Maya frowned. Bringing the cinnamon roll up to her mouth, she bit into it. The feel of warmth spread along her tongue as a little bit of icing stuck to her lips. Flicking her tongue out, she licked it as she watched Apollo, her mind considering his motives. “Why do you want to know about me?”
His soft smile grew. “I could ask the same question.”
Maya pondered his remark as she took another bite. When she finished chewing, she looked at him more intently. “A healer with such an obvious deformity is of far greater interest. And it does make me wonder how much you can actually do to help me.”
Apollo put his hand in his lap, out of sight. “It was damaged by a kind of magic that cannot be countered by our own.”
“What does that mean?”
“Do we have a deal?”
Maya frowned, “I can’t imagine that I can tell you anything that you will find useful or interesting. My life is pretty … bland.”
Apollo shook his head. “I must vehemently deny that knowing how it happened would be useful. And I strongly suspect your life has been anything but bland.”
Maya’s expression flattened. “How exactly do you plan to use any knowledge you learn about me?”
He placed his forearm with the unaffected hand on the table and leaned forward. “Knowing how you came by your wounds will be invaluable to treating you.”
“Why? It’s just … oh. You mean if it was magical, the treatment would be different, huh?”
He nodded.
“I know it was meant to be permanent so that I could not carry on my family’s legacy. So the wound was probably caused by magic.”
A look of horror crossed Apollo’s face. “Someone … scarred you to prevent you from having children?”
Maya shrugged, then took a sip of her drink. Taking some satisfaction in destroying the heart atop it, she sat back. “It happened when I was young, so it’s never bothered me beyond the pain.”
“Is that why you …” Apollo shook his head. “Do you know if the perpetrator was a shifter?”
“I believe he was a dragon shifter, but I couldn’t say for sure. He was sent to my home by the king to punish my father.”
Apollo sat back, his eyes watching her. “Are you comfortable talking about it now?”
Maya considered the question. Usually she reacted by insisting the past was done, so there was no point in reliving it. However, if Apollo could actually do something to make the pain go away, if he could make it so she could be a dragon again, she thought it might be worth the momentary pain of reliving what she remembered.
Leaning forward, she said, “If you can’t heal your hand, what makes you think you can heal me?”
Apollo exhaled, then put his hand back on the table, giving Maya the chance to look at it. “You can touch it if you want,” he said.
Glancing at him, she asked, “Doesn’t that hurt?”
“If you were to smash your mug over it or stab it with your fork, it would.” Despite herself, Maya smiled. Apollo’s eyes wrinkled in the corners as he smiled back at her. “It’s long since healed to the point that touching it doesn’t hurt anymore.”
Maya reached out and felt one of the bones that was out of place. Soon, she had lifted his hand with both of her hands, moving it and examining it as Apollo spoke. “My … ex did it. She was a storm dragon shifter, and she was rather volatile. At first, I reveled in how different she was, how unpredictable and passionate she could be. It was only after she had our daughter that I realized how unstable she was. One night, she lost control of herself, raging and breaking things. I grabbed our daughter when a blast of stray magic shot toward her.” He just smiled and moved his hand to indicate how that ended.
“Oh,” Maya looked down at his hand. “And Cosmo couldn’t fix it?”
“No. His magic is … different from his sister’s. He came and took care of her, and not long after that, she disappeared. I think he gets updates from his family about her, but I’ve not heard anything from her since that night.”
“What about your daughter?”
He shrugged, moving his hand a little. Maya let go, and he pulled it back toward himself, then he put it out of sight as he continued. “She has no memories of that night or her mother. Occasionally, she asks.”
“What do you tell her?”
“That her mother is too sick.”
