Page 62 of The Sorcerer's Alpha

“I’d like Marut to be part of my guard. He kept me safe all winter, and I trust him to do it again if need be.”

“Marut,” Aditya repeated. His eyes narrowed as he searched his capacious memory. “The team leader, wasn’t he?”

“Yes,” Sycamore said.

“Ah,” Aditya said. “The alpha.”

His gaze was steady on Sycamore’s face. Sycamore’s heart turned into a stone. He could see that in making his request, he had given himself away. Aditya had no confirmation, but he needed none. His suspicion was enough.

There would be no furtive meetings now, as Sycamore had hoped. No rented room in the city where he could sneak away for an hour. No flimsy excuse to have Marut stationed permanently in Banuri. They would be watched and followed until Sycamore left Banuri, and by the time he returned—if he did—he expected Marut would have been sent off on some distant assignment. They might never see each other again, not so much as a glimpse in passing.

Oh, he was a fool. If he had thought Aditya might have some sympathy for him, might understand that he and Marut had been driven together by extenuating circumstances, he had been grievously mistaken.

He turned to look out the window, hoping to appear calm, struggling to master his emotions. “Any scout in Chedi would serve just as well, of course.”

“All good men,” Aditya agreed.

A subject change was warranted. “What news in Chedi since I left?”

“The war. Always the war.” Aditya rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “The Etsukoy struck a port in Absou, so they’ve stirred again, as we feared. War replicates itself and spreads. Soon there will be nothing left of the southern nations but burned-out cities and ash.”

“The people still thrive, Your Majesty. The countryside seems much as it ever was. Not all is lost.”

“Ah! You’re an optimist.” Aditya rose from his chair and shuffled over to his desk. “I did have word from Setsen.” He picked up a piece of paper. “Suriya had his baby. A girl.”

“Sun Above shine on them both,” Sycamore said. He had never spoken to the prince and knew him only as a distant veiled figure at court events, but he did always feel some vague kinship with fellow omegas.

“All else is as you left it.” Aditya placed the letter back on his desk. His expression softened somewhat, a shift that, in the past, Sycamore had taken to mean he was now speaking to the man instead of the king. “I’m glad to see you again, Sycamore. I’ve thought of you often in these past months and prayed for your return.”

Not so long ago, Sycamore would have been warmed by the king’s concern. He dredged up a smile. “It’s good to be home.”

Aditya turned his attention to the pile of papers on his desk and shuffled through the stack. “We’re all of us bound by our duties, you know, and the laws of the kingdom. No matter my personal feelings, I must act as I’ve been entailed to.”

That was more sympathy than Sycamore had expected, but he took no comfort from the king’s words, hollow as they were. Aditya was married, and happily, to all appearances. Aditya had children he loved and was proud of; a son who would succeed him after his eventual death. He hadn’t dedicated himself to the kingdom at the expense of all other forms of human devotion. His lords and ministers married and had children. Every powerful man in the country was allowed to marry whomever he chose and never have his loyalty questioned because of it.

The other sorcerers had come to the palace as adults, knowing full well what they were sacrificing for the sake of status and power. Sycamore had been given no choice. He had status, yes, and a life of comfort and security, and had long told himself to be grateful for that and for the chance to serve his kingdom.

When Sycamore said nothing, Aditya sighed and said, “You should speak with Alder and the council. They’ve been researching the Skopoy problem and can share what they’ve learned before you depart.”

That was Sycamore’s dismissal. He stood and bowed. “Your Majesty.”

He went back to his rooms the same way he had come. No one looked at him beyond a passing glance; no one seemed to know who he was. He could walk out of the palace, out of the city altogether, and keep walking up into the hills until he vanished from memory.

His saddlebags had been brought up to his rooms as Marut promised. He took them into his bedchamber to unpack the contents. At the very top of the first one he opened sat a small object wrapped in a scrap of fabric, no bigger than the palm of his hand. He opened the parcel to find one of Marut’s carvings: a hawk of some sort, with its wings mantled.

He ran his thumb over the carved beak. The wood spoke to him of Marut’s devotion, limitless and living.

“Oh, Marut,” he whispered. Then he wrapped the bird again and tucked it in the chest of drawers beside his bed. He was a sorcerer, not a man.

* * *

Chandran’s sisterlived in the market district, on the bottom floor of a three-story house painted pale blue. Marut had visited with Chandran a few times and remembered the way. He went in the morning, earlier than was polite, when the merchants were still setting up their stalls for the day and roosters crowed in the back alleys. But the shutters were open, and he heard a child’s voice from inside, and so he knocked on the door and prayed Medha would forgive him for disturbing her so early.

She came to the door with her shawl over her head and a baby held to her shoulder. “I don’t have any work,” she said, “and I don’t want to buy anything.” Then she frowned at him and cocked her head. “Marut?”

She ignored his protests and insisted that he come in for tea and flatbread. The older child, Anaya, was playing on the floor with a wooden cart, and went scrambling to cling to her mother’s gown when Marut came through the door, and peeped at him from behind Medha’s legs.

“Anaya, you remember Marut,” Medha said, reaching down to touch the girl’s dark head. “Chandran’s friend.”