Page 51 of Soar

He hadn’t meant to poke a stick into the hornet’s nest, but it was obvious he had. Welp. Guess they were talking about it.

Gregori put a hand to Salem’s lower back and snugged him in closer. “Bad day?”

“Yeah. Shitty.” Salem burrowed in a little, a long sigh slipping out of his throat. “What should have been a routine appendectomy damn near killed a twelve-year-old girl this afternoon.”

Well shit. No wonder he was so upset. Not being able to help a child tore at Salem. He was a damn good pediatric surgeon for a reason.

“What happened?”

“Her grandmother fed her something before the surgery.”

“Uh. I’m not an expert on surgeries, but isn’t that a giant no-no?”

“It is. The body can’t process food well while under anesthesia, so it tends to go into shock. You’d think, with as many medical TV shows out there, people would get it through their heads tonotdo this. But you’d be surprised how many times we’ve had to cancel a surgery, or had an emergency on our hands, because people don’t follow instructions. In this case, the grandmother was the type to believe nothing could be wrong with her precious angel. She apparently tries to feed this poor girl gluten all the time even though she’s a hardcore celiac.”

“Ouch. That’s just stupidity layered on stupidity.”

“Tell me about it. Ugh, I hate people.”

Gregori nodded in sympathy and support. “People suck.”

“Anyway, this little girl crashed on the table. I had to do CPR to get her back and it was a close call. She’s now under observation and we’ll have to reschedule her surgery in the next day or two. Which shouldn’t have happened. But the kicker was, the entire time I worked on her, I kept wondering why I was born a mage. My magic’s fucking useless. It can’t even save a little girl.”

Oh. Ohhhhh. No wonder he was in this funk.

Well, Gregori could do something about it.

He leaned in, kissed Salem’s forehead, then dropped the bombshell bluntly.

“Actually, the medical magic is still known to us.”

Salem’s head popped up so fast he damn near clipped the top of his head against Gregori’s jaw. His deep blue eyes flared wide.

“WHAT?!”

Look at him, so surprised. His Pikachu face was so cute and made Gregori want to tease him. He shouldn’t, though. Salem was part cat. He was sneaky in how he’d get his revenge.

“I don’t know if you met him, but Ravi’s mate, Sora?”

“Uhh…I don’t know if I did meet him. If so, it was in passing.”

Salem had been in Brazil for only the wedding, literally about four days in total, so it would make sense that he didn’t meet everyone. All right, time to explain.

“You’ve heard of the Lost Clan?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Okay, so obviously they weren’t really lost. We just didn’t know where they’d gone. Part of the Lost Clan was the Abe Clan. They were renowned healers even back in the day. Like seeing a specialist or a guru in today’s times. There was very little they couldn’t heal. When they left, they took all their knowledge and records with them. Their history and expertise is still intact. The whole family still practices medicine to this day.”

Salem’s expression was reminiscent of a child who had just been told Santa Claus was in fact real, rode unicorns instead of reindeer, and gave out kittens to good children. He was so excited and almost dubious at the same time, the two emotions duking it out over his face to the point of it being comical.

“And…what can they do?”

“Basically anything. Plus, Amaru’s still got all of the knowledge in his head of what his clan could do, which is why he was able to heal Sam. Amaru and Sora’s family have beenputting their heads together for months now, comparing notes and information, and let me tell you, they’ve really gone leaps and bounds past what they were already able to do.”

“Narrow this down for me.” Salem went up on one elbow, studying Gregori with intensity. “What exactly can they do?”

“Now that is not a question I can easily answer. I can tell you what I’ve seen them do. They healed King Alric’s shoulder to the point he can fly again, when before he couldn’t even lift his arm in a full range of motion.”

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