You’ve done well.”
“Thank you,” she said, ducking her head with a pleased smile. She wasn’t so shy with him anymore, but praise always rendered her a little tongue-tied.
She headed off back to the village, leaping from one foot to the other as she went, which made Sycamore smile. For all her serious nature, she was still a child, and it pleased him to see her doing something so lighthearted.
Alone, he turned his attention to the ice. A moment’s focus set the catalysts swirling, and then Marut appeared, sitting on a rock with his hands folded in his lap. He was doing nothing, gazing off into the distance, or watching something Sycamore couldn’t see given the narrow field of view. His expression held nothing but peaceful calm, and Sycamore could feel through the bond—distantly, dimly—that Marut was wholly content.
If they stayed in Twin Rams, Sycamore could take on apprentices. He liked teaching Sarangerel. He found that he was good at it, or not bad, at least. That would be a good life’s work: to train wizards who would care for and protect their people. He would be pleased with that.
He touched his hand to the ice and the image of Marut vanished like a dream.
* * *
He wentinto heat once more that winter, intending to take careful note of every moment, every inflection of Marut’s voice, every careful touch of Marut’s hands, to inscribe the memories so deeply in his mind that he would never be able to forget. But he was too swept up in the experience to set himself aside as an observer. So it went. He would remember enough, the parts that mattered: Marut holding him as they drowsed, Marut gazing at him with unbearable tenderness as he ran his fingers over Sycamore’s cheek. He would know that he had been well loved.
Life in Twin Rams was slow-paced in winter but not tedious or dull. Through Temur and Sarangerel, Sycamore came to know some of the inhabitants, and he and Marut were in that way incorporated into the village’s daily rhythms. The Sarnoy spent many evenings gathered to listen to musical performances. The strange, highly ornamented singing and mournful fiddle music took some getting used to, but Sycamore learned to enjoy it in time. Between his first heat and his second, the Sarnoy celebrated a festival of the winter constellation known in Chedi as the Princess and her Suitors, which the Sarnoy called Three Lambs and saw as a sign of coming spring. Sycamore and Marut joined the procession through the village, everyone carrying lanterns and the children running and leaping like small stars themselves.
“You’re happy here,” Marut said to him that night after they returned to their tent and were washing up before bed.
“So are you,” Sycamore said. Marut made no reply and didn’t raise the subject again.
Even with the bond, Sycamore didn’t have great insight into Marut’s thoughts. Marut felt deeply but with little reflection, as though his emotions happened to him while he simply observed them pass by. For the most part, Sycamore had to deliberately reach for him through the bond and do some probing to get anything more than surface-level insight, and even then his impressions were muted. As the weeks passed, he could tell that Marut was anxious or unsettled in some way, but he didn’t know if that was from fear Sycamore would want to stay in Twin Rams or that he would want to leave; or if it was for some entirely other reason that Sycamore hadn’t guessed at.
He didn’t spend much time dwelling on it. Whatever was troubling Marut, it was layered under enough uncomplicated joy for Sycamore to drown in. Whenever they met again after spending even an hour apart, their bond throbbed with Marut’s pleasure and affection, and Sycamore could feel himself reflecting it back like a mirror set facing the sun. He had never been so happy.
He taught Marut a little bit of Sarnoy, enough for him to exchange greetings with the villagers and make some minimal conversation about weather and food. After they took dinner with Temur one evening, Marut said to him, as they walked back to their tent, “What is it that Temur calls you?”
Sycamore glanced at him. “What do you mean?”
“Maybe I’m mistaken,” Marut said. “It doesn’t sound like a Sarnoy name. Dhanu.”
“Yes.” Sycamore swallowed. “It’s my name. The name my parents gave me.”
Marut walked in silence for a minute. Then he said, “Would you like me to call you that?”
“I’ve been Sycamore for a long time. That’s how I think of myself now. And it’s—” He swallowed again. “It’s the name you call me by, so. That’s what I’ll remember, years from now. You calling me Sycamore and smiling at me.”
Marut stopped walking and turned to seize Sycamore’s arm. One moon was full and one was waxing close, and their combined light showed Sycamore Marut’s expression of desperation and painful hope. “We could stay here. Or travel to some other country, or—take a ship across the Middle Sea—”
“Temur offered,” Sycamore said. “He said we would be welcome to stay in Twin Rams. Forever, I think.”
“Wind Below.” Marut turned away and folded his arms across his chest. What he was feeling was too big for Sycamore to name, made up of too many complex and conflicting things. “Do you want to?”
“We can’t,” Sycamore said, regretting the words already, wishing Marut would talk him into staying, knowing Marut wouldn’t.