Kiva made herself adopt a light tone as she shrugged and said, “Then we all die, I guess.”

Naari arched an eyebrow, and Kiva caught the expression from her peripheral vision as they walked side by side toward the entrance block.

“Remind me never to come to you for encouragement,” Naari muttered under her breath.

Kiva hid her smile, but then said, “Almost every sickness can be treated. Whether it can be cured is something else entirely. But given the symptoms I’ve seen, I’m confident one can be found for this, whatever it is. I just need more information.”

And her father had just needed more time. She was sure of it. Faran Meridan was the best healer Kiva had ever known. He would have figured out how to cure the sickness, eventually. Perhaps he did, and that was why it ended up vanishing soon after his own death. But he’d left no research, no instructions. So now it was up to Kiva to figure it out.

“And what about your next Trial?” Naari asked as they approached the gates. “Have you started thinking about it yet?”

It was hard for Kiva not to think about it. She’d barely survived the Trial by Fire, and that was with magical help. She had no idea what the water Ordeal would require of her, no idea how she might endure it.

“I have twelve days to worry about that,” Kiva answered. “My priority right now is making sure we’re all still alive then.”

Naari sent Kiva a sidelong glance before waving to the guards up in the watchtowers. “Then let’s get you what you need,” she said. “After you, healer.”

And so, for the second time in a week, Kiva stepped outside the prison, praying she’d find what she was searching for.

The rest of Kiva’s week was spent following a pattern that began to repeat itself, to her unending frustration.

After the farms and slaughterhouse, she’d spent the next day as she’d told Naari she would, testing the rats and watching for any signs of change.

When no symptoms presented themselves, Kiva asked Tipp to round up extra vermin, and the following day, she and Naari ventured out of the prison for more samples. This time, they headed north toward the Blackwood Forest, a trek that took them even longer than their journey to the quarry. Once there, Kiva collected samples from the lumberyard and even the forest itself, along with the rail carts that transported the timber back through the prison gates and out of Zalindov to Vaskin and beyond. From wood chippings to tree fungi to flower pollen to fluffy moss, plus the usual stagnant water puddles and mud, Kiva collected anything that might create an ideal viral or bacterial environment. But when she spent the next day testing the rats, they again showed no signs of illness.