Kissing The Wind

Sydnee narrowed her eyes on Selena. The girl was standing not far away from her. She could not help but to be vigilant around her. There was something amiss with how Selena always disregard her title as Young Miss of Obando.

“I want them to stop this bullying habit,” she said and looked away.

Selena chuckled. “Sure you are, but it’s no use. These fellas would not stop their habit because they were taught to treat people with low status as trash. You’re just wasting your time, Young Miss.”

Sydnee drew a breathe and looked down on the girl who was still sitting on the ground. She snorted and walked away. She understood what Selena was trying to say, but at least, she saved someone from humiliation in that day. Not like what she experienced when she was still of low status, when no one from the group of noble was kind enough to interfere with the bullying.

Now that she was given the chance to stand above the bullies, of course, she would do something about the bullying. She could not just stand and watch them inflict pain to the scholars.

Sydnee was brought to reality when her ear caught some whispers around her.

“I heard Selena is a noble too. So it’s not surprising that she would talk to Young Miss Sydnee so casually.”

“Yes.” Someone sighed. “How disheartening to know that someone is still above you, huh?”

“Let’s just shut our mouth and not talk about it. Nobles are way too complicated.”

“Right.”

Sydee watched the two girls with extraordinary bearings walked away. She assumed that they were both daughters of  wealthy businessmen who had some connections with the nobles.

Then she remembered Isa. Her first friend in the academy was a princess who disregard status as something not worthy to be mentioned. It was the reason why the girl befriended her. But she was surprised to know that Isa was a princess. So it was the reason why Isa seemed not afraid upon knowing that Lisa  would wait for them outside the academy to look for trouble.

But when she came back to the academy after becoming the duke’s daughter, the adviser told her that Isa did not attend classes since the day that she was chased out of her house in Consolacion. Maybe Isa was brought back to the capital, she thought. Even so, she was upset that she knew of her friend’s identity from other people and not from Isa herself.

“Hey,” someone called Sydnee.

She stopped walking and turned around to  face the one who called her. It was Selena. Sydnee felt unsettled by the fact that Selena made a move on her. She knew that Selena was hiding her identity, but many rumors spread in the academy that Selena was higher than her when it comes to nobility. Those were rumors, but the way Selena handled herself and the way the girl was not afraid to talk to her was something that  nobody could muster to do so except when they were a royalty or of the same status as her.

Well, she was still learning being a noble so it was good if she could gain friends rather than enemies, but with Selena, she could not read the girl’s thoughts and it was hard to predict what this girl wanted from her.

A stiff smile curved at the side of her lips. “Hello, Miss Selena. Do you need something?”

Selena’s brow raised upon her tone, then she laughed and shook her head. “I just want to ask about Isa.”

Sydnee pursed her lips and nodded. Both she and Selena walked shoulder to shoulder in the hallway. Many of the students made a way for them. Some did not even have the courage to look at their direction.

“What about Isa?” she asked.This content © Nôv/elDr(a)m/a.Org.

Selena sighed and watched Sydnee from the corner of her eyes. “Do you know who is Isa?”

“Not that much.” Sydnee lowered her head and sighed. “They said that Isa is a princess born from a commoner, that’s why she was humble and did not cause trouble with the scholars.”

There was silence before Selena nodded her head. “She was indeed… born from a  servant. She was raised in this remote place and when she reached the right age, the king ordered her to come back to the capital. She would marry the prince from the neighboring kingdom.”

Sydnee froze in her steps, but quickly resumed her pace. “Is that so?” she whispered.

‘So it was because the king would marry her off,’ Sydnee thought to herself. She wanted to visit Isa to check on her but she knew that it was impossible. She gritted her teeth in annoyance.

Selena saw how complicated Sydnee’s expression was and she laughed. “Don’t be too sad.” Selena looked ahead and smiled brightly, like she was reminiscing something in the past. “A princess was born to be adorned by jewels and expensive silks, and then be married off for political gain like a piece of sh*t.”

Sydnee once again froze by Selena’s words. Princesses have a distinct influence in the kingdom, so the nobles and commoners alike should not speak ill of them. But Selena’s words would make them both lose their heads.

“Shh, stop mentioning anything about the royals,” Sydnee muttered under her breathe and looked around. Nobody was listening to them. She signed and looked at Selena who was grinning at her. She could not help but to squint her eyes and huffed. “Don’t say such things again, okay?”

“Why?” Selena asked while secretly laughing.

“What ‘why’? They could have persecuted us on the spot when somebody hear you slandering those people.”

“Of course I know,” Selena said as she waved her hand. “Nobody was listening so you can rest assured.”

Sydnee drew a breathe and looked ahead. It was good that Selena was cautious, but Sydnee realized that having Selena by her side might not be a good idea at all.

Since the class had ended, they were walking towards the school gate. But before they arrived there, Selena treated Sydnee an ice cream in the canteen when they passed by the place. Sydnee could not afford to reject her when she saw how sincere Selena was.

‘Maybe, it was good to have another friend besides Isa?’ Sydnee thought. But having a friend with extraordinary background was not something that Sydnee could afford to have, specially with Selena who was asking her a lot about her family.

“When did you meet Duke Mondragon?” the girl asked as they sat beside each other at the bench near the basketball court. It was a few meters away from the canteen and Selena wanted to sit for a moment while enjoying their ice cream. Sydnee thought that it was good idea so she did not reject the girl’s proposal.

“I don’t know when exactly, but all I remember was that Duke Mondragon helped me and my mother Diana settle somewhere after my father was brought to jail.”

“I heard about what happened to your father. It must be hard on you.”

Sydnee lowered her eyes. “Yes. It was hard, but my mother did her best to provide for us.”

“Then your mother is a good mother.”

She smiled again and licked her ice cream. Her mother was good? She almost laughed at what Selena said. Both Diana and Lady Geneva did not care about her at all.

When she was still a child, she once hoped that someday, Diana would care about her too. But it had been years and that little hope in her heart died when Diana tried to kill her. All her effort to be accepted by Diana had gone to waste.

It was the same case with Lady Geneva. When she first knew that the noble lady was her biological mother, a hope aroused from the bottom of her heart. She hoped that Lady Geneva would accept her just as Duke Theodore accepted her. But it was all her fantasy when Lady Geneva revealed that she was a child born out of rape.

Hah. It was ridiculous to beg them for love when she grew up without the love of a mother. So since then, she did not hope that these two women would accept her. She had lived her life without a mother’s warmth, so she let go of all her fantasy.

Afterall, she was living in reality. In this way, she could be happy when she was not expecting something from these women. It was already enough for her that Duke Theodore was giving her all the things she needed and a title that could protect her from bullies.

A few minutes had passed and they both walked towards the school gate. When they arrived, the sun was almost hiding from afar. Darkness started to sorround the place so more and more streetlights and lights from establishments began to light up everything in the dark.

Sydnee did not notice the time but Selena did. It was just she deliberately  delayed Sydnee so she could gather more information from her.

But all the girl talked was the life she had living in the slums and the life she had when she joined Duke Mondragon’s household. There was no mention of anything about someone or something that could potentially relate her to the spy of the enemy kingdom.

Selena was having a hard time. Sydnee might not be a spy, but all the evidences the intelligence gathered all these years were pointing to the household of Duke Mondragon.

The Duke was active in capturing spies all around the kingdom, and her father the king trusted the noble man. Even so, the king ordered the intelligence to not let the Duke Mondragon knew of the evidences gathered about the spy on his household so that they would not alert the sly enemy.

Unknown to them was the fact that Duke Mondragon already knew who was the spy living in his household. It was just he did not have any evidences to prove that Catarina was the spy from the enemy kingdom so he could not touch her. He thought that the evidences were all destroyed by the spy who tried to harm him eighteen years ago, but he never imagined that the evidences were in the hands of the intelligence. The Duke was careful not to alert Catarina so he did not raise this concern to the King, and the King was careful not to alert the unknown spy in Duke’s household so he did not let the Duke knew that he had the evidences unless the intelligence caught the spy first.

In this set-up, only Sydnee Lurica, the hidden trump card of Duke Mondragon, could stir again the stale chase inside the Duke’s household. So the Duke’s fraction, the King’s intelligence group, and the enemy’s spies inside and outside of the kingdom were watching Sydnee Lurica without the girl knowing. When Sydnee officially joined the Duke’s household, she was directly thrown into a hot seat with the three strong forces vying for her loyalty.

Watching Sydnee’s car going farther away from her, Selena had mixed feelings. She pitied the girl who thought that she hit jackpot when she entered the Duke household. Well, Sydnee entered the complicated life of nobles and she had no way to help the girl when time comes.

Selena brought out the picture she had when she first entered the academy. It was a photo of Sydnee when she was still a child around four years old. Beside her was a boy around five years old, and that boy was Rogie Camero. Selena wondered why Sydnee did not remember her past before her father, Henry, was thrown into jail. And it was one of the reasons why she, a noble princess, was tasked to befriend Sydnee.

She had to know what happened in that big fire that killed the King’s beloved son and Rogie Camero’s twin brother Renald, fourteen years ago.