Kissing The Wind

“Oh. I never thought that royals would spare time to visit a noble’s house in a regular day,” Selena said, while munching her lunch.

Sydnee told Selena about the second prince’s prejudice against her and his frequent visit in the duke’s mansion. She had already saw Selena as one of her friends beside Isa. ALthough the girl’s background was suspicious, but she knew that Selena would not do anything bad for her. She could feel the sincerity of the girl so she was comfortable telling the girl about the duke’s mansion.

“I don’t know what the prince saw in Catarina, though I don’t really care.” Sydnee sighed. “But Catarina kept on pestering me and accusing me of being a thief when I don’t know about the things the prince gave her.”

Selena’s ears perked up upon hearing Sydnee’s words. She cleared her throat and simply reached for her drink. “And then the prince believe what your sister  was spouting?”

Sydnee smiled helplessly. “What else could I complain? Catarina was good in acting as a victim and pushing all the blame to me.”

“Oh.” Selena’s mind was racing at Sydnee’s words. This girl was opening up to her. She could gain a lot of information. A smile played on her lips. “Just teach Catarina a lesson. If she is getting out of the line, you can do it. As long as you are good in controlling the situation.”

“But I don’t want to quarrel with her. She is supported by Lady Geneva and although the Duke is supporting me, he is not always in the mansion. What if I touch Lady Geneva’s bottom line?”

Selena laughed a bit at Sydnee’s words and then shook her head. This girl was still new to her world. Sydnee would never survive in the palace for a day if  this attitude continued on.

“Then… you just let her bully you?”

“Uh, no.” Sydnee smiled at Selena. “I’ll teach her a lesson if she would trouble me.”

“That’s good.” Selena returned Sydnee’s smile. “If you need some help, just call me up. I’ll support you.”

Sydnee nodded. Selena watched as Sydnee ate her lunch. She never imagined that it was easy to get the girl’s trust. Anyway, now was the great time to investigate.

“I heard about rumors that Rogie likes you,” she said while looking around, although she was observing Sydnee in the corner of her eye. “Is it true? Did he confess his feelings for you?”

Sydnee’s cheeks flushed and Selena caught the bashful appearance of the girl across her. Her brow raised. So Rogie was indeed interested with this girl.

“He confessed but I turned him down,” Sydnee said while lowering her gaze.

Selena hummed. “And why is that?”

“He’s engaged and… I don’t like him.”

“Really?” Selena observed Sydnee. “You’re lying.”

Sydnee raised her head and looked at Selena. “I’m not.”

“If you’re not, then why are you so defensive?”

Sydnee was silent upon hearing Selena’s words. She did not continued defending her innocense about the matter because she knew that Selena would not gossip it  in the academy. While she was silent, she tried hard not to remember the embarrassing scene when Rogie hugged her from behind and confessed his feelings. She thought that Rogie was kidding so she did not take it to heart. But upon remembering that afternoon, she could not help but felt a little pity on Rogie. She saw how serious he was, so she was contemplating whether Rogie was saying the truth or not.

Due to Sydnee’s silence, Selena concluded that Sydnee might feel something for Rogie. Well, she was the kind of person who did not take to heart any confession. Growing up in the royal family, she knew that love was not real for her.

“I understand your feelings,” Selena said as she sighed. “But you were a commoner back then, and now that you have the title, Rogie was now married to Lisa. I pity you both.”

Sydnee coughed and she reached for her glass of juice. “What are you saying?” she asked the girl.

Selena shrugged her shoulders and smiled at her. “Don’t worry. You might find someone who’s better than Rogie Camero.”

“Eh?”

Selena ignored Sydnee’s little protest. It was normal to be bashful when talking about someone special so she did not comment on Sydnee’s red cheeks. “Anyway, I heard about the new gossip in the academy about your father who was jailed due to fraud. Was it true?”

Sydnee’s brows met. Selena was checking her past?

Selena knew what Sydnee was thinking so she immediately smiled and said, “Don’t worry. You know that I have extraordinary background, right? It was normal for nobles to check on each other’s background.”

Hearing Selena’s reason, Sydnee relaxed her vigilance. She knew that Selena was telling the truth. She looked away and sighed. “Well, my father was put to prison because of fraud. But he was freed a few months ago.”

“Really? Where is he staying now?” Selena asked, although she already knew that Henry Lurica was killed by Diana Lurica, his wife and Sydnee’s mother.

The intelligence gathered this information a few months ago when a complaint in the small court aroused. Diana’s neighbor in the landfill filed the complaint against Diana because of the stench emitting from the small hut. They happened to find Henry’s mutilated and decaying body inside the hut. The authorities arrested Diana.

Selena wondered why Sydnee did not tell the duke about her father’s corpse but a few weeks later after Diana was arrested, the intelligence gathered an information that Sydnee did tell the Duke but around that time, the King ordered the Duke to do something about the spies lingering in Obando. Selena concluded that Duke Mondragon forgot about the matter and Sydnee did not try again to remind the Duke. It seemed like the Duke did not care about anything except for Sydnee.

Well, it was not important now.

Sydnee’s brows knitted. “He’s… dead.”

“Dead,” Selena said in a low voice.

“Right, he’s dead.” Sydnee clenched her fist. She totally forgot that her foster mother Diana killed her father, and the body was still inside the hut. The Duke promised her that he would take care of the matter and she wondered what happened to Diana as well as her father’s corpse?

Selena knew what Sydnee was thinking based on the girl’s facial expression, but she had no plan to reveal everything she knew about the incident. It would only make Sydnee to suspect her.

“Who killed him?” she asked instead.

But Sydnee shook her head and did not say anything at all. She trusted Duke Theodore. So she just smiled at Selena and tried to divert her attention. “Let’s not talk about that thing. Anyway, why are you so interested with Rogie Camero? You kept on asking me about him since yesterday.”

“Ah.” Selena laughed. “I was just curious in your relationship with him. They said that he had a twin brother that was killed by the big fire happened in the Villa Casa. And I happen to know that Villa Casa was where your former home was located.”

Sydnee froze. She gazed at Selena. “Twin brother? Fire in Villa Casa?” Her forehead creased. “Tell me the truth, Selena. Why are you asking me these things?”

Selena felt Sydnee’s defensive aura and vigilance. She sighed and looked away. “I like Rogie Camero so I want to know more about him.”

On the outside, Selena’s cheeks flushed in embarassment. But on the inside, Selena was trying not to gag and not to twitch her lips. She really hate it when someone was talking about romance, but the girls like Sydnee would only believe something about romance.

And just as what she expected, Sydnee sighed in relief. Selena snorted. Really? Just a mere crush and this girl lowered her guard? Nah. If she was in the palace, who knows how many hours would she stay alive?

“You like Rogie? That bully?” Sydnee laughed. “Don’t kid me. He has eccentric personality that I could not understand. You’re just wasting your time with him.”

“But you said that you don’t like him, right?”

“Of course.” Sydnee was sulking while sighing. “He was bullying me and I hate his guts. I don’t understand him because he kept on changing his attitude. One moment and he is kind, and one glimpse, he would taunt me. If you heed my advice, then don’t fall for a jerk like him.”

‘Of course. I don’t have time for romance,’ Selena thought but she never voiced it out. She just smiled at Sydnee and said, “It’s okay. So, he has a twin brother?”

Sydnee was silent for a moment before she answered, “I don’t know. I only meet Rogie in this academy and…” Sydnee winced when her head hurt. “I don’t remember that his twin went to this academy.”

Selena’s brows knitted a little upon hearing Sydnee’s reply. So she was right that Sydnee did not remember the past. She cleared her throat. “But when I did a background check, I learned that you, Rogie, and his twin brother were childhood friends. It’s impossible that you don’t know that he has a twin brother.”

Sydnee froze and she stared at Selena with eyes wide open. “What did you s-say?”

“You and Rogie were childhood friends. You don’t remember?”

Sydnee’s brows knitted in confusion and she tried hard to remember Rogie in her childhood memories, but all she could remember were vague voices and blurred faces of two male children playing with her. The first boy was smiling at her while playing inside the familiar house.

It was her former house where she used to live with her parents. The whole place was dark and only the light of the moon was lighting up the sorroundings. She remembered that it was the night were a big fire happened in their villa. She could not see clearly the face of the boy in front of her but she felt familiar with him.

Then the boy lighted up a candle to ease the darkness away. The candle lighted up the place and the lights coming from that thing illuminated half of the boy’s face.

‘Who are you?’ Sydnee wanted to voice out but she could not.

The boy in front of her led her away from the candle. It was when the long curtain caught the candle’s sparks and fire started to devour all things in the living room. The boy caught her wrist and they ran towards the exit, but the fire had blocked the entrance and nobody was there to help.

“Brother!” someone shouted from behind.

They both stopped running and turned to the one who shouted. It was a boy around their age. He was trapped in the fire and he was wailing. Sydnee felt a lump in her throat and her vision blurred because of tears. She was familiar with the trapped boy.

“Go!” the one beside her shouted and pushed her outside of the house.

Sydnee yelled when she felt falling on the ground, and that’s when she opened her eyes. She caught her breathe and sat on the bed while scanning her sorroundings.Published by Nôv'elD/rama.Org.

She was inside the white room. The smell and the things around told her that she was inside the school clinic.

Sydnee held her forehead as her head throbbed in pain. She remembered that she was with Selena. What happened to her?

The door was pushed open and a lady wearing a white uniform stepped inside the room. “You’re awake, Young Lady.”

“What happened?” she asked.

Before the nurse could answer her, Selena entered the room and walked towards her bed. “Are you okay? We were just talking about Rogie Camero in the canteen and you just passed out in front of me.” Selena let out a breathe. “You scared me!” she whined.

But deep inside, Selena was confused on Sydnee’s behavior. Nonetheless, the nurse told her that Sydnee fainted because her mind was triggered and old memories resurfaced. She laughed secretly upon hearing the nurse’s words. While eating in the canteen, she added a potion on Sydnee’s drink to trigger the memories inside the girl’s unconscious mind.

She knew that Sydnee now remembered what happened in the past and she was glad. Although she felt sorry for the girl, it was all worth it because now, Selena could complete one of her tasks.

It would also erase Sydnee’s name on the intelligence’s list of suspects in the big fire of Villa Casa, if she could prove that Sydnee had nothing to do with the big fire.

Now that the king was not in good health recently, the fight for the throne between the princes in the palace would begin sooner or later. It would implicate every officials who took sides.

Duke Mondragon was in the hot eyes of every palace fractions because the Duke of Obando held the power of the kingdom’s intelligence, except for the royal’s exclusive intelligence group where Selena belonged to, and the duke was also one of the trusted aides of the King.

If anyone could implicate the Duke’s household, then it was Sydnee who entered the Duke’s household recently. The suspicious background and her involvement in the big fire years ago that killed one of the king’s son were things that the duke should watch out for.

“I don’t know what happened.” Sydnee creased her forehead and took a deep breathe. “I think I remember something in my childhood. I guess you are correct that I and Rogie were childhood friends.” Sydnee bit her lips when she remembered the picture that Rogie slipped in her hand on the night of Christmas party.

Selena thought that she was doing Sydnee a favor. She smiled at Sydnee and spoke in gentle manner, “Tell me everything that you’ve remembered. I am listening to you…”