Before either of them could say a word, Cameron had his phone in his hand. It rang twice before he said quickly, “Hey, where are you? I want you in Lisette’s workroom now. What do you mean you’re only ten steps away, why are you—Ravi?”
The door opened, and Alric stepped through, a half-smile on his face. He pocketed his phone as he stepped inside, closing the door behind him. “Ravi insisted I was meant to be here about this time, for some reason. I’m almost afraid to ask. Why am I here?”
Of course Ravi would orchestrate the king’s presence, having known about this meeting beforehand. Sora wasn’t even surprised.
Cameron bounced out of his chair and immediately grabbed King Alric’s shirt. “Off with that. Now.”
King Alric protested, trying to bat away his hands. “Wait, wait, why are you trying to strip me?”
“You like it when I strip you,” Cameron pointed out, still wrestling with his shirt.
“Not when there’s an audience, I don’t!” King Alric’s voice had dropped to a low hiss as if he didn’t want everyone to hear.
Sora decided to step in before this became ridiculous. “King Alric, I believe I can mitigate most of the symptoms you’re suffering. May I examine you?”
King Alric stopped wrestling with Cameron—although he kept a firm grip on one hand—and blinked at Sora in surprise. “Is that why I’m here?”
“Yes. I believe, based on your symptoms, that you might have a compression to the c-spine. It would explain much if that’s the case. And I might be able to reverse it, at least to some degree.” Sora indicated the clean surface of the worktable nearby. “If you’ll sit there, I can examine you.”
King Alric’s expression warred between hope and resignation. It was clear he felt torn about giving Sora access to his body and putting himself in the realm of hope once again. But one look at his mate’s face—his expression making it clear that he dearly wished for King Alric to be examined—settled him. He nodded once and allowed Cameron to help him out of his dress shirt.
Sora moved to collect his black bag and pulled out the necessary ingredients, setting up on the table as King Alric carefully hopped up with Cameron’s assistance. Once settled, Sora pulled together his favorite diagnostic spell and readied it.
King Alric’s back told its own story. It was a mess of badly healed skin, burns, and scars. The dipped alignment of the shoulder said that the spine was not in the correct position. If this wasn’t a case of a compressed spine, Sora would eat both boots. He applied the spell to the skin, anyway, giving it a beat to sink in and report back to him.
Then, he hissed in sympathy. Kami-sama, the man had been moving and working in this condition? Sora had watched him go from place to place, meet with people, even dance with his mate as if nothing were wrong. Sora’s admiration for him shot through the roof. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to do half of that with King Alric’s condition.
“Is it bad?” Lisette asked, worry dripping from her tone.
“It’s not good,” Sora admitted readily, then chewed on his bottom lip as he read the numbers, evaluated the lines. “But not impossible, I think. Cameron, come to my other side. Let me explain this to you, too.”
Cameron promptly came around, looking the red lines over without comprehension. “What is this?”
“A diagnostic spell. It allows me to see what is wrong internally without using a scalpel for exploratory surgery. Now, you see this red line here.” He traced the line in question without touching it. “That’s how the spine is currently aligned. See how it’s wrong? It’s tilted in on itself, and now he has three vertebrae that are fused together.”
“That sounds not good.” Cameron bit his lip. “Is that something you can fix?”
“Fortunately, yes. It means breaking them apart again—which is about as pleasant as it sounds—but I have two spells that I can use to properly align the spine and hold them in position so they can heal correctly.”
“A magical cast?” Cameron looked the injury over again, appraisingly.
“Yes, you can think of it like that. It’s similar to what I used for Ravi’s broken bones. The muscles, tendons, and nerves are going to give us more trouble. They’ve spent five hundred years in this position, and they’re not going to move easily. I think it’s safe to say that this will take multiple minor surgeries and some therapy. And I can’t promise perfect results, not with the state of things and not after five hundred years.” Sora pursed his lips together and eyed the diagnostics, evaluating. “But I think we can improve the situation by a good sixty percent.”
King Alric’s head turned sharply, and his hope was obvious now, a living, breathing thing in the room with them. “What does that mean? Sixty percent?”
“It means your numbness disappears. Your pain goes from a seven to, perhaps, a two. No more burning sensation unless you’ve overworked the muscles.” Sora eyed the bones, muscles, and tendons again, evaluating them in the way only a doctor can. “I think it’ll be possible for you to fly again, but not without some proper support. Not anything strenuous, but gentle flights, gliding on the wind, things like that.”
Tears filled King Alric’s eyes. “I could—I could possibly fly again?”
“Sure.” Sora knew how important flying was to a dragon, and to a dragon king especially, it must have been hard to always be trapped on the ground. He gave King Alric a pat on his good shoulder, smiling at him in reassurance. “We’ll need to do something like a sports bandage, if that make sense? A support brace around your shoulder and upper back, but my clan has those for injuries similar to yours. We can get you airborne again. It might take a few surgeries and some physical therapy to rebuild the muscles. But maybe in a year? Or less?”
Cameron dodged back around the table, hugging King Alric to him, an embrace enthusiastically returned. Straightening, Cameron cradled King Alric’s face in his hands and swore, “Whatever we need to build or do, we’ll do it. I’m with you a hundred percent on this. Hell, I’ve already been trying to build you some sort of support brace; with Sora’s expertise, I think we can knock it out in a few days. I know this scares you a little, this possibility, but please try it.”
“I’ll try it,” King Alric answered hoarsely. “God in heaven, I can’t even think of refusing the chance. Sora.”
Sora came around to speak to him face to face.
King Alric’s expression was full of the tentative hope and caution that he’d expected. And the resolve of a man who would see things through.
“Outline for me precisely what needs to happen.”
“I do not want to do the spinal surgery without my father,” Sora admitted. “The injury is so old, it’ll be tricky. Having someone else on hand for this would be better. We can do this without opening skin, but it means putting you under for a few hours, as it’ll be painful in the extreme while we’re breaking things and moving them around. You’ll need at least a week to recover from it, I think.”
“Just a week?” Lisette asked incredulously. “From spinal surgery?”
“We have some pretty amazing healing spells,” Sora explained with a cheeky wink. “And I now have the right elements to work with, unlike when I was healing Ravi and the others. After that, King Alric, it’ll be a matter of minor surgeries. I’ll need to ride herd on your nerves to make sure they reconnect and heal properly without getting pinched. Guiding your tendons and muscles into alignment as they heal properly will also be a regular task. I think some of this is too set; we can’t change it all. But we can get most of it sorted.”