Chapter 22 · The Granary Under the Pass

"Grace!" Huo's voice cut through the smoke before I saw him. "The records—"

"I know, I know!" I was already running toward the storage hall, the granary entrance half-collapsed and belching black smoke into the mountain air. My palm still burned where the spore had burrowed under the skin, that Imperial Medical Bureau seal pulsing like a brand. No time for that now. The proof that someone was poisoning the garrison's grain supply was going up in flames, and someone really didn't want us to have it.

A body slammed into me from the side. I hit the ground hard, tasted copper and ash.

"Stay down," Huo snapped. He was on top of me, one arm braced over my head. An arrow punched into the wooden post where my skull had been a second ago. Still vibrating.

"Get off—"

"When they stop shooting at you." His other hand was pressed to his ribs. Dark blood seeped between his fingers, too much of it. The bastard was already hit.

Two more arrows hissed past. One of Huo's men—the scarred lieutenant, Chen something—shouted orders I couldn't make out over the roar of the fire. The granary was three-quarters gone now.