Page 115 of The Prison Healer

“Congratulations, you’re about to die together.”

And then, for the second time in two weeks, something hard slammed into Kiva’s head, and she sank back into darkness.

When Kiva regained consciousness, the first thing she did was press her fingers to the egg on the back of her skull, wincing at how tender it was, while trying to think past the drums beating a rhythm through her brain. She was lucky she could think at all, fully aware of how serious concussions could be and how even the shortest of blackouts could cause irreversible brain damage. She’d been fortunate, no matter how much her aching head and churning gut said otherwise.

Pushing past the pain and nausea, Kiva struggled to her feet, seeking to get her bearings. Wherever she was, it was pitch-black, and after shutting down her immediate panic that the head trauma had turned her blind, her next fear was that she’d been sent back to her isolation cell. But when she expanded her senses, she realized that it smelled different, felt different. The air wasn’t fresh, but it wasn’t foul like in the Abyss. It was ... wet. Musty. Earthy. And while it wasn’t warm, it also wasn’t as cold as where she’d been for a fortnight; there was a humidity to it, a dampness.

Kiva’s skin began to crawl as she reached out her hands, feeling for anything that might tell her where she was or ease her dread about where she was beginning tothinkshe was. Waving her arms, she shuffled carefully forward, but before she could make it two steps, her foot caught on something, and she tripped, falling blindly.

She didn’t land on solid ground.

She landed on something hard, but also soft.

Something that groaned when her weight landed on it; something thatmoved.

There was only one thing it could be.

Only onepersonit could be.

Kiva hurried to untangle herself from Jaren in the darkness, accidentally elbowing him as she scrambled backwards, eliciting another moan of pain.

“Sorry!” she rasped out. The last thing she wanted was toapologizeto him, of all people, but it was an automatic response.

“Kiva?” Jaren rasped back, his voice equally hoarse with lack of use. “Is that you?”

She wanted to snap out a barbed reply asking who else would it be, but she held her tongue, only saying, “Yes, it’s me.”

Another low moan, followed by the rustling sound of Jaren sitting up.

“My head feels like it’s been split in two,” he said.

Kiva didn’t confirm that she felt the same. She didn’t know what to say to him at all.

“Hang on,” Jaren said. “Just let me—”

Kiva recoiled and shielded her face as fire burst into being, like a floating ball of flames lighting the space around them. Her eyes watered as they adjusted, but then she was able to take in where they were, her fears confirmed.

“We’re in the tunnels,” Jaren said, realizing it as well, his tone almost puzzled.

Kiva looked at him, seeing him for what felt like the first time. A prince, disguised as a prisoner, still wearing the same clothes she’d seen him in two weeks ago, but now stained with blood.Hisblood. If she didn’t know who he really was, if she didn’t have the evidence of itfloating in the airbefore her, she never would have believed it possible.

“Kiva, did you hear me?” Jaren asked, looking from the tunnel back to her. What he saw on her face caused him to still.

“You should have told me.”

The five words came from somewhere deep within her. Somewhere that had been fed by betrayal and hurt for the last eight days. Somewhere that was laced with all her pain and loneliness from the last ten years.

“Kiva ...”

“You should havetoldme!” she repeated, returning to her feet, needing not to be on the ground for whatever was about to unfold.

Jaren followed after her, his face ghostly pale and tight with pain as he struggled first to his knees and then the rest of the way. Kiva didn’t reach out to help him, resisting every healer instinct within her to hold on to her anger.

“I tried to tell you,” Jaren said, panting lightly at how difficult it had been for him to rise, one hand pressed to his abdomen. He leaned a shoulder against the limestone wall, using it to brace himself and remain standing. “In the garden, before we found Tipp. I was going to tell you then.”

“Would that have been before or after you kissed me?” Kiva said in a hard voice. She remembered that moment clearly, how he’d been leaning in, his breath whispering across her lips. She shoved the memory away, refusing to acknowledge how it still made her feel.

“Before,” Jaren said, his tone calm, soothing, as if talking to a wild animal. “I’ve been wanting to tell you for a while, but never found the right time. I wasn’t going to let things go further between us before you knew.”

---