by Becca Andre
“I’ve never actually seen a construct.” Kali eyed Lock, a faint frown wrinkling her forehead.
Briar was about to tell her to back off when she continued.
“My father had already absorbed his when he came for me.”
Briar turned to look at her. “Your father was a ferromancer?”
“Yes.” Kali lifted her chin, the ever-present frown still in place. “I was born in the wild, but Perseus has trained me well.” She crossed her arms.
Since the Scourge were the guards of the ferra, Briar had assumed that the ferra were their mothers. Now that she thought about it, she remembered Perseus saying that Kali had no coven. Apparently, she had been fathered by a rogue ferromancer and actually born in the wild.
“How did you find Perseus?” Briar asked.
“He was hunting my father.”
“That sounds awkward.”
“Why? Perseus gave me the means to kill him.”
“Oh.” Briar didn’t know what to say to that.
“Don’t give me that look. Your father was a ferromancer, too.”
Briar wasn’t certain what look she had given her, but she answered honestly. “I don’t remember my father.”
“Huh.” Kali watched Lock poke at the broken teacup. “I don’t guess you would.”
Lock looked up at Kali, then cocked his head and blinked—delicate silver eyelids sliding down over his gemstone-like eyes.
Kali smiled. “All right, he is adorable.”
Lock sat up straighter. He puffed out his chest and shifted his wings against his back.
Briar laughed. “Grayson’s right. You are a little flirt.”
Lock’s answering whirr was indignant.
This time, Kali laughed. “I think you offended him.”
“Nah. He knows he’s beautiful.” She tickled him under the chin.
“And responsive to flattery,” Kali added, still smiling. “Completely warranted flattery.”
Lock hopped across the table, moving closer to Kali.
Briar scooped him up and transferred him to her shoulder. No, she thought at him. She’s Scourge, remember?
“I wasn’t going to hurt him.” Kali’s frown returned.
The hatch door flew open and fell against the deck with a bang. Briar thought it might be Benji until skirts appeared in the opening. Molly all but slid down the ladder. Before Briar could ask if she had slipped, Molly spun and gripped her by the shoulders.
“We’ve been set up!” Molly glanced toward the open hatch.
“What?”
“Darby. The men were still on the boat. Lester isn’t missing.”
They were forced to shift their weight as the deck began to move.
“He cut us loose,” Molly whispered.
Kali turned and ran for the door. She wouldn’t care if the boat was moving. Only one thing would get a reaction like that from her.
The door slammed open just before Kali reached it, and she skidded to a halt.
An instant later, Farran stepped through the doorway, water dripping from his metal skin. He hadn’t bothered with a cloak this time, opting to wear nothing at all. His nudity made Briar uncomfortable, but not due to embarrassment. His body was so alien it made her skin crawl.
He lifted his eyes to hers. With his dark gray irises stretching from lid to lid, she wouldn’t call them human, but they were still made of flesh. Maybe the only flesh he had left.
“Ferra,” he addressed her, his voice devoid of any emotion. “You will return my brother’s heart.”
Lock snapped his jaws at Farran from her shoulder.
“Shh.” She reached up and ran a finger along his neck.
“Cooperate. Draw him closer,” Kali muttered, stepping back beside her. “My disruptor is in my pack.”
Briar wasn’t about to give him Lock. She lifted her chin, looking Farran in those inhuman eyes. “Grayson’s heart is mine.”
“So be it.” Farran walked into the room, looking so incredibly out of place in the familiar surroundings. “I guess I’ll have to take your heart instead.” The complete lack of malice made the words even more terrifying.
Briar hoped he couldn’t see her knees shaking.
Chapter 18
Briar froze as Farran stopped a few feet away. He studied Kali a moment before turning his gaze back to Briar. He probably expected them to attack.
Briar lifted her chin, meeting his eyes. Should she summon Grayson? If he went head-to-head with Farran, he’d most likely need to merge with Lock again. She had brought Grayson back each time, but he always came away with more metal. She remembered that glimpse of his ribs. How much had he changed on the inside?
She couldn’t risk him.
Kali glanced at the door before looking back at the ladder to the hatch.
Could Briar keep Farran occupied, giving Kali a chance to go grab her disruptor?
“What do you get out of this, Farran?” Briar asked. “Are you just Solon’s lap dog, or does forcing Grayson to do this net you something?”
“It serves no purpose to explain it to you.”
“I would like to understand.”
“You cannot. You have not ascended to the next plane of existence. Nor can you. The ferra can only birth immortality. They cannot achieve it.” He spoke the words without inflection or maliciousness.
“You see yourself as evolved. A superior life form—if one ignores the life part.”
“And therein lies the chasm you cannot cross. You are bound to the flesh that controls every aspect of your existence.”
Molly stepped back, moving closer to the stove. Farran didn’t even glance at her.
“All right. I accept that,” Briar said. He would clearly never see her side of the argument. “But it was my understanding that your brothers seek the dragon to end their devolvement—as most call it.”
“A necessary deception until they reach their own enlightenment. Once the dragon achieves his, he will show them the way.”
Goosebumps rose on Briar’s arms, despite the warmth of her cabin. “You believe that once Grayson absorbs his construct and sheds his humanity, he will accelerate his brothers’ devolvement.”
“Their evolution,” Farran corrected her, his tone matter of fact.
“Does Solon understand this?” she asked.
“No. It is the great irony of the situation. But in the end, Solon’s goal to save his brothers and elevate our race will be achieved.”
Briar stared at Farran, horrified. She despised Solon for what he’d done to Grayson, but at least Solon’s cause had been noble. He was trying to save his brothers from Farran’s fate. Farran was trying to drag everyone down with him.
“Once he is enlightened, Solon will thank me,” Farran added.
“And what of the rest of us? The ferra? The humans?”
Farran watched her, his expression neither disgusted nor apologetic. He didn’t seem to care at all. “Humans are a resource to be harvested. The ferra must be eliminated.”
“Why?” she whispered.
“They use a ferromancer’s humanity against him while he is still in the larval form.”
The scrape of metal on metal came from the stove as Molly lifted the cast iron skillet. “Briar, run!” She lunged at Farran, using the heavy skillet as a cudgel.
Farran raised a hand, his expression unchanging in the face of this threat.
The skillet was jerked from Molly’s grip. She stumbled to a stop as the pan froze in mid-air, then spun and came back at her.
“Molly!” Briar took a step toward her, more on impulse than in any hope of helping.
Molly turned, flinching away from the blow, and the skillet slammed into her shoulder. It hit so hard that it slung Moll
y aside. The force knocked her into the wall and she crumbled to the floor with a whimper.
The skillet fell an instant later, landing with a reverberating boom.
Briar wanted to go to Molly, but stopped as Farran spun toward the ladder. Kali was already disappearing through the hatch.
Footfalls echoed on the deck above them, then a thump sounded from the cargo hold. Kali was going for her disruptor.
Farran sprang for the door and leapt through the opening. Dear God, he was fast.
Briar spared Molly a glance, then ran after him, Lock clinging to her shoulder.
Kali had reached her pack and stuffed her hand inside, but she scrambled backward as Farran ran at her.
Briar grabbed an empty barrel and rolled it after Farran.
He turned toward the sound, but made no attempt to avoid the barrel. He lifted one foot, and just before the barrel struck, brought it down on the wooden container. It shattered as if made of aged driftwood instead of seasoned oak. Broken planks clattered to the deck along with the iron rings that had held them in place.
But the diversion had done what Briar intended. Kali pulled her hand from her pack, the disruptor clutched in her fist.
Farran eyed the tiny silver gun. “A pitiful substitution for the real thing.”
“It’s enough to finish you.” Kali pulled the trigger, and a beam of red light shot from the muzzle.
The light hit him in the chest and exploded in a shower of sparks. They rained down from his undamaged torso, vanishing before hitting the deck.
“As I was saying,” Farran continued, “a pitiful substitution. That weapon is at least two decades old, as are the charges. Only live soul fire has a chance against a fully evolved ferromancer.”
He gestured, and one of the iron rings that had bound the now shattered barrel went flying. It slammed into the gun Kali held, knocking it from her hand. The weapon flew backward with the force of the impact, sailing over the side of the boat. A splash followed a moment later.
Kali dove for her pack, perhaps going for another weapon, but the iron ring Farran had thrown did not fall into the water. It circled around, streaking toward Kali. She lifted her hands to ward off the blow, but the ring opened just before it reached her. It wrapped around her upper body in the blink of an eye, pinning her arms against her chest.
“Briar, use your stylus!” Kali shouted.
“I don’t know how,” Briar admitted. “I was born in the wild, too.”
Kali stared at her, fear showing on her features for the first time.
Farran watched the exchange with indifference, not seeming to care that they openly discussed strategies to take him down. Someone like Solon or his henchman, Mr. Owens, would have laughed at them. Briar decided she’d prefer a little maniacal laughter to Farran’s quiet observation.
As if her notice spurred him to action, Farran made another gesture. The second iron ring from the barrel shot from the deck, opening as it flew toward Kali. It whipped around her legs, just above the knees.
“Scourge,” Farran said with the same disinterest. “A mix of two races that harnesses the weakness of both. A sorry experiment the sentimental ferra cannot let go.”
He opened his hand, raising it palm-up toward the sky. Kali rose in the air, suspended over the deck.
“You’re wrong,” Briar said. “You are not an enlightened immortal; you are a barren husk of a broken dream.”
He turned his head to look at her, continuing to hold Kali in place. “Your poetry has no meaning.”
“No meaning to you, but it is everything to me.”
Farran regarded her for a moment, then lowered his arm. To Briar’s surprise, Kali returned to the deck.
“Let her go,” Briar said.
“If I still had the capacity, your reverence for life would disgust me.” Farran fisted his hand and Kali cried out. He was tightening the band of iron.
“Let her go!” Briar shouted. She ran at him, hoping to surprise him into releasing Kali. But he didn’t react the way she expected.
He sprang forward to meet her. Briar attempted to slide to a stop, but her momentum carried her into him.
His metal hand closed around her throat, and he lifted her from the deck.
Briar gripped his wrist, but he didn’t hold her suspended as she expected. He turned and slammed her against the wall of her cabin.
She hit so hard that the air was knocked from her lungs, and her ears rang from the blow to the head. For a moment, she lost awareness of her surroundings.
“No!” Farran shouted, and for the first time, she heard a hint of emotion in his voice.
Briar blinked her eyes, trying to understand what was happening. Lock clung to Farran’s face, his tiny gold-tipped talons digging into one metal cheek while he drove his sharp muzzle into Farran’s left eye.
With a pop, liquid rolled down Farran’s cheek. He grabbed Lock with one hand, ripping him from his face.
Lock screeched, but in fury, not pain, though his delicate wings bent in Farran’s hand. Grayson had told her that constructs were only vulnerable to the Scourge.
“You commanded it to do that.” Farran glared at her with his remaining eye.
“I did not.” She pushed off the wall and took a couple of steps toward him, testing her balance and her still ringing head. “He came to my defense.”
Farran didn’t look enlightened.
“It’s called love, and I believe that’s what makes us human.”
“It is a construct. It was never human.” Farran gestured with Lock who emitted another angry screech.
“Made from a human soul. A soul I’m not willing to watch perish as yours has.”
“My soul is still very much intact.”
“No. The soul is here.” She laid a hand over her own heart. “It is love and a value for the life that encases it. You may continue to move, but you are dead. You are nothing more than a thing, attempting to give your existence meaning by maligning what you lost.”
“Spare me your unenlightened drivel, ferra witch.”
Briar smiled at the burst of anger.
“Why do you smile?” he demanded.
“Because you’re not as enlightened as you believe.”
He took a step toward her, a murderous light in his single eye. Abruptly he stopped and looked up at the aft deck.
Briar followed his gaze and her heart leapt in her chest when she saw Grayson standing on the edge above them. He had discarded his shirt and his silver wings were open as he studied them with cool alien eyes.
“Grayson, no,” she whispered.
His wings folded and vanished behind his back.
“Do not give him commands, witch.” Farran sounded furious.
Grayson hopped down from the upper deck, landing lightly beside her. “Must you antagonize everyone you meet?” He glanced over, his eyes meeting hers. Human eyes.
She smiled. “Life would be dull otherwise, Mr. Martel.”
“His name is Drake.” The anger didn’t show in Farran’s face, but it was in his voice.
“His name is whatever he chooses it to be,” she answered.
Farran took a step toward her, but hesitated when Grayson moved between them.
“Fight her hold, my brother,” Farran said. “Give me time to free you.”
“She isn’t commanding me.” Grayson’s teasing tone turned cool. “I act of my own will.”
Farran’s single eye narrowed, but before he could speak, he looked up with a gasp. Briar didn’t understand his reaction until a small quarrel slammed into his upper chest, purple lightning crackling around the silver shaft. Flames of violet and gold ignited around the bolt, melting the silver skin.
Perseus dropped into the cargo hold from the aft deck
. Judging by his dry clothes, Briar suspected that Grayson must have flown him over. Keeping his crossbow trained on Farran, Perseus backed toward Kali as a new quarrel slid into place. The crossbow Grayson had designed was ingenious, but it really needed to reload faster.
“Grayson, some help.” Perseus dipped his head toward Kali who was still wrapped in the iron bands.
Grayson lifted a hand, and a barrel band began to unwind from Kali’s upper body.
“You would help the Scourge?” Farran fisted the hand that held Lock. The little dragon screeched, and Grayson doubled over.
Perseus leveled his bow on Farran and his finger tensed on the trigger.
With a flick of his empty hand, Farran sent Kali—still not free from her iron binding—over the side of the boat.
Kali screamed, but the sound was cut off by a splash. Perseus glanced at Grayson, as if expecting his help, but he was still doubled over.
“Go!” Briar shouted at him.
Perseus fired a bolt that went wide, then dropped his crossbow. Spinning away, he dove over the side of the boat after Kali.
Briar didn’t wait to see what Farran would do next. She ran for Perseus’s discarded crossbow, snatching it up off the deck. She spun to face Farran, bringing the bow up as she turned. If she had counted correctly, there was one quarrel left.
Chapter 19
“Release him. Both of them.” Briar tapped the button on the back of the grip, and another bolt slid forward, moving steadily into place. Purple lightning crackled along the quarrel, brushing her hand. Oddly, it didn’t shock her or even feel hot. There was something almost soothing about it.
Lock squealed as Farran tightened his grip and Grayson dropped to his knees.
She lifted the crossbow and fired. Something felt so right about her movements. She had only fired a crossbow a few times when Uncle Liam had let her play with one he had built. She had been naturally adept, but it had never felt as smooth and easy as this. But Liam’s bow hadn’t been made of soul iron or designed by a mechanical genius.