The Prison Healer (The Prison Healer #1)(3)

Swallowing at the thought, Kiva stepped backwards as the guard approached, giving the boy an encouraging squeeze of his shoulder as she moved past. He flinched so violently that she immediately regretted it.

“I’ll just”—Kiva indicated the pile of discarded clothes that the boy had worn before changing into his gray prison garb—“take these to the entrance block for sorting.”

This time it was the guard who nodded, before setting her amber eyes on the boy and ordering, “Come.”

The scent of his fear permeated the air as he rose on wobbling legs, cradling his wounded hand with the other, and followed the guard from the room.

He didn’t look back.

They never did.

Kiva waited until she was certain she was alone before she moved. Her motions were quick and practiced, but with a frantic urgency, her eyes flicking to and from the door with awareness that if she was caught, then she was dead. The Warden had other informants within the prison; he might favor Kiva, but that wouldn’t keep her from punishment—or execution.

As she rifled through the pile of clothes, her nose wrinkled at the unpleasant smells of long travel and poor hygiene. She ignored the touch of something wet on her hand, the mold and mud and other things she’d rather not identify. She was searching for something. Searching, searching, searching.

She ran her fingers down the boy’s pants but found nothing, so she moved to his linen shirt. It was threadbare, some places ripped and others patched up. Kiva inspected all the stitching, but still there was nothing, and she began to lose heart. But then she reached for his weathered boots, and there it was. Slipped down the damaged, gaping seam of the left boot was a small piece of folded parchment.

With shaking fingers, Kiva unfolded it and read the coded words contained within.





Kiva released a whoosh of air, her shoulders drooping with relief as she mentally translated the code: We are safe. Stay alive. We will come.

It had been three months since Kiva had last heard from her family. Three months of checking the clothing of new, oblivious prisoners, hoping for any scrap of information from the outside world. If not for the charity of the stablemaster, Raz, she would have had no means of communicating with those she loved most. He risked his life to sneak the notes through Zalindov’s walls to her, and despite their rarity—and brevity—they meant the world to Kiva.

We are safe. Stay alive. We will come.

The same eight words and other similar offerings had arrived sporadically over the last decade, always when Kiva needed to hear them the most.

We are safe. Stay alive. We will come.

The middle part was easier said than done, but Kiva would do as she was told, certain her family would one day fulfill their promise to come for her. No matter how many times they wrote the words, no matter how long she’d already waited, she held on to their declaration, repeating it over and over in her mind: We will come. We will come. We will come.

One day, she would be with her family again. One day, she would be free of Zalindov, a prisoner no longer.

For ten years, she had been waiting for that day.

But every week that passed, her hope dwindled more and more.





Chapter Two


He arrived like many of the others: covered in blood and looking like death.

A month had passed since any new arrivals had appeared at Zalindov; a month since Kiva had been forced to carve a Z into anyone’s flesh. Aside from the usual prison injuries and an outbreak of tunnel fever—for which the victims had been quarantined, some of whom had died and most of whom wished for death but would be back on their feet once the fever passed—there had been little work for her to do.

Today, however . . .

Three new arrivals.

All men.

And all rumored to be from Vallenia—the capital of Evalon, the largest kingdom in Wenderall.

It was rare for the wagons to appear in the winter months, especially those that came from the southern territories like Evalon. Usually prisoners hailing from such great distances were held in city dungeons or village lockups until the spring thaws, when they would be less likely to perish during the weeks of travel. Sometimes the guards themselves didn’t survive the journey through the Belhare Desert and over the Tanestra Mountains, especially when the weather turned and blizzards swept across the pass. And for those venturing directly from Vallenia, they also had to cross the Wildemeadow and the Crewlling Swamplands, then cut straight through the heart of the Crying Woods—an arduous journey at the best of times, especially when coupled with the savage treatment of the transfer guards.

Winter, summer, spring, or fall, it didn’t matter when the prisoners came or where they were from: travel to and from Zalindov was always perilous. Located in the north of Evalon, close to the borders of both Mirraven and Caramor, the prison wasn’t easy to reach from any of Wenderall’s eight kingdoms. Nevertheless, all of those kingdoms used the prison, their problematic citizens transported from all corners of the continent, without care as to whether they would survive the journey.

Indeed, of the three men who had been delivered through the front gates and sent straight to the infirmary today, only one required Kiva’s attention, since the other two had already passed into the everworld, their bodies pale and stiff. They didn’t yet reek of decay, indicating their ends must have been recent, but that made little difference. They were dead—there was no bringing them back.