by Lynette Noni
“Your . . . father . . . Kiva,” Tilda said, raising a weak, trembling hand toward her. “And . . . the thief. Tell me . . . the story.”
Kiva swallowed, then swallowed again. It was painful, like glass working its way down her esophagus. Her own fingers shook as she took Tilda’s offered hand gently in her own, knowing it was what the woman wanted.
“What’s she talking about?” Naari asked.
Finally forcing words through her lips, Kiva said, “I told her a story, the day before the fire Ordeal. She wasn’t sleeping well—restless, groaning. I thought it might help.”
“I like s-stories,” Tipp said eagerly. “Will you t-tell it again?”
Kiva looked at the young boy and his open expression, to Naari, who appeared curious but no longer wary, and then to Tilda, who seemed near to falling back to sleep, where Kiva knew the delirium would overcome her again. Perhaps it was for the best that the Rebel Queen was unable to communicate properly, perhaps even for the best that she was ill and confined to the infirmary. Not only was she protected from any anti-rebel inmates who wished her harm, but she also couldn’t be sent to the Abyss and interrogated. Until Kiva finished the Trials, Tilda remained a prisoner, her life at risk as long as she was inside Zalindov. There was no sign that her followers were coming for her a second time. It was Kiva’s success or failure that would mean Tilda’s execution or release. And until either outcome occurred, the sick woman was in danger, all her rebellious knowledge trapped within her mind. Maybe that was why she was still so unwell—because on a subconscious level, she knew what would happen if they tried to pry those secrets from her. Maybe that was why she wanted to die, to protect her plans to take back the kingdom, and to protect all those she cared about.
But . . . Kiva also had people she cared about. And for better or worse, Tilda was one of those people. As long as Kiva remained alive, she was determined to make sure Tilda did, too.
Don’t let her die.
Kiva didn’t need the reminder from the note anymore.
She never had.
And as she pulled up a stool beside Tipp and held tight to Tilda’s hand, as she began to retell the tale of how her father met her mother, she hoped that if Tilda had comprehended the story when Kiva had first shared it, then she would have also heard Kiva’s pleas for her to remember her own loved ones. To remember that they needed her to stay alive, and to fight.
* * *
“You really c-care about her, don’t you?” Tipp asked later that night, when Kiva was feeding yet more samples to the rats. The young boy was trying to help, but was more of a hindrance than anything, preferring to play with the vermin than settle them.
“About who?” Kiva asked, distracted.
“Tilda,” Tipp said. “I saw the w-way you looked at her today when you were t-telling your story. That was great, b-by the way. You never talk a-about your parents.”
“There’s not much to tell,” Kiva said, trying for a dismissive tone, if only to ease the ache she felt whenever she thought of the mother and father she’d lost. Her sister and brothers, too.
Tipp knew better than to press, so he went back to his original question. “What is it a-about her? About T-Tilda? Is it still just what she r-represents—that you d-don’t want another prisoner to d-die, not if you c-can help it? That’s w-what you said, right?”
Seeing his curiosity, Kiva found herself answering, “It’s that, yes. But . . .” She paused, then quietly admitted, “She also reminds me of someone I used to know.”
Tipp turned to face her fully, his blue eyes suddenly lined with tears. “I w-wasn’t sure if you’d noticed. I didn’t w-want to say anything, afraid to make a b-big deal out of it.”
Kiva dropped the food she was mixing aquifer moss into and moved a step toward him. “Tipp—”
“I didn’t r-realize when she first arrived, but once you c-cleaned her up . . .” Tipp said, quickly wiping his face. “She r-reminds me so m-much of Mama.”
Kiva opened her arms in invitation, and he climbed out of the rat pen into her embrace. His tears didn’t fall, but his sadness still enveloped them.
“Ineke would be so proud of you,” Kiva told him quietly. “You know that, right? So proud.”
For the life of her, Kiva had no idea how Tilda reminded Tipp of his departed mother, other than that they were of similar ages and had dark hair. Perhaps that was all that was needed to bring the memories to the forefront of Tipp’s mind. The same had been true for Kiva after her brother had been killed; for years, every young boy she’d seen had reminded her of Kerrin.
“I just . . . I’m really g-glad you care about her,” Tipp said. “Even if I know it’s n-not really Mama, it means a lot to me that you’re d-doing what you can, that you’re trying to help her.” He pushed back from Kiva and shuffled his feet as he admitted, “I know I was upset a-about you taking on her sentence, b-but you did the right thing. And you’re d-d-doing so great with the Ordeals, so I’m sure t-tomorrow will be the same.”
Kiva’s insides gave a lurch at the thought of the Trial the next day, and then they tightened even further when she realized that, if she managed to survive this one and then the last, she would be free to leave Zalindov. She and Tilda and Tipp, all of them together.
But they’d be leaving Jaren and Naari behind. And Mot, too.
At the thought of the old man, Kiva’s eyes traveled over to her workbench and the small flask of milky liquid waiting there. The ex-apothecary had delivered it that afternoon, having spent the week coming and going from Kiva’s medicinal garden, mumbling to himself. Today, he’d finally handed the potion over and said, Drink this tomorrow mornin’. Don’t ask what’s in it—trust me, yeh don’t want to know. Just plug yer nose first, or yeh won’t get it down.
I’m going to need more information than that, Kiva had replied, eyeing the flask dubiously.
Most people drown from panic or exhaustion, so I’m guessin’ that’s how the Ordeal will test yeh, Mot had told her. Assumin’ yeh’ll be thrown in the aquifer and made to swim awhile—yeh can swim, right?—this brew’ll help yeh, physically. It’ll take yeh longer to tire, it’ll ease any cramps and keep yer muscles from seizin’ up. I tried addin’ somethin’ to help keep yeh calm, but it, uh, reacted badly. So yeh’ll ’ave to manage yer emotions yehself.
With that, he’d wished her luck and told her he’d start thinking of ways to help with the Trial by Earth. Kiva was grateful for his confidence that she’d make it that far, choking up a little as he’d waved and left the infirmary.
It wouldn’t be easy to leave Mot behind, if Kiva survived all four Ordeals. But as with Jaren, she could do nothing for him. Tipp and Tilda, however, were relying on her, even if they didn’t know it.
“Of course I care about her,” Kiva replied to the young boy, ignoring everything else going through her mind. “And I’m glad that you do, too.”
Tipp nodded. “I really d-do. You can c-count on me whenever you’re not here—I look after her a-almost as well as you do.”
“Better, I’ll bet,” Kiva said, reaching out to brush his floppy red fringe to the side. “I’m sure you’re her favorite. By far.”
Tipp grinned. “Well, I d-didn’t want to say anything . . .”
Kiva laughed and moved back to her samples. She hadn’t returned to the tunnels that afternoon, instead lingering in the infirmary after Tilda fell asleep, waiting to see if she would wake up lucid again. But as anticipated, the ill woman had slipped back into her delirium. Kiva had spent the waiting period testing the rats, as she normally would have done the following day, but since the Ordeal was tomorrow, she didn’t want to risk wasting any time.
Kiva intended to make a quick trip down to the tunnels with Naari in the morning to collect her final samples, returning before the Trial. The timing would be tight, with them needing to be back at the infirmary for Kiva’s summons, but she was confident they’d be able to sneak it in.
When the next morning arrived, however, her pla
ns were derailed by the announcement that a prison wagon had just arrived, carrying new inmates. As the first point of call for them, Kiva had to remain in the infirmary to check them over and carve their hands, all of which took time, preventing her from collecting her final samples. The only positive was that the new arrivals also kept Kiva distracted, and, aside from making sure to ingest Mot’s foul-tasting potion, she was barely aware of the minutes ticking down to her Ordeal.
There were four prisoners in total, three men, one woman, all different ages and colorings, hailing from across Wenderall. Each was in good enough health that Kiva knew they hadn’t been transported very far on the most recent leg of their journey, not while there were still nearly four weeks left of winter. As it was, Kiva was surprised by their arrival. Only Jaren, his two dead companions, and, later, Tilda had been transported to Zalindov since the weather turned—plus the royal entourage for the first Ordeal, but they didn’t count, since their travel comfort was considerably different from what the prisoners experienced.
One by one, the new arrivals were shuffled over to Kiva, and she checked them, carved them, and sent them on their way, as she had done for years. Tipp remained with her, fetching her clean water and handing her pepperoot ash, then helping them all into their new prison clothes.
Only the woman dared to say anything to Kiva, grumbling that they’d been forced to make the frozen journey because every dungeon they’d tried to stop at along the way had been filled to capacity. She’d barely gotten the words out before Kiva hushed her, since it wasn’t Naari who had delivered the news of their arrival, nor was the amber-eyed woman in the infirmary watching over them. Instead, both Bones and the Butcher were lingering by the door, their silent menace filling the space and urging Kiva to hurry.
Finally, she finished with the last of the new arrivals, who was then herded by the two snarling guards over to where the others waited, after which they all mercifully left the infirmary, Bones and the Butcher included. They were someone else’s problem now, Kiva thought, relieved that she hadn’t been assigned orientation duties again, unlike with Jaren.
Though . . . that hadn’t worked out too badly, in the end.
“That w-was intense,” Tipp said, collecting the discarded clothes and placing them in a pile. “I don’t know h-how you do it.”
“Lots of practice,” Kiva said, moving to help him. She picked up a dirty tunic that had belonged to one of the men, wrinkling her nose as she shook it out and then folded it. She nearly missed the small, fluttering item that drifted to the floor, nearly didn’t act fast enough to cover it with her boot before Tipp saw.
Her pulse leapt into her throat, but she remained calm, continuing to fold the clothes until they were all done.
“Can you run these over to the entrance block for sorting?” Kiva asked Tipp, praying that he didn’t notice the waver in her voice.
“I’ll be r-r-really fast,” he said in answer. “They’ll be c-coming to get you soon. I don’t w-want to miss it.”
Kiva barely spared a thought to how it was nearly time for her next Ordeal. All she did was hold her breath until he took off out of the room, after which she glanced around quickly to make sure she was alone, aside from the sleeping Tilda. Once certain, Kiva shifted her foot and bent to pick up the scrap of parchment that had fallen from the man’s tunic.
This was it, she thought. Her family had received the note she’d sent through Raz, and they’d finally replied to give her news of the coming rescue.
With shaking hands, she unfolded the message. It was one word, the code scrawled this time in her brother’s messy, hurried hand.
Kiva frowned, reading it again, wondering if she was mistranslating.
It was a name. A town.
Oakhollow.
If she recalled her basic geography lessons, it was down south, close to Vallenia.
But why would he—
Kiva sucked in a breath as understanding hit her.
Her brother was telling her where he was. Where her family was.
Where she could find them, if she survived the Ordeals, if she earned her freedom.
It filled her with hope, with warmth, that he believed she could triumph where so many others had failed.
And yet . . . that hope dissolved as devastation overcame her. Her third Trial was today, and they still weren’t there to save her. She’d told them that she needed a rescue, and this was their only reply.
We are coming.
Lies.
All lies.
Because they weren’t coming.
She drew in a deep breath, seeking to control the tears that wanted to spring to her eyes.
She couldn’t blame them. No one had ever broken into Zalindov. No one had ever escaped. She knew it had been an impossible task, an impossible ask. But she’d hoped . . . with the help of the rebels, she’d hoped . . .
It didn’t matter.
It was up to Kiva now. If she wanted to see her family again, she would have to make her own way to them. Her brother’s note told her two things:
They were waiting for her. And they wanted her to join them.
Two more weeks.
Two more Ordeals.
Then she could be free.
Then she would be free.
“Oh, sweets, you’re still here.”
Kiva scrunched up the note and kicked it under the bench before spinning around to find Olisha walking through the infirmary doorway.
“What are you doing here?” Kiva asked, her voice hoarse with all that she was feeling.
Olisha patted the rucksack she held, the tinkling sound indicating shifting glass, and answered, “Just came to top up the supplies.”
Kiva blinked. “Supplies?”
Olisha headed over to the worktable and knelt before it, opening a panel at the front. Kiva gaped, having never realized there was a cupboard built into the wood.
“Supplies,” Olisha repeated, reaching into her bag and pulling out a vial of clear liquid, waving it at Kiva. “You know, the immunity booster.”
A cold feeling gripped Kiva as she walked on numb legs toward the other woman. “Immunity booster?”
“Mmm-hmm,” Olisha said, her voice muffled from her head being half in the cupboard as she cleared a space around the other identical vials that were already in there. “I wish I wasn’t allergic to goldenroot. Nergal, too. Otherwise we’d be downing these by the bucketful.”
“Can I—” Kiva cleared her throat. “Can I see one of those, please?”
Olisha was just about to place a new vial in the cupboard, but she instead handed it up to Kiva and reached for another one, continuing to fill the space.
With a shaking hand, Kiva unstoppered the lid, raising the vial to her nose. One whiff was all it took for panic to seize her, but she forced her voice to remain steady as she asked, “Where did you get these, Olisha?”
“Hmm?” the woman asked, distracted by her task.
“These vials—where did they come from?”
“Nergal gave them to me, sweets,” Olisha said. “He’s heading out with the others to watch your Trial, but my nerves can’t take that. I offered to drop them off since I was on my way here anyway. Someone has to watch over the patients while you’re gone.”
“Nergal . . . gave you these . . . immunity boosters?”
“Well, yes,” Olisha said, and something in Kiva’s voice made her pause what she was doing and look up at her. “But he got them from someone else. We’ve been handing them out all winter. Anytime someone comes here to see us, we make them take one. Just like you do.”
“I—what?”
Olisha’s brow furrowed. “You have been giving them out, haven’t you?”
When Kiva shook her head slowly, horror beginning to coil within her, Olisha frowned fully and said, “You should know better, dear. With this sickness going around, we need all the help we can get. Not everyone is allergic to goldenroot. You of all people should have been shoving these down the throats of your
patients. Not the sick ones—we tried that, and it only made them worse. But the people who come here with wounds or colds or . . . or . . . the healthy ones. They’re the ones we’ve been giving the boosters to, trying to give them a fighting chance. As you should have been doing.” Olisha’s lips pressed together. “I’m disappointed in you, Kiva.”
But Kiva had stopped listening. Instead, she was hearing Cresta’s voice, her accusations from just yesterday: everyone who comes to see you for the smallest thing ends up getting sick—explain that, healer!
Everworld help them.
Kiva knew what was causing the sickness.
Olisha was right—there was goldenroot in the vial, a natural immunity booster.
But Olisha was also wrong, because there wasn’t only goldenroot in the vial.
The smell was still lingering in the back of Kiva’s nose, bitter almonds with a hint of rotting fruit. The spicy goldenroot almost masked it, enough that untrained healers like Olisha and Nergal wouldn’t realize, wouldn’t know.
High fever, dilated pupils, headache, vomiting, diarrhea, stomach rash—they were all symptoms of a stomach sickness. But they were also classic side effects of something else, something that smelled of bitter almonds and rotting fruit.
Wraithweed.
More commonly known as Death’s Embrace.
The immunity booster—it wasn’t medicine.
It was poison.
The prisoners weren’t catching an illness. They were being given one.
“Time to go.”
Kiva spun away from Olisha and toward the infirmary door, the shock of what she’d just realized causing trembles to overtake her body.
“Where’s Naari?” Kiva choked out at the sight of Warden Rooke striding toward her.
The man raised a dark brow. “You’ve become quite familiar with her, haven’t you? Be careful, healer.”
Kiva stared at him, still reeling from what she’d learned. She opened her mouth to tell Rooke, but then saw the guards with him, one who had walked in at his side, and others standing just beyond the doorway and within hearing range. Olisha’s words came to her again: he got them from someone else.
