“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—”