Fortune Favors the Cursed
the-reticent-seer
diverselit
diverselit
1.3K5
An orphan girl with questionable morals. A scarred prince with two lives. One relic to change their world.
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Badriya As-Sahra is sick of piling up camel dung and ...Chapter 19
There were times when Badriya was convinced that her life had always been more of a curse than a blessing.
Now, this proved her right all along, and she hated it.
Just after the djinni who was borrowing Rashid's face told her everything there was to tell, Badriya dragged him all the way to the inn and into her room. She ignored how the innkeeper looked at her and the djinni like they were a couple that wasn't meant to be together. She suspected that the old lady would make such an assumption because of how differently they looked—her with her dirty clothes and him with his fancy ones.
"What is the deal with you?" Badriya demanded once she closed the door shut. "Why do you look and sound like Rashid?"
"Good question." The djinni jumped toward the single bed in the room, the white mattress creaking under his weight. "I look like this handsome fellow because he's likely my type of handsome. On the other hand, I just sound like this because I've always been annoying. Easy enough to understand, no?"
"If I wish for you to change your appearance into someone else's," Badriya said under gritted teeth, "will that work?"
The djinni shook his head. "Not quite, sayyida. It's one of the terms that I told you about. The deal is, I look differently for every person who owns the Jewel. The person you see me as apparently the person you lost as a price for pursuing your greed." He made his fingers go up and down in an odd gesture. "It's an attempt to persuade the current owner of the Jewel to stop using his, or her, wishes for self-gain. It's a lame attempt if you ask me."
Badriya scoffed. "That is lame, indeed. Well, it won't work for me. I don't care if your stupid face will annoy me."
"I'm glad we both agree on that." He clapped his hands excitedly. "I shall call myself by your man's name now. Rashid, was it?"
"No!" Badriya hissed. "You are, under any circumstance, will call yourself that. Never."
The last thing she wanted was to feel like she was talking to Rashid. Just the thought of doing so even though he wasn't the actual person made her blood boil. He and his stupid confession. . .
"Fine," the djinni huffed, crossing his arms and legs on the bed. "I'll call myself. . . Kareem instead. Yes, that sounds even better than Rashid." He visibly shuddered a little too strongly.
Badriya groaned. "I can't believe you're that vain."
"Well, you could've wished to name me something else." He shrugged. "It's not my fault that I forgot my real name in the first place."
Grumbling curses and gibberish under her breath, Badriya sat on the majlis located at one corner of the room. The room she paid for the day was the best she could get for the little money she had. Even with its simple furnishing, it was the first time in years that she was in her own room. Ever since she ran away from her old childish life, she mostly slept in the cold streets at night. If she was lucky enough, stealing some good cloth and wood would get her a makeshift tent for a few days. That didn't last for long since someone else would always steal the whole tent before she could wake up.
Even if it was for a day, the room felt like it was hers.
But she wanted more. And it seemed that the Jewel was the only thing that could give whatever she wanted.
The Sultan promised to give whoever delivers the Jewel to him a tower of gold, but what if there was no tower in the first place? What if he simply lied about the prize so he could get the Jewel without losing anything? If whatever Ayaz told her was true, the Sultan would be the type of person who didn't mind getting his hands dirty to get what he wanted.