Chapter 16 · Testimony Under the Gate

"You're saying the crown poisoned us?"

The soldier's voice cut across the courtyard before I even finished climbing onto the grain crate Huo had shoved under my feet. A hundred faces, maybe more, all locked on me. Torchlight turned their eyes into hard points.

I held up the split sack. Black powder dusted my fingers.

"I'm saying someone did," I said. "And I can prove it."

"Prove it how?" Another voice, deeper, from the back. "We've eaten that grain for weeks. We're fine."

"You're not fine." I kept my voice level. "You're tired. Your wounds aren't closing. Half of you can't hold formation for more than an hour. You think that's normal?"

Murmurs rippled through the crowd. Huo stood three feet to my right, arms crossed, silent. He'd given me the stage. Now I had to not fall off it.

"This—" I shook the sack, and black dust puffed into the torchlight. "—is *gu* fungus. It grows on wet grain. You can't see it unless you crack the kernel open. But it gets into your blood, breaks down your qi pathways, makes you weak. Slow. It's why the plague got so bad so fast.