The Scarlet Phoenix and the Prince of Winter

Chapter Twenty Two

Just as what I expected, my father's ancestral house was almost unrecognizable from the amount of snow that covered the entire lot. It's a bungalow that is half-submerged in the snow and the earth itself, just like any other house in this area.

People from this area usually build houses that are lower than the ground to avoid the cold and my father's house is no exception. The Crown Prince and I had a hard time going inside without having to dig up the snow that obstructed the doorway. It was a good thing Prince Kao was strong enough to push the heap of snow aside because I could not do it by myself.

"Those men did not come inside here then," he said to me when we finally managed to get to the door and open it. "Your family's ancestral house seems untouched."

"Maybe they were not interested in the house at all?" I suggested. "Maybe just like you said, they were just curious if someone was going to come here?"

"Yeah, maybe," he replied and we went inside the house and I have to immediately cover my nose from the putrid smell that welcomed us.

"What is that smell?"

"I think it's rotten food," said the Crown Prince. And he was right, for up there at one of the wooden stalls that divided the main room from the kitchen were a bag of what seemed like abandoned rotten food. It looked disgusting, and I was shocked that Prince Kao did not think twice of picking it up with his hands and throw it in an old trash bin at the corner. He covered the bin with its lid tightly to stop the smell from attacking our nostrils. "That will do."

I was speechless by what he just did. It may seem to be no big deal but it actually is. Why? Because he is the Crown Prince, so no one expects him to clean or do chores like that. But he can and he did, and that just made him more handsome in my eyes.

He was looking around the house, which was actually dark as the night except for the luminous glass windows that were illuminating half of the main room. I know this type of glass. It's one of those light-absorbing glass that can reflect the light that they took in when it becomes dark. It's a very popular household item because of the nature of our kingdom.

"Are you looking for something, Prince Kao?" I asked him. He went to one of the stalls in which a stack of books and other abandoned things were stacked. They were covered in mist and dust from the long period of time that no one was here.

"Maybe there's something in here that would tell us more about your mother," he said while he was wiping the dusty covers of the book and reading the titles. "Rainha, you haven't been here for ages, right?"

"Oh, no," I replied. "I haven't been here since I was twelve, I think. But I wanted to, you know. When I was old enough to wonder about what this house looked like, I always told my Aunt and brother that I wanted to see this house. But they did not like my idea and I understood why. So instead of visiting here, they gave me old pictures of this house."

Telling that to Prince Kao was kind of nostalgic. Maybe because it made me feel the struggle again back when I was a teenager and that I wanted to be away from our house in Aurville. During those times when I felt that it was hard living there in Aurville, I would daydream of coming back here to this place and live on my own. I even dreamed of becoming a tailor just so my dream would look and sound logical to me during those days when I wanted to be away from work and my Aunt herself.

I always yearned to be free when I was younger. Not being reckless free, but being free from the responsibility of having to work twice as hard as everyone else because we have nothing. Losing both my parents at an early age had made me want to be rich so that I could choose not to work on certain days when I don't feel like it. That, to me, was freedom and this house was the center of my fantasies back then when I was still naive enough to dream of being able to just rest and do what I wanted to do.

"Rainha, I think I found something," the Crown Prince told me in a whisper and I immediately knew that he found something worth the travel here in Kajos. He showed me a small book that I think was a photo book. "Can I look?"

"Of course, you can," I said, glad that he still asked me permission even if he was the Crown Prince. It made me feel giddy whenever he was acting like this, as if he was just an ordinary person. It may sound cliche but the Crown Prince always surprises me. He always makes it hard to resist his charms, even if what he's just doing is to be like anybody else.

"Oh. This is a photo album of you and your brother," he then said and I went to him to look at the photo book too. He was right. This was indeed a compilation of photographs of me and my brother when we were kids. I had never seen most of these pictures so it surprised me too.

Most of them were taken we I was just about four or five. My brother and I played a lot with just the two of us because Aunt Milca would not let us go outside to other kid's homes just like what the other neighborhood children would normally do. Since children could not play outside with the cold and snow, what would parents usually do is to arrange 'playtime schedules' in which they would send their kids to their neighbor's house so that they could play with other children. But in our case, Aunt Milca did not like that idea because she did not like when other people were in our house. I remember crying back then when it was only us that did not go to a neighbor's kid's birthday party because I wanted to eat their food and play with their toys.

It sucked. But later on, I learned to just play with my brother and no one else. I also since did not complain about it, especially when we relocated to Aurville, as people had begun to bully us the moment they found out that my mother was an Outsider. At that time I did not get why it was such a big deal--- having a mother that came from outside of Aure, but when I grew up I just realized how odd it was to have someone from outside to have managed to come here to Aure.

Of course, people have their own theories of where did my mother come from. Apparently, she had told no one of her origins, but like I said it was a big deal because no one has ever discovered what lies outside our borders aside from the Ruthless Blizzards that locks us inside our kingdom.

Our neighbors used to tell us that Outsiders were from a savage tribe of people that lived in the wilderness and had left Aure ages ago. Some of them then theorized that my mother was from another country that got lost and then my father accidentally found her.

Stories like these were always talked about because people like to discuss things that they have no idea of entirely, and my mother's origin was a proof of that. Garreth, my older brother, had his own theory too. He used to think that our mother was a descendant of an ancient tribe that lived in caves, and when they Ruthless Blizzards appeared they had no means of coming back to the kingdom where they could go in and out as they pleased before.

I used to believe in Garreth's theory. That was the explanation that I accepted with all my heart because all the other theories from other people pictured my mother as some sort of feral woman or a person who was descended from monsters. It came to a point when I was at school where the other students would just come to me at random and ask me weird things like if I have fangs or horns and that always triggered my anxiety.

I usually would tell these rude students to back off and would fight the bullies, but ever since Garreth got seriously hurt because he fought the guys that called me a demon's child, I stopped fighting back and just ignored them. I did not want my only brother to get hurt because of me, so I promised to myself to just endure all the ridicule and bullying just like what Garreth does effortlessly.

He was always the strong one and I have admired him for that. Garreth made it less hard for me when I myself wanted to just disappear. He would make me smile again in the silliest way possible and I missed that from him, even now.

"So this is your mother," I heard Prince Kao said to me and that made me come back from my reminiscing. He was pointing at one of the old photos in the photo book. I have seen that photograph before. It was the photograph of Garreth's first birthday, where he was being given kisses by both of my parents. Obviously, I was still not born in that picture because my mother is still there. "She's beautiful, but it was obvious that she was not from Aure."

"Yeah, that's what I also thought back then. She has these soft features that women from here do not have. Plus, her skin complexion was a little bit tanned than us. That always confused me whenever Aunt Milca would tell me about that."

"Why?"

"Because for me, that defies science, right? People from here have a light skin tone because we don't get exposed to sunlight that much, but my mother had a tan. Aunt Milca used to say that maybe my mother came from a place where the sun shone bright and that made me feel jealous for some reason."

"I could understand why you'll get jealous. If your mother really did come from a place like that then that only means that she experienced what it feels to be in a warmer place."

"Exactly."

"It's too bad that we don't get to ask her all these things," he added. "And your Aunt is still missing. I know it doesn't make sense but it makes me wonder, was that just a coincidence or is someone actually trying too hard for us not to be able to talk with your Aunt regarding your mother?"

I paused at what he said. "I have never thought about it that way," I admitted to him. "But that's possible. Maybe someone knows that you are researching all these things and is trying to stop you?"

Prince Kao looked appalled at what I just said. "You mean someone knows what we are doing?"

"Yes."

"That's possible too," he told me. "But that also means that if that is true, then the people behind it knows who I am, right?"

"Oh yeah. Then it's probably not true." I just realized how that ridiculously sounded. Because if someone really did know about the Crown Prince's secret activities, then why are they not exposing him? Are they scared? Or are they smart enough to just remain in the shadows?

I shook my head because I was still thinking of a theory that was not even proven by the Crown Prince himself. I just went on looking at the photographs with him, which was a wrong move because I saw the photograph of my father holding me in his arms again and tears just started flowing from my eyes.

"Are you okay?"

I nodded while wiping my eyes. "I'm okay. I just... miss him."

He looked at me softly. "You must have loved our father so much."

"I do. Even though I don't remember much about him, I still know that he was such a good person." I stared at my father's smiling face and my throat constricted from trying to stop myself from crying. But then I stopped because I just noticed something in his photograph that I haven't noticed before.

"What's wrong, Rainha? Why are you so tensed?"

I pointed my father's wrist on the picture, which was exposed because he was carrying me in his arms. There was a bracelet on his wrist and I just realized what it was right now.

Even Prince Kao was shocked when he saw it. "Is that what I think it is?" he asked me with sudden excitement in his eyes.

I nodded. "I think it is," I replied and looked back at the bracelet which was in the shape of a flower that was in turn in the shape of a bird.