The Prison Healer

by Lynette Noni

  Her body buckled, like she was coughing, but still she didn’t release more than a few bubbles, knowing she couldn’t let more go, with nothing for her to inhale.

  Fifteen minutes.

  She had no idea how many had already passed. No idea how many she had left.

  No idea how she was going to last much longer.

  She couldn’t feel her fingers. Couldn’t feel her toes. She felt like she was burning, the cold so biting that her nerves were on fire.

  Breathe! her body screamed at her. BREATHE.

  She couldn’t.

  There was no air.

  There was no air.

  Kiva buckled again, suffocation beginning to forfeit her control. This time she couldn’t stop the stream of air that fled her lungs, nor her natural reaction to try and inhale more.

  No.

  No.

  She was choking now, water flooding down her windpipe in place of oxygen.

  Coughing and choking and coughing and choking, water filling her lungs, filling her stomach as she accidentally swallowed it, all of the air that she’d carefully guarded now gone.

  The numbness was spreading, her arms and legs like senseless weights.

  And the darkness—it was growing, her vision blackening as her body buckled, buckled, buckled.

  Torture, it was torture.

  And then it was over.

  The fight left her.

  Oblivion took her.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “BREATHE, DAMN IT!”

  Kiva bolted upright, water erupting from her mouth as she coughed, choking on air, gasping it down while simultaneously dispelling liquid from her lungs.

  “That’s it, get it all out. I’ve got you.”

  Kiva couldn’t think beyond the pain and the cold. She was shaking all over, her limbs numb, her chest and head aching, her lungs and throat burning, her ribs throbbing.

  “I’ve got you,” said the voice again, and Kiva finally recognized it, and the arms that were holding her, the body she was pressed against.

  “J-J-Jaren?” she tried to ask, but her lips could barely sound the word.

  “I’m here,” he said, holding her tighter. “You’re alive. You’re alive.”

  He said it like a prayer, as if he couldn’t believe it.

  From the throbbing in her rib cage, Kiva wondered just how close she’d come to dying, wondered if she owed him her life.

  But then she wondered why she was in his arms. Where was Rooke? Naari? The other guards?

  Slowly, Kiva opened her eyes, the effort nearly impossible from the frozen, aching exhaustion that had overtaken her body. But when she saw where she was, where they were, renewed adrenaline surged through her, and she jerked in Jaren’s arms.

  “What—”

  Kiva couldn’t finish her sentence, struggling to comprehend what she was seeing.

  They were still in the quarry.

  Beneath the water.

  The boulder was still tied to Kiva’s ankle.

  But . . . they were breathing. They were talking. They weren’t drowning.

  A pocket surrounded them, a human-size bubble just large enough to encompass them, a small air funnel leading from it into the water above their heads, presumably to the surface, supplying them with fresh oxygen.

  “What the—”

  “I can explain,” Jaren interrupted quickly. “But first, we need to get you warm. Your body’s going into shock.”

  It wasn’t going into shock. It was already in shock.

  And that shock grew exponentially when Jaren pulled her even closer, right before a circle of flames burst into being around where they sat on the quarry floor.

  Heat, delicious heat began to seep into Kiva’s bones, thawing her from the outside in.

  She moaned and clutched at Jaren, who continued to hold her tightly against him, his body warmth combined with the smokeless fire returning feeling to her limbs, chasing away the ice-cold nothingness.

  But while her physical distress was easing, her mind was descending into a nightmare.

  “I d-don’t understand,” she whispered, still shivering, but nowhere near as badly as before. She unclenched Jaren’s water-soaked tunic and pulled away just enough to look at his face.

  She couldn’t read his expression. Guilt, fear, resignation. A combination of all three, and more.

  “I don’t understand,” Kiva said again, looking from him to the flames to the air pocket, to the dark water beyond.

  “Yes, you do,” he said quietly.

  Kiva shook her head. Then shook it again, her wet hair dripping down her face.

  “No,” she said, holding on to her denial. “It’s not possible.”

  She wasn’t shaking from the cold anymore.

  She was shaking from something else entirely.

  “I couldn’t let you die, Kiva,” Jaren whispered, his arms still holding her, feeling her tremble. “You were down here too long. You—” His throat bobbed. “When I got here, you weren’t breathing. I had to resuscitate you.”

  Kiva felt the truth of his words, not just in the haunted way he was looking at her, but in the throbbing of her chest, her lungs, her heart.

  He’d brought her back to life.

  But that wasn’t the part she didn’t understand.

  They were surrounded by fire. And air. In the middle of a body of water.

  Kiva licked her lips and asked, “Did—Did the princess give you an amulet, too?”

  Slowly, Jaren shook his head.

  “Did the prince?” Kiva whispered, her voice hoarse.

  Jaren closed his eyes and shook his head again. In an equally hoarse voice, he said, “No.”

  One word, and Kiva knew.

  Jaren didn’t have an amulet.

  Jaren didn’t need an amulet.

  Because Jaren had elemental magic.

  A memory from weeks ago flooded across her mind, Jaren’s own words about magic users: I’ve heard there are anomalies, too. Born outside the royal bloodline, just like in ancient days.

  An anomaly.

  Jaren was an anomaly.

  Kiva couldn’t believe it.

  “How—?”

  Jaren cut her off with a curse, his head jerking upward into the water above them. “We’re out of time,” he said, standing to his feet and pulling her up with him, the air bubble expanding around them. “I wish I could explain, and I will, I swear. But right now, I need you to promise that you won’t tell anyone what happened down here. They all saw me dive off the cliff, but the water’s too deep for them to have seen anything else. They can’t find out about my magic. No one but Naari knows.”

  “Naari knows?” Kiva gasped. She wished her brain would recover faster from what had just happened so she could more easily process what she was learning.

  “Promise me, Kiva,” Jaren said urgently. “You can’t tell anyone who I am. Do you understand?”

  But Kiva didn’t get a chance to make him any promises, because the rope went taught, tugging at her ankle.

  “Take a breath, quick!” Jaren ordered, right before he released whatever magic was keeping them protected.

  In an instant, Kiva was again engulfed by freezing water, but this time she was being pulled upward, Jaren holding on to her tightly as they were tugged together toward the surface, then out into the air.

  The journey took long enough that Kiva was coughing and shivering again when she was finally pulled over the edge of the cliff. She didn’t have to act like she was struggling to breathe, since her lungs were genuinely protesting the renewed lack of oxygen. Jaren was by her side, spluttering along with her, his skin tinged blue from the cold, as Kiva was sure her own was.

  “On your feet,” came a rough voice, and a hand latched on to the back of Kiva’s tunic, dragging her up until she was standing. She could barely keep her legs under her, but she still had enough sense to fear what was about to unfold.

  “I warned you,” Warden Rooke growled, striding into her line
of vision. There was no relief in his eyes; if anything, there was a spark of frustration, as if he’d thought he’d finally be rid of her.

  Whoever had pulled Kiva up remained behind her, their fist bunching the material near her neck, making her have to wheeze for breath as her frozen body shook violently. She looked sideways at Jaren, her fear doubling when she saw who had a hold on him—the Butcher.

  “I warned you,” Rooke repeated, his dark face clouded with anger as his gaze shifted between them. “Was I not clear when I said I wouldn’t allow any interference in this Trial?”

  Kiva tried to nod, but she only managed to start coughing again.

  “It’s not her fault,” Jaren declared around his own cough. “I’m the one who jumped in after her.”

  Rooke stepped toward him and reached for his hand, reading the metal band around his wrist. “D24L103. You’re new.”

  “I’ve been here nearly two months,” Jaren said. He held the Warden’s sharp eyes as he added, “Long enough to know who’s worth saving.”

  Kiva felt his words burrow into her while also willing him to shut up, knowing that anything he said would only make things worse. The Warden had warned her. He’d been very clear that any interference this time would result in punishment.

  Jaren had saved her life. She couldn’t allow him to lose his in return.

  “I asked him to do it,” she blurted.

  Jaren’s head whipped toward her. “No, Kiva, don’t—”

  “He got hurt, and I helped him, so he thought he owed me,” Kiva said quickly, the lies falling from her lips. She faltered slightly when she saw Naari at the edge of her vision, the guard’s face pale as she watched in dismay. But Kiva rallied and continued, “He told me he used to dive in the lake near his house, said he could hold his breath for a long time. We agreed that he’d jump in after I’d been down for a while, and he’d breathe his air into my lungs, helping me survive longer. It’s my fault, not his. My idea.”

  “Kiva—”

  “Enough!” Rooke interrupted Jaren, a single, barked word. He stepped closer to Kiva and in a low, threatening voice, said, “I tried to protect you, but I can’t save you from yourself. Not anymore.”

  Before she could process the Warden’s words, he jerked his chin at the guard behind her. Her tunic was released, and for a single relief-filled moment, she thought she was free. But then a sharp pain erupted from the back of her head.

  The last thing Kiva heard was Jaren yelling her name as she crumpled to the ground.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  When Kiva awoke, her head was pounding, and there was a stubborn, piercing ache at the base of her skull.

  She opened her eyes with effort, the space around her dark and blurry from her spinning vision. She tried to sit up, but it took three attempts before she was no longer lying flat on the cold stone floor.

  “Ow,” she moaned to herself, pressing a hand to her head.

  Steadying her breathing, she sought to clear her mind, to figure out where she was, and why.

  Adrenaline slammed into her when she remembered.

  The water Ordeal.

  Drowning.

  Jaren saving her life.

  With magic.

  Rooke.

  Then nothing.

  Her thumping heart made her head ache even more, but it also brought much-needed clarity, and Kiva was able to shakily rise to her feet and look properly around the room she was in. The cell she was in. For that was what it was—no more than a small, empty space surrounded by thick stone walls, a metal door at one end, the dimmest of luminium beacons offering just enough light to see by.

  Kiva had never been in such a cell before. Dread rose within her as she considered what she knew of Zalindov. Of all the buildings she’d visited as the prison healer, there was only one she’d never set foot in.

  She was in the punishment block.

  The Abyss.

  A scraping sound at the metal door had her whirling toward it, then backing away as far as she could. Her pulse was racing, nerves shooting through her limbs. If her bladder had been full, she would have soiled herself, so stark was her terror at what she was about to face, at who was about to step through that door.

  It wasn’t the Butcher.

  It wasn’t even Bones.

  Just another guard, someone Kiva didn’t recognize.

  She knew better than to feel relief, especially when that guard barked, “Come, healer. Your presence is required.”

  Kiva’s legs were quaking as she followed the man out of her cell and down a dark stone hallway. There were more metal doors spaced along it, and she was sure she heard crying and moaning as she passed by some of them. Was Jaren behind one? Was he hurt?

  The air smelled of fear—blood, sweat, vomit, and other waste. Bile rose in Kiva’s throat, but she forced it down and breathed through her mouth, blocking her ears to the cries.

  “In here,” the guard said, his hand clutching her shoulder, as if to keep her from running.

  He opened a door, this one wooden, and they stepped into the room beyond.

  It was larger than the cell she’d just left, enough for a number of people to move around comfortably. The walls were still thick stone, and the floor sloped downward slightly toward a small drain in the center of the room, into which fresh blood was slowly flowing.

  . . . Blood that came from Jaren, who was tied to a flogging post, his head bowed, his back a mess of deep, red slashes.

  “No,” Kiva gasped, her knees buckling. Only the guard’s tight grip kept her from falling.

  Jaren made the smallest of movements at her voice, as if trying to lift his head, but his strength gave out before he could manage it.

  “Good, you’re here.”

  Kiva turned woodenly to the man holding the whip. The Butcher’s pale eyes were glowing with sadistic delight, a smirk stretching across his ruddy face as he rolled the cat-o’-nine-tails in his hands.

  “You’re just in time for the best part,” he continued, moving slowly toward Jaren.

  “No, please,” Kiva begged, lunging forward. She only made it one step before her guard yanked her backwards, wrapping his other arm around her middle from behind.

  “Uh-uh-uh,” he whispered in her ear, his breath like rotten fish. “You stay here. Best seat in the house.”

  “Don’t worry, healer,” the Butcher called to her. “We’re just having some fun. You’ll enjoy it, I swear.”

  And without any other warning, he drew back his arm and then flung it forward, the cat-o’-nine-tails swinging through the air . . . and lashing into Jaren’s flesh.

  His body jerked violently, a moan leaving him, before he slumped against the post, it being the only thing that held him up.

  Tears pooled in Kiva’s eyes and then flowed from them as the Butcher drew his arm back again.

  “Don’t!” Kiva shouted, her voice breaking halfway through the word. “Stop!”

  But the Butcher didn’t listen.

  “STOP!” Kiva screamed when his whip flew through the air a second time. “STOP! PLEASE! STOP!”

  She screamed at him over and over, but he was deaf to her pleas as he struck his whip into Jaren’s back.

  Again.

  And again.

  And again.

  Desperate, Kiva fought the guard holding her, wrestling in his arms to get away, to get to Jaren. But it was no use—he was too strong, his grip too tight, and she was forced to watch as the Butcher continued his torture, turning  Jaren’s flesh into a pulpy mess of lash marks.

  Kiva was sobbing openly by the time the Butcher finally stepped back, her voice raw from screaming at him to stop.

  And then he turned his pale eyes on her.

  She didn’t have any room left in her to feel afraid as he strode over, his skin and clothes sprayed with Jaren’s blood, the whip dripping at his side. All she felt was rage. And fear. But not for herself—for Jaren, who was still tied to the post, unmoving.

  “He’s fine
. He’ll heal,” the Butcher said dismissively as he approached. “Rooke said to make him feel it, but no permanent damage.”

  He looked disappointed, just when Kiva thought she couldn’t feel any more disgust.

  She stared down at the whip, unable to stand the sight of the Butcher’s red-splattered face. Drip, drip, drip. She watched Jaren’s blood dribble onto the ground, nausea roiling within her.

  The Butcher chuckled, reaching out to clasp Kiva’s chin, the painful clench of his fingers forcing her to look at him.

  “Don’t worry, healer. Rooke said you’re not to be touched.” A dark grin lit his face. “He figured you’d be punished more by having to watch.” He used his other hand to wipe a tear from her cheek, his grin widening when she tried to jerk away from him, his fingers at her chin tightening. “Looks like he was right.” He chuckled again, before his gaze flicked to the guard behind her. “Keep an eye on her friend. If he moves . . .” The Butcher handed over the bloodied whip, and the guard took it, nodding eagerly.

  Kiva didn’t have any words left, any screams left, as the Butcher released her chin, only to latch on to her shoulder and force her to turn around. She couldn’t summon any relief that she wasn’t to be flogged next, because Rooke had been right about her punishment—watching was worse. Her purpose in life was to heal people, not hurt them. And there Jaren was, suffering not only because of her, but also instead of her.

  “Move, healer,” the Butcher ordered, shoving her toward the door.

  She stumbled along with him, walking in a daze, unable to conceive what she was meant to do, how she was meant to feel, since her mind just kept replaying the whip striking  Jaren over and over again.

  Unsatisfied with her pace, the Butcher wrapped his fingers tightly around her wrist, dragging her down the stone corridor. His hand was wet against her flesh, and when Kiva looked at where they were joined, she gagged at the sight of Jaren’s blood being transferred onto her skin.

  “Hurry up,” the Butcher growled, tugging her viciously after him.

  “Where are you taking me?” Kiva finally managed to rasp.

  “There are different kinds of torture, did you know that?” he said, his tone conversational as he continued hauling her along. “There’s the physical kind, like the fun I just had with your boyfriend.”