Finally, the guard looked back at Kiva. The same emotions were still blazing behind her eyes—anger, disbelief, despair. But there was a new one, too: helplessness.

“I swear I didn’t know,” Naari whispered, her normally strong voice hoarse. “If I’d known, I would have said something, done something. I would have stopped it.”

“Stopped what?” Kiva asked, fearing that she already knew.

Something like this went around years ago, soon after I first became the Warden.

Naari’s throat bobbed. “They’re expecting a record number of prisoners come spring. The winter has been harsh, all across the continent. So much more crime than usual, especially with the rebel uprising bleeding into the other kingdoms and rumors of war on the horizon.”

Kiva felt like she’d missed a step. “So?”

Naari held Kiva’s eyes, openly sharing her horror at what she was about to reveal. “Zalindov is already past capacity. So Rooke decided to enact his own form of . . . population control.”

Population control.

The two words echoed in Kiva’s mind, her fears confirmed.

The prisoners were being poisoned.

No, not just poisoned. Executed.

It was deliberate.

And it came from the top. From Warden Rooke himself.

Something like this went around years ago, soon after I first became the Warden.

He was murdering prisoners now, just as he’d murdered them before.

Nine years ago.

Warden Rooke had killed her father.

Kiva felt as if she’d been kicked in the gut and then trampled to keep from getting up again.

Was that why she was locked away in the Abyss? Not just because of Jaren’s interference with the Ordeal, but also because, after Naari had confronted Rooke, he’d realized Kiva might find a cure to his poison, ruining his plans? Or had he decided to get rid of her before that, when he’d seen her holding the vial, and Jaren’s rescue in the quarry gave him the excuse he needed to lock her away before she could stop him?

With sudden clarity, Kiva now understood. He’d never wanted to protect her—he’d wanted to keep her close, to make sure she remained his submissive puppet. And as soon as he knew she wouldn’t . . .

Rooke didn’t answer to any single kingdom, he answered to all of them. But if they didn’t know what he was doing, if word never left Zalindov’s walls, then Kiva would have been his only threat. So he’d sent her to the Abyss, along with any chance of a cure.

Was that what he’d done with her father? Had Faran Meridan figured out the truth nearly a decade earlier? Kiva had assumed the sickness had taken him, but now she wondered if he’d learned of Rooke’s treachery—and paid with his life.

Fire ran through Kiva’s veins, her entire body trembling.

“It gets worse,” Naari said.

Kiva didn’t know how that was possible.