I tensed at that, jerking my blade free as the tiny door to the hut creaked open just an inch. It looked dark inside. I stared at the gap before shifting my gaze back to Ogma’s eye.
“Is this a trick?” I asked, gripping the hilt of my blade tight. “Are you going to trap me in there with you?”
She huffed. “I admit I considered it. You are beautiful, aren’t you? Far more beautiful than your conniving older brother. It would be a joy to look at you for the rest of time. But no. You can’t stay here.”
I froze. Staring into her giant eye, I rasped, “You’ve seen one of my brothers?”
It crinkled at the corner again. “I have. The one with her eyes. He found me many years ago.”
So Balor wasn’t under our mother’s control. Had the Carlin told him how to find Ogma? But why? She wanted to control all of us. Why would she tell him?
“He found another way,” Ogma said, as if she knew what I was thinking. “Just like you. He didn’t use your family’s method. I suspect your mother doesn’t know.”
Who had told Balor how to find Ogma?
Rage made my fingers clench the hilt of my blade tighter. He was a snake.
Ogma chuckled as I marched to the tiny door. “I suppose you want his name now too.”
“No,” I gritted out. “Just hers. I don’t need his.”
I didn’t need his name to kill him. Now I had mine, every vow my mother had forced me to make—every order she had given me—was broken.
I was free to kill all of them. And she had trained me to do it with ease. With no emotion.
But I was under no illusion that I would be strong enough to kill my mother in a fight, even if I wasn’t under her control. Even in the Mild Months, she was unfathomably powerful. Stronger than everyone except the seelie queen, with whom she was evenly matched. She was near impossible to kill.
Unlessshecould be controlled.
The door to Ogma’s hut creaked ominously as I pulled it open further to step inside. My heart hammered in my chest, but I forced myself to walk into the gloom, blinking as my eyes adjusted.
I turned my head and froze. Ogma was enormous, filling almost the entire hut, her bulbous head brushing the ceiling despite the contorted position she sat in to fit inside. Two huge, eerie eyes took up most of her face, with her gnarled ears poking out at the sides and a tiny nose and mouth above a sharply pointed chin.
Her limbs were unnaturally long and brittle, curled up in a tangle with no way to stretch out. Bare, gnarled feet with long, spindly toes brushed the sides of my boots, and bony, narrow fingers rested on her bent knees.
Beside her, wedged into a tiny gap, sat a small table with the inkwell and a book that was over two feet thick.
“Don’t look at the book too long, Death King,” Ogma rasped, her giant eyes fixed on me.
I jerked my gaze away to stare at her again. Had anyone else ever seen her?
She chuckled and answered as if she’d heard my thought. “You’re the first to ever set foot in here beside myself. Welcome.”
“Why… Why do you stay in here?” I asked stupidly. “You don’t fit.”
She laughed louder and patted the book. “I’m quite comfortable here.”
I grunted. “You don’t look it.”
“I assure you, I am comfortable. Now, come closer. I’ll whisper it in your ear.”
My heart leapt into my throat. I palmed my blade and inched closer, being careful not to step on her monstrously long toes.
Ogma shifted, leaning forward. A huge hand wrapped around my shoulder, her fingers reaching all the way to my lower back.
“Cailleach Bheura Cruthachadh de Neoini,” she whispered in my ear.
Despite my unease, a wide, sharp grin stretched my mouth.
I had the Carlin’s name.