Page 20 of The Prison Healer

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?”

It was Naari who answered as Kiva drew the rags away, revealing the woman’s features.

“It’s believed that she’s Tilda Corentine,” the guard said. “The Rebel Queen.”

Kiva’s heart stopped as she stared down at the middle-aged woman.

Straight nose, thick lashes, dark hair and brows. Her tanned skin had an unhealthy tinge to it, and when her eyes opened for a brief second before fluttering shut again, they were milky white. The woman was blind, and, with her both shivering and sweating at once, it was clear that she was very ill.

All of this Kiva took in within the space of half a breath, because that was how long it took for the shock to hit her.

“King Stellan and Queen Ariana want to make an example out of her,” Naari went on, “especially since she was captured while recruiting more followers in Mirraven, and Evalon doesn’t have an extradition treaty with them, given the tenuous relationship between our two kingdoms. The best the king and queen could do was petition to have her sent here, where justice could be served, even if it meant they couldn’t interrogate her beforehand.” Naari looked at the sick woman. “Though ... in this state, I doubt she would have been able to reveal anything, even if they’d been able to intercept her before arrival.”

Kiva was having trouble drawing air into her lungs. This blind, sick woman—the most wanted person in Evalon—was now in Kiva’s care. TheRebel Queen. And not only that, but—

“W-What’s this?”

Tipp’s voice drew Kiva back from her panicked thoughts. She spun to find him plucking something from the ground—a small scrap of parchment.

“I think it f-fell out of her blanket when they m-moved her off the stretcher,” he said, unfolding the parchment and squinting at it. He turned it on its side, then upside down, and a sinking feeling hit Kiva’s stomach.

“Let me see,” she said, her voice croaking slightly in the middle.

“It’s nothing. Just some d-doodles,” Tipp decided, but he handed it over as requested.

Kiva’s heart rate skyrocketed as she saw the familiar coded symbols and translated what they said.

The message was clear:

Don’t let her die.

We are coming.

Kiva’s breath caught as those final three words repeated in her mind.

We are coming. We are coming. We are coming.

No longer a vague promise of one day, butimminent.

Her family was coming. Finally, after waiting so long,they were coming. For Kiva—but also for Tilda.

They were coming for the Rebel Queen.

Kiva swore inwardly. The woman might very well not last the night, and even if she did ...

For ten years, Kiva had followed her coded orders. But for the first time ever, she had no idea how to do what she was told. Because even if she could save Tilda from her illness, there was no way to keep her from her fate.

Her death was coming, one way or another. And there was nothing Kiva could do about it.

Chapter Eight

Two days passed, three days, four days, and still no sign of improvement in the Rebel Queen—in Tilda. Kiva treated her as well as she could, but without knowing what had led to her current state, it was more a case of trial and error than anything else.

“Her symptoms just don’t make sense,” Kiva complained to Tipp five days after Tilda’s arrival. They were standing over the woman, with her having been moved to a pallet in the far corner of the infirmary. Kiva was confident that whatever ailed her wasn’t contagious, so it was safer to isolate her from those already in quarantine.

“She’s not g-getting any worse,” Tipp said. “That’s something.”

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