Princess Dominica
Ever since she was young, she had not really understood why Dominic had been so hated by not just the Royal and Noble Families but by the Peasants as well. To Dominica, hating her brother for something he had no control over was not only silly but small minded. She had seen the way Dominic had been treated, as if he was nothing more than a slave to the people of Syera, hell she had believed for a very long time that he had indeed been a slave. However, even at the tender age of six, she had known that she had had to protect him since no one was willing to.
She could still remember her earliest memory as a child. She had just returned from her lessons with her governess and was being escorted by two guards when she had seen Dominic sitting by himself on a corner, not speaking to anyone or even acknowledging the presence of the servants and nobles that walked across the hallway. He didn't look uncomfortable alone, but rather sad, seeing as everyone who looked at him didn't fail to drop one or two condescending comments his way. At that age she had not understood why the handsome boy was being treated that way, so she had decided to walk up to him to ask him why the adults were treating him that way.
She could still remember how panicked the guards had looked when she had run as fast as she could to the boy and stood in front of him with curious eyes and a smile. She could vividly recall how he had looked up at her as if he had just seen one of the Divines descend from heaven and look at him with an emotion other than pure hatred or utter disgust. The way he had smiled cautiously before he looked to the guards that were behind her coming towards them and then back at her with a look of wary hope made her heart break for him, and with conviction she made her next move. She didn't even think about her next course of action for more than a second before she grabbed the boy by his hand and dashed down the hallway in the direction of her room.
The rest as they said was history, they went from not knowing each other to knowing each other well. Sure at first it had been very rocky between them with him always questioning whether the love and affection she was showing him was real or whether it was just some elaborate prank by someone in the castle waiting to get a huge laugh from his heartbreak if it indeed turned out that she was tricking him. After a few more weeks of her sneaking around to see him to assure him that she wanted to be his friend, bringing food and water with her every night into the cupboard like room that he used at the far end of the slave quarters, he finally began to lower his guard and have true hope in is eyes.
He had gone from a boy her age who looked dead and resigned to a terrible life to someone who looked forward to the next day. She had begun to notice a spring in his steps even when he was treated unfairly in public because he had now known without an iota of doubt that once the sun went down, she would come to him and take good care of him. As time went on, they spoke a lot and laughed a lot, life seemed to enter him only when they were together, when apart despite the spring in his steps, he was a depressed kid whom the world hated for no tangible reason. It was like hating someone for their skin colour or eye colour or even hair colour, pure foolishness from the adults that claimed to know better.
The time they had spent together as six years old became shorter as seven then eight and nine year old. He had started looking even more bloodied any time she came to see him and she could only stay for a shorter time each time because sometimes, he met her in his room. It was almost as if he was spending longer time out of his room than usual and was now being punished more harshly than before. At one time she had even gone to the dungeons to meet him after hearing about his plight from a slave. For a while she had been clueless as to why he was being punished even more severely as he grew older, but it wasn't until she had clocked ten that she had found out why he had been losing the light in his eyes and the spring in his steps; she finally understood why whenever they were together, he always seemed eager to enjoy as much time as possible with her but at the same time cut their time short. Dominic was being punished for being with her.
She had witnessed the whipping first hand and had gotten furious at the sight that she had made a scene. That was the moment she realized that she was even more powerful than she had ever assumed she was. With only intention on her mind, she had launched ten powerful Inquisitors around the room like rag dolls and had broken the necks of the five guards in charge of whipping her new friend. She had protected him for the first time and that light which had gone out of his eyes, returned even more strongly than before. If he had looked at her as one of the Divines, now he looked at her as is she was the all powerful Goddess they all served.
She had taken his body down from the platform and took him to her room for the first time and spent all night trying to heal his wounds with magic but no spell had worked. Nothing she had done could stop the bleeding or the fever he had gotten as she had held the weeping boy and tried to comfort him as best as she could. The torture had gone on for so long now that she, regardless of her new found great power, couldn't heal him from years of internal and external injuries; he'd been broken. Feeling powerless, she had taken a knife from her bed stand and had cut her palm, with the hand bleeding, she place them directly unto the open injury on his back and held him close to her. She had had no idea why she'd done that, but the most prevailing thought had been to die with her new friend, perhaps after her death her father and the entire kingdom would stop being so stupid and treat people better.
The next day, she had woken up to her hand completely healed and his back as smooth as before, scarred from probably other whippings she had not been privy to. The look he had had on his face made her smile and feel good inside, he had looked at her as one would look at a goddess and had hugged her so tightly she never wanted to let him go, that was the night she realized that she had just granted her new friend her power of healing which she had kept a secret from the world; with the how forever a mystery to her.
If they were close before, after than night they were even closer. Now her father began to allow Dominic to sit in the same room as her and eat, that had been the first thing she begged her father to allow, next his room had been upgraded from a cupboard like room to a room fit for a young lord. No more sneaking around happened, she and her friend whom she was now having strong feelings for, now spent time together during the day, learning together, playing together and shopping together.
He had gone from a diseased ridden person to her personal bodyguard in a way. Everywhere he was she was and vice versa, she had even began to imagine her future with him. Together they would rule Syera with she as Queen and he as her Prime Minister and maybe even more than that; however her castle fell out of the sky when a major revelation has hit her with the force of a thousand horses the day she clocked twelve; the boy she had fallen in love with was not just her brother but her twin brother.
At first she had been furious with her parents for not telling her that she'd had a brother. She couldn't believe that she had lived twelve full years without knowing that she had shared a womb with the person she always looked forward to spending the night with. The boy that made her day brighter without even meaning to, was someone she couldn't have as anything more than a really good friend. The truth sucked so bad that she had stopped seeing her twin brother for weeks, trying to see if she could convince her heart against skipping at the sight and thought of Dominic. As expected it had not worked in the slightest which made her feel even more guilty when her brother fell out of he bedroom window.
A knock at her bedroom door was enough to jar her awake from her dream of Dominic which had not been innocent or cute in the slightest, and sadly this was not the first time. Running a hand through her hair, she got out of her bed and went to splash water on her face before opening the door. "Yes?" She asked Sandra who looked nervous.
"Uh, exam will start in a few minutes but you are not down yet." She said with her eyes on the ground.
Shit!
Eyes widening, she slammed the door shut and began a race against time to get ready for the day. Last night had been a very long night, from sneaking out of the Tower in order to get rid of evidence to breaking her brother's heart in order to try and keep a semblance of normalcy in their already fucked up relationship. She frankly did not know of any siblings that shared the bathroom occasionally who was their age.
After a quick shower, she got dressed and in a composed manner opened her bedroom's door and walked out to the elevator heading for the exam hall. Many things happened last night, after the destruction and burying of evidence of course. She and Dominic had decided against him staying the night in her room regardless of how much they both wanted to but had promised to remain as close as they had always been, then there was the heavy downpour that brought the guilt of her lying to her brother to the surface. She didn't want to lie to him, she had never lied to him other than that dreadful night, but what else could she do? They had done exactly what she had wanted to do to Edward, it would be remiss of her to have them suffer for ridding the world of a plague.
The exam hall was already packed as she arrived and it didn't take too long for her to find her way to her seat beside her brother and make herself comfortable.
"Hi." She said to her brother as she used her hands to straighten out her hair and her uniform.
"You're late." He whispered to her as the exam began.
"After last night, I am quite surprised that you are early." She said as she picked up her pencil to await the paper.
"If I had the same political power you had, perhaps I could waltz in here and hour after you arrived, but I do not have that privilege so..."
"Are you saying I'm spoiled?" She whispered with a smirk to which he smiled in reply before his paper arrived as did hers.
The exam was as she had expected it to be, easy for her and every Saint in the Tower but impossible for her brother, but hey who was she if not her brother's keeper? With a quick glance around the room, she was able to swap her paper with his and use his exact handwriting to do his work intentionally writing the wrong answers in a few questions in order to avoid suspicion on her brother. Once the exams for the day were done, she led her brother out of the exam hall and to the sparring arena for a little weapons training which they had been working on together since no one was willing to teach her brother any type of weapon that was not created from his own magic, they were not ready to create a sword for him to use against them during training.
"Don't worry brother, I will take it easy on you." She said.
His reply to her taunt was to give out a chuckle. Brandishing the swords she had made for him, he ran at her with the speed she knew he possessed, thinking fast she spun around avoiding his sword strike and used both hands to command his body and throw him to the other end of the room. Dominic was not one to remain on the ground thus he was able to get back open and try again, however this time she was able to use both hands to send waves of air that lashed him back to the wall.
Deciding to change tactics Dominic instead of running at her decided to move towards her slowly anticipating her next moves. Seeing this she decided to relax her hands in order to avoid giving away her next move to Dominic. Dominic gave her smirk as he noticed what she was doing and then rushed at her before she could lift her hands, ducked to avoid a wave of air before he lunged at her tackling her to the ground and holding both her hands firmly on the floor. She was able to throw him of her body but it didn't last long as he was able to rush at her once more and hold her hands behind her back to give a headbutt, feeling the pain of the headbutt, she used her mind to control her magic something not every Saint could do and threw him across the room once more.
One of the things she had taught Dominic about fighting a Saint was to ensure that they couldn't use their hands because every Saint, well most of them, used their hands to command their magic therefore if their hands could not be moved then they couldn't command their magic and when they couldn't command their magic they were just like him powerless. Dominic stood up from the ground and began to approach her with his swords by sides once more watching her for her next move. However before he could approach he willing to once more take her on, Lady Amanda walked in with her bodyguards by her side carrying a body and from the look on her face Dominica knew that Lady Amanda had just found the body of Edward. From the look on her face, Dominica knew that Lady Amanda did not suspect anyone in the room of foul play instead her face told her that Lady Amanda had come to a conclusion; Edward has committed suicide
"Edward Adeyemi is dead." She began addressing the entire student body. "He was found in the forbidden forest with his body devoured by a Cocksyd." Lady Amanda continued. "And it is our belief that he walked in there, drunk and angry after the fight with the Prince and became dinner. This should be a lesson to you all, never enter the forbidden forest."
After her statement, she locked eyes with her and her brother before she and her entourage turned around to leave the room.
Yeah, but badasses like the Gang of Murderers could walk in and out of the forest twice and get nothing more than a gassed lung. Looking back at her brother, she saw his relief at it all being over now, the Five of them had successfully gotten away with murder. Now she could focus on what was important; getting married killing the King and freeing her brother from the prejudice he received from every citizen of Syera.