Soul Singer_Iron Souls, Book Two

by Becca Andre

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Afterword

  Map

  Glossary

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Soul Singer

  Iron Souls: Book Two

  Copyright © 2018 by Becca Andre. All rights reserved.

  Print Edition: 2018

  Editor: Shelley Holloway

  Cover and Formatting: Streetlight Graphics

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

  Chapter 1

  Briar rested her elbows on the edge of the folding table, ignoring the wobble as she studied the map. It was Uncle Charlie’s map of the entire length of the Ohio & Erie Canal. She hadn’t pulled it out in years because she didn’t need it to travel the familiar southern section of the waterway. But things had changed. Now she would be traveling all the way to the northern terminus. It would be the first time she’d captained a boat on that part of the canal.

  Picking up her pen, she turned back to her calculations and checked for errors. She ran through it two more times before setting down her pen. The number of miles between towns was correct and her arithmetic accurate.

  “I don’t think we can make that in three days,” Eli said from his place at her shoulder. “The distance, maybe, but there’s over a hundred locks between us and Cleveland.”

  “What if we run at night?”

  “Your call, Captain, but you know how tough that is on the mules…and the crew.” Eli’s big hand came to rest on her shoulder. “Why are you so anxious to get to Cleveland?”

  Briar rose from her seat on the tiller deck rail. She’d brought the table and map up here to discuss the trip, but maybe she’d really come here for another reason. She needed to talk to someone.

  “I’m taking Grayson to Cleveland to meet with a friend of his. A lady who can teach me how to…amputate him from me.”

  Eli stood straighter—which at six and half feet, put him over a foot taller than her. “Amputate?”

  “You know Grayson’s construct, Lock?”

  At the mention of his name, the little metal dragon climbed from her waistcoat pocket and scampered up to her shoulder.

  Eli eyed Lock. “Yes, I’m aware of Mr. Martel’s ferromantic device.”

  Briar hesitated. She’d been debating whether to tell Eli about this, but she needed someone to talk to. “When we were in Lockbourne, Liam forced me to make Lock my own, binding Grayson to me.”

  “How—”

  “Lock is part of his soul.” She waved away any further questions. “That doesn’t matter. The point is, Grayson wants to be free of me and promised that his friend can help. I told him we’d be in Cleveland in three days.”

  Eli pursed his lips. “I don’t see the man getting upset if we run a day longer.”

  Briar sighed. “I just want to be done with this.”

  Eli didn’t immediately answer. Instead, he looked at the towpath where, two hundred feet ahead of them, Zach drove the mule team. The towline stretched back to the boat, bobbing a little with the tug of the mules.

  “What is it?” she asked Eli. Was he upset with her? Certainly he understood that she had been forced to obey Liam.

  “This is what you’ve been so upset about?”

  “I was forced to take away his freedom. You know how much I value being able to make my own way in life. Grayson is the same, and I took that from him.”

  “He looks pretty free at the moment.”

  Briar followed his gaze and saw Grayson climb up onto the deck over the stable cabin. He was alone, which was no surprise. Since the crew learned that he was a ferromancer, they had become reserved around him. He turned away, taking the catwalk across the cargo hold to reach the bow deck.

  The Briar Rose was a typical three-cabin freighter. With a cabin in the bow, midship, and stern, leaving the rest of the deck space available for cargo. The two cargo holds—large open areas between the cabins—were currently empty. After this errand was over, Briar intended to change that.

  Grayson took a seat on the bow rail and studied whatever he held. Briar couldn’t see from here, but it looked like a horseshoe.

  “What’s he up to?” Eli asked.

  “I’ll go see.” Briar turned to the catwalk and heard Eli sigh behind her. She really wished he would get over his dislike of Grayson, but she was beginning to think that was never going to happen.

  By the time she reached the bow deck, Grayson had closed his eyes and was rubbing his hands over what was indeed a horseshoe. A broken horseshoe.

  Briar hesitated. The wrinkle on his forehead suggested concentration, and she hated to interrupt. She took a quiet step closer.

  The dull metal changed. The rust didn’t fall away, but seemed to smooth out.

  Grayson, his eyes still closed, aligned the two halves of the horseshoe, and a faint golden nimbus glowed along the crack. At the same time, the rest of the shoe was changing color from a lackluster rusty brown to a polished iron gray.

  She glanced over at Lock who still sat on her shoulder. The little automaton was watching with interest.

  Grayson stopped running his hands over the now unbroken horseshoe, his shoulders slumping as he took a deep breath.

  Lock shifted on her shoulder.

  “I don’t know, Lock,” she said aloud. “Is he asleep?”

  A mechanical whirr answered her. No, he wasn’t asleep.

  Grayson opened his eyes and looked up at them, a slight upturn of his mouth suggesting amusement.

  “I guess not,” Briar answered her own question. “What were you doing?”

  He held up the shoe. It was a fully formed horseshoe; the polished iron winked in the August sun. “I found a broken shoe and thought I’d fix it.” His British accent no longer sounded so foreign to her.

  She studied him. “Why fix it?”

  “To see if I could.”

  “I’ve seen you bend iron before.”

  “This iron had been poorly forged—at least for use in horseshoes. It contained too much phosphorus, making it brittle. I reforged it.”

  “Reforged it.” She reached out and touched the smooth metal of the shoe. “It’s not hot.”

  His blue-gray eyes met hers. “I used the fire of my soul.”

  “Oh.” She couldn’t come up with a better response. “I’m guessing you couldn’t have done this before your final casting?” Before he’d been forced to come into his full power.
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  “That’s correct.”

  “Hmm.” Sometimes, his magical displays made her uneasy. “So is this going to be a hobby for you? Like whittling?” she teased, trying to make light of his bizarre abilities.

  “Perhaps.” A slight smile teased his lips, and he rose to his feet. “I—”

  He turned his head. His good humor becoming a frown, he stared at the towpath ahead of them.

  She followed his gaze and saw Zach pulling the mules to halt. He waved at them, signaling that he had some reason to stop. Maybe a mule had slipped a shoe or there was an obstruction on the towpath. There was a bend in the canal just ahead of them, and the team currently blocked her view.

  “Steer us toward the bank,” she called back to Eli who had a hand up to shield his eyes against the glare of the sun. He’d seen Zach’s signal as well.

  “Has a tree fallen across the path or something?” she asked.

  “No. Not a tree.” A coolness in Grayson’s tone gave her an instant chill.

  “Wh—” She didn’t get to finish her query before he sprang up on the bow rail, then leapt to shore, clearing the eight-foot gap with ease.

  She jumped up on the rail, as well, but didn’t follow. She couldn’t make that jump without taking a run.

  The hatch opened in the deck behind her, and Jimmy climbed out of the bow cabin. “Captain?” He glanced toward shore. They were almost even with the stopped mules, but Grayson and Zach were no longer in sight.

  “Zach stopped the mules,” she explained. “I don’t know why yet.”

  “Ah.”

  The boat bumped softly against the bank, a glancing blow designed to slow them and not damage the bank—or the boat. Just before Eli brushed the bank again, Briar jumped across to the towpath. Jimmy followed her an instant later.

  The mules, now a few yards behind them, looked up with indifference before turning their attention back to the grasses growing along the verge.

  “Stay with the mules,” Briar said to Jimmy. “I’ll give you a shout if we need your help.”

  “Aye, Captain.” Jimmy turned back to the mules. They didn’t look like they’d be going anywhere, but if something startled them, they were hitched to the boat.

  “Lock, you’d best get out of sight,” she said to the little dragon perched on her shoulder. He scampered down the front of her waistcoat, morphing into the pocket watch before dropping into her pocket.

  She jogged along the towpath. The occasional rumble of male voices carried back to her, but she didn’t catch the words. She hadn’t seen anything that would cause Zach to stop. Had he heard something?

  She rounded the bend and saw Zach and Grayson just ahead. A third man lay face up on the towpath, Grayson kneeling over him. Perhaps they had heard his cry for help. Grayson was blocking the man from her view, so she couldn’t say for certain.

  “Hey,” she greeted them, stopping beside Zach.

  Zach glanced over, his face pale. “I heard him scream.”

  Briar took a step to the side and gasped as she got her first good look at the man on the ground. He lay on his back, his dead eyes to the sky, and his bare chest ripped open.

  She took a step closer, noticing the iron tang of blood that filled the air. Aside from the occasional animal—that was usually cleaned and dressed before she saw it—Briar had never had the opportunity to closely examine the internal workings of a body. Silver glinted within the hole, and Briar stepped closer, her curiosity overcoming the horror of the situation.

  “He’s soulless?” she asked Grayson.

  “He was. The heart is missing.”

  Grayson reached into the man’s chest and pulled out a small white envelope.

  The sight of an envelope in such a location both outraged her, and turned her stomach. She had never been squeamish, but something about the corpse unnerved her. Maybe it was those foreign bits of metal that were now part of his flesh. Or perhaps it was the horrified look on the dead man’s face.

  Grayson turned the envelope in his hands, and she saw the single word written on the front. Drake.

  She crossed her arms. “That was left for you.” Drake was his ferromancer name.

  “So it would seem.” Grayson rose to his feet.

  She was about to ask if he was going to open it when he spun to face the thick stand of trees on the side of the towpath. “Bloody hell,” he muttered.

  Briar turned, as well, but saw nothing that would elicit such a response.

  “I see you,” Grayson called out.

  She frowned. “Who—”

  A man emerged from the trees dressed in a dark cloak with a hood that covered his head and obscured his features. The garment looked distinctly out of place on this hot August morning, even in the shade of the trees.

  “You left this for me?” Grayson stepped forward to meet him.

  “Solon said to get your attention.”

  Briar stilled at the mention of Solon’s name as well as the completely alien sound of the man’s voice. It was so cold, devoid of any inflection or emotion.

  “Your presence would have been enough.” Grayson held up the envelope. “What is this?”

  “An invitation.”

  “To what?”

  “It refutes the logic of delivering it if I tell you what the missive contains.” The line might have been funny if it hadn’t been delivered in that dead voice.

  Grayson didn’t laugh.

  “It seems the boy has grown,” the cloaked fellow said.

  “You know me?” Grayson asked. “Who are you?”

  The man appeared to study Grayson a moment, though Briar couldn’t see his face. He reached up and pushed back his hood.

  Zach gasped.

  “Farran,” Grayson whispered.

  “You remember me.” There was no joy or satisfaction in the man’s voice. There was no emotion at all. Just as there was no human flesh on his face. Instead, his face was made of smooth, perfectly contoured silver metal.

  “It’s the eyes,” Grayson answered. Unlike the voice of the man he faced, emotion colored Grayson’s words.

  The man—Farran—had no response. He regarded Grayson with dark gray eyes flecked with gold, but they weren’t human eyes. No whites showed in his eyes. His irises stretched from lid to lid, like an animal’s.

  “Have you a response for Solon?” Farran asked.

  “I haven’t yet read his missive.” Grayson gestured with the envelope.

  “You can’t run from this, Drake.” Farran gestured at himself. Was he threatening Grayson?

  Briar tensed, expecting Grayson to command Lock to form the silver armor as he had when he’d fought Solon, but Grayson merely regarded the man in silence.

  “I shall await your response.” Without another word, Farran turned away. Pulling up his hood, he stepped into the trees and was gone.

  “What was that?” Zach whispered.

  “My destiny,” Grayson answered.

  Chapter 2

  Briar crossed her arms, frowning at the trees where the man had gone. She did not want to accept that such a thing could be Grayson one day.

  “He was a ferromancer?” Zach asked. Perhaps he’d thought the man a construct, like Lock.

  “A fully devolved ferromancer,” Grayson clarified. “His name is Farran Lupus.”

  “Lupus,” Briar spoke up, trying to steer the conversation away from what Grayson could become. “And that is…”

  “Wolf,” Grayson answered.

  “Huh. So his construct is a wolf.” Ferromancers were named for the shape their constructs took, which was why Grayson’s ferromancer name was Drake. It meant dragon.

  “His construct was a wolf,” Grayson corrected. “He no longer has one.”

  “Did
he lose it?” Zach asked.

  “It’s part of him once more.” Grayson walked back to the dead man.

  Briar swallowed. She remembered Grayson saying that he couldn’t become a monster without all of his soul. That was another reason he wanted to separate from Lock.

  “What if this Farran comes back?” Zach asked.

  “He completed the task given him.” Grayson dropped to a knee beside the body, then held out a hand over it.

  “What are you doing?” Briar asked.

  “Removing all evidence of ferromancy.”

  “We can bury the body. No one will see.”

  “The heart is missing. If it is returned, this comes back to…life.”

  “You think Farran would do that?”

  “If he needs it again.”

  “Him, not it,” she corrected.

  “We drop the gender designation when it’s no longer human.”

  “We use the proper pronoun out of respect for what he once was.”

  Grayson looked up, his eyes meeting hers. She wondered if he wanted to ask if she would still use the male pronoun for him after he devolved.

  Remaining silent, he turned back to the body and lifted his hand over the gory mess that had once been human. A golden glow illuminated the dead man’s open chest cavity. The silver organs and veins began to crumble, and the light grew brighter.

  Grayson closed his eyes and tipped his head back. He held that pose, and just when Briar was about to speak his name, he fisted his hand, and the light winked out.

  He bowed his head until his forehead touched his fist.

  Briar cleared her throat. “Grayson?”

  He lowered his hand and looked up.

  She pulled in a breath as she met his gaze. Unlike Farran’s alien eyes, Grayson’s were still human, but there was something inhuman in those blue-gray depths.

  “I’ll need a shovel,” he told her, his voice cold and nearly as devoid of emotion as Farran’s had been.

  “Zach?” She looked back at him. “Would you go get a shovel?”