The Prison Healer by Lynette Noni (Paperback)

Zalindov is a place built to break people. Kiva Meridan has survived it for ten years, healing criminals, guards, and anyone desperate enough to trade scraps of trust for scraps of hope. As the prison’s healer, she sees everything: the fading strength of the condemned, the brutality of the guards, and the quiet, stubborn will of those still clinging to life. Her only comfort comes from coded messages smuggled in from her family, promising rescue and urging her to hold on.

When the Rebel Queen is brought into Zalindov gravely ill, Kiva receives a final instruction: keep her alive until they arrive. But before help can reach them, the queen is sentenced to the Trial by Ordeal, four elemental challenges designed to kill. Knowing the queen cannot endure them, Kiva volunteers to take her place. If she survives, both will walk free. If she fails, they die together.

As she faces the first Trial, the prison trembles under plague, tension, and whispers of rebellion. A new prisoner named Jaren unsettles her careful routine with kindness she does not know how to trust. Each challenge pushes her closer to death, but also closer to truths buried beneath Zalindov’s stone walls and inside herself. Kiva entered the Trials to save a life, but what she discovers could change everything.