Page 67 of The Sorcerer's Alpha

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Marut hadrestless dreams of fire and fighting and woke in the morning gritty-eyed and disoriented. He was on horseback with his wrists tied together and his bound hands gripping the pommel, except he was in his bed in the cantonment with the high clerestory windows filling the dormitory with pale dawn light. He was in the palace in Banuri.

He rose and dressed still in the grip of his dream, increasingly convinced that it wasn’t a dream at all. If he focused all of his attention on the bond, he could feel that the rope was tied too tightly and making Sycamore’s hands go numb, that Sycamore was struggling to stay awake in the saddle after a long night of riding.

He had woken early enough that the mess was empty aside from a few guards coming off the night watch. He sat alone, as he did every morning. The cantonment was quiet these days with most of the army off in the badlands or on the coast, and only the palace guards to fill the mess and the baths. They were friendly enough to Marut during chance encounters, but he was a stranger to them, and a scout besides. He would be gone soon enough; they had no reason to offer him friendship.

Somewhere in the distant west, Sycamore was on a horse and riding even farther away from him.

He went to visit Bunny in the stables after he ate. He had realized by now that he was being left in limbo as a punishment or maybe a warning, and would be given no assignment until he had served out his sentence, whatever that was. He spent most days taking Bunny on long rides through the hills outside the city. Bunny was therefore as happy as a horse could be, and greeted Marut with an excited jog inside his stall, eager for his outing.

“I’m sorry, small one,” Marut said, stroking his nose. “I don’t think we’ll be going out today.” He let out an unsteady breath and pressed his forehead to the masonry wall beside Bunny’s stall door. “What should I do? I know what I should do. I don’t know if Sycamore will ever forgive me.”

Bunny nickered softly and lipped at Marut’s ear.

“You’re right. What will they do, send me away? It’s already as bad as it could get.”

He stood there stroking Bunny’s nose, feeling Sycamore’s parched throat eased by a drink of water. What he would set in motion by going back inside the cantonment, he wouldn’t ever be able to undo. But that was all right. As long as Sycamore was safe.

The superintendent was at his desk already. He greeted Marut with a weary rub of his eyes and said, “No, I have no assignment for you.”

“It’s not that,” Marut said. “I need to speak with the king.”

He waited on a bench outside the superintendent’s office while a series of messengers went back and forth to the highest reaches of the palace. At last, a man in the livery of the king’s household approached and said, “I’ll take you to His Majesty, if you please.”

Marut did please. He followed the man through the stairwells of the palace, busier now than when Marut had left Sycamore’s rooms at daybreak. The servant brought Marut out into a part of the palace he hadn’t seen before, a long gallery open to a courtyard garden with a fountain bubbling at the center. He was grateful for his coat in the cool morning air. At the end of the passageway, two guards stood at attention beside a wooden door inlaid with panels of carved green stone. They seemed to recognize the servant and stood aside without comment to let him through.

Marut found himself in an antechamber filled with an assortment of functionaries and courtiers seated on benches and divans, talking with each other or looking through papers. Some glanced at Marut as the door opened and then immediately glanced away, as if he were of no concern whatsoever. The servant didn’t pause but led him to another door, and through there was the king.

Marut dropped to his knees and bent forward to touch his forehead to the floor, as he had seen people do when the king passed through the city during festival processions. He waited there, the marble flagstones cool against his skin, until the king said, “You may rise.”

Marut sat up on his knees. He had never seen the king in person, only glimpsed him as a silhouette through a palanquin screen. He was older than Marut had expected, and shorter. He stood beside the window holding a cup of tea, looking like any other man who had recently risen from his bed and wasn’t quite ready to face the day.

The king dismissed the servant with a gesture. When the man was gone, Aditya said, “What is it that you must so urgently tell me in person and have no one else hear?”

His dry tone exuded skepticism about the importance of Marut’s message. Marut was undaunted. “Sycamore has been captured, Your Majesty.”

“Ah.” Aditya moved to his desk and sat down. “Dare I ask how you know this?”

Marut swallowed. His knees ached against the hard floor. “We’re bonded, my king.”

Aditya’s expression didn’t change. “Did that happen before you visited his rooms while he was in heat, or during?”

A hot flush seared Marut’s cheeks, followed immediately after by a chill that started in his guts and spread throughout his body. Had someone seen Marut leaving Sycamore’s rooms? It didn’t matter now. The king knew, and at least Marut wasn’t betraying them both by revealing the truth of their bond.

He rested his palms flat on his thighs. “We bonded during our travels. He had nowhere safe to go into confinement while we were on the steppe.”

“I’m sure. Well.” Aditya rubbed a hand over his face. “So the Skopoy have him.”

“When we went to White Valley,” Marut said hesitantly, not sure he had leave to speak at length to the king, “my lieutenant told me to kill Sycamore rather than let him fall into enemy hands.”

“Yes. You imagine some form of Skopoy mischief? We know too little about Skopoy magic for me to say what they might do. At worst, turn him against us and use his powers for their own purposes.”

“I know where he is, Your Majesty. The bond can help me find him. I have no assignment at present.” Even as Marut suggested the plan, he knew it was absurd. One man riding into Skopa to extract a prisoner? Impossible even if he were trained at spycraft.

“You propose some daring rescue mission? The Skopoy may execute him before you have a chance to perform your heroics.”

Marut’s lungs stopped working for a moment. He hadn’t even considered that as a possibility—that Sycamore might be killed. But of course he was too powerful to be ransomed back to Chedi, and too dangerous to be held in captivity until the war was over.