Page 6 of The Prison Healer

Kiva was determined he would continue to do so—outsideof Zalindov. One day.

Dreams were for fools. And Kiva was the biggest fool of them all.

Returning her attention to the man lying before her, she slowly worked the tangles from his filthy hair. It wasn’t long, which helped, but it wasn’t short either. Kiva debated whether it would need to be shaved, inspecting it closely. But she could see no sign of infestation, and once the blood and dirt were gone and it began to dry—revealing a rich golden color somewhere between blond and brown—a lustrous shine became more noticeable.

Healthy hair, healthy physique. Both rare in new arrivals.

Again, Kiva found herself wondering what kind of life this man had come from that had led him to fall so far.

“You’re not g-going to swoon, are you?” Tipp said, appearing at her elbow with a bone needle and spooled catgut in hand.

“What?”

Tipp nodded down to the man. “Swoon. Because of h-how he looks.”

Kiva’s brow furrowed. “How he ...” Her eyes flittered to the man’s face, taking him in properly for the first time. “Oh.” She frowned deeper and said, “Of course I’m not going to swoon.”

Tipp’s mouth twitched. “It’s all right if you d-d-do. I’ll catch you.”

Shooting him a look, Kiva opened her mouth to retort, but before she could get a word out, Naari appeared right beside them, having approached on swift, silent feet.

A quiet squeak left Kiva before she could help herself, but the guard didn’t shift her eyes from the man lying on the metal bench.

No, not a man. Now that he was clean enough to reveal his features, Kiva could see that he wasn’t fully grown yet. But he was no longer a boy, either. Perhaps eighteen or nineteen—a year or two older than she was, give or take.

When Naari continued to stare down at him, Kiva did the same. High brows, straight nose, long lashes ... the kind of angles a painter would be in raptures about. There was a crescent-shaped cut over his left eye that needed to be stitched, deep enough that it would leave a pale scar on his honeyed skin. But otherwise, his face was unblemished. Unlike the rest of him, as Kiva had learned upon washing his flesh. His back was littered with crisscrossed scars, similar to her own and those of many other prisoners who had endured a flogging or two. But his scars didn’t have the characteristic look of the cat-o’-nine-tails; Kiva didn’t know what kind of whip had left such welt-like wounds, but the damage was limited to his back, with few other marks on the rest of his body, save the fresh ones he had obtained during his journey to Zalindov.

“Areyoug-going to swoon, Naari?”

Tipp’s words drew Kiva’s attention, and she sucked in a sharp breath at realizing he was questioning the guard.

Prisoners shouldneverquestion the guards.

Worse, he was—he wasteasingher.

Kiva had tried to protect Tipp as much as she could since his mother’s death, but there was only so much she could do. And now, after this ...

Naari’s amber gaze finally moved away from the young man’s face, narrowing as she took in Tipp’s mischievous grin and Kiva’s poorly suppressed fear. But all she said was, “He needs to be held down in case he wakes.”

Kiva’s trapped breath fled her lungs, relief making her dizzy, even as she noted where Naari’s gaze had moved to and saw what was in Tipp’s other hand. The scalpel, already heated, the tip sharpened to a white-hot point.

Of course. Not only did Kiva have to patch the young man up, but she also had to carve him. The question was, which to do first? But apparently the guard had already chosen, her new proximity all the motivation Kiva needed to reach for the blade rather than the needle and spool. Those would come after, hopefully once the guard returned to a safe distance.

“I c-can hold him,” Tipp said, stepping around Kiva to the young man’s other side. He seemed oblivious to the danger he had just miraculously avoided, with Kiva’s desperate warning look rolling right off him.

“You take his legs, then,” Naari ordered. “This one looks strong.”

Strong. The word churned in Kiva’s gut. There was no way he would be allocated to the kitchens or the workrooms. He would be tasked with the hard labor, there was no doubt about it.

Six months, he would have. A year, if he was lucky.

Then he’d be dead.

Kiva couldn’t allow herself to care. She’d seen too much death in the last ten years, witnessed too much suffering. The fate of one more man would change nothing. He was just a number—D24L103, according to the metal band already fastened around his wrist by the transfer guards.

With the first stroke of the scalpel along the back of his left hand, Kiva ignored the renewed itching of her thigh and reminded herself of why she was doing this, why she was betraying everything a healer was meant to be by deliberately harming others.

We are safe. Stay alive. We will come.

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