But she didn’t.
“You want it badly, to strike a bargain with me,” she rasped. “To offer me anything.”
“I do,” I said, even though I wasn’t entirely sure why.
“What will you do with it?”
My stomach squeezed at that. Was she going to give it to me?
“I’m going to kill her,” I murmured, the words escaping me unbidden. I tensed at the thought, but now that I’d voiced it, calm acceptance settled into my bones.
I was. I was going to kill her. It was the only way to ensure Ash was completely safe from her.
“Mm.” Ogma was still peering at me. “You’ll do it for your oak king. But I’ll do it for everyone else.”
I stopped breathing. “Does that mean you agree?”
“I accept your bargain, Eliatha,” Ogma said. “The Carlin’s time is over, despite how fervently she would disagree. She grows too greedy. She would upset the balance. And the hunger for power infects your eldest brother already.”
That made me pause. “If I kill her, he’ll become king.”
“No, he won’t.”
I eyed her. “Then who? Surely not Bres. Cethlen?”
Ogma laughed, the sound rough. “You know who.”
Panic tightened my chest as I stared at her. Licking my dry lips, I shook my head. “No, I—”
“Your crown is waiting, Death King. This is your moment to seize it.”
Crown? King? I didn’t want to be king. I didn’t want to be unseelie ruler. I just wanted to keep Ash safe.
But if it wasn’t me, then it would be one of my brothers. Balor would be as bad as our mother, and I knew with certainty that he would still go after Ash, for his own sick reasons mired in jealousy. Bres would be an utter fool and bring the entire court down with him. Cethlen wouldn’t want it. He preferred skulking in the peripheries and listening for his own gain. He would do nothing to make things better.
If I killed the Carlin and became king, I could keep Ash safe that way. I could try and repair the damaged relationship with the seelie court, to appease the Brid. To watch over him.
Clenching my jaw, I nodded and looked into Ogma’s eye. “And what do you want?”
She gazed at me for a long moment. “A companion.”
I stilled at that. “A companion?”
“Someone to stay here with me. To talk to.”
“I… Who?”
“I trust you to find the right one. You’ll know. Bring them to me when the time is right.”
“But… no one can be followed when they come to find you. How will I—”
“You’ll be able to bring them. Folk only find me when I want them to, Holly King. And I’ll look forward to seeing you again when you bring my companion.”
I didn’t want to question it any further. She’d agreed. And she hadn’t given me a time parameter. I’d find someone, at some point, and fulfil my end of the bargain.
“It’s done,” I said with a nod, to set it in stone.
“I suppose you best come in then, Eliatha. No name can leave my hut once it’s been whispered through the hatch.”