The Prison Healer

by Lynette Noni

  If outside intervention didn’t come before the second Ordeal, Kiva would have to rely on Mirryn’s assurance that the magic-imbued crest would protect her. The very idea of trusting a Vallentis left an unpleasant taste in her mouth, enough that she couldn’t keep from seeking a backup plan, just in case the princess had lied. The problem was, having no idea what the Trial involved left her with few options. There were salves she could rub into her skin to protect her from burning, but none were foolproof. There were also remedies that could relieve damage caused by smoke inhalation, but they wouldn’t help during the Trial itself. Desperate for more information, Kiva even sought out the crematorium worker, Grendel, and asked if she’d been approached by the Warden to oversee construction of a pyre, but Grendel had heard nothing, and could offer no insight into what the Ordeal might be.

  While Kiva hated to admit it, the magical amulet was her best bet for survival, regardless of whom it had come from. But . . . for all she knew, the Trial by Fire didn’t involve flames, and therefore the amulet would be of no help. She might instead have to withstand a metaphorical fire, like having to face her fears—though, how a task could be designed in relation to Kiva’s fears, she didn’t know.

  No matter how long and hard she thought on it, Kiva failed to come up with any answers. When the build-up of anxiety became too much for her, for the sake of her sanity—and the sick prisoners who needed her full attention—she resolved not to think ahead or dwell on the possibilities.

  Her family would come in time, or they wouldn’t.

  The amulet would work, or it wouldn’t.

  She would live, or she wouldn’t.

  There was nothing she could do in the meantime—nothing for herself, at least. But there was something she could be doing to help others.

  Switching her focus, Kiva sought to understand why a growing number of prisoners were contracting the stomach virus. When the first cases had been brought to the infirmary, she had diagnosed them as having a gastrointestinal infection, with such illnesses notorious for spreading like a plague in a confined place like Zalindov. But aside from being messy and uncomfortable, that form of virus usually came and went quickly, with a lifespan of two to five days.

  It was becoming clear that Kiva had made a misdiagnosis, for not only was the virus lingering in the systems of those who contracted it, but it wasn’t spreading as it should have. While more prisoners were becoming infected, there was no pattern as to who caught it, and since all of those suffering were too sick to speak in full sentences, Kiva had no clue what linked them.

  On top of that, and perhaps more disturbing, they weren’t getting any better. No matter how many remedies she tried, how many sedatives she gave them for rest, how many antivirals and antibacterials she shoved down their throats, nothing helped. She even tried bleeding a few of the sicker patients, and still, none showed any signs of improving.

  They were, however, beginning to die.

  One by one they were falling into the everworld, with the earliest patients already having been sent to the morgue, and many of the later patients swiftly joining them. The incubation period was different for each person; some died within days, some died within hours.

  Kiva couldn’t make any sense of it, each new victim only adding to her frustration—and her helplessness.

  “Don’t w-worry,” Tipp told her one night, ten days after the Trial by Air. “You’ll g-g-g-g-g—figure it out.”

  It was late, and the young boy had been running around helping Kiva all day. He was so tired that he was swaying on his feet, even though she had repeatedly told him to sit down and rest. She wanted to avoid him falling over, but she also wanted to keep him from getting angry with himself, since he always grew distressed when exhaustion made his stutter more pronounced.

  “I just don’t understand it,” Kiva said, scrubbing her hands clean and wiping them with silverseed oil as an added precaution. She handed the flask to Tipp and eyed him until he did the same. “Their symptoms are identical: high fever, dilated pupils, headache, vomiting, diarrhea—”

  “Don’t f-f-forget the rash,” Tipp interrupted, handing the sterilizing oil back and wrinkling his nose at the bitter smell.

  “—and a stomach rash,” Kiva added, ticking off her fingers. “They all have the same thing, I’m certain of it.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  Kiva spun around, not having heard Jaren’s arrival in the infirmary. Perhaps Tipp wasn’t the only tired one.

  “The problem,” Kiva said, not wasting energy asking why he was there, “is that Rayla is from administration.”

  Jaren cocked his head to the side, making the tunnel dust smeared up one half of his face even more noticeable. “Am I supposed to know what that means?”

  “She’s f-f-favored,” Tipp answered for Kiva, before yawning widely and swaying again.

  Alarmed, Jaren reached for him, and with a look that brooked no argument, led him over to one of the metal benches and waited pointedly until he sat. While Kiva was relieved to see the young boy now off his feet, she still grumbled internally that it was Jaren’s intervention that had convinced him to move, when she’d been begging him to rest for over an hour.

  “What do you mean, favored? ” Jaren asked.

  Naari, on duty at the entrance to the infirmary, made a coughing sound. Kiva felt like doing the same. But instead, she answered the question, as delicately as she could.

  “It means she’s given extra comforts from the guards—warmer clothes, better rations, safer work allocations, that kind of thing—in return for . . . services.”

  “I don’t g-get it,” Tipp said, yawning again. “I mean, what k-k-kind of services can she g-give that others aren’t giving them? They already have p-prisoners doing their laundry, making their meals, and c-cleaning their quarters. There’s n-nothing else they need.”

  Naari coughed again, and neither Kiva nor Jaren answered.

  “I see,” Jaren said tightly. “But I still don’t get how Rayla-from-administration is a problem.”

  “The favored prisoners are kept separate from the rest of us,” Kiva shared. “Rayla would have had little to no interaction with anyone other than the guards that she . . .” She cleared her throat, and rallied on. “Even her sleeping quarters are away from the rest of the cell block dormitories, closer to the guards’ quarters.”

  Or inside those quarters on any given night, Kiva didn’t need to add.

  “She shouldn’t be sick,” Jaren said, realization lighting his features.

  “She shouldn’t be sick,” Kiva confirmed. “I mean, it’s not impossible that she’s been in contact with an infected person, but if that were true, why are none of the guards that she’s been—” Kiva broke off with a quick look at Tipp before turning back to Jaren. “Uh, been near, getting sick?”

  “Are you saying that none of the guards have fallen ill?”

  Kiva swiveled to find that Naari had moved closer on silent feet, joining their conversation.

  “None,” Kiva stated, still slightly uneasy talking to the amber-eyed guard, even if the feeling had been slowly dissolving.

  “How many prisoners are sick?” Naari asked.

  Kiva did a mental calculation. “Including those who have already died, close to seventy, with ten more on average every day.” And at least that many dying daily, too. The quarantine room was nearly at capacity, and would have passed it if not for the rapid increase in deaths. Kiva had even been allocated extra workers to help temporarily care for the sick, as had Mot and Grendel in the morgue and crematorium.

  “Statistically, shouldn’t at least a few guards have caught it by now?” Jaren asked. He didn’t seem at all afraid of Naari, though he hadn’t witnessed a decade of guard brutality like Kiva had.

  “If it’s a stomach virus as I had originally assumed, then yes,” Kiva said. “But while all the symptoms point that way . . .”

  “Rayla-from-administration proves that theory wrong,” Jaren finished fo
r her. “Or, really, the guards that she’s been in contact with, who aren’t sick.”

  “So, if it’s n-not a virus, what is it?” Tipp asked, rubbing his eyes.

  “That’s the real question, isn’t it?” Kiva said, leaning back against the workbench and feeling about three thousand years old. “It could be anything—a spore in the air, bacteria in our water, mold in our grain, diseased meat or dairy . . . the list is endless.”

  “So we’re all at risk,” Jaren said, his tone part question, part statement.

  Kiva made a helpless gesture. “I honestly don’t know. Why are they sick”—she pointed toward the closed quarantine door—“and we’re not? Why did some of them start catching whatever it is a few weeks ago, while others only became symptomatic today?” She paused, considering. “If it’s a bug in our food or water, it’d make sense that the guards aren’t catching it, since they have separate supplies and meal preparation from the rest of us. But if it’s something in the air or the animals or grain . . .” She frowned and continued, almost to herself, “If I can’t figure out what’s wrong, then I need to find the origin of the illness. Maybe that will help me come up with a treatment.”

  “Your n-n-next Ordeal is in four days,” Tipp said. “I think you should f-focus on that.”

  Tipp had kept quiet about the Trials in the days since Kiva had first volunteered to take Tilda’s place. At times, she heard him whispering to the sick woman, who remained too delirious to talk back. Kiva knew he was worried, but she also knew he was trying to remain positive about it all, which was something she desperately needed. Sometimes she resented herself for it, since she should have been the one comforting him, but it was his sunny personality that pulled her out of the shadows when her fear became too great.

  “Four days is enough to get started,” Kiva said. And enough for the rebels to arrive, even if there had been no sign of them yet. Sending him a reassuring wink, she added, “And I can continue investigating after the next Trial is over.” If she was still there.

  His gap-toothed grin brightened her night, bringing a warm, sweet feeling to her chest.

  “How will you do it?” Jaren asked, leaning his hip against the bench near her. “Investigate, I mean. Do you have a plan?”

  Since he’d been there scant seconds ago when the idea had come to her, Kiva had to bite back a sarcastic retort. Instead, she thought about it and said, “The first prisoners to show symptoms were quarriers, so I’ll start there. I can circle around the outside of the prison, checking the farms, the lumberyard, all those outer places, before looking into what’s happening inside the walls.”

  Realizing that she was forgetting something important, Kiva turned to Naari and, with slight hesitation, said, “Do you—uh, would you mind asking Warden Rooke for permission? I can’t leave through the gate without an escort.” Normally Kiva would have approached the Warden herself, but she hadn’t seen him since the night of her first Ordeal. She’d awoken the next morning clearheaded enough to be horrified by how assertive she’d acted while on the poppymilk, and thought it best to avoid another conversation with him so soon.

  Unlike Kiva, the guard wasn’t hesitant at all, and gave a confirming dip of her head.

  “Naari should go with you,” Jaren said.

  Kiva turned back to him, barely repressing the urge to anxious-laugh. “I won’t get to choose who my escort is. That’s not how it works.”

  Jaren looked at the guard. “You should go with her.”

  Kiva’s heart stuttered. Amicable though she might be, there was no way Naari would allow Jaren to get away with talking to her as if they were on equal footing.

  “I’ll speak with Rooke,” the guard said.

  The breath whooshed out of Kiva. She was certain she looked like a stunned owl, blinking with shock at what had just transpired.

  At the very least, Naari should have warned Jaren to remember his place. He was a prisoner, and he had just made a request of a guard that sounded close to being a command. Kiva had seen prisoners executed for less.

  Eyeing them both, Kiva wondered if perhaps Jaren already knew all about the “favored” inmates. He was young, fit, attractive . . . and Naari was the same. Aside from a handful of occasions, Kiva rarely saw Jaren without Naari, as if she had taken it upon herself to oversee his movements within the prison, even during his free time. That level of attention . . . of dedication . . .

  “What’s with the look?” Jaren asked, squinting at Kiva.

  She tried to clear her expression, but wasn’t sure if she succeeded. “Nothing.” She swiveled back to Naari and said, “I don’t mind who escorts me, really.”

  If given the choice between Naari and one of the other guards, like Bones or the Butcher, then of course Kiva would choose the amber-eyed woman. But unlike Jaren, she wasn’t about to risk making a personal request.

  “I’ll speak with Rooke,” Naari repeated, her voice firm enough that Kiva knew to drop it. She had no idea why the guard was being so cooperative, since there was absolutely nothing in it for her.

  . . . Except, perhaps, Jaren.

  The thought left a sick taste in Kiva’s mouth, but she refused to consider why. Instead, she summoned the last dregs of her courage and said to the guard, “The sooner, the better.”

  Naari nodded, and before Kiva could say anything else, Jaren yelped and sprang away from the workbench.

  “What the—” He bit off halfway through his curse with an embarrassed laugh as he caught sight of the soot-gray cat who had snuck out of a hidey-hole in the medicine cabinet and brushed up against him. “Well, hello. Who’s this?”

  Kiva had to press her lips together to keep from laughing, his jumpy reaction making her feel better about her own skittish nature.

  “That’s B-B-Boots,” Tipp said, pointing to her four white paws in explanation of the name.

  When Jaren started moving back toward the cat with his hand outstretched, Kiva’s amusement fled and she warned, “Careful, she’s moody.”

  Jaren’s eyes were dancing as he replied, “She must be yours.”

  Tipp cackled, Naari snickered, and Kiva glared at all three of them.

  “Haven’t you m-met her yet?” Tipp asked around his mirth.

  Jaren inched closer to the bench again, and Kiva didn’t warn him off this time. Instead, she shifted further away from the cat, keeping a safe distance.

  “I’ve seen her around the prison,” Jaren answered Tipp, “but I just figured she was a stray who came and went.”

  Tipp shook his head. “She’s lived here f-forever. Longer than m-me.” He indicated where Boots’s tail should have been, but there was only a stumped end. “See her tail? She lost it j-just after I arrived. There was a riot and some of the p-prisoners slammed a d-door shut on her.”

  Jaren winced. “Ouch.”

  “Kiva had to p-patch her up,” Tipp continued sharing, his fatigue having faded with his walk down memory lane.

  “You treat animals, too?” Jaren asked, brows raised. “A woman of many talents.”

  “Little thanks I get for it,” Kiva said, ignoring the fluttery feeling of his praise. “She was a devil cat before the accident, and she’s hated me even more ever since. I can’t go anywhere near her now without being scratched to death.”

  “Ah,” Jaren said, a smile breaking out on his face as he understood her earlier warning. Or, that’s what Kiva assumed, until he again reached out to pet the fluffy feline.

  “No, wait—” Kiva started, only to stop when Boots didn’t reveal that she was evil incarnate, and instead arched into Jaren’s touch, purring loud enough for them all to hear. “Traitor,” she muttered under her breath.

  Jaren sent her a blinding grin. “I have that effect on all moody—”

  “If you value your health, don’t finish that sentence,” Kiva stated, her cheeks beginning to heat.

  Tipp started laughing again, but then it turned into a yawn so huge that Kiva was sure she heard his jaw crack. Narrowing her eyes, s
he jabbed a finger toward him and said, “You, bed.” To Jaren, she added, just as snippily, “You, make sure he gets there without falling asleep.”

  Jaren chuckled quietly, as if fully aware that she didn’t want to be left alone with him. Not that they’d be alone with Naari there, but still. Kiva had made it no secret that she was avoiding one-on-one time with him. He just wasn’t getting the hint that she couldn’t—and wouldn’t—form any more attachments at Zalindov, not even friendship.

  “Until next time, Boots,” Jaren said to the cat with one last scratch under her chin, before pushing off from the workbench and reaching Tipp just as he scrambled down to the ground.

  “See you t-tomorrow, Kiva!” the young boy said with a wave as Jaren began herding him from the infirmary, the latter offering one last smile at Kiva over his shoulder before he was gone.

  Naari, however, remained behind. When Kiva looked at her, the woman said, “Are you sleeping in your cell block tonight?” At Kiva’s nod, Naari continued, “I’ll wait until you’re ready to leave.”

  Kiva had to swallow the emotion she felt, surprised to find that it was relief, not fear. The other guards were still causing more trouble than usual for the inmates, especially at night. Naari’s presence would keep them at bay.

  “Thank you,” Kiva croaked out.

  In return, Naari said, “I saw the way you looked between Jaren and me.”

  Kiva wished she could say she didn’t know what the guard was talking about. “It’s none of my business,” she mumbled, reaching toward Boots but withdrawing her hand quickly when the demon cat hissed and then tottered back into her hidey-hole.