Mathieu (White Flame Trilogy) (4 page)

The bus was pretty packed, but he managed to find an empty seat. He slide into it and smiled politely at the girl beside him. She was young, but still older than him.

“Hello.” Her voice was soft and she smiled shyly at him.

Her shy nature made him grin. “Hi. How are you?”

Reddish hair hid her eyes as she tilted her head forward. “Oh, I’m good.”

She was a little thing, only taking up half of the seat and practically no space on the bus. Her hair was cut into a short bob that emphasized her jaw.

“Do you live around here?” He turned to look at her, focusing his attention completely on her as he set his bag on the floor between his feet. Mathieu had never ridden on public transportation and didn’t know the social protocol for socializing, but what he did know was that talking to as many people as possible would help him put together a better a cover story for once he was in Ateri.

She turned red. “Oh, uh, yes. I live just outside of the town before this. You know, Steeta. I work in Ateri, though. Do you live around here?”

Considering, he decided to stick with his previously constructed lie.
“Oh, no.
I live in the city. I was visiting family in the country.”

“I should have known.” She gave him an appraising look. “You don’t look like the people who live out here.” Her eyes caught the light for a moment before she looked away.

Insecurities suddenly spiked through him, but he pushed them down. “Oh?” Maybe she meant the fact that he was
chatting
her up like an idiot instead of sitting there quietly like everyone else on the bus.

“Well, I mean, uh, your hair and eyes and uh…yeah…” she tripped over her words lamely. He smiled at her reassuringly. He was going to have to get used to people commenting on his appearance. It would be okay; he would get over it. After all, he was very different looking.

The bus pulled away, and he looked past her out the window at the town. This was a much faster mode of transportation than walking, Mathieu decided. He was glad that he hadn’t tried to walk the whole way. Besides, he had a delightfully interesting girl to entertain him. Shifting in his seat, he slouched a bit until he was comfortable. Honestly, he had no idea how long the trip would take, but he was ready. At least, he thought he was. “I’m Mathieu, by the way.”

“Oh! I’m Vienna.” She blushed. “I seem to have forgotten my manners.
So…Mathieu…That’s pretty.”

It was his turn to flush. “Thanks. So…what kind of work do you do?” More intelligence gathering, he told himself. These things would be important to know. Or at least he thought they might be.

“Well, I work in a government building. I do clerical work, filing papers and the like. Loads of fun…” Her
voice trailed in an uninterested way, looking at the other occupants of the bus. She sighed softly.

Mathieu chuckled and she smiled companionably at him. He found himself wanting to make her smile; sometimes he was just like that. Something told him that this girl was very genuine and that made him happy. Her personality just showed him that some people were still nice at heart.

“Living in Ateri must be really nice. I could never afford it. Everything is so expensive. I’m surprised they don’t charge us to come into the city and work.” She laughed, looking out the window as they crossed a bridge. Mathieu was pretty sure she was joking, but she sounded rather serious. “This area is so nice. Funny how we can have a thriving metropolis disaster and not that far away is this slice of heaven.”

Something in her words had troubled him. Ateri was expensive. He should have known. His couple handfuls of Khrons wouldn’t take him far once he got there. That meant that he was going to have to find work quickly. And try to find somewhere that would take pity on him until he did. The shining beacon of their country should be visitor friendly, but this woman was making him think otherwise.

“If you live in Ateri, you must work for the royal family. No one else can afford to live there, right?” Vienna said off-handedly, peaking at him out of the corner of her eye. It looked like she was sizing him up.

Mathieu made a humming noise that could be taken either way, tilting his head back against the seat.

“Have you ever been to the Royal Gardens? I really want to go there…” It seemed to Mathieu that this girl was all over the map, but now her voice had a dreamy quality to it that he couldn’t fathom the cause of.

“Why?” He
questioned,
his brow furrowing as he tried to understand her desire to see some garden. Maybe they grew rare vegetables there.

She gave him a disbelieving look. “How could I not? Ever since I was a little kid, my mom talked about how beautiful and grand the gardens were and how you could only get in by invitation. It’s my life’s ambition…to do something so noteworthy that I get invited.” Vienna gave a longing sigh, her eyes far away.

The gardens…huh…
Vienna seemed nice enough, but not cutthroat enough to really get noticed. At least, that was his opinion. In his experience, bullies tended to get noticed a lot more than the nice kids.

“Oh, when you get back and get settled in, you should look me up. We could have lunch together! Er, I mean…only if you want to, of course…” She bit her bottom lip in an
embarrassed
way, tilting her head.

Mathieu considered for a moment before he nodded. It might help to have an ally already in the city. “That’d be really cool.” The more they talked, and the closer they got to Ateri, the more he started to panic about starting over there. “So, my…brother was thinking about moving to the capital, and he asked me to think of some advice for him, ya know, to make it easier when he first gets there. Only thing is, I’m not very good at giving advice. What would you tell him?” His voice was unsure, but he tried to lie as convincingly as possible.

“Hm…” Her face became thoughtful and she tapped her nails against her leg, “I’d tell him that he needs to be tough, to not let people take advantage of him. The street urchins can be rather abrasive if you’ve never dealt with them before. Oh, and to avoid the Seventh District, because it’s kind of rough there. I don’t know, just stuff like that.”

He nodded, making mental notes for himself. “Thanks.”

Nodding, she rested her head against the window, closing her eyes.

Okay, got to be tough.
This was going to be harder than he thought. He was beginning to realize that this was the stupidest thing he’d ever done. But, that thought kind of thrilled him. For once, he was doing something for him. Not because he had to or was intimidated into it; no, just because he wanted to. And that was why he was sure he could make it through this.

The bus winded down the country road, the trees and rolling hills giving way to flatter land. As they got closer to the capital, the land became more colonized land, housing complexes cropping up here and there. They were apartment style buildings, but their poor construction made them less than desirable. Mathieu supposed that was a downside of urban areas. The nicer the inner city became, the worse the surrounding areas started to seem. Compared to large, airy houses that Mathieu could see not far off, the apartments seemed cramped and almost unsanitary. He really hoped he wouldn’t need to live in an apartment.

Over the loud speaker, the driver announced that the next
stop was central Ateri, District One. His heart started to pound again, nerves getting the better of him, causing his leg to bounce up and down quickly.

“Excited to be going home?” Vienna was looking at him, not seeming to find his behavior weird.

“Oh, of course I am. I’ve been away for a while. Coming back will be like
starting a new life…”

Chapter

Two

Outside the window, the city was taking shape. It was rather creepy to see. It started just past the large stone fence; first, there were heavy metal structures, skeletons of what were once offices, Mathieu assumed. They looked like metallic monsters standing ominously against the sky and looking down at the world with blank eyes. Slowly those faded away, and in their place stood smaller buildings, homes. They were petite compared to those that came before, sort of like cottages made out of a white metal. Each had a nicely manicured front to it, a least one tree full of foliage. Once the houses were done, the non-businesses had their place. They were the charities and the like. Only a handful of them were in the area and they were in mismatched pairs, like the rejected socks that lost their mates to the dryers.

But then, to Mathieu’s wonderment, the bus entered through the gates of the inner city, into District One. Everything became tall and shiny.
New.
Flowers were in bloom everywhere: store fronts, planters that lined the center dividers in the streets, all over. Statues of previous rulers were erected around the city, cared for and well maintained. Office building with glass fronts mixed with the shorter buildings, businesses to keep the economy stimulated. Many of them were trade fronts for goods ranging from exotic foods to pets and luxury goods.

The bus stopped at the innermost square, just outside of the royal family’s castle. It was the main market square for local goods, such as fruits and hand-woven clothing. Everything was of the finest quality: silks, fruits so ripe
that they were ready to eat as soon as they were bought, things like that. Mathieu stepped off the bus, looking around at the stalls.

Vienna exited just behind him. “Okay, so I work in the Hollander building, just north of here. Come by anytime.” She smiled one last time before turning on her heel and walking into the crowd. Her bag was held tightly to her side.

Hoisting his bag a bit higher after seeing how Vienna carried hers, he looked around again, taking in more this time. People were milling about, looking at the goods in the stalls and haggling over prices. This seemed like a good idea to him, so he approached the nearest stall: a jewelry cart.

The jewels sparkled in the mid-day suns, throwing beautiful arcs of color onto the ground around the cart. They ranged in size from as small as his pinky nail to the size of his fist and covered every shade and hue of the rainbow. A particular necklace caught his eye. It had a red stone and a purple one twined around each other, mixing in some places, separating in others. It was hard to tell where one stone began and the other ended. They were affixed to
a  platinum
backing, the stones raised in a design that vaguely reminded Mathieu of a beautiful, cursive letter ‘M’. The desire to possess it was making him nearly light-headed. He extended his fingers towards the necklace, wanting to touch it.

A hand clapped down on his wrist, gripping it tightly. He stilled instantly under the touch, adrenaline flooding his system.

“…be tough.”
Vienna’s voice rang in his ears.
Ri
ght.
Can’t let anyone

 
push
me around…

Mathieu rotated his wrist, managing to grip the hand and spun, wrenching his assailant’s wrist behind his back. With swift force, he broke the man’s elbow, dropping him to the ground. His instincts were screaming at him to run, like they usually did when he cause trouble, but he couldn’t leave without the necklace. Plunging a hand into his bag, he pulled out a handful of Khrons and snatched up the necklace, running before the man could stop screaming in pain.

The crowd battered against him as he shoved the necklace into his bag, forcing him deeper into the throng of people. He tried to direct where he was being pushed, but the most he could do was slowly gravitate to the outside of the crowd and cut out when he reached a side street. Luckily, there weren’t many people down this way and he stopped, digging in his bag. He managed to free his sweater and get it on. Pulling the hood up to hide his white hair, he pushed his hands into the pockets, slouching his shoulders, doing what he could to make himself less recognizable.

He took a right at the end of the street down a back alley, following it. The alley connected to another main street and he slide back out into the crowd, keeping his head down. Mathieu was suddenly being rudely bumped out of the crowd again, however, this time towards two men clad in black, well cut suits. Their eyes were narrowed in anger and the stall owner was standing beside them, as was the man whose elbow he’d broken. He was clad in a black suit too.

Keeping his gaze low, he managed to catch a glimpse of
who had forced him out of the crowd. More men dressed in black.

The oldest, standing the furthest to the right, crossed his arms, looking at him hard. “So you’re the one who attacked an officer. Bad move kid, bad move.” The man reached a hand out to grab Mathieu’s shoulder, but Mathieu stepped back and managed to avoid bumping into anyone else. Spinning on his heel, he almost ducked under the outstretched arms, but one of them caught him in the chest, knocking him to the ground.

“Tch.”
Getting to his feet and glaring, Mathieu dusted off his pants. He hated being knocked down and ‘officers’ or not, these guys seemed like bullies to him.

The oldest man stepped forward and leaned down, pushing his face into Mathieu’s, “Listen kid, you’d better come with us before we have to hurt you.”

Grinning, he spat in the man’s face and knocked him into the man closest to him with a surprisingly well-judged kick. Before it had been about being tough, but now it was about being threatened.

This time, he didn’t run into the other men, but hopped onto a nearby trash can, using it as a launching point to jump up, catching the gutter of the building. Wincing as the cold metal cut into his palms, he pulled himself up and rolled onto the roof. Looking back over the edge, he saw that enough confusion had arisen for him to escape. Wrinkling his nose in distaste, he ran and leapt onto the next roof. Smoothly, he landed before running to the other side, leaning down and grabbing the edge, to drop to the ground. He could now hear the others hot on his trail, yelling at people to get out of the way.

His foot slipped and he hit the ground on his bruised shin, but he rolled back onto his feet and ran flat out in the opposite direction that everyone was going, dodging people left and right. The protesting of his leg was put to the back of his mind as he tried to think of where to go. All he could hear in his head, though, was Rebekah telling him that he always leapt before he looked.

The men were gaining on him quickly, blowing whistles and politely shoving citizens aside. Things were going to end badly if they caught him. But Mathieu saw it, a way out. If he could just make it another twenty-five feet or so, there was an alley he could duck down…

The foot traffic grew increasingly heavier, stunting his progress even further.
Twenty to go.
It was only getting harder now as he tried to fight his way across the mass of bodies.
Fifteen.
Ten
..
Mathieu was so close he could taste it, could see the darkness of the cut-street that would save him.
Five feet.

“I got him!” He fell quickly and hit the ground with a thump, one of the goons from earlier on top of him, a knee in his back. The man held him down with the weight of a small elephant, keeping him pressed into the hard ground until the other men could get there.

Panting, one of the younger men turned to the oldest. “There boss, we caught him. What should we do with him now?”

Crossing his arms, the older man’s face turned into a fierce snarly and he tapped his foot. “…Bring him.”

The man holding him down lifted him unceremoniously, wrenching one of his arms behind his back. Mathieu winced and jabbed an elbow into the man’s ribs in retaliation. Mathieu sighed.
Not even in the capital ten whole minutes, and already in trouble.
A feeling of impending doom fell upon him as the men created a sort of human prison around him, although he didn’t begrudge them considering how well he had escaped before. The citizens seemed to realize that something was happening, if the way they moved to create a pathway was any indication. His personal prison moved swiftly up the main street to the gates of the huge, glass and white metal castle that stood in the exact center of the city.

Without needing to be told, understanding dawned on him. This was the royal castle.
The
royal castle.
The intricate, ominous black gates swung inward, opening to accept the party into its folds. Once they had passed the defenses and the gates had clanged closed, he was released. “Don’t be stupid, kid,” one of the goons said, “Your little escape trick won’t work here. Man up and accept your fate.”

Wincing at the man’s words, he tucked his hands into the pockets of his grey hoodie once again. Looking up, his breath caught in his throat. The closer that they got to the castle, the more magnificent it became. Each glass panel had an etched boarder around
it,
the white metal was twined into columns, encrusted with small, glowing jewels. The palace, which must have been at least twelve stories high, glittered in the light of the two suns, reminding him of the way the jewels had shined on the cart and the way that the fast moving stream behind the orphanage had thrown the sun against the grass.

The little group took a foot path that spurred off to the
left. It was dirt, unlike the main walkway which was made of smooth, flat stones. At the end of the road was a two-story black building standing imposingly against the beautifully carved wall. It took two of the men to wrench open the door and let them into the heavily air conditioned building. Mathieu looked around and realized that it was a clerical floor. A few people sat at wooden desks that we bolted to the floor. The workers looked grim, clicking away on their projector keyboards. He wished he had behaved well enough to not need to see this place.

One of the men bumped him, forcing him through a door to the right and down a set of stairs. The air was becoming still and stiflingly hot, making him cough. A weird smell was floating towards him, as well. At the bottom of the stairs was a moderate darkness, not quite pure, but dark enough to impair his vision. Mathieu reached out and ran his hand along the wall so he didn’t fall down.

“Log him and put him away. I don’t want to see that filth again.”  The oldest man closed a door at the bottom of the stairs, shutting him down into the dark with the heat and stench. Only one man was left. In the minimal light cast by a lamp on the desk, he was able to read the name stitched onto the man’s shirt collar; “Michaels”.

“Where are we?” Mathieu queried. Looking around, details of the room were slowly becoming clear to him. There were little metal cells around the room, people chained to the walls within them. However, there were others doors recessed into the walls as well. A scream cut through the air.

Michaels, a clean cut, twenty-five-year-old man, looked
at him with suspicion. “You’re in prison.” He said like Mathieu was stupid.

“…Bit unsanitary, isn’t it?” Mathieu asked
,
rubbing his nose against the smell he now realized was human decay.

The man stared silently at him.

“Just saying.
So, what am
I
doing here?” He put his hands on his hips.

Reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose, Michaels sighed. “You were arrested for assaulting an officer of the King’s Court.”

“A who?”
He tilted his head, confused. How was he supposed to know that people in black suits could land you in jail?

The man grabbed Mathieu by the shoulder and forced him to sit in a rather uncomfortable chair. “Do you know anything? Okay, so the enforcers of the law are all officers of the King’s Court. We’ve dedicated and sworn our lives to his cause and his rule.” Michaels said as he started to fill out some paperwork.

“That’s just stupid.” He sighed and pulled his braid over his shoulder, chewing on the end.

Michaels smirked. “I can’t believe McCorver was taken down by you. You might as well be a girl.” The man pulled Mathieu’s bag away from him.

“Hey!
Give that back.”