by Lynette Noni
Jaren was a dead man walking.
It was a shame, Kiva supposed, but that was life at Zalindov.
Instead of dwelling on Jaren’s inevitable demise, Kiva found herself grateful that his arrival had given her back her assistant. Tipp hadn’t been reallocated to the kitchens, so he was still helping her in the infirmary with the quarantined patients. She had an inkling that Naari was responsible for his permanent return, though the guard herself hadn’t been assigned to the infirmary since Jaren’s orientation. Kiva almost missed the stoic young woman, especially when Bones or the Butcher was on duty. Sometimes, however, there was no guard, which was an indication that things were getting back to normal at Zalindov. There had been no riots in some time, and while Rooke had claimed that the rebels were a growing problem, they were keeping quiet. For now.
Slowly but surely, the quarantine lifted, the patients who survived their battle with tunnel fever returning to their jobs and those who didn’t being sent to the morgue.
Ten days passed, and Kiva settled back into her routine, caring for prisoners who came and went, while keeping an ear out for anything she might be able to pass along to the Warden. Soon she was too burdened by her workload to give his task more than a passing thought, with winter causing problems for all inmates regardless of their allocations. The outdoor laborers battled hypothermia and frostbite, while the underground workers were hit by a sweating sickness, the water in the tunnels prompting a smorgasbord of bacterial infections.
The growing array of health concerns left Kiva too busy to think about anything—or anyone. But then, eleven days after Jaren’s arrival, just after Tipp took off for dinner, Kiva was finalizing her weekly inventory when a voice spoke from the infirmary doorway.
“I hope I’m not interrupting?”
Kiva whirled around to find Jaren standing there. It was the first time she’d seen him since his orientation.
“You look terrible,” Kiva couldn’t keep from saying as she stood and motioned him inside.
A quiet laugh left Jaren as he moved stiffly toward her. “That’s some bedside manner you have.”
Kiva didn’t deny it. “I’m surprised you’re still alive. I thought for sure I’d be sending you to the morgue by now.”
Another laugh, this one louder. “And the compliments keep coming.”
Kiva didn’t allow herself to feel relieved that not only was he still standing, but he seemed to be in good spirits. He’d lasted nearly a fortnight, which was longer than others could say, especially those allocated to the tunnels.
“What can I do for you, Jaren?”
She realized her mistake immediately, but it was too late for her to go back in time and call him by his identification number. Instead, she ignored his satisfied expression and tapped her foot impatiently.
“Tipp said I should come by and get my stitches taken out.” Jaren scratched his jaw and admitted, “He said ten days, so I’m a day overdue, but yesterday was long and I fell asleep right after dinner.”
He kept all emotion from his voice, an indication that he wasn’t seeking pity or compassion, so Kiva offered neither.
“Have a seat,” she told him, before collecting what she needed from the worktable.
Jaren groaned slightly as he eased himself onto the nearest metal bench, and while Kiva showed no outward reaction, she winced internally, aware of just how hard the tunnelers were made to work. She was surprised Jaren hadn’t come to see her before now to stock up on painkillers and anti-inflammatories. At the very least, a muscle relaxant would have helped, especially during his first few days as he acclimatized to the labor.
“Any problems I should know about?” Kiva asked as she approached. “Itching, swelling, redness?”
Jaren looked amused. “Shouldn’t you have checked in before now to ask about all that?”
“I’m not your mother,” Kiva said. “You’re responsible for your own health in here.”
“There’s that bedside manner again,” Jaren said under his breath.
Kiva acted like she didn’t hear and reached for his left hand. His skin was filthy, highlighting that he’d come straight from the tunnels after his shift had ended. Dirt and grime covered him from head to toe, almost as much as when he’d first arrived at Zalindov, though without the addition of blood this time.
“This has healed well,” Kiva said, inspecting the carved symbol. It had scabbed over, one of the slashed lines already having peeled away to reveal a fresh pink scar beneath.
She turned his hand so that his palm faced upward, grimacing when she saw the bloodied blisters and broken calluses.
“Nice, huh?” Jaren said. “Some of the guards think we’re slacking off underground, so at least these offer irrevocable proof that I’m working.” He wiggled his fingers.
Kiva stopped his movement by trailing a sponge of salty water over his hand, prompting him to curse quietly at the sting.
“You need to keep these clean, or they’ll get infected,” she told him, mercilessly scrubbing away the dirt.
“You know as well as I do how impossible that is,” he returned.
Kiva didn’t argue.
Once she was done cleaning both his hands and slathering them in ballico sap, she said, “Take off your shirt and lie down.”
“I’m flattered, but we barely know each other.”
Kiva’s gaze jerked up to his face. His features may have been smeared with dust and lined with exhaustion, but his blue-gold eyes were dancing.
She leaned in close and hissed, “You can take this seriously, or you can leave.” She pointed to the door. “I’m sure Tipp will be happy to remove your stitches back in the cell block.”
“But Tipp doesn’t have your delightful people skills,” Jaren replied with a grin, grabbing the hem of his tunic and pulling it over his head before promptly lying on the bench.
Kiva noted the differences in his body with a professional eye. The bruising on his abdomen had faded significantly, now only a slight greenish-yellow tinge remaining. He’d lost a little weight, but that was expected. His muscle mass was still good, perhaps even greater than when he’d first arrived, especially in his arms and torso, but again, that was normal, given his arduous work allocation.
“What’s the verdict, prison healer? Am I dying today?”
Kiva stopped her examination only to find his gaze on her. While she hadn’t been admiring him in any way, warmth crept into her cheeks, as if she’d been caught ogling him. Appalled by her unfounded reaction, she answered, “The day’s not over yet.”
His abdominal muscles rippled as he chuckled, and Kiva gritted her teeth, reaching for her supplies.
“Hold still,” she said as she began to cut away the stitches. The wounds had healed perfectly, and she cleaned them as she went, leaving behind healthy pink flesh.
When she was done with Jaren’s front and asked him to turn over onto his stomach, he hesitated. Kiva guessed it was in reaction to the scars on his back, but she’d already seen those. Jaren seemed to remember this and did as she’d asked, though with noticeable reluctance.
Unable to curb her curiosity, while Kiva snipped away at the stitches she’d placed on his right shoulder blade, she commented, “I see a lot of scars, but these ones are interesting.”
She brushed a finger over one of the welts, and Jaren tensed beneath her.
Kiva knew it was none of her business, and yet she couldn’t keep from asking, “What caused them?”
The silence that fell was so heavy that Kiva was sure Jaren wasn’t going to answer. But he surprised her when he finally said, “Belt buckles, mostly. Some are from fingernails, one or two from a wooden cane or a broken vase. I think one’s even from the spine of a book. Whatever was in easy reach at the time.”
Kiva’s hands froze. “You mean— Did someone—”
“You see a lot of scars, remember?” Jaren interrupted. “Don’t tell me you’re shocked.”
Kiva didn’t know what to say, so she continued sni
pping at the stitches, moving on to the next wound. Yes, she saw plenty of scars, but the ones similar to Jaren’s were always from a whip of some kind, as punishment for errant behavior. Even Kiva had three lines of scars on her back from a lashing she’d received during her early years at Zalindov—the first and only time she’d refused to carve someone’s flesh. What Jaren was saying, though . . . it sounded like . . .
“Was it someone close to you?” Kiva asked quietly.
A long exhalation before he answered, “Yes.”
Kiva could feel the tightness of his body, and she knew he wouldn’t be answering anything else. He’d already said more than she would have if their positions were reversed.
“Well, you can now add a few new scars to your list,” she said, infusing lightness into her voice as she smeared ballico sap over the raw skin. “You can sit up again.”
Jaren did so, swinging his legs over the metal bench. His face was closed, his gaze downcast, as if desperate to avoid eye contact after what he’d just admitted. He didn’t make a move for his tunic, and Kiva didn’t want him to think she was uncomfortable with his state of undress, so she said nothing other than, “Lucky last,” as she pointed to the cut on his head.
It was strange, doing this with him sitting upright. She realized that she should have kept him lying down for it, but she had no valid reason to make the request now other than that she felt odd standing so close to him.
“Has this wound caused you any discomfort?” Kiva asked as she cleaned away the tunnel dust. “Headaches, nausea, memory problems, sight issues?”
“The first two days were unpleasant, but the pain eased after that,” Jaren said. “Contrary to what you might think, I’m not an idiot. I would’ve come back if I was worried about anything.”
“Hmm,” Kiva said noncommittally.
“I’ve had a concussion before,” Jaren defended as she began removing the sutures. “Twice, actually. I know what to watch out for.”
Given their close proximity, Kiva found it less awkward to have him talking rather than just staring at her, so she prompted, “What happened?”
Jaren shifted slightly, and Kiva sent him a warning look. She was working dangerously close to his eye.
“The first was a riding accident. My horse spooked when I was out hunting, and I fell headfirst into a ditch.”
Kiva considered what he’d inadvertently given away. He must come from a wealthy family to have been on a hunting expedition. Usually the sport was reserved for those in or close to the upper social circles. Sometimes merchants and scholars were invited if they had ties to the aristocracy, but only the most successful ones. If Jaren came from a high-standing family, it made sense that they’d be unwilling to visit him in Zalindov. They’d likely disowned him the moment of his sentencing.
“And the second time?” she asked.
“I was teaching my brother how to climb trees, and I slipped.” He winced. “Not my finest moment.”
“You have a brother?”
“Yeah. He’s around Tipp’s age. A bit of a surprise for my mother.” He paused, then added, “I have a sister, too, but she’s older.”
“So you’re the middle child,” Kiva observed. “That explains a lot.”
“A joke? From the prison healer?” Jaren squinted at her. “Are you sure I’m not dying?”
Kiva didn’t deign to respond as she snipped the last stitch, smeared on some sap, and retreated to a safe distance, indicating for him to pull his tunic back on.
“How much longer do you have to stay here tonight?” Jaren asked, his gaze wandering around the infirmary. She tried to see it from his perspective: the metal benches, the wooden worktable covered with supplies, the thin-blanketed pallets with even thinner privacy curtains for patients who needed longer care. At the back of the room was a closed door leading into the quarantine room, currently occupied by a few cases of a stomach virus that was going around.
“A couple more hours,” Kiva answered. “Olisha and Nergal will come and take over when it’s time for me to sleep.”
Unlike many of the other prisoners, Kiva’s hours were extensive. Most laborers worked for twelve hours, sometimes fourteen. But as the prison healer, it wasn’t unheard of for her to work eighteen hours a day, especially when there were wagonloads of new arrivals. Olisha and Nergal, the two others who were allocated to the infirmary, shared the skeleton shift each night, but the rest of the time they were shuffled among different administrative tasks depending on where they were needed. Unless Kiva was desperate for added support during the day, the three of them rarely worked together, which was perhaps another reason why the two older prisoners were so incompetent. They had no one to teach them how to treat the more complicated health concerns.
“Here,” Kiva said, retrieving a small jar of aloeweed gel from her supplies and handing it to Jaren.
He turned it between his fingers. “What’s this?”
“It’s for your hands,” she said. “You should’ve come to see me about them sooner.”
Jaren cocked his head to the side. “Is that your way of saying you missed me?”
Kiva felt her eye twitch. “It’s my way of saying they’ll only get worse if you don’t look after them.”
“Fair point,” Jaren said with the hint of a smile. “And I guess we don’t know each other well enough for you to miss me yet.”
Another eye twitch. “There’s no need to add yet to the end of that. We’ll never know each other that well.”
Jaren’s mouth hitched up into a crooked grin. He jumped down from the bench, the move bringing him much closer to Kiva. Her instinct was to step back, but she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction, so she remained in place.
“Maybe if you—”
Whatever Jaren had been about to say was interrupted when Tipp bounded through the unguarded door and into the infirmary.
“Kiva! D-D-Did you hear?”
“Hear what?” she asked, spinning toward him.
“There’s a n-new arrival!”
“What? Now?” Kiva said, frowning. Not only was it still the dead of winter, but it was also nighttime. Never in Kiva’s ten years of imprisonment had a new inmate been delivered so late.
“Yes! And you w-won’t believe who they’re s-s-saying she is!”
Before Kiva could ask, Naari appeared at the entrance to the infirmary, her face tight. Close behind her came two other guards, both male, carrying a stretcher upon which was what looked like a bundle of oddly shaped rags in the vague outline of a human.
“Out of the way, boy,” one of the guards snarled at Tipp, who quickly scampered toward where Kiva and Jaren stood.
“You, healer,” the second guard barked at Kiva as they unceremoniously dragged the limp weight of the ragged-clothed human off the stretcher and onto the metal bench Jaren had vacated. “You have a week before she’s to face her first Trial. We want a good show, so do what you can to fix her before then.”
And then the two male guards took off into the night, one of them giving Tipp a forceful shove as he walked by, prompting Kiva to dig her fingernails into Jaren’s forearm to keep him from lunging after the man. She shook her head firmly at him, and the stormy look on his face darkened before he let out a sigh and moved to ruffle Tipp’s hair. The young boy was nowhere near as upset as Jaren—a shove was the least of what the guard could have done, and Tipp knew it.
Leaping into action, Kiva approached the unconscious woman, listening in as Jaren asked, “What did he mean about a Trial?”
To Kiva’s surprise, it was Naari who answered, having remained behind when her fellow guards departed. “This woman has been sentenced to undertake the Trial by Ordeal.”
Kiva, who had been reaching for the rags obscuring the new arrival’s face, froze and spun back to look at the guard. Jaren, too, was staring at Naari with incredulity, though there was also something else in his expression, something Kiva didn’t know him well enough to read.
Noting their reactions, Ti
pp asked, “What’s a T-T-Trial by Ordeal?”
No one spoke.
“Guys? What’s g-going on?” Tipp demanded. “What’s this T-Trial thing?”
Kiva slowly turned from Naari to the young boy and said, “The Trial by Ordeal is only ever sentenced to the most dangerous of criminals. The last time it happened was something like twenty years ago.”
“Thirty,” Jaren said, his features tense as he looked toward the unconscious woman that Kiva remained frozen above.
“B-But what is it?” Tipp asked.
“Four elemental tasks—called Ordeals—to determine a person’s guilt: Trial by Air, Trial by Fire, Trial by Water, Trial by Earth,” Jaren answered, as if reading from an archive. “If the person survives, they’re deemed innocent.”
If Kiva hadn’t been so shocked by the woman’s sentence, she might have questioned the origin of Jaren’s knowledge. She herself had heard whispers throughout her years at Zalindov, legends of prisoners who had received the unforgiving sentence. But she’d known nothing of the Trials prior to her arrival.
“Elemental t-tasks?” Tipp’s forehead was bunched. “But only the r-royal family has elemental m-magic these days.”
“The tasks might be inspired by magic of old,” Jaren continued sharing, “but it’s said that if a person is truly innocent, they’ll be able to make it through the four Ordeals without needing any kind of power.”
“So . . . if this woman d-does these Trials, she’ll be able t-to leave Zalindov? Free?” Tipp asked, looking awed by the thought, as if he wished it for his own future.
“No one has ever survived the full Trial by Ordeal, Tipp,” Kiva broke in softly. “One or two of the tasks, maybe. Just enough to lull them into a false sense of security. But never all four.” She whispered to finish, “It’s a death sentence.”
Jaren nodded grimly in agreement.
Tipp paled, then looked toward the unconscious woman. He bit his lip and said, “I guess that m-makes sense, if she r-r-really is who they think she is.”
Kiva finally unfroze her fingers to remove the cloth from the new arrival’s face. “Who do they think she is?”