The Price of Betrayal Chapter 2 by Maggie Finson

“A mirror, Souri.” I told her. “I need a mirror.

“Damn you.” I breathed, moaned, then fell to my knees. “Damn all of you to any Hell, from any god that exists!”

Seeing that face, that beloved face, on me, and knowing what the ones who had done this to me intended nearly unhinged my sanity.

They knew I would hate myself for what they made me do. Putting Miri's face on me was a calcultated strike to make me love her less and start thinking of her as nothing but a plaything, a whore.

Each time I was called, had to do what they wanted, I would know, know, that the face of the person doing that was Miri's.

I had run out of curses, damnations, Rage.

Now all I did was hurt. Where their other manipulations had failed, the pain had a good chance to undo me, the me I had always held to so stubbornly. The me that I had always thought of as the core of my being.

But I'd found that was wrong. I wasn't at all what I had once thought I was.

But what, just what the Hell, was I?

Who was I?

“Come back, Mistress!” Souri's distressed cries and shaking finally roused me a bit. “You fade! That is death for your kind! Come back to me!”

“Death.” I whispered. “That would be a good thing right now.”

“No, it would not.” My servant firmly told me then asked. “Would you leave the shell of your form, your power, for any to use as they see fit? If you fade that will happen, Mistress.”

My muddled thought processes realized that was probably exactly what the ones who had done this to me wanted. In fact, I had been told that I would lose myself in time. That I would not let happen if there was one shred of self left to me.

So I fought my way back. And it was a fight.

Part of me didn't want anything to do with coming back, being what I had become. Another part grieved at the loss of Miri and our son and was looking for oblivion because of that. But another part, an important part, was angry, determined, and intent on surviving just to thumb my nose at Miri's father and the others if nothing else. Guess which part won?

“Vengeance.” I barely sighed. “I will have it.”

“Spoken like a true Princess of the Djinn.” Souri gave me a quick hug, then jumped away with an apologetic look. “My apologies, Princess. I grew too familiar.”

“It's all right.” I gave her a weak smile. “I don't believe that I'm exactly what you think I am, Souri.”

“You are my mistress, my princess.” She had her face pressed into the carpet again and her voice was muffled because of that. “Others better than I have died for such temerity.”

“Just what are you, Souri?” I asked as much to change that subject as to give myself time to figuratively regroup after my meltdown. “A prisoner here, like me?”

“Only because you are here, Mistress.” She answered carefully. “I was pledged, pledged myself to your service long ago. I am here because you are.”

“You spent twenty odd years waiting in this bottle for me to show up?”

“Oh I have waited far longer than that, mistress.” She told me then got a dreamy expression on her face. “Your father was a great one, your mother a queen beyond compare among the Djinn. I was there at your creation, your birth, over five thousand years ago. I knew then that my fate was entwined with yours and that I would serve you for all time. I held you as an infant, played with you as a toddler and child, and helped you find your own beauty as you matured. When you were hidden among mortals I thought I would fade from the grief but I have watched you, watched over you through all these years.”

The time span she was talking about was more than I could get my head around just then. Not to mention what she had said about my supposedly original parents.

But the absolute, unyielding love and committment that came from her as she had said that was something I had never experienced before. Or could deny. It was a palpable force in the air between us, around us.

It was a powerful as what I'd felt from Miri, but without the sexual overtones. It just was.

Wow.

I managed to get up and even gently pull this child-woman who claimed to have been my nurse, nanny, playmate, and confidant to her feet. Something in me quite firmly insisted she was telling the truth. I hugged her, tightly.

“I don't remember, Souri. I can feel it but I don't remember you. I'm sorry.” I told her once the tenseness in her body relaxed. “I am so sorry.”

My hug was returned, lightly, and she pulled herself away from me shaking her head. “You were awakened prematurely, mistress. You may regain those memories, or not. I have no way of knowing how this works since you are the only one of your kind to be hidden in mortal flesh. No matter, I am here to serve you, help you and if needed, teach you. If you will have me.”

I wondered if I dared trust her. And felt guilty for that thought almost right away. But with what had happened to me lately it was hard to trust anyone I hadn't already known. But I felt like I'd known Souri for a long, long time. I decided to deal with that later. I had something I desperately needed, another person in this prison of mine. Even though the idea that she was there voluntarily, for me, boggled the mind.

Not to mention the five thousand plus years of faithful watching and waiting she had told me about.

“I would be honored to have you stay, Souri.” I told her and not really sure where that came from. “You have been faithful to me for a long time from what you say and I feel that is truth. Refusing you would be unconscionable. Unforgivable.”

“All those years in mortal flesh have changed you, mistress.” She gave me a careful look and shrugged. “Perhaps that is no bad thing so long as it didn't make you weak.”

“Well, we won't know until things happen, will we?” I answered. “When they do, we deal with it.”

She had no response to that other than a nod of the head.

“Are you Djinn, Souri?” I asked once all the angst had settled down. “You say you have been with me one way or another for a really long time.”

“No mistress.” She shook her head and even appeared a little shocked. “I am Efreeti. A female of the Efreet. We have magic, are magic, are usually full of mischief, love causing trouble, and like you — the Djinn, we too can be bound. My kind are wild, and rarely allow ourselves to make promises of any kind then find ways to get out of them if we do. Djinn always keep thier promises, mistress. Always.

Your kind bound mine long ago, some say to keep the damage down, others say it was to save us, others that it was simply that you did not wish for your power to be contested with. Your kind was, and is, cruel, mistress, but also fair. You, your kind never punished for caprice, but the punishments were never easy, or kind.”

“Was I like that?” I asked, apalled at the idea.

“At times.” She told me, but you were different. You refused to punish on a whim, among your kind you were the gentle one, the one who considered others when deciding things. Your parents often berated you for that weakness, but you simply bowed, gave them the respect due to them, then went as you had been. That might be why they hid you in mortal flesh, my princess. They knew that hiding would have a chance of success with you. Another Djinn would have been destroyed by that.

“But to your original question, the culture you call modern, and its precursors confused us with the Djinn because of our similarities and because we were the ones mortals usually encountered. But no, I am not Djinn. We Efreet are as children standing among adults to the Djinn. Even gods were wary of your kind, and respected your people, mistress. There is no comparison at all between my people and yours other than the magic.

“I do not think those who awakened you realize just what they have brought back into the world.” She finished with a little smile and shrug. “And you did promise them things, mistress.”

“That I did.” I nodded slowly. “But I didn't tell them, or say anything.”

“A thought is as good as a word, mistress.” She told me. “You made promises, you will keep them or cease to exist for trying to keep them.”

“Oh, that's interesting.” I blew some hair out of my face with a puff of breath without even thinking how wrong that would have been for me not long ago. “So I have to careful about what I think as well as what I say?”

“Indeed, mistress.” Souri gave me an approving look. “A promise, even unspoken, is your word. You would die rather than go against a promise.”

“Interesting, and kind of disturbing.” I sighed while wondering if I could actually find all the hells I'd promised to the ones who did this to me.

“If you can't find them you could create them.” Souri told me.

Oh, now that was someting I was in no way ready to think about, let alone hear.

Okay another file away for later thing there.

I had magic, was magic. That was a bit hard to comprehend.

But I could feel it even if I didn't yet quite believe it. And what I felt told me that the magic around me, the potential was slowly getting stronger.

Interesting and more than a little scary. I was getting more powerful with every passing second. But I was still nothing more than a slave.

That was something I needed to end, somehow, before real magic flooded the world again.

I didn't know how to do that. Yet.

But I would figure it out.

What I did know was the ones who had done this me, awakened me, wanted a nearly mindless shell they could command and one that would comply with those commands without demure.

So I resolved to show them that when I was called, no matter how repugnant it might be.

Those bastards were not going to keep me chained.

There was nothing wrong with my brain, or mind no matter what had happened. And I had been a math and computer major...

There had to be a way to get free.

I just needed to find that loophole.