Page 69 of The Prison Healer

“I know,” Kiva said hoarsely.

And she did, because Naari was evidence that some guards were good. But what had just happened, what Kiva had just witnessed, what she’d nearly just experienced ...

Kiva couldn’t get it out of her head, not even after Naari left and the cell block began to fill with people bunking down for the night.

Hours passed as she lay on her pallet, curled into a tight ball, trembling. The sounds faded as prisoners fell into exhausted sleep on either side of her, and Kiva knew she should join them, the time for her second Ordeal swiftly approaching. She needed her strength for what she might face the next day, especially given what she’d learned about the rebels’ failed rescue attempt. Unless they had another plan already in the works, then Kiva would be completing the Trial by Fire. She needed to rest, but ... every time she closed her eyes, she saw the overdosed woman, the Butcher’s roaming hands, the angeldust glittering on them both. She heard Bones’s threat on repeat, along with the words from the men in the refectory:She’s too busy spreadin’ her legs for the guards, ain’t she?

The Healer Whore.

That’s what everyone thought she was.

They were wrong.

The Heartless Carver—she wasn’t that, either. Though right now she wished she was, if only it would take away everything she was feeling.

Kiva wasn’t sure how long she lay there shaking beneath her thin blanket and holding her bruised wrist protectively to her chest before she heard the quiet footsteps, before she felt the tender hand on her shoulder followed by the pallet depressing as someone lowered themselves onto it at her back.

She didn’t jump; she knew who it was. The scent of fresh earth and sea spray and something else unique to Jaren, like morning dew mixed with wood smoke, preceded him, wafting soothingly against her nostrils, bringing a comfort she couldn’t begin to fathom.

“Naari told me what happened,” he whispered, knowing she was awake, thanks to the trembles still racking her frame. “Are you all right?”

Kiva shook her head. It was too dark for him to see, only a thin sliver of moonlight creeping in from the small, square windows dotted sporadically along the long walls, but he could feel the movement. His hand moved from her shoulder, trailing down her arm, until he carefully wrapped his fingers around her sore wrist. Kiva didn’t ask how he knew which one it was—it was all she could do not to start sobbing when he cradled it gently, so very gently in his hands.

“I’m sorry, Kiva,” he whispered.

A tear slipped out of her eye. Then another.

“I’m fine,” she made herself say. Her voice was rough, painful to her own ears. “I’m really fine.”

His thumb stroked feather-light against her skin. “It’s all right not to be.”

Kiva swallowed. Then swallowed again. But the lump in her throat wouldn’t dissolve. And the tears in her eyes wouldn’t stop falling.

She didn’t resist when Jaren lay down on the pallet and turned her to face him, pulling her into his arms. She knew she should send him away, but she couldn’t summon the will, instead burrowing deeper into his chest as he held her close, his tunic muffling her sobs and soaking up her tears.

It was only when she’d cried her last that sleep finally found her, and she drifted off wrapped in Jaren’s embrace, feeling safe and protected for the first time in years.

Chapter Twenty

“How are you feeling?”

Kiva looked up the next morning to see Jaren walking across the infirmary toward her. In this light, she could see that his face was still a palette of colors, but the swelling around his eye had almost disappeared.

“What are you doing here?” she all but squeaked. “Shouldn’t you be in the tunnels?” Panicked, she pointed to the doorway he’d just stepped through, noting with no small amount of relief that it was unguarded. “You need to leave before someone catches you.”

Jaren had the audacity to chuckle. “Relax, Kiva.”

“Relax?Relax?”

“That was perhaps a poor choice of word, given everything,” he said, stepping close enough to place his hands on her shoulders. “How about this one instead:breathe.”

Kiva tried to do as he said, inhaling as deeply as she could, her shoulders rising and falling, with his hands never leaving them. She didn’t shake him off, finding his touch more comforting than she should have liked.

Especially after last night.

They hadn’t spoken of it, even after they’d woken up tangled in each other.

Kiva had felt a momentary burst of alarm coupled with extreme mortification, but Jaren had simply rubbed sleep from his eyes and slurred, “G’mornin’,” before asking—more articulately—how she was. Her garbled, unintelligible response had left him laughing softly, which had annoyed her enough to glare at him.

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