By all that was holy, how could the girl be heavier than her husband-to-be? Her thick skirts dragged along the sand, catching on rocks and doing their best to hinder Briska as she heaved the girl up onto the rocks beside the boy.
If ever she needed magic to help her, it was now, but all Briska wanted to do was lie down beside the pair and rest for a week. But between her chattering teeth and trembling limbs, the freezing wind and her wet clothes, she knew she had to get inside…and so did these two.
Briska's hand drifted down to the dagger at her waist – a bone-handled thing with a stone blade so shiny it resembled green glass. She'd found it in the cave, echoing faintly of magic long since cast, so she'd claimed for her own. Briska ran her finger along the wicked edge. Blood mixed with salt water on her skin, and she tried not to hiss in pain as she turned her attention inward…to the magic that rarely came even when she called. A portal, she needed a portal to take her to the cave.
Briska traced a circle in the air, over and over, but nothing appeared. She fell to her knees and wept, but still her hand circled, blood dripping down her arm and staining her sleeve. Finally, she gave up. It seemed her enslavement had extinguished whatever little magic she controlled.
Time to do this the hard way.
When her task was finished, then she could rest.
Briska seized the boy, and began dragging him home.
He gave a strangled shout and struggled free.
Briska cried out and dropped him. His head clunked against the stone and he went limp, out cold once more.
Oh, by all that was holy…if she hadn't panicked, he might have woken and carried himself up to the cave. Maybe even the girl, too. Now she'd have to do all the work herself.
Swearing softly, Briska resumed her labour. Cursed by love and doomed to serve until she made the match Mistress Kun wanted. If only the Sultan could see her now.
Five
The girl woke first, despite the fever in her blood that sent wisps of steam rising from her clothes until they dried.
Briska approached the girl cautiously, knowing the lattice screen between them would offer her some protection if the girl lashed out. For who knew how these barbarians would react? What she'd seen of crusaders at home had demonstrated they had little honour, and these two looked no different.
"How are you feeling?" Briska asked softly, but the girl didn't seem to hear her.
The girl grimaced as she sat up, holding her head as if it hurt.
Briska was no healer, but she could prepare tisanes for pain and fever. She slipped away to find some herbs to help the girl.
The girl's voice called her back with a question Briska could not quite make out. Yet when Briska returned, the girl's attention was on the cave furnishings…and her mistress's mirror.
A mirror in a place so backward they didn't know how to make glass, let alone a mirror.
The girl's eyes turned to Briska, full of knowing. "Let us out. I must go home." The barbarian girl drew herself up to her full height – a head higher than Briska – and stared down for all the world like she was a queen herself.
A slave she might be, but Briska did not have to obey this order. And she could do queenly better than this girl. "We all want to go home, but not everyone gets what they want. The sea wanted to take you from the beach where I found you, but I rescued you from the waves and brought you here. I must keep you two together. The mirror insists." Briska stepped out of the shadows, letting the mirror's misty glow light up her face as she tried to appear every bit the queen she once was. "Who are you?"
The girl shivered, her courage fleeing with her fever. "I am Gretel." She pointed at the unconscious boy. "That's my brother, Hansel." She kept speaking, but Briska didn't hear the words.
Brother and sister? Kun couldn't mean her to make an incestuous match like this one. Perhaps she intended to keep her here in exile, unable to make the match.
"Who are you?" the girl demanded.
Briska eyed her with dislike. "Once a queen, now a slave, loved by two men, one of whom is now dead and the other is dead to me. I am Briska, now queen of a rock that boasts little more than fearless deer and this horrible stuff called snow."
Forever cursed to be queen of this rock.
"You must let us go," Gretel insisted.
"I must do nothing of the sort." The words came out of Briska's mouth automatically, but even as she pressed her lips together to stem the flow, still the words repeated in her head. She must serve her mistress.
Then what of the mirror? Did she have to serve the mirror, too, or could it be wrong?
Haltingly, Briska continued, "The mirror says...the mirror says you must be together. But if you are brother and sister, as you say...then I am cursed!" The cursed queen of this rock, forever. "Bah, I should have known escape was an illusion." She tried to imitate Kun's superior tone: "You shall not leave here until you break the curse!"
Tears sprang to her eyes, and Briska hurried away, before Gretel could see her weakness.
Six
Briska waited for the girl to go back to sleep before she dared to use the mirror to contact Mistress Kun again. Even then, she took the mirror outside to use it out of sight of the pair.
"What is it?" Kun asked in irritation. Though Briska could not see below the woman's shoulders, she could see enough to know she'd roused the woman from bed. Briska would wager Kun had been pulled from a lover's arms instead of a dream, for Kun was too alert to be newly woken.
"You have made a mistake. They are not a suitable match at all, but brother and sister. Hansel and Gretel are their names. Mistress, to make these two fall in love would be an abomination." Briska stuck her head inside and eyed the sleeping pair on the other side of the lattice, another of Kun's gifts. Kun had provided her with a modest bed, cooking utensils and a book to instruct her in using them and the spices from home, though djinn didn't need food, sleep or warmth. She had to appear like a normal human to these northern barbarians, apparently. As if a queen, albeit an exiled one, was anything close to normal. "I will not make this match!"
Kun's eyes flashed. "You serve me, and I order you to make this match. Do you hear me, djinn?"
"Yes, Mistress," came out Briska's mouth, unbidden. Before her tongue could betray her again, she hissed, "I hear you, but I will not!"
Pain erupted in her head, like nothing she'd ever known before.
"Welcome to your enslavement. As long as you refuse to obey, the pain will worsen. Obey me, and it will fade as if it had never existed. Make the match," Kun said.
Blinded by pain, pressing her head to the stone floor in a desperate attempt to alleviate the agony screaming from one ear to the other, Briska was barely aware of the mirror returning to mist once more before she lost her senses to the darkness.
Seven
Shouting dragged Briska back to consciousness – the boy this time: Hansel. Her head only throbbed now, as though she'd drunk too much wine, but it was enough to make the shouting excruciating.
"Silence, boy!" she said, biting her lip and wishing she could cast some sort of spell to at least quieten him. But her magic was good for only one thing, and she refused to cast a seduction spell over the brother or the sister.
So she was forced to endure the sound of his voice as he cajoled her endlessly to let the two of them go.
Nothing he could offer her would be worth the knowledge that she'd be responsible for the abomination of an incestuous union.
Then he said words that held their own magic: "I shall build you a palace fit for a queen."
Grudgingly, Briska conceded, but only if the boy vowed never to share his sister's bed.
He didn't even hesitate.
The moment the promise left his lips, it seemed that the throbbing in Briska's head lessened. She had no idea why, but she wasn't going to question that now.
If the boy built her a palace, he would be too busy to have time to spend with his sister.
Eight
Briska's headac
he faded some days, only to rage with a vengeance the next, as Hansel sawed and hammered and built what the barbarian boy called a palace. The mirror flashed pictures of the pair, sometimes as they were at that moment, and sometimes locked in a lovers' embrace, as if to taunt her. But if Briska so much as thought her defiance at allowing such an abomination to happen, it was like Kun had buried a dagger in her head.
Briska took to carrying her dagger around with her everywhere, the cold stone a measure of welcome relief when her head pounded too hard to bear. She just had to lay the flat of the blade across her forehead and the pain receded.
A grunting, scuffling sound summoned her back to the cave, and Briska feared some strange creature had invaded her home. But what she saw was far worse – the mirror showed the pair naked, writhing in ecstasy in some cave that looked nothing like this one.
Briska's gaze darted to the lattice, but the girl was nowhere in sight. How had she escaped?
Briska drew her dagger. "It will not happen! Incest is against nature!" Not even the blade was enough to block out the agonising stab of pain behind her eyes. She fell to the floor, the knife slipping out of her fingers. She had to stop this. She had to. Her hands closed around the knife hilt, and Briska fought to find the strength to stand. "Better to kill them than let him defile her so. Now, before it is too late!"
She headed out of the cave, scanning the island for the entrance to the other cave, the one hiding the pair from her.
Pounding from the roof of the timber cottage drew her attention. The boy perched on the roof, whistling as he hammered one of the wooden roof tiles into place. He was fully clothed. There was no sign of the girl, either.
Briska stood watching him, not sure what to make of it. Had the mirror showed her a lie? Or had she imagined the image? No, surely not. She hadn't imagined the sounds they made. She'd never seen a couple so rapt in one another as they twined together. Not even with Amani had she ever been so…abandoned to everything but him.
Lost in thought, it took her a moment to realise the boy had climbed down, and now stood before her, holding the door open.
Hansel bowed extravagantly. "Your new palace, Your Majesty."
Some palace, but perhaps this cottage was a palace to these barbarians. Briska accepted his invitation, and made to step inside the house.
Gretel screamed something, then came running. She was fully clothed, too.
An invisible force slammed into Briska, throwing her against the door and holding her there. Magic. It had to be. Magic so powerful there was nothing Briska could do against it. She scraped her hand along the blade, desperately trying to cast a portal, but she could not even lift her arms against the force holding her in place. No portal, no escape…
"Don't you dare touch him, you bitch!" Gretel roared. Flames erupted from her hand, formed into a ball, then flew toward Briska.
Helpless to stop the missile, Briska was forced to watch as the ball of fire arced up, then down again. She prayed it would miss her, landing harmlessly on the ground.
The ball landed a foot in front of her, then bounced. This time, it landed on the toe of her boot.
Briska screamed and ran.
Too late. Her boots had caught fire, and a wall of flames surrounding her, allowing her no escape.
Unless she could cast a portal.
Blood dripped down her fingers, and Briska raised a shaking hand to trace a circle in the air, an archway through which she could pass. Pass, and live. Or burn and die.
Briska closed her eyes and wished.
Nine
When Amani woke, he was afraid someone had stuffed him into a chest and closed the lid. Or a coffin. They'd neglected to tie his hands, though, so it would be but the work of a moment to take off his gag, and cast a spell to make them rue the day they'd been born.
He tried to lift his arms, but they were squeezed so tightly between his body and the walls of his prison, he could not get even one hand free.
Wait…did he smell lamp oil? They couldn't burn him alive. Only barbarians did that.
He tried shouting through his gag, floundering in his coffin – it had to be a coffin, if they were going to burn him – but no one answered.
He heard the scrape of something rasping along the outside of his prison.
Amani tried shouting again.
It felt like a giant hand seized him, feet first, dragging him through a narrow opening that wasn't wide enough for his body. Tighter…tighter…crushing him…squeezing him into an impossibly narrow space where he couldn't breathe, couldn't feel anything but pain and pressure, couldn't even scream…
And then he was out, exploding into a cloud as the pressure was gone.
It took a moment before feeling returned to his arms and legs, and he was surprised to find his ribs didn't hurt despite definitely being crushed only moments before. Magic. It had to be.
But his hands were free now, free to untie his gag so he could spit out the foul-tasting cloth. The cloud around him cleared and he saw a man.
Not just any man. The Sultan, Briska's husband.
With a snarl, Amani opened his mouth to hurl every insult he knew at the man.
But what came out of his mouth was: "How may I serve you, Master?"
Amani tried to curse, but he only repeated the same words again. Furious beyond reason, he tried to strike the man, only to feel his body bow in deep respect for the man he hated.
He fought it, but his back bent anyway. The only bit of him he managed to keep from bowing was his head. He met the Sultan's gaze with all the fury he could muster.
"I don't want you to serve me at all. I never want to see your face again. Not after you stole her from me," the Sultan said.
"She was never yours!" Amani gasped out, before his own lips silenced him.
"But if not for you, she might have been, in time," the Sultan said. "Which is why I can't bear the sight of you."
Only now did Amani see that the Sultan held a lamp in his hands, a common thing of tarnished brass.
"So you may serve me by returning to the prison from whence you came, and sinking to the bottom of the ocean, where I will never have to look upon your traitorous face again," the Sultan said. He lifted the lamp high, then dropped it into the well. "I said go, servant of the lamp, and trouble me no more."
Amani didn't understand.
And then…he did.
His body crossed the paving stones in three strides, then dived into the well, head first, following the lamp. Amani hit the water, his strangled shout turning to bubbles in the blackness as he sought the lamp, compelled to follow. It glowed blue in the darkness, floating along in the current instead of sinking, calling for him to follow.
Not knowing why, he swam to catch up, stretching his hand out to grab the lamp. Only…his hand shrank, slipping inside the spout of the lamp, followed by his arm, until the narrow hole swallowed him up, scream and all.
Ten
Briska stamped out of her boots, but the blazing leather had already set the floor alight. Swearing, she bit down hard and fought to cast the only spell that could save her. The circle of blue light flared and died, once, twice…but on the third time it seemed to stay, wavering a little, but enough. She stepped through the portal, which collapsed behind her. She peeled off her singed stockings, to find her feet red and blistered with burns. She stuck her feet in the water bucket, moaning as the icy water numbed the pain.
The mirror unclouded for a moment and a face appeared. "Well done," Mistress Kun said.
"What do you mean, well done? That brother and sister almost killed me!" Briska snapped. This matchmaking thing was a lot harder than she'd thought. And incest…no, that hadn't been part of the bargain.
The woman laughed. "Brother and sister? You are too easily persuaded. That's what got you into this mess in the first place, but I will help you. This pair are matched, and so you will move onto your next quest. Your new assignment is in the icy north, I'm afraid. You will need warmer things."
; Ice and snow? Perfect for burned feet.
Briska lifted her arms. "I am ready when you are, Mistress." The last word came hard for a woman who had once been a queen, but she had little choice now. Slavery to the mirror and its mistress was all her life held now.
A portal opened before her, and Briska stepped through. The mirror, her chest of belongings, and her precious sack of spices landed in the snow behind her.
Another day, another couple. Though she shook her head when she thought of Hansel and Gretel. That pair would not have an easy time of it, she was certain. She might have made a match of them, however unwillingly, but they had a lot of work for even a hope of happily ever after.
Her mistress's face appeared in the mirror. "Next, you must match Kai and Gerda," she said.
Briska sighed as she saw the picture of the pair. At least these two had clothes on, unlike the fornicating brother and sister. Thank the heavens for small mercies. And snow to cool her feet.
From queen of a kingdom to queen of the snow, Briska's work was never done.
But first, she would need a place to live, for her new palace was gone. And all the ice and snow gave her an idea…
Eleven
Briska took a deep breath and then exhaled on the mirror. When the condensation from her breath faded, Mistress Kun's face appeared. "Mistress, I can't help but feel this is terribly wrong. I drove my sleigh through town, as you commanded, and just as you said, I stopped when the reindeer could go no further, and found a boy near frozen in his own sled, hooked onto my sleigh runners."
"Is he there with you now?" Mistress Kun asked eagerly.
Briska frowned at the boy, as still as a corpse in his icy bed. "Yes," she said slowly. "But I should really take him home, for his family must surely miss him. I've put him into an enchanted sleep, which helps preserve him a little in this icy cold, but I'm not sure how long I can keep him that way, or whether it will do untold harm to do so. He's cold to the touch, barely draws breath…"
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