The Prison Healer (The Prison Healer #1)(82)

There was, however, one burning question Kiva still had about the guard, and that was regarding her relationship with Jaren. Even though Naari had firmly stated that she would never cross that line, Kiva still had doubts, especially when she discovered that Naari was tasked with monitoring the tunnelers anytime she wasn’t guarding the infirmary, and therefore she saw Jaren a lot more than either of them had let on. Try as she might, Kiva remained suspicious of the easy, relaxed way in which they interacted. While she wasn’t one to objectify the human body, Kiva had seen Jaren without his tunic on. She’d felt his arms around her, his lips touching her forehead, his hands entwined with hers. Hell, she’d slept wrapped in him, his warmth and strength surrounding her all night, keeping her safe and protected in her own Jaren cocoon.

The memories brought warmth to Kiva’s cheeks, and she scolded herself for being so ridiculous. If Naari had lied about being intimate with Jaren, then that was between the two of them. Kiva didn’t care. She didn’t.

She did, however, become very good at lying to herself.



* * *





The samples from the luminium depository were cleared after testing the rats the next day, and Kiva’s concern grew as the list of places left to check continued to shrink.

“Don’t worry ’bout it, luv,” Mot told her on Saturday night when he and his morgue workers came to collect another load of the dead. “Yeh’ll figure it out. Yeh always do. Just like yer da.”

Mot had never met Kiva’s father, but he would have heard all about Faran Meridan from some of the older prisoners, much of which was supposition, Kiva assumed. But still, tears crept to her eyes at his words, because he was right about one thing: her father never would have given up until he’d solved the problem, even if it killed him. Which, in this case, it had. But Mot wasn’t wrong—Kiva was just like her father. And she wouldn’t give up, either.

“Forget about the sick for now,” Mot went on. “What about yer next Ordeal? Any ideas what yeh’ll face? Do yeh have a plan?”

Kiva had been thinking about it all week. After much consideration, she’d come to the conclusion that the third Trial would likely involve Zalindov’s aquifer, the huge underground reservoir that the tunnels fed water into. Nothing else could offer the same kind of drama as the first two Ordeals—or the same kind of danger. Most prisoners couldn’t swim, so Kiva would be expected to drown. However, no one knew where she had grown up, with the swift, deep Aldon River running adjacent to her family’s cottage just outside of Riverfell. Nor did they know how many hours she and her siblings had spent honing their swimming skills. Granted, it had been a long time since Kiva had used hers, but her confidence was enough that she felt marginally less worried about the coming Trial than any of the others.

That didn’t mean she wasn’t still terrified.

In the first two Ordeals, she’d had the support of the Vallentis royals, the prince’s elemental power saving her life—twice. Kiva still couldn’t reconcile how she felt about that, how she felt about them, since their family was the reason she’d lost ten years of her life to Zalindov, the reason she’d been torn from her mother and older siblings, the reason her father and brother were dead.

And yet . . . Kiva would have perished by now if not for Prince Deverick saving her life—twice.

No matter how much she wanted to hate them, all of them, Kiva couldn’t. But she also couldn’t forgive them, not for all the elemental magic in the world.

She did, however, wish for some of that elemental magic to help with her final two Trials. Especially since she’d given up believing that the rebels would make a second strike at the prison. Cresta was all but vibrating with fury anytime Kiva saw her, which was confirmation enough that their plans had fallen apart. They would need time before trying again, time that Kiva didn’t have. It had been a fool’s hope from the beginning, and yet it had helped her get through the first two Ordeals. But now, without the rebels, and without the royals, her hope was in herself. Whether or not she survived the Trial by Water was wholly dependent on her own skill, her own strength, her own will to succeed.

To Mot, however, all Kiva answered was, “I’m working on it.”

The old man sent her a weathered, piercing look. “I’ve been speakin’ with Grendel. We think it’ll be down in—”

“The aquifer,” Kiva said, nodding with agreement. “That’s all I can come up with, too.”

“They could, o’ course, toss yeh down a well,” he said, scratching his stubbly chin, “but no one’d really see yeh drown. They’d just ’ave to pull yer corpse up after, all waterlogged and bloated. That’s borin’. Same for anythin’ in the shower block. We can’t all fit in there to watch, can we? But the tunnels ’ave plenty o’ room for an audience, even if we won’t all be able to see much.” To himself, he murmured, “Better get down there fast for the best view.”

Kiva knew he was trying to help, but still, her stomach roiled, especially when she noted the hint of excitement on his face, as if he was looking forward to seeing what would happen. When he caught her pale expression, his own shifted, remorse and shame tingeing his features.

“Don’t yeh fret, Kiva luv,” Mot said. “I’ll have me a think on what might help yeh. Plenty of remedies for endurance, but I’ll ’ave to get creative with lung expansion and oxygen absorption and the like. Yeh leave it with old Mot, I’ll sort yeh out.”