almost overlapping—but the dissonance didn’t come from the same point.”
Gerrit ran his hand through his hair, trying to figure out what that meant.
“I only heard one when Hana attempted to imbue,” Jolana said. “Fainter.”
Filip’s head snapped up at that. “Darina, are you storm-scarred?”
Darina pulled a face in the flickering candlelight. “Barely.”
Filip turned to Jolana. “You?”
She nodded.
“I’m not,” Filip said.
Gerrit rubbed the back of his neck where a fern-like scar the size of a silver striber still burned. Storm-scars came from handling Gods’ Breath, and the strazh mages would only have been scarred if their imbuement mages had overflowed storm energy into them. Something about both Darina and Jolana carrying those scars felt wrong, but before Gerrit could sort it out, Filip spoke.
“If the dissonance you heard was our weaves breaking, then it makes sense that Jolana heard two for me and Gerrit. My weaves didn’t protect him.” Filip’s voice was tight. “Whatever went wrong for you three”—he nodded to the other imbuement mages—“it must have gone wrong for me, too.”
They mulled that over before Darina asked Filip, “Did you hear anything unusual during the imbuements?”
Jaw tight, Filip shook his head. “I was focused on Gerrit. He—” Filip broke off.
“It’s all right,” Gerrit said, though he hated admitting weakness, even to his closest friends. “They should know.” He dragged in a steadying breath. “I lost true-life. Completely.”
Darina caught his arm. “Are you all right?” The flickering candlelight made it hard to tell, but her gaze seemed to de-focus, like Filip’s did when he was struggling to build a picture of sousednia out of synesthetic rumbles.
He shrugged off her touch. “I’ll be fine.”
She didn’t back away, still staring through him.
Gerrit cleared his throat, looking to the others for some distraction.
“You core feels off,” Darina said before he could turn the conversation away. “Filip, something’s still wrong, isn’t it?”
Startled, Gerrit turned to his strazh.
He wanted Filip to say it wasn’t true, but Filip kicked the dirt. “I’d hoped I was imagining it.”
“Imagining what?” Gerrit asked.
“You feel like you’re not quite... here.” Filip scrubbed a hand across his jaw, struggling to explain. “Your core nuzhda’s stronger. Like when you’re focused on sousednia.”
Ice coiled around Gerrit’s spine. “But I’m not.” Shutting his eyes, he listened for sousednia’s mournful wind—nothing. Drawing a deep breath, he smelled only the cellar’s mold and rat droppings. “I’m fully holding true-life.” All day, sousednia had pressed against his senses, the smallest slip in attention leaving alpine freshness brightening the air. But he’d persisted—and he’d succeeded. He thought.
“You should talk to Captain Vrana,” Branislav said. “If you lost true-life—there could be consequences.”
Gerrit wanted to lash out. There couldn’t be consequences; he needed to imbue in the next storm. Already he could imagine Iveta’s mocking laughter at their next family dinner, his brother Artur’s solemn disappointment. Their plates cleared, his father would dismiss Gerrit like he was no more than staff, gathering Iveta and Artur to him with murmurs of ‘important business.’ Gerrit wondered sometimes how often his siblings ate with their father. Back before she’d commissioned as a bozhk officer in the Tayemstvoy, Iveta had certainly mentioned dinners without Gerrit. Study harder, little brother, she’d tell him, impeccable in her dress uniform. Effort can provide what nature withholds.
“Gerrit.” Filip’s touch startled him back to the cellar.
He needed to imbue, but Branislav was right. “I’ll talk to Captain Vrana.”
Silence settled over the room, failure an iron collar around everyone’s throat.
“Wait,” Gerrit said, finally realizing why the strazh cadets’ storm-scarring had bothered him. Hana’s knife had shattered seconds after she’d imbued it, her weaves filled wrong, the knife’s magic unstable. Since she had imbued, she could have overflowed storm energy into Darina. But... “Branislav, your imbuement didn’t fully crystalize.” When Branislav had called down Gods’ Breath, barely a trickle had flowed into his blade—insufficient to crystalize his nuzhda before the magic sputtered out. “You didn’t pull hard enough on the storm. How did storm energy overflow into Jolana?”
Everyone frowned at that.
Eventually, Branislav said, “Maybe I directed the energy wrong? Dumped it into Jolana’s weaves instead of my own?”
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Hana said. “Imbuing felt intuitive. It felt right. I didn’t feel out of control.”
“Me neither,” Gerrit said. “Well, not after I got a hold of my nuzhda.”
The others nodded.
“So how did we fail?” Branislav asked.
Darina crossed her arms. “It’s not like you’re the first to try. How many bozhskyeh storms since the cycle began? A dozen? You’re not the first to make mistakes.”
“But we’re the best.” Gerrit couldn’t say it with