Fifteen

 

Briska blinked her eyes open, barely believing she could. "Is this paradise?" she asked.

"Heavens, no. If paradise were this cold, even the virtuous souls would have revolted by now. I'm sure it's as fitting as fire is for hell. Hardly a reward."

"Mistress," Briska managed to say as Kun's face came into view. "Why am I not dead?"

"Don't look to me for miracles. You're a djinn. You can't die. No matter how many holes that ungrateful pair punched into you."

Briska coughed, then doubled over in agony as the movement set fire to her chest. She reached to touch her torso, feeling for the holes that were no longer there. "How?"

"I pulled them out. Then your body simply healed, like djinn do. Enslavement isn't all bad when it includes immortality." Kun shrugged. "It's supposed to be a punishment, prolonging the period of servitude. You don't age and you don't die. Some djinn have lived for centuries."

Centuries of this? "Better to die outright than to suffer it over and over again."

Kun regarded her. "You are allowed to use your magic to defend yourself, you know."

"My magic is not strong enough for that."

"After the fire and now this, I wonder what use your magic is at all." Kun hung the mirror back on the wall, which appeared to have never been broken. "Perhaps I should have just left you here, impaled on ice."

Briska moistened her lips. "Thank you for saving me, Mistress," she said. "If you give me another chance, another couple, maybe...but not a witch. Djinn or not, I do not think I can survive another spell."

Kun laughed. "Who do you think you are matchmaking, if not witches? Someone must see that another generation of magic users is born, and tend the bloodlines. Every match you make is for a witch."

Briska shrank against the floor, wishing she could sink right through it. "Then help me hide from them, Mistress," she begged. "I will make the match, cast what spells I can to help love blossom between whoever you command, but please hide me from them. If there was some way I could stay here, far from harm, and still bespell them..."

"Perhaps there is," Kun said, stroking the mirror. "But you must promise to match every couple I send you, without protest. There shall be no repeat of the Hansel and Gretel affair."

Briska shook her head, then winced. "No, Mistress. I shall match every couple." That Gretel girl still gave her the shivers. "Is there any way you can hide me from Gretel, too?"

"I shall cast a spell on the mirror, allowing you to use it to not only see the couple you are to match, but cast spells through the glass, too. And I shall hide this palace, so that no magic may find it. All you must do is stay within its walls, and you may hide from the world. And I will not have to come here to save you again."

Briska lay back, breathing a sigh of relief. "Thank you, Mistress."

Some time passed before Kun said, "There. It is done. On the morrow, I will send you a new couple to match. Take care that you do not let all the ice up here freeze your heart, so you can't even cast your feeble love spell."

Without waiting for an answer, the enchantress cast a blinding blue portal and vanished.

Only then did Briska dare to breathe again. Her heart had frozen the day Amani died, and nothing would touch it, ever again.

And love spells? No one could cast those, not even the most powerful enchantress, for love had a magic of its own that overpowered all other spells. No, she worked with lust, and seduction. She could seduce a man to her bed in a moment, or stoke a spark of lust into a raging inferno. If that Hansel and Gretel hadn't been brother and sister, she'd have matched them the moment they woke in their prison. As for Gerda and Kai...

Briska swore she'd do better next time. And if she was safe in her icy citadel, far from the reach of any vengeful witch, Kun would never have the excuse to call her spells feeble again.