As much as I wished for Drayce to tell me what to do about the poor souls, I couldn’t keep them in this wretched state, waiting for me to break his curse. The wound on my left hand had healed with the blood crusting over the palm. I cut it open again and bathed the sword tip in blood.
“Please,” Crom Cruach cried. “I’ll give you the information you want for free.”
“I’m listening.”
His golden fingers slipped through the bars of his cage. “Come closer.”
I plunged the sword into the fallen idol, and a white vapor streamed out through the slit. It curled around my arm before flying to the corner of the room.
“No.” His voice broke. “I’ll tell you everything you want.”
Ignoring him, I continued breaking the statues. Each little soul touched my hand or cheek before joining the first one in the corner. I don’t know why he kept those children trapped within stone—I didn’t care. As soon as they were all free, I would turn the blade on him.
“Find Cliach the Harpist,” Crom Cruach said between wracking sobs. “He will awaken King Salamander.”
“You mean King Drayce?” I plunged the sword into the sixth statue and then the seventh and the eighth.
“King Drayce,” he said. “If Cliach plays the Harp of Dagda to King Drayce, it will awaken him.”
I paused and stared into his expressionless, gold face. “How do I find Cliach?”
“Ask any of the Free Folk.” Crom Cruach jammed his face against the marble bars. “He often plays in taverns for coins. Now, please, have mercy and stop. You’ve destroyed nearly all my worshippers.”
“If they revere you so much, why aren’t they crowding around you?” I tapped the tip of my sword over the ninth. “And what happens when I destroy your last?”
Crom Cruach didn’t answer. Maybe he knew I would break the final pair. Maybe he knew he’d already lost.
I inhaled a deep breath and plunged my sword into the ninth idol. The spirit inside sped out through the fissure, circled my shoulder, and flew toward the mass waiting in the corner.
“There’s one thing I didn’t tell you,” Crom Cruach snarled. “Without that information, King Salamander will sleep for a thousand years. That’s plenty of time for his body to disintegrate into dust.”
I held the sword over the tenth.
“Well?” he shouted loud enough to shake the room. “Release me and save him.”
A few of the guards in the room faltered but soon recovered as Crom Cruach continued a loud tirade of threats and insults. Keeping my eyes on the golden statue, I wrapped both hands around the Sword of Tethra’s hilt and plunged the tip through the final idol.
“Damn you,” he screeched.
His features drooped, and liquid gold seeped through the bars of his marble cage. The guards stepped back, avoiding the metal spreading across the throne room’s floor.
Rosalind placed a hand on my shoulder and guided me to the stairs as Crom Cruach continued to melt at a rapid pace. His liquid form flared with a light so blinding that Rosalind wrapped an arm around my back and launched us into the air.
“Have you ever seen a creature like that?” I asked.
“Never,” she replied.
“I think he’s a spiorad,” said Aengus from the stairs. “Some Fomorians created them to control the minds of their human cattle.”
“What?” I stared down at the blond male, not quite believing I hadn’t read about them in the Book of Brigid.
Aengus glanced at the gold, which now stretched the furthest corners of the room but didn’t reach the guards’ boots. One of the guards blasted it with lightning, making it recoil, then another spread out his palms and shot out streams of water. As the guards attacked the gold and drove it to the middle of the room, Aengus turned back to me.
“Spiorads don’t exist until somebody believes in them,” he replied. “They require child sacrifices to give themselves form. When they reach ten, they seek stronger souls to increase their power.”
“Why didn’t you speak earlier?” Rosalind snarled.
I gave my new companion a nod of approval, even though I had decided much earlier that Crom Cruach wouldn’t leave the castle alive.
Aengus rubbed the back of his neck and grimaced. “I’ve spent the past thousand years running for my life and dying horrifically, only to rise and face the same. Forgive me for not remembering everything in an instant.”
Rosalind hissed. “You’re not the only person who’s been confined for a millennium.”
My head throbbed, and I gazed down at Aengus, who dipped his head and scowled. They were both right, but this situation wasn’t anyone’s fault and from the way the guards were driving Crom Cruach back to the center of the room, it looked like the gold would soon be under control.
“The souls I released are acting as his tether.” I willed away the cage of marble and said in a louder voice.
“I want everyone to gather him up into several jars. We’ll keep him separated, so he doesn’t talk anyone else into sacrificing their children to him.”
“What about the souls?” Rosalind tilted her head toward the little wisps dancing around each other in the corner of the room.
I turned my gaze to the wall of windows on my right, which opened and let in a cool gust of air. The souls raced toward Rosalind and me, formed a little circle around our joined bodies, and then drifted out into the afternoon sky.
“Good bye,” I murmured as I commanded the palace to close the window. When I broke Drayce’s curse, I would ask him to check that they reached the Otherworld.
The sun had set before the guards found the last scrap of liquid gold and secured it in twelve crystal jars that filled the
