The Prison Healer (The Prison Healer #1)(74)

They moved past a large closed door that had an immense amount of heat rippling from it, the acrid tang of smoke mixed with burning flesh and hair sticking to Kiva’s nostrils and making her struggle to keep from dry retching. She held her breath as they continued down a long hallway, refusing to consider what had been beyond that door—or who.

“Here we are,” Rooke said when they reached the far end of the building and came to a stop before another closed door. This one wasn’t giving off any heat, though Kiva knew that was only temporary.

The Warden waved his hand at Bones, who stepped forward and heaved the door open with a grunt of effort. It was made of thick stone and wide enough for a cartload of bodies to be sent directly into the room beyond, just as the hallway they were standing in was large enough to allow for such transport.

A high-pitched buzzing sound started in Kiva’s ears as the Warden stepped into the room and indicated for her to follow. If not for Naari tugging her in, and the three guards that remained in the hallway behind her, Kiva might have considered making a run for it.

I can survive this, Kiva told herself, her inner voice wobbling in the face of what stood before her. And yet she was determined to fight, to live, until the very end. I will survive this.

Tremors racked her frame, but Kiva made herself look around the sizable room she now halted in the center of. Like the door, both the walls and floor were made of thick stone, the exposed surfaces charred by decades of use. Three of the walls were interrupted by sealed metal grates—which Kiva didn’t inspect for long, all too aware of their purpose. The arched stone ceiling tapered high above her head and lifted into the chute that she knew poked out the top of the crematorium as the second chimney. It would soon be smoking, just like the first.

“Ten minutes, Kiva Meridan,” Warden Rooke said, moving back toward the door and jerking his head for Naari to follow. “Let’s see if you can defy fate a second time.”

Kiva wondered if he thought his words were bolstering, but all they did was leave an ashy taste in her mouth, like her body already knew what was coming.

“See you in ten minutes,” Naari said firmly as she unlatched her hand, her amber eyes locked on Kiva’s and alight with forceful emotion, as if she were trying to share all her strength, all her confidence that Kiva would still be alive at the end of those ten minutes.

The moment Naari’s touch was gone, Kiva wanted it back. There was nothing steadying her anymore, nothing keeping her from falling.

“Slow breaths,” Naari whispered too soft for Rooke to hear, with him already waiting by the door. “And stay low.”

Kiva could barely comprehend the guard’s parting instructions, sheer terror rising up and constricting her rib cage.

The amulet, she reminded herself. Trust the amulet.

That was all well and good, but it also meant trusting the princess, when Kiva still despised everything she represented.

The sound of the door sealing shut echoed around the room, and Kiva spun toward it, a surge of panic unleashing within her.

“No! Come back!” she cried in desperation, running to the stone barrier and thumping her hands against it. “Please!”

It didn’t open.

Smoke tickled Kiva’s nose, and she whirled again, her back pressed to the door as she stared at the three metal grates, the sounds of clicking and grinding meeting her ears.

“No, no, no,” Kiva whispered, leaning as far into the stone door as she could, as if the further she could get from the grates, the safer she was. It was a lie—there was nowhere in this room that was safe, the charring on the door beside her face telling her as much.

Slow breaths, Naari had told her. And stay low.

The slow breaths were impossible right now, since Kiva was gasping for air. But she made herself follow the second order, sliding down the door until she was crouched on the ground, her hand reaching for the amulet and pulling it from beneath her tunic, her grip so tight that the edges of the crest dug into her palm. It was ironic, really, that the golden crown was piercing her skin, damaging her before the fire even started.

But then she saw the deep orange glow at the edges of the three sealed grates, a hint of heat touching her exposed flesh as the smell of smoke grew stronger.

Maybe the furnace would break. Maybe Grendel would find a way to make it look like it was working, without it incinerating Kiva in the process. Maybe—

The grates opened, the metal unsealing and sliding upward at the click of a gear.

And then came the inferno.





Chapter Twenty-Two


Kiva screamed.

She didn’t mean to, the sound just wrenched from her throat, her hands dropping the amulet to cover her face as the tempest of flames surged into the room, filling every space from the ground right up to the arched ceiling.

Seconds—that was all it took for her to be surrounded. The firestorm was all she could see, all she could hear, the roaring and crackling overwhelming her ears as blistering heat slammed into her like a wave.

She expected to feel the instant agony of fire searing her flesh, her screams turning from terror to pain, her life flashing before her eyes as she swiftly burned to death.

None of that happened.

Slowly, Kiva lowered her hands, gaping at what she found.

The flames were touching every part of her, and yet . . . they also weren’t. The amulet she wore was glowing, a bright light pulsating outward from it and covering her like a barrier from head to toe.