Kel bit back a growl of frustration with Neal and the men of Dom's former squad once more. Whichever of them had felt the need to tell Neal she had been injured and needed a healer was going to find themselves jousting against her the moment she was cleared and she saw one of their faces again.
She had woken up to frantic pounding at her door the morning after she had arrived back. It hadn't been all of that late and she was entitled to sleep in a little when she had arrived back after midnight. When she had managed to get out of bed to answer the door, Neal had been there looking as if he might explode.
"What happened? How bad is it? Did those shoddy healers they keep in the Own botch anything up?" Neal had shoved her back into her rooms and had closed the door before trying to inspect her to see where she had been injured. But since she had worn breeches to bed, he hadn't been able to determine what was wrong with her at first glance. It hadn't been until she had tried to walk that he had spotted her weakness and had pounced.
She had wanted to bypass Neal for his much more reasonable father to forestall some of the dramatics, but now Neal was refusing to let her leave her bedroom while he tried to bully her into stripping off her breeches for him to get a look at the wound.
"Fine, if you would rather go down to the infirmary for this, let me find you a stretcher," Neal let out an exasperated sigh.
"I do not need a stretcher. I can walk myself there just fine," Kel snapped back at him.
"Fine, a cane then," Neal demanded.
"It's just a small cut," she said trying to push him towards the door.
"Then why send just you back to the palace? Third Company is still out. Lord Raoul wouldn't have sent you back if he didn't think your injury was better seen to at the palace," he retorted.
"My Lord didn't send me back. Dom asked me to go," Kel felt her cheeks burn. A thousand different questions had entered her mind when Dom had begged her to go. There had been something in his voice, in the words he had said, in the way he had looked at her that had told her exactly why she had needed to leave. It wasn't for her sake, but his. He had needed her to go for his own sanity.
"Alright, but there had to be a reason. Dom is a reasonable man," Neal interrupted her thoughts.
"The muscle is going to take sometime to knit properly so he didn't want me to become a liability to myself or others if we had to fight again," she admitted. "Give me a chance to wake up, change clothes, and eat breakfast before you try and attack me."
She sat down on the nearest chair and rubbed at the bandages beneath her breeches. The wound ached fiercely. He didn't answer but he didn't leave. She could hear him fumbling with her fireplace and heard him muttering some spell or another before a small blaze filled the hearth. He said nothing as he dug out her tea set, put water on to heat, and prepared green tea for her. He pressed the frothy green tea into her hands which she took with a grateful sigh.
While she sipped at her tea, Neal knelt down before her and she felt him start tugging at the ties of her breeches, ignoring her protests. When he had the ties undone he took hold of the waistband and edged it down over her loincloth, out from under her bottom, and down her thighs until he had uncovered the bandages. Kel felt her face flush. It was such an intimate area and here Neal was invading her privacy on such a level that she couldn't even describe how she felt.
"Relax, I'm a healer, remember?" Neal murmured as he reached to start unwrapping the bandages.
"I'm not comfortable with this, Neal," Kel tried.
"My father would need to do the same thing," Neal reminded her. "This way you don't have to hobble to the infirmary… Mithros Spear! What caused this?"
Kel's eyes went down to the cut. She hadn't seen it at all herself. The initial healer had cleaned it and bandaged it and when Osbern had gotten her back to the village, another healer had taken over. Exhaustion had kept her from looking at what was being done. Now she could see what had Neal concerned. The cut itself was across the entire width of her thigh. It was obviously deep and explained why she had the limp, but the cut itself wasn't what looked concerning in the least. The skin around the cut was rippled and bubbled up and showing somewhere between angry red and purple veining under the surface.
"It looks like someone poured acid into the wound," Neal murmured.
"I suppose that would make sense," Kel breathed out. And it made sense why it seemed to hurt so much more than she had expected.
"What was that call for, Kel? What were you fighting?" Neal's hands were sparkling with his Gift, a deep emerald green so dark it was almost black. He passed them over the wound and she felt a cooling sensation sink beneath her skin.
"Spidren," Kel murmured. "But,"
"A spidren wouldn't cut you like this," Neal interrupted her.
"I was going to say," she gritted her teeth against frustration and pain as she felt his Gift probing at the damage. "That I knocked someone over to protect them during the fight and their blade sliced between the sections of my armor. There was spidren blood on the blade that invaded the wound."
"Finish your tea, I want to make sure my father gets a good look at this," Neal told her, withdrawing his Gift from her leg and rewrapping the bandages. He left her to go into her bedroom and came back with a dress and fresh undergarments. When Kel made to protest the dress, Neal stopped her. "It will make it so we only have to push the skirt up to get at the wound. Less access to areas you don't want us near."
Kel felt her cheeks flush again. Neal was trying to find some sort of compromise and now that she saw the wound for herself, she knew she wanted Baird to get a look at it as well for his assessment. The dress really would limit some of the embarrassment she felt at having someone strip her of her breeches or having to sit in her loincloth while men inspected her. Never mind she knew both men very well and trusted both of them with her life. It was still something she would rather never have to do.
"I'll go find your shoes while you change," Neal told her when the cup of tea was gone. "And I'll find you something to eat while my father looks you over."
Kel waited for him to disappear into her bedroom once again before she eased her breeches the rest of the way off along with her loincloth. The fresh loincloth she pulled up with care and then she turned her attention to her night shirt. When the breastband was in place, she stood to pull the dress on and nearly jumped when she felt Neal come up behind her to help tug the dress down and settle it in place.
"It's nothing I haven't seen, Kel," he murmured as he helped her with the laces on her bodice. "You're my best friend and like a sister to me. I don't desire you. You don't need to be afraid of my help." He paused. "And you'll have to get used to a man looking at you without clothes if you ever let your man do more than kiss you."
"Somehow, I believe I'll be more comfortable with Kas taking off my clothing than you. I'm fairly certain he'll at least let it be my decision, or he'll try and make me comfortable with it." Kel bit down on her lower lip. She would need to go see Kas at some point and he'd likely have something to say about her injury. But she wasn't looking forward to the steps that she'd have to take down from the palace to the city or climbing back up them when she came back.
"I gave you some tea. I even made it properly, too," Neal informed her as he finished lacing up her bodice. He pressed her back into the chair to push her shoes onto her feet.
"I doubt he would use tea to make me comfortable," Kel murmured when he helped her back to her feet. Neal moved an arm around her waist to help support her. "And when did you become so competent at making green tea? Last I heard from Yuki, she wouldn't let you near the green tea powder for anything."
"That was when I first returned from the border. I thought she'd appreciate that I picked up the skill after she was far enough into pregnancy to accept my help again," Neal informed her.
"So Yuki has no idea you can fix her tea properly right now," Kel grinned as the conversation stayed turned away from her injury and from Kas potentially seeing her unclothed.
"I thought I'd go to someone willing to see my predicament," Neal explained. "Roald was quite sympathetic." Kel kept him talking about his lessons with Roald as they walked down to the infirmary. Eyes turned to watch them but Kel tried to ignore the looks. Gossips would find some way to spread how Neal had his arm around her and leave out that she was limping whether she liked it or not.
At the infirmary, Neal deposited her in an examination room and went to find his father before he disappeared to find her something to eat. Kel relayed the full story to Baird and saw the flash of appreciation cross his features when she mentioned it had been because she had moved Dom out of the way of danger followed by understanding when she asked that he not repeat who had caused the injury to Neal. When he had heard the entire story, Baird helped her to roll her skirt up on her leg and unrolled the bandages from her leg once again. Baird fully examined the wound with his Gift and then hissed in pity.
"I haven't heard much about spidren blood getting inside of wounds. I know it burns like skin like acid when it comes in contact with it. It stands to reason that inside of the wound it caused more damage. Your skin is there to protect vital things and it simply bypassed that layer of protection with the help of Dom's sword." He sighed. "There's damage to the muscle along the cut that looks more like burns than damage from the blade. I'd love to say I can just make this go away," he looked up at her face from the damaged skin. "But even if I sealed the muscle and skin, you'd still have the acid burns. Do you still feel a burning sensation?"
"Yes," Kel admitted.
"I'd like to flush the area with water to see if there is any more spidren blood in there causing additional damage. Then I think I need to speak with Lindhall Reed and possibly Numair about this. There has to be something that we can do to heal this up a little more." Baird turned to set about getting some water boiled and cooled.
Neal returned with a small plate of fruit turnovers before he went to ask Numair and Lindhall about any information they had about spidren blood.
When enough water was boiled and cooled, Baird had her shift to lay back on the exam table with her legs hanging over the edge. He pushed a tub under the edge of the table and lifted the injured leg carefully to settle against his lap. He talked her through everything he was doing as he slowly poured ewer after ewer of water over the wound. The water stung as it hit the wound and she gritted her teeth to try and work through the pain.
She was distracted by someone taking her hand and turned to see it wasn't Neal that had come back but the quiet Roald taking a chair next to the examination table.
"I passed Neal on his way to see you this morning, and again just now as he went in search of Numair. I thought you might like a friend." He told her as he kept hold of her hand.
"I don't suppose it's looking any better," Kel tried to smile against the pain.
"I wouldn't know. I'm not looking," Roald had turned so he was looking only at her face, not her leg.
"It's not," Baird told her being scrupulously honest. "I am flushing something out though. I'm not exactly sure if I'd call it infection."
Kel nodded her understanding. Roald gave her an encouraging smile and started talking to her about the court politics that were giving him headaches.
By the time Neal returned, Baird was smoothing on a balm he claimed was normally for burns in hopes it would help heal some of the damage. Kel felt a small amount of relief immediately and she heard Roald sigh a bit of relief himself as her grip on his hand relaxed. When Baird turned to look at him, Neal only explained that both Lindhall and Numair were pulling as much information as they could find.
"I'd suggest that until we can get more information, you rest. I know the Own's healers cleared you to walk about, but I would prefer you move it as little as possible," Baird sighed as he rebandaged the leg.
"Come on, Kel, let's get you back to your rooms. You can write Kas a note," Neal helped her to her feet again and wrapped his arm back around her waist.
"I'll go see if I can round up some decent company for you," Roald told her, giving her hand one last squeeze.
"If I find anything today, I will come find you at your rooms," Baird announced as Neal steered her back towards the door.
Back in her rooms, Neal deposited her in an armchair and set about pulling out a cushioned footstool for her leg to rest on. He left her only briefly to return with a blanket to tuck around her and a pillow for her to put behind her head if she wanted. Then he fetched a pitcher of water and a cup for her. A muffled giggle from her door made her look up to see Yuki and Shinko both standing there hiding their amusement in all but their eyes.
"Keladry, I am sorry to have set this upon you," Yuki nodded to Neal as he tucked the blanket more firmly around Kel's legs. "I fear he has been restraining his worrying from me and now he's released it upon you."
"It is only fitting that we spend time with you to compensate for such an oversight," the corners of Shinko's eyes crinkled with amusement. "You can tell us about your call and we can discuss your sweetheart. I informed the servants we would need refreshments brought here."
"Move slow if you're going to get up," Neal reminded her. "And limit it as much as possible."
"As if I could move fast," Kel rolled her eyes at him, winning another giggle from both Shinko and Yuki.
"I'm going to go back and help my father dig through whatever Lindhall and Numair find." He hugged her about the shoulders and then offered a kiss to his wife before walking out of the door.
Both Yamani ladies came in to settle on her couch and started asking pointed questions about her call, the tactics, and the plans of Third Company for the rest of the call. When they exhausted that topic, they turned to gossiping about her relationship with Kas.
"Have you two bedded?" Yuki cut straight to the heart after some polite inquiries about his work and the outings he had taken her on.
"Yuki!" Kel found herself mortified and truly blushing without being able to hide it behind any mask.
"Does he kiss you like he wants you?" Shinko asked, her eyes reflecting her own enjoyment of the path the questions had gone.
"How am I supposed to know what that means?" Kel demanded. Certainly she enjoyed Kas' kissing and she felt desired, but he hadn't given her any indication he wanted to take her back to his bed.
"You'll see. I thought Roald's kisses were wonderful enough before, but on our wedding night, the way he kissed me had me completely uncaring of the loss of clothing or anything beyond him." Shinko sipped at her tea without blushing like Kel expected. "He is quite a force to be reckoned with in the bedroom. I suppose Neal prefers to be more romantic about all of it," Shinko turned to Yuki.
"Sometimes, when the mood strikes him, but most of the time he wants utter control in the bedroom. He didn't quite attack me on our wedding night but we hadn't waited to be properly married before we bedded," Yuki commented as calmly as if she were speaking about tea or her embroidery. "But no less satisfying," she added.
Both women turned to discussing their lives in the bedroom to a point where Kel felt her cheeks would be burned red for the rest of the week. They discussed the men's sizes and tried to get Kel to speculate on Kas' size. Then they turned to some of the positions the men preferred and that they preferred instead. They discussed what they men liked to hear from them about their sizes, the names they liked to be called, and some of the things they would do to reward their men for being good.
Kel was fairly certain as the conversation went on that she wouldn't be able to look at Neal or Roald the same way again. Some of the things Yuki and Shinko were saying fell more in line with the lewd comments often spoken by the men of the Own about their own conquests rather than those she viewed as some of her most noble minded friends.
The conversation left her with more questions about the intricacies of bedding than answers. Part of her wanted to keep asking why either woman would be willing to do such things but politeness held her tongue and fear of knowing the answers had her maintaining silence.
Kel was grateful as the midday hour rolled around both women claimed other duties to attend to and bid her farewell. She waited until they were gone and inched out of the chair to go to her privy and splash water on her face to cool her burning cheeks. Never had she believed she'd have that conversation about her male friends with her female friends. With the exception of Neal, the rest of them were fairly reserved. Part of her wondered if Roald and Neal had such conversations with the rest of their friends or each other. It seemed more likely now that Shinko and Yuki had revealed themselves.
Once she had regained herself somewhat, she went to find her desk. It looked like she would be bound to the palace and likely her rooms until Baird found something to help her wound along. That meant she wouldn't get down to see Kas until then and it was better to send him a note explaining the circumstances. The last thing she wanted him to hear was that she was up at the palace by some gossip or another and realize she hadn't come back to see him. Part of her wanted him to realize that the palace grounds were not off limits to him though he seemed reluctant to enter them. But until Baird cleared her, he'd have to visit her at the palace rather than her going down to the city if he wanted to see her.
"Kel?" Neal called from the sitting room as she started on her note.
"In here," she called back.
"Good, that makes this a shorter distance to your bed," Neal stepped through the bedroom door. He said nothing more as he took the quill from her hands and stoppered her ink well. Then he plucked her out of the chair and laid her out on her bed. She felt a small blush inch up her chest and neck as she remembered some of the things Yuki had said, but kept her mask firmly in place.
"What are you doing?" She demanded as he began inching her skirt up her leg.
"There's a suggestion we should let the wound air out rather than bandage it. At least until the damage the spidren blood caused is neutralized," he explained. "I'll bring your midday in here and find you a book. We're still working on how to neutralize it. I'm afraid it's going to be trial and error at this point and it might take the rest of today to brew up the first test."
"This has really never happened before?" Kel asked.
"Never so much. Not that you got a lot but usually it's no more than a drop or two. There," he settled the leg up on a pillow. "You can cover it up with a sheet, loosely, if you are cold but no more than that."
Neal fussed over her for a few moments longer before going to the sitting room to return with her midday. Once he was assured she was eating, he went to her desk and brought back one of her books. When he was assured she would stay in bed except to use the privy, he left and Kel growled another curse on Neal's name and the men in Dom's former squad for even thinking of warning him about her injury. She then turned her attention to her food and then to the book Neal had left her with. When she grew bored of that, she set the book down and settled back against the pillows to nap.
A warm touch on her bare skin of her exposed thigh had Kel's eyes springing wide open. The way the hand was caressing her leg rather than probing the wound above it told her it wasn't a healer and she certainly wouldn't stand for that sort of intrusion.
"I'd prefer you'd be gone for some weeks rather than have you return to me like this," Kas' voice made her turn to see it was his hand just barely resting on the skin under the wound. She glanced at her desk beyond him and realized her note to him was still there. She hadn't finished or sent her note before Neal had practically bound her to the bed with the unspoken healer threats she knew well. It made her wonder how Kas had known she was back and how he had found her rooms, let alone had gotten into her rooms. "It looks bad," he nodded to her wound.
"It looks worse than it feels," Kel moved to sit up. If Kas wanted to visit, she at least wanted to be sitting up. Instantly Kas' hand moved from her thigh and he shifted to helping her sit. "I am not incapable," she tried to promise him as she felt his arms lift to adjust her into a sitting position. "Really, I'm fine. I'm just trapped by healers."
"Be that as it may, I'd like to do something." Kas turned to setting pillows behind her to keep her upright comfortably. When he was done fussing, he turned his attention to her lips. For a few seconds she forgot about the pain and was simply focused on him sitting on the edge of her bed to kiss her. But then he was pulling back again and Kel became abruptly aware of how indecent it was for them to be sitting on her bed with her skirt hiked up to an extremely revealing place. A few inches more and her loincloth would be very visible. On top of all of that, they had been kissing. Anyone coming in could and would likely believe they had been about to become extremely improper.
Kas must have sensed some part of her thoughts because he shifted off of the edge of the bed once more and pulled her desk chair over to her bedside. She took the opportunity to pull the sheet up loosely over her leg. A glance up at Kas showed his features revealing no frustration or sign of being upset by her sudden need for modesty. Instead, he gave her a gentle smile and took her hand.
"I wasn't sure what to think when one of the apprentices led a royal messenger back to my forge," he admitted after a moment. "When the messenger said he had been sent by the Crowned Prince Roald of Conte to give me news of you, I almost thought I had lost you." His fingers gripped hers tighter. "It took me a few moments to realize he was telling me you had only been injured and were bound to the palace for the time being. All I could imagine were all of the ways you had been injured. I couldn't get out of there fast enough. Of course, I did stop to clean up and change clothes. Healers can get picky about their patients getting covered in soot and I didn't want to give anyone a reason to turn me away from you."
He moved one hand from hers to rest it on top of the sheet, just under her wound once more. Kel found she was grateful to Roald for sending someone to tell Kas something, but she wished he would have been a little more tactful about it. There was no point in terrorizing someone by not giving them all of the information. The least he could have done was have the messenger assure Kas she was alright.
"Don't they normally bandage wounds they can't stitch shut or heal?" Kas asked after a moment, drawing her attention back up to his face. He was frowning at the place under the sheet where her wound was throbbing with small stabs of pain.
"I believe so," Kel reached down to lift his hand up off of her leg to hold it herself. "But it was decided this wound is different." When Kas quirked an eyebrow at her, she explained the complication of spidren blood and then the story behind the wound. When she was done explaining, he stood to pull the sheet back once more.
"It's not going to be a very pretty scar I'm afraid," she admitted when he only stared down at the wound. Part of her worried this would be what changed his mind about her. Men tended to prefer their women unscarred, and as much as she was enjoying his attention, it would be unfair to not remind him she wasn't in pristine condition. "It's a reality of the career and it's far from the only scar I have." His eyes snapped up to hers and then he was kissing her again, hard.
"You think I care about scars?" He demanded as he pulled back a fraction of an inch for her to breathe. "I care about you. All of you. A scar is only a mark of your strength and courage. You saved a life earning this scar. Multiple lives if you count the people that you were working to free." His lips pressed against hers again. "Stop worrying that I'm going to run scared because you aren't a normal woman. I don't want a normal woman. I want you." His kisses kept coming, stopping anything she might have said in response.
Eventually, he sat back in the chair and turned conversation away from her wound and scars to the different weapons that were on her weapons rack near her desk. He was quick to recognize the weapons she had from the Raven Armory and then turned his attention to her glaive. It wasn't a common weapon made in Tortall and certainly not one the Raven Armory made at all. Memories of her training with her glaive in the Yamani Islands, and stories about how she had used it in Tortall kept them both entertained well through dinner and until it got dark. When it started to grow late, Kas gave her a kiss goodbye and explained he would have to work late the following night, but he would visit the next evening after that.
Kel waited until Kas had been gone for several long minutes before she loosened the ties on her shirt and laid her fingers against the unsightly scar that spanned most of her shoulder caused by Stenmun's axe in Scanra. Every part of her hoped he had been telling the truth that her ugly scars wouldn't drive him away.
