smug he’d be with Gerrit’s imbued blade in his back.
“Gerrit, the storm’s gone.” Filip’s touch on his cheek startled him. The gold bozhk lightning bolts on Filip’s collar glinted too bright for sousednia’s heavy overcast. “They’re talking about a snake charmer now, and a band is playing. It smells like sweat and dirty fry oil.”
Gerrit concentrated on his best friend’s words, teasing those sensations out from his memory of the icy road. As the crowd began to resolve, Gerrit regained control of his sousednia and shredded his combat nuzhda. His sinuses burned, his ears popping as sousednia changed and sunlight seared over his mountaintop once more.
Following Filip’s touch back to true-life, Gerrit scrubbed his hands over his face, weak and shaky without the combat nuzhda. “Freezing sleet,” he muttered.
“I take it that wasn’t intentional.” Filip’s wry voice chased away the nuzhda’s last echoes.
Gerrit shook his head, focusing past Filip to check whether Tesarik had seen. Watching Gerrit lose control would make the hail-eater’s day.
“This is what he wants,” Filip said. “He’s baiting you.”
“We need to find out if Hana imbued.”
“Does it matter?” Filip asked.
Gerrit swept the crowd, the Tayemstvoy dark bruises backed by posters of slender acrobats hanging by their hair and precarious pyramids of tumblers. “It might.” If Hana had imbued something powerful—not Category Seven, but at least Two or Three—then it shouldn’t take many storms for him, either. If he could imbue with control, his father would respect him, listen to him when he explained Tesarik’s plot.
He balled one hand in a fist, frustrated to come so close and still see no solution. How could he imbue on his own terms?
“Find out if Hana imbued.” Gerrit gripped Filip’s arm. “Make sure she’s all right. I’m going to look for clues.”
THE ROUND OF gawkers moved on, and Celka sat, adjusting Nina to relieve a cramp in her shoulder. She squeezed her eyes shut. The afternoon sideshow was almost over. She’d survived almost half the day in Solnitse with uniformed Storm Guard and Tayemstvoy peppering the crowd like mold on bread.
Her hands tightened into fists at the thought, and her breath quickened, ready to fight. She struggled to loosen her fingers, to stroke Nina’s scales and match her breathing to the Song of Calming. The storm had finally passed, her tide of rage and violence diminishing.
She hadn’t expected her technique to work perfectly today, but she’d expected some progress. Sousedni-dislocations required control, for sleet’s sake—but apparently they didn’t give her any. Normally she could crush down her hatred of the Tayemstvoy when she saw them, but the nearby bozhskyeh storm had flared it like wind on a grassfire. They’d taken Pa, tortured him and might be torturing him still, and she wanted to kill them all. When those thoughts slipped through her mind, her gaze locked on a pistol or a knife, and the object bled into sousednia. Her fingers itched to reach for Gods’ Breath. Several times, she’d almost convinced herself to try, rage overriding reason.
If the storm had been directly overhead, she wasn’t sure she could have resisted.
She was missing something. This puzzle had to have a solution.
“Hi.” The voice, close by Celka’s platform, made her jump.
She noticed the uniform first and forgot to breathe. They’d found her. They’d realized what she was.
No. Dragging in a slow breath, she pasted on a smile.
The uniform’s polished brass buttons and gold braid gleamed despite the sideshow tent’s weak light. Gold lightning bolts adorned the uniform’s collar, marking a highly trained and skilled bozhk. Combined with the four open gold pips on each shoulder, she faced a senior Storm Guard cadet.
Celka forced her gaze to the mage’s face even as her heart sped to a terrified patter. As if the uniform’s buttery-soft wool and impeccable tailoring weren’t enough of a clue, the bozhk wore a single lightning bolt earring of diamond and gold. The earring had to be worth more than most houses, though its wearer was around her own age—eighteen, tops. He was tall and pale, shimmering with sousednia bleed-through, and the intensity in his golden brown eyes seemed to pull her in.
She had to get out of here.
Instead, she made herself pick her way towards him around the smaller snakes. Just an ordinary circus performer. “Did you want to buy a postcard?” Celka struggled to keep her tone light.
“What?” he asked.
She pointed at the souvenir postcards she’d had printed: a sepia-toned photograph of her in costume, Nina wrapping her waist. “Only ten myedyen.” She held a postcard out, innocent.