The Prison Healer

Written by Lynette Noni, The Prison Healer (2021) is a dark YA fantasy that follows 17-year-old Kiva, a long-term inmate of Zalindov prison who also serves as the prison healer. When an unusual and attractive new prisoner named Jaren arrives, his presence unsettles Kiva’s life and forces her to reevaluate her policy of avoiding human connection so as to avoid additional pain and suffering. As Kiva works to save fellow prisoners from an illness and undertakes a grueling series of challenges on behalf of a prisoner known to be the Rebel Queen, Kiva must rely on her intelligence, skills, and newfound allies to uncover the true reasons for her incarceration and fight to regain her freedom.

Although Australian author Lynette Noni originally studied journalism, she has since gone on to embrace a career as a fiction writer, creating various series such as The Medoran Chronicles and the Whisper duology. The Prison Healer, as the first installment in a trilogy, examines themes of Community Support as a Tool for Survival, The Corruptive Influence of Unchecked Power, and Overcoming Oppression with Hope and Resolve. The Prison Healer has been honored with several awards and is succeeded by The Gilded Cage (2021) and The Blood Traitor (2022).

This guide refers to the Kindle edition published by Clarion Books in 2021.

Content Warning: Both the source text and this guide contain descriptions of violence, self-harm, suicide, sexual violence and exploitation, psychological and physical torture, addiction, power imbalances, child death and injury, and incarceration.

Plot Summary

The Prison Healer is a YA fantasy that opens with the arrest of Kiva, her father, and her brother by Wenderall soldiers. (The narrative later reveals that her father, Faran, was suspected of helping the rebel movement against the existing system of government. Based on this suspicion, Faran was thrown into Zalindov prison without a trial and with no hope of freedom. Kiva was brought with him and kept in Zalindov even after her father died.)

Ten years later, Kiva is still incarcerated in Zalindov prison. As the prison healer, it is her job to carve the letter Z—the prison’s symbol—onto the wrists of new prisoners. Now, she carves the symbol into a teen boy’s wrist. When the boy is taken away, Kiva searches his clothing and finds a note from her family written in a code, which tells her to stay alive and declares that they are coming for her.

One month later, a new prisoner arrives, unconscious and injured. With the help of her assistant, Tipp, Kiva carves the symbol onto his wrist and begins tending to his wounds, her actions closely watched by a female guard named Naari. (Naari recently saved Kiva from an assault by male guards, and as time goes on, Kiva begins to feel a growing rapport with her, although she is unnerved to be in her debt.) When the prisoner, Jaren, awakens, Kiva is unsettled by his handsome looks and kind demeanor. Naari assigns Kiva to conduct Jaren’s orientation, so Kiva gives him a tour of Zalindov.

Later, Kiva visits Warden Rooke, to whom she reports. Rooke asks for information on the rebels within Zalindov, but Kiva is ostracized from the rebels within the prison because she is seen as Rooke’s puppet. Now, Rooke tells Kiva to bring him better information and warns her that she is replaceable.

Jaren is assigned to work as a tunneller: one of the most dangerous assignments in Zalindov. Kiva reminds herself not to get attached to Jaren because his job will likely be the death of him. Ten days after Jaren arrives, he visits Kiva to get his stitches removed. As Kiva cleans his blistered hands, Tipp races into the infirmary and announces a new arrival: an extremely sick middle-aged woman who turns out to be Tilda Corentine, the Rebel Queen. In an age-old ritual that is used to determine a prisoner’s innocence, Tilda must face four elemental trials—the Trial by Air, the Trial by Fire, the Trial by Water, and the Trial by Earth. If she survives, she will be freed. Kiva finds a coded note from her family (passed along to her by Raz, the stablemaster) telling her not to let Tilda die because they are coming to rescue her. However, Tilda is too ill to undertake such an ordeal. That night, Kiva threatened by Cresta, the leader of the rebels in Zalindov, who promises to kill Tipp if Tilda dies. When Kiva tells Warden Rooke of the encounter, he merely tells Kiva to keep Tilda alive long enough to let her die in the first trial.

The Crown Prince Deverick and Princess Merryn arrive to watch the trial, and both wear masks. Tilda is still extremely ill when guards arrive to escort her to the Trial by Air. Kiva is can only think that when Tilda dies, Tipp will die, and Kiva will have failed her family. Kiva rushes to the platform and offers to be Tilda’s champion in the Trial by Air. She is told to jump 30 feet between two watchtowers, and she fails and falls.

Kiva has a dream of the day that she and her father were arrested and the guards killed her little brother, Kerrin. Kiva wakes in immense pain and learns that the Crown Prince Deverick cushioned her fall, saving her from death. Princess Mirryn is at her side, and she gives Kiva an amulet imbued with fire. The amulet should protect her in the Trial by Fire. Kiva is reluctant to accept anything from the royal Vallentis family, but she takes it.

As time goes on, the stomach sickness infecting prisoners is getting worse, and Kiva has no idea how to treat it or determine its origin, so she visits locations around Zalindov, testing the sites to determine if one could be the source of the infection. As the Trial by Fire draws near, Jaren, Naari, and Tipp continue to provide Kiva with emotional support. However, Kiva resists her growing connection to Jaren because she knows that he is likely to die. As she prepares for the Trial by Fire, she realizes that she has seen the stomach sickness before. Nine years ago, her father was the prison healer, and he struggled to cure the same illness, eventually succumbing to it himself.

A particularly abusive prison guard, Bones, makes Kiva follow him to the guards’ barracks, where a female prisoner brought as “entertainment” for the male guards has overdosed. Bones attempts to make Kiva stay and “replace” the dead prisoner, who was about to be sexually assaulted. Naari intervenes, allowing Kiva to escape. The ordeal shakes Kiva, and later that night, Jaren joins her on her pallet and holds her while she cries.

Kiva’s Trial by Fire takes place within a lit crematorium. The amulet that Mirryn gave her shields her from harm, and she survives with only heat stroke. Warden Rooke is furious that Kiva received help, and he warns her there will be consequences if it happens again. As Jaren carries Kiva to the infirmary, he asks her about the scars on her thighs. She reveals that they are signs of her habit of harming herself in her attempts to atone for carving a “Z” onto other prisoners.

Kiva continues searching for the origin of the stomach sickness but cannot find it. While overseeing a delirious Tilda, one of Kiva’s assistants brings in an “immunity booster” and puts it away. Kiva has never seen it before, but her assistant tells her that she has been giving them away all winter to help patients. Kiva identifies it as poison just as Warden Rooke arrives to escort her to the Trial by Water. Just before Kiva is thrown into the flooded quarry for the Trial by Water, she tells Naari that the stomach sickness is caused by poison. In this latest trial, Kiva must remain submerged for 15 minutes. Kiva falls unconscious, sure that she is about to die.

Suddenly, Jaren wakes her. He has used his secret elemental magic to create an air bubble. He then circles them in flames to warm Kiva. Kiva is shocked, and she believes Jaren is an anomaly—someone born outside the royal line with elemental magic. Jaren pleads with her not to tell anyone, and Kiva is dragged to the surface. Warden Rooke tells Kiva that he warned her not to get help. She is knocked unconscious.

Kiva wakes in the Abyss—the punishment block of Zalindov—and the brutal guard known as the Butcher makes her watch as Jaren is whipped. Then Kiva is thrown into solitary confinement. Imprisoned in complete darkness, she has no sense of time, and it is six days into her confinement when Naari visits and tells Kiva that Warden Rooke is behind the poisonings; he is using this method as a brutal form of “population control.” Naari relates that because Cresta overheard Warden Rooke’s words, the prisoners are now in turmoil and could riot at any moment. Naari then reveals that Jaren is the Crown Prince Deverick, and Naari his official bodyguard. Kiva will be restrained in the cell until her next trial.

Kiva is finally brought to the Warden, who tells her that Jaren will join her for her final trial. Kiva is knocked unconscious and wakes in the aquifer tunnels with Jaren. Kiva is angry with Jaren for withholding information from her. He explains that he infiltrated Zalindov in order to find out what Tilda knew about the rebel movement against his family. He stayed because he cares for Kiva and couldn’t bear to let her die in the trials. Now, Jaren uses his magic to lead them both through the tunnels. Kiva realizes that Jaren can harness all the elements. Jaren wants Kiva and Tipp to join him in the capital. As they exit the tunnels, they hear screams and realize that a riot has broken out.

Kiva runs ahead to try to protect Tilda. The prison is embattled. In the infirmary, Kiva finds Tilda already dead, then sees Tipp bleeding to death from a stomach wound. Kiva feels the urge to use her secret healing magic, even though her father once made her promise never to use it again. Kiva begins to heal Tipp, but a voice interrupts just before she can finish.

Jaren and Naari rush through, and Kiva lies and downplays how injured Tipp had been. Kiva carries Tipp, and they attempt to escape in the chaos. Warden Rooke intercepts them, but a fellow prisoner distracts the guards and Warden Rooke, allowing Kiva and her group to escape to the stables. After Kiva gives Raz a note to pass to her family, Naari, Kiva, Jaren, and Tipp take a carriage and flee. Jaren asks about the note, and Kiva lies and tells him that she notified her family that she was going to the capital with him. In reality, the note tells her siblings that their mother is dead and that Kiva is on the way to the capital to reclaim their kingdom.