The Prison Healer (The Prison Healer #1)(104)

Unsatisfied with her pace, the Butcher wrapped his fingers tightly around her wrist, dragging her down the stone corridor. His hand was wet against her flesh, and when Kiva looked at where they were joined, she gagged at the sight of Jaren’s blood being transferred onto her skin.

“Hurry up,” the Butcher growled, tugging her viciously after him.

“Where are you taking me?” Kiva finally managed to rasp.

“There are different kinds of torture, did you know that?” he said, his tone conversational as he continued hauling her along. “There’s the physical kind, like the fun I just had with your boyfriend.”

Fun. The Butcher considered what he’d just done fun.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Kiva whispered hoarsely, even as the loud whack, whack, whack of his whip meeting? Jaren’s flesh continued echoing in her ears, the memory refusing to fade.

“Then there’s the psychological kind,” the Butcher went on, oblivious to her inner turmoil. Or perhaps reveling in it. “Rooke only told me not to get physical with you.” A flash of teeth. “He didn’t mention anything else.”

He paused to let that sink in, but Kiva was too numb to feel alarmed. All she could do was stare at the blood on the Butcher’s arms, legs, chest, face.

So much blood.

Her fault—it was all Kiva’s fault.

“Are you . . .” She could barely ask her question, but she needed to know, so she croaked out, “Are you going to kill him?”

A sharp laugh from the Butcher. “Oh, no.”

Kiva wilted with relief.

“But when he wakes up, he’ll wish I had.”

Tears filled Kiva’s eyes, her imagination going into overdrive as they reached a stone staircase. The Butcher dragged her down it, then down another. The air was cold here, the smells even worse, like all the suffering from above had seeped beneath the earth and now lingered like ghosts.

“Do you know why they call this place the Abyss?” the Butcher asked when he finally pulled her to a stop in front of another door, this one made of thick, impenetrable stone.

Kiva felt hollow inside, fear for Jaren threatening to overwhelm her. But also, looking at this door, a sudden, growing fear for herself.

She didn’t get a chance to answer the Butcher before he opened it, shoving her into the pitch-black space beyond, and declared, “You’re about to find out.”

And then, darkness.





Chapter Thirty


The stone door opened.

A crack of light.

Kiva turned her face to it, her eyes so blinded that she saw nothing, and yet she couldn’t keep in her quiet gasp of longing.

Light.

Any light.

She reached for it with her hands, as if to trap it within her fingertips.

And then it was gone.

Six times this had happened.

Six times in what felt like weeks.

Months.

Years.

Kiva didn’t know how long she’d been locked inside the pitch-black cell, the true Abyss of Zalindov. The Butcher had been right—the psychological torture was worse than any physical pain. She had no sense of time, no sense of space . . . no sense of self. Aside from those six brief moments when food had been delivered, set on the ground just inside the door for her to scramble over to and feel blindly for, Kiva had no other breaks in the darkness. If not for those six deliveries, she might have thought she was dead, the sensory deprivation enough to make her believe it.

The only thing helping her keep the slightest grip on her sanity was the drip, drip, drip in the corner, where a small drain sent dirty water into a pail. Kiva had been loath to drink from it early on, but when her first delivery of food arrived and no water came with it, she knew no one would be bringing her any. Unless she wished to die of dehydration, her only choice was the filthy water.

She didn’t know its state from looking at it; she couldn’t see it, only heard the slow trickle as it fell and collected in the small container not just for drinking, but also for cleaning herself. It smelled like wet dog, and when she finally summoned the nerve to swallow it, cupping it from her hand to her mouth, it tasted the same.

But it didn’t make her sick, didn’t kill her.

And foul smell or not, the drip, drip, drip was her constant companion, all she had breaking up the otherwise nothingness.

That, and her thoughts.

Those were perhaps the worst torture.

For hours, days, weeks, years—however long she had been locked away—she kept replaying everything that had led her to this moment, all the things she still had to do, all the questions that remained unanswered.

Was Jaren safe? Were they still hurting him? Was he even still alive?

And what about his magic? Was he the only anomaly, or were there others? Why was he in Zalindov when he could have used his power to evade arrest? What crime did he commit to begin with?

Then there was Naari—how did she know Jaren’s secret? Why had she kept it from the other guards, from the Warden? Was that why she’d watched Jaren so closely, because she’d feared he would try and escape?

But even after Kiva spiraled around her questions about Jaren, as the time passed, there were more things she didn’t know, more she was desperate to hear any update about.

Was Tipp all right without her? Was Tilda?

Had Naari discovered who was poisoning the prisoners? Had she figured out that Olisha and Nergal were pawns? Had she told Rooke? Had they found a cure, or were people still dying?