Author's Note:
I have gotten more than a few feedback requests here and there that boil down to, "More Cassea." I'm happy to get the specific feedback as it means that people are actually reading these longer tales and I thank you for that. Anyway, after some due consideration, I figured out where she could and should be. For those that asked for her, I hope it suitably scratches the itch.
*****
Deres looked down at the young girl's leg, seeing it as the mess that it was. The cut itself hadn't been such a terrible thing, only about three inches long where calf met ankle, but now it was far more serious. The area around it was red and hot to the touch, and, also, swollen around the cut so that it appeared now more like a large boil that had burst. If the red spider veins around it hadn't screamed infection, the weeping pus and the smell certainly did.
A young woman with her mother's doe eyes she looked at him look at the wound while her mother, looked on with barely disguised fear. "She cut herself on some loose metal when we were setting up our needlework displays. I used the usual poultices, but she just...keeps getting worse."
He kept his tone casual. "I'm actually surprised that she's not running a fever yet." Inside though, he was truly surprised that she was still ambulatory at all at this point. The girl had a strong constitution indeed, though that wasn't uncommon from those that lived in the poorest parts of the city. It could be unforgiving and not a place for the weak. Had he not learned to trust his instincts and make his own way in his younger days, it surely would have swallowed him whole in one despicable way or another.
But now, as a healer of some renown in the city of Erette, he worked to use his gifts to make life better for those left behind. "Not to worry though, he said, giving the young Edina a reassuring smile, "it's not too bad that a bit of magic can't fix it."
He looked to Cassea whose big, blue eyes watched placidly. "We should have some actual crutches for this young lady around somewhere, don't you think?"
"We do," she said. As a matter of course, she could rattle off every bit of inventory there. It wasn't all that much different from running a House in that regard.
"Because...I won't be able to walk after you fix it?"
Edina's eyes widened, looking to her and to him. Her mother looked even more frightened at the prospect."Goddess, say it isn't so. I tried..."
"It's not so," he said firmly before his eyes met Edina's to explain. "It's because the magic will continue working inside you after you leave here, mending what's broken and killing all trace of the infection. You'll be sore and it'll just be easier for you to get around for a couple of days with the crutches."
"He's quite skilled," Cassea told her with a sly smile, "despite appearances."
"She's
so
mean to me," he told Edina with a grin.
"We all have to be true to ourselves," she said almost melodically as she headed down the hall, which surprised Deres not at all. She liked the last word whenever she could have it.
It broke the tension the rest of the way and young Edina smiled.
"Now, young lady, do you want the scar or not?"
She shook her head firmly. "Not at all, if you can manage it."
The corner of his lip turned upward slyly. "I wouldn't have asked if it wasn't going to be up to you."
With that, he placed his hand a fraction of an inch above the wound. Even as he spoke he seemed to be concentrating on something else. "The magic will also deaden the pain as I work, but not right away. The bad news is that it is going to hurt like mad. The good news is that after a few seconds it's not going to hurt at all. Ready?"
She nodded quickly and in a reminder that the young woman wasn't so far departed from little girl, when her mother clutched her hand, she gripped it back just as tightly.
As soon as light appeared in the space between their flesh Edina screeched in pain, tears already erupting as she involuntarily worked to break her mother's fingers. In the space of half a dozen heartbeats though the pain was a memory and they watched the magic work and Edina watched with curiosity as Deres' face stressed and his eyes moved beneath his closed eyelids as though he were chasing something in a dream.
It wasn't so far from the truth though. Part of his mind focused on the state of the wound, eliminating the necrotic tissue and nudging along the natural mending process as the magic destroyed the pools of infection within the wound while his mind searched her body for any trace in blood, flesh and bone, giving the remnants of magic that would remain something to hunt. It was a living thing in some ways; an expression of instinct as much as will.
The magic he called upon would do his bidding at this point without his active direction, so he opened his eyes and pulled it back within himself as a conduit and back to its natural paths in the universe. Once the magic now within her followed his will it would simply fade away. As the visible link between them faded he already knew what he would find: clean skin, slightly red from the mending. "The redness will fade. Promise."
Edina grinned from ear to ear as she touched it tentatively. It felt a bit tender, but not painful. "Thank you, Healer."
"Deres is fine." Out of the corner of his eye, he spied Cassea at the doorway, crutches in hand. "There's the mean young lady." He looked to Edina as he spoke. "Tell you what, why don't you let Cassea show you how to use those while your mother and I talk, all right?"
She put both feet on the floor and winced as her healed leg protested the stress.
He reached out to help her. "All right?"
"Yes. Still kind of hurts like you said, but I can do it." She braced herself against the examination table and then took the strong arm Cassea offered and let herself be led out in the corridor.
When they were out of earshot her mother let out days worth of anxiety in three words. "Thank you, Healer."
"Deres is fine for you, too. I'm just glad you brought her in when you did. Another day or two might have been too late, but, she really will be all right."
She wanted to weep. "Since her father left she's all I have. You know, she really does talk of wanting to be a healer herself when she's older, but, to be honest, the magic scares me."
He tried to reassure her."It's just a tool. And, for the record, I think she'd make a fine Healer. If she still wants to when she's older, I think she'd make a wonderful apprentice. She's smart and unafraid."
"That one is fearless," her mother agreed, reaching into a deep pocket of her worn, dark, woolen skirt and pulled from it a small pouch. Untying it, she poured out a dozen gold coins into her hand before placing in his what was probably years worth of savings for them and all there was. "Take it. Take it all. If it's not enough, you can have whatever else is mine, too."
He shook his head, placing his other hand over hers before pulling them away. "Not all. There's no honor in overcharging for services. I don't fleece my patients." He took a single coin and gave her back the rest.
She shook her head. "It's not...not nearly enough." She swallowed hard. "I couldn't get a Healer in the upper quarters to even see her for less than three, much less make her well. I..."
"They charge what they charge and I charge what I do, and if you were in my offices in the upper quarter three is what it would be to start because you could afford it. Here and now, it's one gold and that's it."
She embraced him warmly, doing her best to crush ribs. "Thank you. Thank you so much."
"You are both welcome." He rode out the grateful vise and followed her out to the waiting room as Cassea kept a guiding hand on Edina's front and back to be there for a quick catch that already seemed unnecessary. "Excellent, Edina," Cassea praised. "You have a warrior's balance there."
"I'd rather be a healer," she said determinedly as she tested to see how much speed she could make on three legs.
"Careful, now," Cassea admonished gently.
"Just make sure you find a nicer assistant," Deres told her as he came in behind mother and daughter while they made their way to the door.
Cassea glanced in his direction. "If you would be less, well...you, you might find me a more amenable assistant."
"Promise?"
"Try, she dared, "see what happens."
With Edina and her mother heading home, they began to lock up for the day with Deres doing what cleaning needed to be done while Cassea updated patient records and handed some of the other clerical minutia that came with running a place such as this. There seemed to be no end to it, though Deres had to admit she made it all seem effortless. She was indispensable here and, beyond that, he cared for her a great deal.
That he was responsible for her in many ways didn't make or break those feelings. It simply was, and his feelings were separate from that. She was beautiful, energetic, acid-tongued and in some ways would never be tamed. That she had handed him the collar in the form of a heavy necklace of braided gold and silver and begged him to use it was monumental for a woman like her.
Now though, he noted as he cleaned Edina's exam room and thought of her, in a sense, to know her really was to love her. Love her he did. Beneath that acid tongue and boundless attitude was a bright, witty soul with a gentle heart, though she was loathe to display that often or to many.
So focused on thoughts of her was he that he failed to notice her at the doorway as she watched him scrubbing down the walls. She stood in a black dress with silver buttons down the center before it flared into a long skirt. She always dressed down a bit, finding a balance in clothing that would fit both here and in the upper quarters without disrespecting her station, her family's, or that of House Jaye; the House she was now irrevocably tied to.
As her former employer's House fell, other Houses rose in prominence, with House Jaye rising higher still. Her own family had been briefly terrified as House Voss was seemingly left adrift in response to Tonn Vesik's 'insanity' that led to the sudden and complete dissolution of his House, but Cassea had transitioned so quickly and seamlessly into House Jaye that her parents simply assumed that she saw the cataclysm coming and had positioned herself, and by extension, her House supremely well. Her mother only half-jokingly wondered if it was Deres or Neral that she had started sleeping with first in preparation.
Deres only really cared about appearances at the most official of functions, and those to which Neral's mother had specifically invited him, but he had taken Tessa's and Cassea's aid in those elements very well.
He is at least trainable, which makes him superior to most men.
He still had no use for the politicking of the House, and, in all fairness, neither did General Jaye, so Cassea had taken that task as her own and no one complained.
She kept House Jaye in the better if not good graces of the other Houses, though, to be honest, she admitted that the fact that Neral and Queen Evaline would likely die as sisters in bond if not blood was all the connection that would ever be required. That every other House knew that made her job in the political realm that much easier.
Cassea watched him in that brown shirt that was one of the extras there, as what he would come in with occasionally ended up soiled, and those dark trousers as he scrubbed the walls.
He is a good man...for rabble. He gave of himself to others to a fault. He gave all he had and then somehow found more when needed. For him, family and the love they shared was all that mattered.
