Page 97 of The Prison Healer

“Hmm?” the woman asked, distracted by her task.

“These vials—where did they come from?”

“Nergal gave them to me, sweets,” Olisha said. “He’s heading out with the others to watch your Trial, but my nerves can’t take that. I offered to drop them off since I was on my way here anyway. Someone has to watch over the patients while you’re gone.”

“Nergal ... gave you these ... immunity boosters?”

“Well, yes,” Olisha said, and something in Kiva’s voice made her pause what she was doing and look up at her. “But he got them from someone else. We’ve been handing them out all winter. Anytime someone comes here to see us, we make them take one. Just like you do.”

“I—what?”

Olisha’s brow furrowed. “Youhavebeen giving them out, haven’t you?”

When Kiva shook her head slowly, horror beginning to coil within her, Olisha frowned fully and said, “You should know better, dear. With this sickness going around, we need all the help we can get. Noteveryoneis allergic to goldenroot. You of all people should have been shoving these down the throats of your patients. Not the sick ones—we tried that, and it only made them worse. But the people who come here with wounds or colds or ... or ... thehealthyones. They’re the ones we’ve been giving the boosters to, trying to give them a fighting chance. Asyoushould have been doing.” Olisha’s lips pressed together. “I’m disappointed in you, Kiva.”

But Kiva had stopped listening. Instead, she was hearing Cresta’s voice, her accusations from just yesterday:everyone who comes to see you for the smallest thing ends up getting sick—explainthat,healer!

Everworld help them.

Kiva knew what was causing the sickness.

Olisha was right—there was goldenroot in the vial, a natural immunity booster.

But Olisha was also wrong, because there wasn’tonlygoldenroot in the vial.

The smell was still lingering in the back of Kiva’s nose, bitter almonds with a hint of rotting fruit. The spicy goldenroot almost masked it, enough that untrained healers like Olisha and Nergal wouldn’t realize, wouldn’t know.

High fever, dilated pupils, headache, vomiting, diarrhea, stomach rash—they were all symptoms of a stomach sickness. But they were also classic side effects of something else, something that smelled of bitter almonds and rotting fruit.

Wraithweed.

More commonly known as Death’s Embrace.

The immunity booster—it wasn’t medicine.

It was poison.

The prisoners weren’tcatchingan illness. They were beinggivenone.

“Time to go.”

Kiva spun away from Olisha and toward the infirmary door, the shock of what she’d just realized causing trembles to overtake her body.

“Where’s Naari?” Kiva choked out at the sight of Warden Rooke striding toward her.

The man raised a dark brow. “You’ve become quite familiar with her, haven’t you? Be careful, healer.”

Kiva stared at him, still reeling from what she’d learned. She opened her mouth to tell Rooke, but then saw the guards with him, one who had walked in at his side, and others standing just beyond the doorway and within hearing range. Olisha’s words came to her again:he got them from someone else.

Kiva couldn’t risk giving away what she’d discovered, not until she was certain the person responsible would be caught. Olisha and Nergal had been nothing more than pawns.Idioticpawns, but pawns nonetheless. Until their supplier was revealed, Kiva had to be careful who she told. She couldn’t just blurt out the truth to Warden Rooke, not while others were listening. The prisoners weren’t the only gossips at Zalindov. The rumor mill ran rampant among the guards, too, and word always traveled back to the inmates.

This needed to be taken care of—butquietly. Zalindov was already a powder keg waiting to explode. If people discovered that the illnesswasn’tan illness ... that someone was deliberatelypoisoningthem ...

“What’s that you’ve got there?” Rooke said, peering at the liquid in Kiva’s white-knuckled grip.

Kiva sought a calmness she didn’t feel, lying through her teeth as she handed the vial back to Olisha and said, “Nothing important.”

Rooke’s eyes narrowed and Kiva felt a spark of hope, knowing how good he was at reading people. Surely he would recognize the panic on her features enough to see that something was wrong, and demand a private audience with her. Then she could tell him the truth without listening ears.

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