It was difficult for Kiva to feel compassion for them. They should have been smarter, should have kept their heads down, rather than being careless enough to draw the Warden’s attention. They’d dug their own graves, as far as she was concerned. Her expression must have told Rooke as much, since he sighed again, louder this time.

“Just . . . see what you can learn before I next summon you,” he said. Throwing back the last of his liquor, he locked eyes with her and finished, “Skilled healer or not, I can find others to work in the infirmary. Your worth lies in what you can tell me. I need more information, Kiva. Better information.”

He turned to look out the window again, his dismissal clear, leaving Kiva to be escorted down from the wall by another guard, her heart heavy and her stomach knotted.

She couldn’t give Rooke what he wanted. She hadn’t lied to him; Zalindov’s rebels loathed her, seeing her as little more than the Warden’s spy. Their assumed leader, Cresta, was the last person in the world who would ever trust Kiva with information.

And yet, Kiva would do as she always had—she would find a way to meet Rooke’s demands. She would live another day. She had to, if she ever wanted to see her family again. One way or another, whatever it took, she would figure out how to glean the knowledge he desired.

Chapter Seven

Jaren was allocated work in the tunnels.

It was Tipp who told Kiva; Tipp who had left the infirmary in a hurry upon Kiva’s return that night, hastening back to their shared cell block to make sure Jaren snagged a pallet next to his; Tipp who had whispered Zalindov’s secrets to the newcomer, all the warnings and hints that Kiva had failed to offer.

Kiva told herself that Jaren was just like any other prisoner, that she didn’t want or need Tipp’s frequent updates. With Jaren’s work allocation, there was no way she was going to invest time or energy into getting to know him further, even if she’d wanted to—which she didn’t. She had enough to worry about, and he had a clock ticking down to his death now. Kiva knew the odds: thirty percent of tunnelers didn’t survive their first six weeks, and fifty percent didn’t live longer than three months.

Jaren was a dead man walking.

It was a shame, Kiva supposed, but that was life at Zalindov.