The Prison Healer (The Prison Healer #1)(121)

She flew through the doorway, coming to a screaming halt now that she was no longer in immediate danger. The remaining breath fled her as she looked around, her heart stopping as she took in what had become of her healing sanctuary.

Glass vials were smashed on the ground, the rat pen was broken to pieces with the vermin gone, linens were shredded, sticky remedies covered everything from the benches to the walls to the floor. The infirmary was destroyed, but Kiva didn’t care about the room—she cared about who was in it.

On quaking legs, Kiva moved toward Tilda. She had no need to rush anymore. She could already see it from across the room.

Blood.

Tilda’s blood.

It was everywhere, her bedsheets soaked red.

And her eyes . . . Tilda’s blind eyes . . . they were staring up at the ceiling, unblinking, unmoving, just like the rest of her.

As if watching from a dream, a nightmare, Kiva placed her trembling hands over Tilda’s heart, over the gaping stab wound that could mean only one thing.

Nothing.

Not a single beat.

As still as death.

Don’t let her die.

There was nothing Kiva could do for her.

Don’t let her die.

She’d tried so hard—so hard—to keep Tilda alive.

Don’t let her die.

A tear escaped Kiva’s eyes, then another, before her knees buckled and she collapsed over the woman, heedless of her blood, thinking only of all she’d suffered through to protect her. Kiva had survived the impossible, had completed the entire Trial by Ordeal, all for Tilda, all so that she might be safe, be freed. And now—

Now she was dead.

“I’m so sorry,” Kiva choked out. “I tried. I tried.”

Only twice before had she known such agony. Such heartache. It was all she could do to keep whispering, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” over and over again.

“K-K-Kiva?”

Kiva’s head shot up, tears blurring her vision as she looked wildly around for the owner of the weak voice. “Tipp?” she rasped, barely able to form the word around her flooding emotions. “Where are you?”

When Tipp didn’t respond straightaway, Kiva swiped at her face, standing from Tilda’s bedside, and called again, “Tipp?”

But then she saw him over the opposite side of Tilda’s bed, tangled up in the torn privacy curtain on the ground . . . and lying in a pool of his own blood.

“TIPP!” Kiva cried, bolting around the end of the bed and dropping to his side so fast that her knees screamed in pain. She shoved the curtain aside, her eyes filling with fresh tears as she looked down at the young boy and found the source of the blood.

Whole-body shakes racked her frame as she reached for him, pressing her hands to his abdomen as she sought to stem the flow, already knowing that he’d lost too much. There was no treatment that could fix this, no medicine that could save him.

“I t-t-tried to p-protect her,” Tipp whispered, his face so pale that it was nearly as blue as his eyes. “I’m s-s-sorry. I t-t-tried.”

He coughed, blood bubbling out of his lips and over his chin.

“Shhh,” Kiva told him, tears streaming down her face. “Save your strength.”

“I l-l-love you, K-Kiva,” Tipp kept whispering, his voice fading more, as if he’d only been holding on long enough to see her one last time. “Thank y-you . . . f-f-for everything.”

Kiva hiccuped a sob. Her hands still pressed against his gaping stomach, where his blood now came alarmingly slow.

“I love you, too,” she whispered back, moving one wet hand to press it against his cheek, her tears flowing faster. “So I need you to stay with me, all right? We’ll get through this, just like everything else.”

Tipp smiled at her, and despite his pallor, despite the severity of his wound, he still lit up the room. “You’ve a-always b-been . . . a b-b-bad . . . liar,” he whispered, still smiling. “Y-You should . . . Y-You should . . .”

But he didn’t finish, because he coughed again, and then continued coughing, until his eyes rolled to the back of his head . . . and his chest stopped moving.

“No,” Kiva breathed. “No, no, no, no, no.” She moved her bloodied hands over his heart. “Tipp, please.”

It was still beating, but only just. The slightest of thumps, and it wouldn’t remain that way for long, not now that he was no longer breathing.

“I can’t lose you, too,” Kiva sobbed, her tears falling down onto him. “I can’t lose you, too.”

And suddenly Kiva wasn’t seeing Tipp anymore; the infirmary faded as she was swept away to a freezing winter’s evening ten years earlier. With sickening clarity, she remembered the moment the sword had been pulled from Kerrin’s chest and he’d fallen in slow motion to the ground, how her father had pressed his hands to the wound and screamed for help, how Kiva had reached for him—but been pulled away before she could so much as touch him.

No one was going to pull her away today.

Promise me, little mouse, her father had whispered, their very first night together in Zalindov. Promise me that you’ll never do it again.

But, Papa, your hand was bleeding. You were hurt.

It doesn’t matter, he’d told her urgently. You know why I’ve been teaching you the healing craft, you know why it’s so important, why you have to keep learning.