The Prison Healer (The Prison Healer #1)(106)

“What about Tilda?”

Naari’s answer was slower in coming, as if she couldn’t believe Kiva was wasting time asking about the Rebel Queen, but she eventually said, “No change.” She paused, then shared further, “Tipp’s guarding her like a watchdog, barely leaving the infirmary so he can stay by her side. He says it’s what you’d have done if you were there, so he’s watching over her in your stead.”

Oh, Tipp, Kiva felt a renewed surge of affection for the young boy, missing him dearly, wishing for just a hint of his effervescence to seep into her dark cell. He wouldn’t need a luminium beacon—he’d light up the space all on his own.

“And the poison?” Kiva asked, unable to wait any longer. “Six days . . . I thought more time had passed, but have you figured it out? I wondered if it might be Cresta at first, but I don’t think she—”

“It’s not Cresta,” Naari said. There was something wrong with her voice. It was too low, too flat, too full of emotion. Anger, disbelief . . . despair.

“So you did figure it out?” Kiva asked, because despite Naari’s strange tone, that in itself was a relief.

“After the quarry,” the guard said, still sounding off, “Olisha sought me out, aware that you and I had grown close. She was angry with you, saying you’d been remiss in your duties as a healer. When she explained about the vials she and Nergal were giving out, it didn’t take much for me to realize what was really in them.” Naari shook her head. “I can’t believe it was happening right under our noses.”

“We had no way to know,” Kiva said, even if she was just as angry with herself.

“I spoke with Warden Rooke,” Naari went on. She shifted on the ground, drawing her arms in closer to herself. Kiva had never seen her look so defeated. “I told him everything—all the tests you’d done, how nothing had been coming up. Then I told him what you’d said at the quarry, and what I’d learned about the so-called immunity boosters.”

Kiva waited, but when Naari said no more, she prompted, “And?”

Naari dragged in a deep breath. “And he already knew about them.”

Kiva’s stomach bottomed out. Denial hit her hard and strong. “No, he didn’t,” she said hoarsely, recalling how he’d found her holding a vial just before the Trial by Water. He’d looked straight at her and asked what it was.

But then . . . his eyes had narrowed at her answer, when she’d told him it was nothing important, and he’d refused to speak with her in private, even when she’d blurted out her request. If he really had already known the truth . . .

“Why didn’t he say something?” Kiva demanded.

When Naari remained silent, not looking at her, Kiva continued ranting, “So much wasted time! If he knew about the vials, why did he let us run around like idiots searching for the source? You could have been hunting down the supplier and I could have been working on a cure! There’s so much we would have done differently if we’d known! So many people who didn’t need to die!?”

Kiva was burning with resentment. If there had been room to move in her cell, she would have gotten up and paced. What had Warden Rooke been thinking, keeping that from her? How long had he known? After the Trial by Fire, he’d wished her luck. He’d told her that many lives were counting on her. Had he known then? Had he just been laughing at her as she met failure after failure?

Something like this went around years ago, soon after I first became the Warden. You were probably too young to remember—

“I don’t understand,” Kiva wailed as she recalled what he’d told her, knowing that he’d faced the same sickness—the same poison—years ago. “Why would he keep that secret, when it could have helped? He was at risk, too. Everyone was.”

Only, that wasn’t true, Kiva realized.

Because not a single guard had fallen ill.

A strange, tingling sensation began to spread through her insides, as if she were beginning to understand something that, once discovered, could never be unlearned.

Something like this went around years ago, soon after I first became the Warden.

Naari wasn’t meeting her gaze. The feeling within Kiva intensified into the roiling, bowel-twisting sensation of true dread.

“Naari?” Kiva said, her voice unintentionally quiet, as if she subconsciously didn’t want to ask, didn’t want to know.

Finally, the guard looked back at Kiva. The same emotions were still blazing behind her eyes—anger, disbelief, despair. But there was a new one, too: helplessness.

“I swear I didn’t know,” Naari whispered, her normally strong voice hoarse. “If I’d known, I would have said something, done something. I would have stopped it.”

“Stopped what?” Kiva asked, fearing that she already knew.

Something like this went around years ago, soon after I first became the Warden.

Naari’s throat bobbed. “They’re expecting a record number of prisoners come spring. The winter has been harsh, all across the continent. So much more crime than usual, especially with the rebel uprising bleeding into the other kingdoms and rumors of war on the horizon.”

Kiva felt like she’d missed a step. “So?”

Naari held Kiva’s eyes, openly sharing her horror at what she was about to reveal. “Zalindov is already past capacity. So Rooke decided to enact his own form of . . . population control.”