The Prison Healer (The Prison Healer #1)(21)

They were coming for the Rebel Queen.

Kiva swore inwardly. The woman might very well not last the night, and even if she did . . .

For ten years, Kiva had followed her coded orders. But for the first time ever, she had no idea how to do what she was told. Because even if she could save Tilda from her illness, there was no way to keep her from her fate.

Her death was coming, one way or another. And there was nothing Kiva could do about it.





Chapter Eight


Two days passed, three days, four days, and still no sign of improvement in the Rebel Queen—in Tilda. Kiva treated her as well as she could, but without knowing what had led to her current state, it was more a case of trial and error than anything else.

“Her symptoms just don’t make sense,” Kiva complained to Tipp five days after Tilda’s arrival. They were standing over the woman, with her having been moved to a pallet in the far corner of the infirmary. Kiva was confident that whatever ailed her wasn’t contagious, so it was safer to isolate her from those already in quarantine.

“She’s not g-getting any worse,” Tipp said. “That’s something.”

“There’s only two days left before her first Ordeal,” Kiva said, “and I can’t even get her fever to break.” She shook her head. “At this rate, she won’t be able to leave her bed, let alone face whatever they have in store for her.”

“Maybe they’ll change the d-date?” Tipp said. “Give her more t-t-time to recover first?”

Kiva sent him a look that made it clear what she thought of that idea.

“It m-might be for the best,” Tipp said quietly. “If she’s going to d-die anyway, at least this way . . . it’ll b-be quick, won’t it? And she won’t r-r-really be aware?”

Kiva hated that Tipp was asking her that, hated that the sweet, innocent boy was even thinking that. As a healer who was glaringly aware of what horrors the human body could be forced to suffer through, she agreed with him. A quick death was always better in these cases. But . . . ignoring the facts, ignoring what she’d witnessed too many times to count . . . Kiva’s heart ached as she looked down at the shivering woman.

Don’t let her die.

Kiva was doing her best. But she was failing.

Seeking a distraction, Kiva turned away from Tilda and asked Tipp, “Are you and Mot on speaking terms again?”

“I went and a-apologized like you told me,” Tipp said. “We’re g-good.”

Kiva doubted Mot was so easily appeased. “Can you go and tell him we need a collection?”

“I was hoping Liku would m-m-make it,” Tipp said sadly, his eyes flicking to the closed quarantine door.

“If she’d been allowed to come sooner, she might have,” Kiva stated. She’d long since learned to snuff the burn of resentment toward the guards who didn’t let the prisoners visit the infirmary until it was too late. “Now, go let Mot know so we can clear her bed.”

Tipp took off, and since there was no guard watching the infirmary, Kiva found herself alone with Tilda for the first time since the woman’s arrival.

“Why aren’t you getting better?” Kiva whispered, looking down at the Rebel Queen. She placed her hand on Tilda’s forehead, confirming what she already knew—that she was still burning with a fever.

It was an effort for Kiva to get any fluids into the woman, rousing her from unconsciousness every few hours to force some broth down her throat. Each time, Tilda stared blankly through her unseeing eyes, saying nothing, little more than a limp weight that swiftly returned to sleep.

“You have to stay alive,” Kiva continued whispering as she straightened Tilda’s blankets, tucking them into the sides of the thin mattress. “You have to.”

Don’t let her die.

Shifting a strand of dark hair from the woman’s face, Kiva was just about to go check on her quarantined patients when Tilda’s sleeping body gave a jerk and her milky eyes shot open.

Kiva jumped before her senses came back to her. “Easy, easy,” she said, her heart racing, unsure if the woman even understood. “You’re all right.”

Tilda turned toward the sound of Kiva’s voice. In a split second, she lunged upward, reaching blindly, her hands latching first around Kiva’s shoulders and then shifting inward until they circled her throat—and squeezed.

Kiva was so stunned that she didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late. She tried to fight the woman off, her fingers grasping Tilda’s forearms and shoving with all her might, but the woman’s grip was unyielding.

“Ssssstop,” Kiva tried to say, but she could barely get any air through her windpipe. She dug her fingernails into Tilda’s flesh, but still the woman didn’t release her. Desperate, she tried to scramble backwards, but Tilda came with her, the woman’s full weight now hanging from Kiva’s neck and causing her to lose her balance, the two of them tumbling to the floor.

Dark spots began to flood Kiva’s vision, her lungs begging for oxygen. Frantic, she clawed at the woman’s face, but Tilda dodged her nails as if she had some kind of sixth sense, remaining just out of reach, her grip tighter than ever.

And then her hands were gone.

One moment, Kiva’s body was turning limp, her eyes rolling into the back of her head. The next, Tilda’s weight had disappeared, leaving Kiva coughing and spluttering on the ground.