The Prison Healer

by Lynette Noni

  Kiva couldn’t risk giving away what she’d discovered, not until she was certain the person responsible would be caught. Olisha and Nergal had been nothing more than pawns. Idiotic pawns, but pawns nonetheless. Until their supplier was revealed, Kiva had to be careful who she told. She couldn’t just blurt out the truth to Warden Rooke, not while others were listening. The prisoners weren’t the only gossips at Zalindov. The rumor mill ran rampant among the guards, too, and word always traveled back to the inmates.

  This needed to be taken care of—but quietly. Zalindov was already a powder keg waiting to explode. If people discovered that the illness wasn’t an illness . . . that someone was deliberately poisoning them . . .

  “What’s that you’ve got there?” Rooke said, peering at the liquid in Kiva’s white-knuckled grip.

  Kiva sought a calmness she didn’t feel, lying through her teeth as she handed the vial back to Olisha and said, “Nothing important.”

  Rooke’s eyes narrowed and Kiva felt a spark of hope, knowing how good he was at reading people. Surely he would recognize the panic on her features enough to see that something was wrong, and demand a private audience with her. Then she could tell him the truth without listening ears.

  But he said nothing, oblivious to all she was thinking and feeling. All he did was turn away and gesture for her to follow. “Come. We’ve a walk ahead of us.”

  “Wait!” she cried, unable to stop herself. “Can I have a quick word? Alone?”

  Rooke’s strides didn’t even slow as he called over his shoulder, “We’re running late. Whatever it is, it can wait until after your Trial.”

  “If you’re still alive,” snickered the guard who had walked in with him, stepping closer and giving Kiva a hearty shove forward. “Move, healer.”

  “But—”

  “Walk, or I’ll carry you.” The guard shoved her again. “Your choice.”

  Kiva ground her teeth together but stomped obediently toward the door, silently cursing Rooke for not seeing how desperate she was to speak with him.

  Her thoughts spiraled as she stepped outside, the still-snickering guard speeding up to flank the Warden alongside two others. A further three joined them on the path, but none were Naari. Kiva was desperate to see her and share what she’d learned, certain that Naari, unlike the Warden, would listen, and confident that the guard would know what action to take. People were dying because of a poison. Someone needed to know, needed to figure out who was behind it and bring them to justice.

  Kiva’s first thought was Cresta. If inmates were able to get their hands on smuggled angeldust, then other items could be obtained, too. Especially by the leader of the prison rebels. But . . . Cresta had seemed so enraged when she’d confronted Kiva yesterday, claiming that her friends were getting sick and dying. If she was the one supplying the poison, then surely she’d have kept it from harming those she cared about.

  It had to be someone else, some motive other than to spread fear and animosity, which Cresta didn’t need a poison to do. But, who—

  Kiva’s concentration unraveled when a voice called out for the Warden, prompting their small group to pause. She was so relieved to turn and find Naari striding toward them that her knees nearly gave out.

  “Arell,” Rooke grunted. “I wondered where you were. Did you know the infirmary was left unguarded?”

  “A wagon came in this morning,” Naari said. “I was told it was covered.”

  The Warden’s lips tightened, but her answer must have satisfied him, since he continued walking.

  Kiva didn’t follow until Naari nudged her forward, and even then, she trailed as far back from the Warden and his entourage as possible.

  “I need to talk to you,” Kiva whispered from the corner of her mouth.

  “You need to focus,” Naari whispered back.

  Kiva’s eyes flicked sidelong toward the guard, noting her pallid expression, her tense features, the anxious way she was holding herself.

  “It’s urgent,” Kiva whispered. “It’s about—”

  But Kiva cut herself off when she realized that something was wrong.

  They weren’t walking toward the tunnel entrance, toward the aquifer.

  They were walking toward Zalindov’s gates.

  Suddenly, all thoughts of the poison fled her mind, fear overtaking her as she remembered she was about to face her third Ordeal, and it could very well end in her death. She’d been nervously confident while thinking she would have to swim across the aquifer, especially with Mot’s energy potion flooding her veins, but now . . .

  Now she had no idea what was happening.

  “Where are we going?” Kiva whispered.

  Naari’s tone was as grim as her face when she replied, “I don’t know, but I don’t like this.”

  Kiva didn’t like it either. But as they walked through the gates behind Rooke, followed the rail tracks past the farms, and continued on, she began to get an inkling of where they might be headed.

  Saliva pooled in her mouth, and more than ever, she felt a frantic need to share what she’d learned, so she reached for Naari’s leather sleeve and leaned in to whisper, “It’s poison.”

  “What?” the guard asked, before giving a swift hand gesture indicating silence, just as Rooke turned around to look at them.

  “Keep up,” the Warden said. “Everyone’s waiting for us.”

  Kiva knew he was referring to the rest of Zalindov’s inhabitants. She wondered if Tipp had been ushered away with the crowd on his way back from the entrance block, hoping he was with Mot or Jaren and not lost among a sea of burly lumbersmiths or quarry workers. But she also knew the young boy could fend for himself, so she chose not to worry about him and instead sought to make sure Naari had comprehended her message.

  Rooke, however, had now noticed they were lagging behind and slowed his steps, forcing them to catch up. When Kiva looked over at Naari, she didn’t seem alarmed, revealing that she hadn’t understood what Kiva had said, or the importance of it. She needed to find a way to explain, and fast.

  But then Rooke turned off the main rail track line, heading further east, somewhere Kiva had never traveled before, and she realized she was right about where they were taking her, her heart leaping into her throat with the dreaded confirmation.

  The abandoned quarry.

  A flooded deathtrap.

  The perfect place for her Trial by Water.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Like before the first two Trials, Kiva’s pulse was pounding in her ears as she approached her third. Unlike the immense quarry she and Naari had visited over a fortnight ago, the abandoned one was significantly smaller in width, but was said to possess a considerable depth, with workers having mined deep into the earth before the luminium was eventually depleted. It was impossible to judge how far down it went, since years of rainstorms and underground springs had fed into the open mine, filling it with water.

  Kiva hadn’t considered the quarry for her third Ordeal, having forgotten it even existed. She was kicking herself now, scrambling to guess what her task might involve and whether Mot’s potion would still help.

  As the Warden led Kiva to the top of the cliff overlooking the pit, some distant part of her couldn’t help thinking it was beautiful. The water was a brilliant turquoise color, the limestone and other minerals having bled into it, with a hint of glitter on the surface from traces of leftover luminium. On a summer’s day, it would have called to her, begging her to take a dip. But right now it was still winter—and unlike the aquifer, which was kept temperate from the tunnel heat, there was ice crusting the edges where water met stone.

  Kiva wasn’t sure which was worse: how cold that water must be or that there was no telling what was hidden beneath it. Submerged rocks, deserted mining equipment, mineral toxins . . . the list of dangers was endless.

  “Move,” Rooke said, gesturing for Kiva to keep following as he headed off along the rocky path. “We’ve a little further to go.”

  Ki
va tried not to look at the prisoners surrounding the edges of the quarry, the three thousand–odd people who were staring down into the water and waiting to see what would happen next. The anticipation in the air was palpable, even more so than before her Trial by Fire. Excitement . . . Anger . . . Resentment . . . Jealousy . . . Hope . . . It was a heady melange of emotion, something the guards must have felt as well, since the ones Kiva could see interspersed among the prisoners had tight grips on their weapons.

  Danger, Kiva’s mind warned. Danger!

  But she couldn’t give a second thought to her audience, not when every part of her was beginning to tremble with dread. All she knew was that Jaren, Tipp, and Mot were up there somewhere, willing her to stay alive. She wondered if they were more or less anxious than she, being made to witness, yet helpless to act.

  When Rooke finally came to a stop, they had traveled perhaps halfway down the quarry from where they’d started. There was still a sheer cliff between her and the surface of the water, which Kiva guessed was between fifty and a hundred feet away, but it was hard to tell with the disillusioning turquoise color and its reflecting stillness.

  “Kiva Meridan,” Rooke said in a loud voice, the words echoing around the stone and up to the awaiting prisoners and guards who surrounded the quarry. “Today you will face your third Ordeal, the Trial by Water. Do you have any last words?”

  Kiva wished he would stop asking that before each Trial. What was she expected to say?

  But then she remembered that she did want to say something, and she looked at Naari, trying to communicate with her. In return, the guard gave the slightest of shrugs to say she didn’t understand.

  Knowing she was running out of time, Kiva turned back to Rooke and shook her head, still thinking madly about how she might steal a moment with Naari before the Trial began.

  Rooke was oblivious to how distracted she was and proceeded to reveal what she would have to do. “The average person can hold their breath underwater for up to two minutes.”

  Kiva froze, but Rooke wasn’t finished.

  “The record is half an hour.” The Warden paused, before sharing, “But that man suffered irreparable damage afterward, and complications that later led to death.”

  Depriving the brain of oxygen for so long . . . Kiva was amazed the record holder had survived at all, let alone lived for any length of time until his complications set in.

  “To pass today’s Trial,” Rooke continued, “we’ve taken those times into consideration, along with the temperature of the water. As such, you’re to be weighted down and sent into the quarry, where you’ll remain submerged for a total of fifteen minutes.” He kicked a limestone boulder resting at his feet, and the coiled rope attached to it. “At that point, we’ll pull you back up. If you’re still alive, you’ll have succeeded.”

  Kiva only remained upright because Naari took her arm in a pincer-grip, the pain from her nails all that kept Kiva’s vision from succumbing to the panicked black dots creeping in at the edges.

  Fifteen minutes.

  Fifteen minutes.

  Not once had Kiva considered whether she’d have to hold her breath underwater, not even when she’d envisioned all the scenarios involving the aquifer. She’d thought she would be swimming, not submerged. And while she knew there were free-divers who could hold their breath for that long, most notably the fish farmers off the coast of Albree and workers in the Grizel Catchment, she was not one of them. The only experience she had was playing in the river as a child, where she’d gone for perhaps a few minutes at a time—enough to worry her parents, but no longer than that.

  Fifteen minutes . . . It was impossible.

  Kiva couldn’t believe she was thinking it, but she wished Princess Mirryn or Prince Deverick could have found a way to help her again, despite Rooke’s warning about no more interference. Even if Mirryn didn’t have any water magic, she could have helped in some way. And Deverick . . . well, Kiva assumed he didn’t have any water magic either, since he already had air and fire, like his sister. But still. Any elemental magic was better than the nothing Kiva had. Not even Mot’s potion would help her—without having to swim for her life, she wouldn’t be facing muscle fatigue and cramps. What she really needed was an elixir to make her breathe underwater, and that, she knew, didn’t exist.

  Kiva was a survivor. But . . . for this Trial, she feared that wasn’t going to be enough.

  “Do you understand your task?” the Warden asked.

  Kiva couldn’t reply verbally, so she nodded, and looked down over the cliff into the quarry again. Her head spun with the realization that they weren’t hiking any lower, that it was from this height she would be falling into the water.

  “Guard Arell, would you do the honors?” Rooke said.

  Kiva’s heart leapt in her chest as Naari loosened her pincer-grip and moved into a crouch, reaching for the coiled rope and tying the end closest to the boulder around Kiva’s ankle. Realizing this was her last—and perhaps only—chance, Kiva waited until Rooke was issuing a command to one of the other guards before she bent and whispered in Naari’s ear, “It’s poison, Naari. They’re not sick, they’re being poisoned.”

  She didn’t have time to say more, to explain about Olisha and Nergal and the “immunity booster,” because Rooke turned back and narrowed his eyes at her, asking, “What was that?”

  “I told her she’s hurting me,” Kiva lied. “The rope is too tight.”

  “It needs to be tight,” Rooke said. “We can’t have you undoing it while you’re down there. And besides, how will we fish you back out if it slips off?”

  Kiva didn’t respond. But she did look at Naari as the guard slowly rose, her amber eyes alight with understanding. And horror.

  “You’re sure?” Naari breathed.

  Kiva looked at Rooke, then back at the guard. “Yes.”

  “I told you, it needs to be tight,” Rooke growled, oblivious to Naari’s true question and Kiva’s answer.

  The Warden grabbed Kiva’s shoulder and pointed to the boulder, indicating for her to pick it up. When she did, uttering a quiet “oof ” at the solid weight of it in her hands, he seized the other end of the rope and shuffled her toward the edge of the cliff. A sound similar to a collective indrawn breath came from the audience above.

  “I’m not sure how deep this is,” Rooke said, scratching his short beard as he looked down at the water. “Guess you’ll have to find out for yourself.” His voice lowered so that only she could hear, the smallest hint of empathy in his tone, but Kiva knew better than to believe it was for her—he was just worried about losing his best healer. “This is the part where you hold your breath. Ready?”

  No. Kiva wasn’t ready. She would never be ready. But she didn’t have a choice, so she quickly called to mind everything she knew about lung capacity and controlled breathing, and slowly began to hyperventilate. She knew doing so could reduce her blood pressure enough to cause hypoxic blackout, but if she couldn’t expand her lungs before entering the water, she was going to fall unconscious soon enough anyway. She had to do everything she could to give herself a fighting chance. If free-divers could do it, maybe she could, too. She had to at least hope there was a possibility of success, otherwise she might as well give up now.

  “On three,” Rooke said.

  Kiva focused on her breathing, vaguely aware of Naari stepping up beside her, the guard trembling slightly—whether from what Kiva was about to face, or the poison reveal, Kiva wasn’t sure. She didn’t have any room left in her to be afraid, couldn’t spare the oxygen required to feed her anxiety. All she could do was breathe.

  “One,” Rooke said.

  Kiva inhaled. Exhaled. Inhaled. Exhaled.

  “Two.”

  This was it.

  Kiva filled her lungs, sucking in more and more air, her diaphragm extending to the point that it was painful, lightheadedness making her vision spin.

  “Three.”

  The Warden shoved Kiva from behind, and s
he struggled to keep her mouth closed on the air she’d so carefully trapped, every part of her wanting to scream as she plummeted down the side of the cliff face and—

  Splash!

  Into the water.

  The shock of it had her dropping the boulder, her hands rising to cover her mouth, her nose, as she was pulled under, under, under. She could barely process the pain of her body slapping into the surface, the height of her fall nearly forcing the breath from her. But she didn’t yield it, nor did she release anything but the smallest of bubbles as she descended down into the quarry depths, the turquoise water turning darker the lower she was pulled, the sun struggling to penetrate this deep.

  Kiva felt as if her ears were bleeding, the pressure of her swift descent like daggers stabbing into her brain. And the cold—the cold.

  She hadn’t noticed in those first few seconds, adrenaline and pain from her brutal landing driving away all thoughts other than to keep holding her breath, but as that shock faded, a different kind of shock set in.

  The water was like ice.

  Fifteen minutes—it was too long, too deep, too cold.

  A hollow echo sounded, and Kiva jolted to a stop, the boulder having finally thudded against the bottom of the quarry, or perhaps some fortunately placed outcropping that kept her from sinking further.

  It didn’t matter. She was still too far down, the water around her dark enough that she struggled to see anything but blurry, distorted shapes. No one watching from above would be able to see anything, with tons and tons of water blocking their vision of her.

  Cold—she was so cold.

  Kiva released another few bubbles, her lungs already begging for fresh air. She drew her arms in and hugged herself, as if doing so would help retain her body heat, but it was useless. The frozen water was piercing straight into her flesh, into her bones. Her extremities were already beginning to turn numb, all of her blood rushing inward to protect her vital organs, her heart, her brain. Perhaps Mot’s potion was helping her, but it wasn’t enough.