to imbue.” She dropped her voice to mouth the last word more than speak it.
Grandfather stepped close, his whisper harsh. “Forget the madness Leosh told you before his arrest. No amount of care will protect you if you follow that path.”
At first she could only gape, the air driven from her lungs as though she’d fallen from the low wire. “He prepared me to help. Taught me to help.” Grandfather would take her meaning. When Pa learned the bozhskyeh storms were returning, he’d taught her everything he could about imbuing. The details might be fuzzy, but what other storm-blessed mage would turn so fully against the State? The resistance needed her—even if the Wolf didn’t know it yet.
“You saw the Tayemstvoy drag him away,” Grandfather said. “You saw what his arrest did to your mother.” Celka’s ma—her real ma—had fallen from the high wire just days after Pa’s arrest. She’d survived, but the impact had shattered her heels. Every step she took now was agony, and she couldn’t walk the wire. Summers were bittersweet for Celka, the joy of performing beneath the big top soured by Ma’s absence, and she could only imagine how painful it was for Ma, left behind at their winter quarters to take factory shifts and care for her ailing mother. “We were lucky then,” Grandfather said. “They could have arrested us all. If you follow his path, they will.”
Celka touched her storm pendant, two fingers pressing the rounded brass rectangle into her chest. Pa could still be alive, trapped in a cell or labor camp. The State would never release him, which meant she had to help the resistance destroy the State. Scripture described the Fighting Miracles—imbuements powerful and terrible. If Celka could make those, the resistance might finally be strong enough to crush the Stormhawk and Tayemstvoy.
“I know you adored him,” Grandfather said, “but the war made him reckless. You are important here. If you promise to forget his mad notions... I will teach you to help further.”
Celka’s chest tightened. Having the key to the resistance dangled before her, she couldn’t help but reach for it. Yet the Wolf said the storm-blessed would turn from the State—he must have a way for her to imbue safely. But maybe it wasn’t ready yet. Even just the thought of risking herself was terrifying; she couldn’t risk her family.
“But you must do something for me,” Grandfather said. “Increase your study of scripture. Comb the holy words for clues on how to ignore the bozhskyeh storms’ pull. And, to avoid drawing attention from the Gods, you will sing the Song of Calming until it resonates in your bones.”
Celka hated singing almost as much as she hated sitting still with a book on her lap, but she nodded. She could be patient—for a month or a season or a year. If she learned everything Grandfather knew about the resistance, when the Wolf called, she would be ready.
CHAPTER SIX
GERRIT PACED THE cramped cellar beneath his Storm Guard Academy barracks, waiting for Hana and Darina to arrive. Filip stood with maddening calm near the door. Branislav balanced on a chair that had lost its fourth leg, Jolana kneading his shoulders in the flickering candlelight.
Exhaustion left Gerrit’s muscles shivery, but his mind snapped and buzzed, on edge from his failure that morning. He’d hoped to sleep until the Tayemstvoy’s midnight patrol passed their bunkroom and left the way clear, but he’d tossed and turned, sousednia pressing against his senses, raw like salt in a wound.
When Hana and Darina finally arrived, smelling of mud from their trek across the fortress yard, Gerrit barely waited for Filip to ease the door shut before asking, “What went wrong?”
Everyone glanced around, silent and strained.
“We should have imbued,” Gerrit said, unable to control his frustration. After his failure, Hana and Branislav had attempted their own imbuements; their efforts hadn’t driven them from true-life, but they’d still failed.
“Your weaves looked fine,” Hana said cautiously. “I was watching from sousednia.” She nodded to Branislav. “Yours, too. It doesn’t make sense.”
“They looked perfect to me, too.” Frustration tightened Branislav’s voice.
“Something obviously went wrong,” Gerrit snapped, though his friends didn’t deserve his anger.
“There was... something,” Darina said.
Gerrit frowned, surprised that a strazh—who couldn’t properly see sousednia—might have noticed something the storm-blessed had missed.
“A dissonance,” she told Gerrit, “in your weaves. Just before you called Gods’ Breath.”
“What kind of dissonance?” Gerrit asked.
“Your weaves sounded wrong. Out of rhythm for a fraction of a second.”
“There were two,” Jolana said.
Everyone turned to her.
“Close together,