Chapter Seventeen #2
That would be true in the outside world. Things were different in Zalindov, and Kiva often had to make do with what she had, creating her own remedies using the small medicinal garden behind the infirmary and whatever other supplies she could scrounge up.
“So you’re saying that healers are the hands, and apothecaries are the brains?”
Kiva scrunched her nose at his analogy, but said, “Close enough.” She began cleaning the graze on his forehead and added, somewhat musingly, “This is all common knowledge. I’m surprised you don’t know it already.”
“I didn’t have much of a chance to learn about this kind of thing in my childhood.” Jaren shrugged. “My medicine always came directly from a healer, so I just assumed they made it themselves.” He gestured toward the workbench. “Like you do here.”
His answer wasn’t surprising, since any good healer maintained a healthy stockpile of supplies.
Kiva’s father had always kept more than he’d ever needed on hand, and was careful to do a regular inventory to avoid the risk of running out.
That was something he’d repeatedly emphasized when she’d started under his tutelage: Better to be overprepared than underprepared, little mouse.
If you get an influx of patients, it can mean the difference between life or death, so best to stock up whenever you can.
What was surprising was Jaren’s lack of what Kiva considered general life knowledge, and she debated pressing for more details, but was unsure what to ask.
She’d assumed for some time that he’d come from a wealthy upper-class family, but now she wondered if she’d been wrong.
Perhaps the opposite was true, especially if his parents hadn’t hired a tutor to teach him such things.
Maybe they hadn’t been able to afford one.
“Well, now you know,” Kiva said in an upbeat voice, not wanting to make him uncomfortable. People—especially men—could react poorly if they thought their intelligence was being criticized.
Setting down her cloth, she reached for her small pot of ballico sap and, without thinking, scraped some onto her finger and leaned forward to dab it onto his cut lip.
Jaren sucked in a startled breath, and Kiva’s eyes jumped up to meet his.
They were so close, her fingertip frozen on his lip.
She had a split second to decide what to do.
Part of her wanted to leap backwards and put as much distance between them as possible, but she knew how that would look, how he might perceive such an action, how telling it would be that she was so affected by him.
So despite her entire nervous system being hyperaware of how—and where —she was touching him, she continued applying the healing sap to his wound with unhurried ease, willing the heat from her cheeks and praying to anyone who would listen that she looked more relaxed than she felt.
“This isn’t too bad, so it should be better within a couple of days,” Kiva said, her voice half a note higher than usual.
She cleared her throat quietly and was finally able to move her hand from his mouth, reaching toward his forehead.
“This graze nearly touches the scar you got the day you arrived, but you’re luckier this time—it’s shallow and should heal without leaving a mark.
” She gently smeared sap over the wound and, remembering the two dead men who had been delivered to Zalindov with him, added, “You never did tell me what happened. Or how you came to be here.”
There was a small pause before Jaren answered, “I thought you said it was rude to ask people what led to their imprisonment?”
His tone was joking, but there was a seriousness to his eyes, a warning that Kiva, despite her curiosity, decided to heed.
“Fair enough. But what about today? Ready to tell me what happened?”
She rinsed her sticky hand in the salted water and then walked over to the workbench under the guise of collecting some aloeweed gel. In truth, she needed a moment away from him, but she turned back again when he started talking.
“I had a run-in with another prisoner at dinner, someone who claimed to be an old acquaintance of yours,” Jaren said, almost too casually.
“I didn’t like the way she was talking about you, and her friends didn’t like when I asked her to stop.
Things escalated until we were no longer speaking with words. ”
Kiva had been walking back toward Jaren when he’d begun speaking, but she’d frozen midstep halfway through his answer. “Please tell me you’re kidding,” she croaked out.
Jaren pointed to his face. “Does it look like I’m kidding?”
In a flat voice, Kiva stated, “It was Cresta, wasn’t it.”
“Red hair? Snake tattoo?” Jaren asked. When Kiva nodded, he said, “That’s her. She likes to talk big but isn’t a fan of sticking around once the action starts.”
Kiva already knew that much. Cresta was notorious for stirring up trouble and then letting others finish her dirty work, scrambling away before seeing any consequences herself.
It was a miracle that Jaren and whomever he’d ended up in a fistfight with hadn’t been dragged away by the guards and sent to the Abyss for punishment. Or the gallows.
“You’re such a fool,” Kiva hissed, stomping the rest of the way over to him. It took all of her healer training to keep her fingers gentle as she applied aloeweed gel to his bruised eye, being extra careful around the parts that were already beginning to swell.
“Is that the thanks I get for defending your honor?” Jaren shot back, sounding indignant. “You should have heard what she was calling you.”
“Zalindov’s Bitch? The Heartless Carver? The Princess of Death? The Healer Whore? The Prison Pus—”
“Yes,” Jaren interrupted tightly, a muscle ticking in his cheek. “Among others.”
“Trust me, I’ve heard them all,” Kiva said, applying more gel. “But you don’t see me getting in fights over them. Especially with the prison rebels. Gods, what were you thinking?”
“The prison—” Jaren broke off with a curse. “Are you serious?”
“As serious as death,” Kiva said flatly. “Which you need to prepare for, if they decide to paint a target on your back.”
In a low tone, Jaren said, “I didn’t realize who they were.”
“Cresta is their leader in here,” Kiva said, prompting? Jaren to swear again. Her gaze traveled over to Tilda, and she added, “You’re lucky they have bigger concerns than you right now, or your next stop would be the morgue.”
A strained moment passed before Jaren quietly asked, “Doesn’t it bother you, what they say? Not just Cresta, but everyone? Doesn’t it hurt?”
“They’re just words,” Kiva said, ignoring the pang in her heart. Of course it hurt. No one wanted to be known as a bitch or a whore or any of the other names that had been slung at her over the last decade.
“They’re not just words,” Jaren argued. “They’re mean, untrue slanderings said by disrespectful bullies, and you don’t deserve to be treated like that. You’re losing sleep trying to help all these people, including Cresta. The least they can do is not publicly insult you.”
Finishing with the gel, Kiva stepped back and said, “Shouldn’t that be for me to decide?”
Jaren frowned. “What?”
Kiva pointed a finger to her chest. “They’re saying those things about me. Shouldn’t I get to decide whether or not to punish them? Or do you think I’d have chosen to have you slam your fist into their faces just to prove an object lesson?”
The gold in Jaren’s eyes blazed angrily against the blue. “You weren’t there.”
“And you weren’t there for the last ten years of this happening,” Kiva snapped back at him. “You think I don’t know how to handle this by now? You think I haven’t tried retaliating and learned firsthand just how much worse that makes it?”
Jaren had the decency to look ashamed, so Kiva made an effort to gentle her tone as she went on, “I’m touched that you were upset by what you heard, but I don’t need you fighting my battles for me.
I’ve been here long enough to know that the best thing I can do is ignore it and act like it doesn’t affect me.
They can say whatever they want—and nine times out of ten, they end up apologizing anyway, usually when they’re sick or hurt and realize I’m the only one who can help them.
Not,” she added with emphasis, “that I would withhold treatment if they didn’t show remorse.
Just that when they experience for themselves that I actually do care about them, they no longer take out their anger on me.
Because that’s all it is, Jaren. They’re angry and upset and frustrated and helpless, like all of us in here.
They just vent their emotions in the wrong ways. ”
Jaren said nothing for a long moment, but then jumped down from the bench as he asked, “I’m guessing Cresta isn’t one of the nine in ten?”
Kiva didn’t need to confirm, though she did warn, “She’s dangerous. If you value anything I say, stay away from her.”
“I value everything you say, Kiva.”
The words were quiet, serious, and they caused Kiva’s eyes to lock on his, finding him looking back at her steadily, solemnly.
Silence descended upon them as they stared at each other, both processing what the other had said. It was Jaren who broke it first, his voice filled with apology.
“I’m sorry I acted like such a brute. It won’t happen again.
” He didn’t break their locked gazes as he went on, “And just so you know, I don’t see you as some kind of damsel who needs rescuing.
I’ve never met anyone stronger than you—not just because you’ve survived a decade in this gods-awful place, but because you’ve sacrificed your own needs over and over again to serve those around you, even—and especially—those who don’t want your help.
So you’re right, you don’t need me fighting your battles.
” He moved a step closer, his tone husky as he finished, “But ... if you’ll let me, I’d like to be standing beside you as you fight them. ”
Kiva’s pulse was thrumming loudly in her ears. Butterflies swarmed in her stomach, bolts of electricity tingled her flesh. She didn’t know how to respond, could barely think over her physical reaction to his declaration.
Careful. Careful. Careful.
The words weren’t her father’s or her mother’s or anyone else’s.
They weren’t from a memory; they were from Kiva to herself.
Her one and only rule at Zalindov was to not make any friends, because she would almost always lose them.
With Jaren ... she wasn’t sure if it was friendship he was asking for or more than that, but either way, it was a line she could not—and would not —cross.
No matter how her heart was beating, no matter how he was looking at her right now, waiting for her response, she couldn’t make any exceptions.
“I—”
I’m sorry, I can’t was what she’d been about to say, the words already forming on her lips.
But before she could utter them, Tipp bounced back into the infirmary, followed closely by Naari, and Kiva lurched away from Jaren, dragging trembling fingers through her hair as she walked on wobbly legs toward the workbench.
She didn’t dare look back at Jaren, not as Tipp asked for his help reconstructing the rat pen, not as Jaren quietly agreed and asked what supplies they had to work with.
Kiva’s mind was racing, racing, racing, until she felt a feather-light touch on her hand and jumped, spinning to find that Naari had stepped up silently beside her.
“You all right?” the guard mouthed, as if aware that Kiva didn’t want any attention drawn to her right now.
Kiva was about to nod, but she couldn’t bring herself to lie to Naari after having spent all day with her.
She instead gave an honest, quick shake of her head and held her breath, waiting to see what the guard would do.
But Naari only looked between her and Jaren, then turned back with a small, compassionate smile before mouthing, “You will be.”
And Kiva believed her—mostly because she decided that, for her own peace of mind, she would act like her conversation with Jaren had never happened.