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"Cut it off."
I said it before I thought it through, but Huo Yanzhan's hand was already on his sword.
"The arm?" His voice was flat. Like I'd asked him to pass the salt.
"No—Jesus, no. The spread. We need to stop the spread." I grabbed Jingchuan's wrist, fingers pressing above the injection site where the black veins were crawling up toward his shoulder. His skin was cold. Too cold. "Tourniquet. Now. Something clean."
Huo didn't move. He just looked at me with those slate-dark eyes, weighing whether I was about to kill his brother or save him.
"You want him to lose the arm, or you want him to lose his life?" I snapped. "Pick one. You've got about ninety seconds."
That got him moving. He stripped off his belt—leather, wide, still warm from his body—and tossed it to me. I caught it one-handed and wrapped it tight around Jingchuan's upper arm, just below the shoulder. The black lines stopped crawling. For now.
"How long can you leave that on?" Huo's voice was right next to my ear. I hadn't heard him move.
"Two hours. Maybe less." I didn't look up. My hands were shaking. I pressed my thumb against Jingchuan's radial pulse. Thready. Weak. Still there. "After that, the tissue starts dying. But if I take it off now, whatever's in his veins hits his heart in under a minute."
"Then what."
Not a question. A demand.
"Then I figure out what the hell this is and how to stop it." I finally looked up at him. He was close enough that I could see the faint scar cutting through his left eyebrow, the way his jaw was locked so tight I thought I heard his teeth grind. "And you figure out who's been sticking needles in your brother while he's supposed to be under guard."
Something shifted in his expression. Not shock. Colder than that.
"You're saying it's not the plague."
"I'm saying the plague doesn't use syringes." I turned Jingchuan's arm so Huo could see the puncture mark, red and swollen. "Someone did this. Today. Maybe an hour ago. While your people were standing outside that door."
Behind us, Su Liyue made a soft, offended sound. Like I'd just insulted her ancestors.
"That's a reckless accusation," she said. Her voice was silk over glass. "The prince has been treated by my physicians all morning. Any mark could be from the acupuncture—"
"Acupuncture needles are hair-thin and leave dots. This is a puncture from a hollow needle. Something that injects." I stood up, still holding Jingchuan's wrist, and turned to face her. She was standing near the door, hands folded, robes perfect. Too perfect. "You want to tell me what you people use for IV administration? Or are you going to keep pretending you don't know the difference?"
Her smile didn't move. But her eyes did. Just a flicker toward the tray of instruments on the side table.
I followed her gaze. Porcelain cups. Jade scrapers. A small bronze syringe, the kind that looked ceremonial. Expensive. The plunger was still wet.
"Who touched that?" I asked.
No one answered.
Huo moved past me in two strides and picked up the syringe. He held it up to the light, and I saw the residue inside—thick, dark, the color of old blood mixed with something else. Something that shimmered.
"Commander." One of the guards stepped forward, younger than the others, face pale. "The physician's assistant brought it in. Said it was a tonic. We didn't think—"
"Where is he."
The guard's throat bobbed. "He left. Ten minutes ago. Said he'd forgotten something in the apothecary."
Huo's hand closed around the syringe. I heard the bronze crack.
"Find him," he said. "Bring him back alive. I don't care how."
The guards moved like a single organism. Gone in seconds.
Su Liyue hadn't moved. She was still standing there, hands folded, face smooth. But I saw the way her fingers tightened. Just a fraction.
"Lady Su." Huo's voice could have frozen water. "You will remain in this fortress until I say otherwise."
"Commander, I—"
"You will remain. Or you will be carried."
She stared at him for a long moment. Then she bowed, shallow and precise, and walked out. The door closed behind her with a whisper.
I waited until her footsteps faded.
"She's not going to run," I said. "She's too smart for that. But she's going to burn every piece of evidence between here and the apothecary before your guys get there."
"I know." Huo set the broken syringe down on the table and looked at Jingchuan. His expression didn't change, but I saw the way his hand flexed. Like he wanted to hit something and couldn't find a target. "Can you save him."
I looked down at Jingchuan's arm. The tourniquet was holding. The black veins hadn't moved. But his breathing was getting shallower. His lips were turning blue.
"I don't know," I said. "I don't know what this is. I don't know what it does. And I don't have anything to work with except boiled water and spite."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only answer I've got." My voice came out harsher than I meant. I took a breath. "Look. If this were my ER, I'd pump him full of activated charcoal, run a tox screen, and call poison control. Here? I don't even know if you people have a word for antidote."
"We do." Huo's eyes were still on his brother. "But the physicians say there isn't one. Not for this."
"Then the physicians are useless." I crouched down next to Jingchuan again, fingers checking his pulse. Still there. Barely. "Every poison has a mechanism. You stop the mechanism, you stop the poison. I just need to figure out what it's doing."
"How."
"I need to see the source. The stuff in that syringe. And I need to see what happened to anyone else who got dosed with it." I looked up at him. "You said there were other fraud healers. The ones who got buried. What killed them?"
Huo's jaw tightened.
"They didn't fail," I said slowly. "They got poisoned too. Didn't they."
He didn't answer. He didn't have to.
"Great." I stood up, wiping my palms on my pants. They were still shaking. "So someone's killing anyone who gets close to figuring this out. And you just put a three-day deadline on my head. Fantastic."
"You're not leaving this room." Huo turned to face me. He was close again. Close enough that I had to tilt my head back to look him in the eye. "If there's a traitor, they'll come for you next. You stay here. Under guard. Until this is finished."
"I can't treat him from inside a locked room."
"You'll have everything you need brought to you."
"I need to see the apothecary. I need to see the other patients. I need to—"
"You need to stay alive." His hand came up and caught my wrist. Not rough. But immovable. "If you die, he dies. Do you understand?"
I looked down at his hand. His fingers were wrapped around my wrist, thumb pressing against my pulse point. I wondered if he could feel how fast my heart was going.
"Let go," I said.
He didn't.
"I said let go."
"I heard you." His voice dropped. Quiet. Dangerous. "You're bleeding."
I looked down. He was right. My palm was sliced open, a thin line across the base of my thumb. I hadn't even felt it. Must've been from the bronze syringe when I grabbed it off the table earlier.
Huo turned my hand over, fingers pressing against the edges of the cut. The bleeding slowed.
"You don't get to die yet," he said.
I should've pulled away. Should've told him to go to hell. But my hands were still shaking, and his grip was the only steady thing in the room.
"I'm not planning on it," I said.
"Good." He let go. Slowly. Like he didn't trust me not to do something stupid the second he did. "Then we understand each other."
I opened my mouth to answer.
And Jingchuan gasped.
We both turned. His eyes were open. Just barely. Glassy and unfocused, pupils blown wide. His lips moved, shaping words I couldn't hear.
I dropped down next to him, hand on his shoulder.
"Don't talk. Save your energy. We're going to—"
"The plague," he whispered. His voice was ragged. Wet. "Started at Qingfeng Pass."
I froze.
"What?"
But his eyes were already rolling back. His body went slack. The pulse under my fingers stuttered and vanished.
"No. No, no, no—" I started compressions, hands locked, shoulders over his chest. Thirty compressions. Two breaths. "Come on. Stay with me. Come on—"
Huo was shouting for the physicians. The door slammed open. Voices. Footsteps.
But all I could hear was Jingchuan's last words.
The plague started at Qingfeng Pass.
Huo's fortress.
Huo's command.