Mathieu (White Flame Trilogy) (40 page)

Erik sat at the table with him, “You and Solomon…you are attracted to him. It’s dangerous.”

“That’s not a question.”

“You’re right. It’s not.” Erik reached into the breast pocket of his shirt and drew out his pack of cigarettes, popping one out. Then, he took out a lighter with a tiger lily engraved on it, and lit the cigarette. The scent of apples filled the room. “The question is whether it’s serious.”

Wrinkling his nose, Mathieu raised an eyebrow. “What business is it of yours?”

Smiling a crooked smile, Erik blew a smoke ring across the room. “It’s important to understand the relationships between people. For instance, if you have a serious…thing with this man, then putting you two near each other during the siege of Unith would be a bad idea. You two would be more concerned with the welfare of each other than the success of the invasion. Make sense?”

“You don’t get to decide who I’m near during the siege, Red. I’m the new leader,
apparently,
therefore, I make those sorts of decisions.”

“Oh? And do you have experience with organizing large scale attacks with rebel military forces that I’m unaware of?”

Mathieu smiled sarcastically and leaned over, taking the cigarette out of Erik’s mouth, putting it out on the man’s stack of French toast. “Thanks for breakfast.” Irritated, he stood and left the kitchen, going to one of the sitting rooms.

Avanon, who was stretched out on the floor with a book, looked up as he entered. “Hey. How are you?”

“Ducky.
Where do I find Solomon?” It had occurred to him while he slept that maybe if he tried to Solomon again, they could get somewhere. He truly doubted it, but he was hoping that he could at least get the trust as to why the man thought he would make such an unfit leader.

She tilted her head and made a face, thinking. “He said he was going to see that Mina and
Elise  got
home safely, then he was going to go to the Head Quarters. Why?”

“Uh…” He said, mind trying to churn out a decent lie to
cover why he really needed to talk to Solomon. “I needed to ask him something, but maybe you’ll know. Because the resistance is so spread out, how did Nathan communicate with all the members at one time? Sending messengers out seems just impractical.”

“Well, that job fell to Josette.” Avanon said.

Mathieu waited for her to continue, but she did not. “And why is that?”

“Don’t know. Go ask her. She’s meditating down by the Emotion Tree.”

“Well, if she did it before, I’ll just leave her to it now...” He said, really not wanting to talk to Josette one-on-one.

Chapter

Eighteen

The resistance headquarters lay on the coast at the borders of the Eastern, Western, and Central Districts. It
sat on the top of a cliff, a four-story cylindrical building. The top floor was an office with three floor-to-ceiling windows, and the center one opened onto a balcony; the office was actually something of a war room with detailed maps of Unith and some of the bigger towns, profiles on government officials and some of the higher ups in the Unithian military; the second floor wasn’t technically a floor, more of an open area between the bottom floor and the top, with a staircase spiraling up the walls of the tower and that led to the rooms set in intervals along the stairway. The bottom floor was a kitchen, a dining room, and a living room furnished to seat as many as possible.

Mathieu was standing in the living room, staring at the oversized wild cat sitting in the corner of the room next to the fire place. He was standing between Erik and Jo, Enak just in front of him. It’d been just over a month since he’d been elected as leader of the resistance. The others had thought that he needed to at least see the HQ if he was going to be in charage.

“I’m sorry to keep you waiting.” Kiev said, coming into the room from the foyer, wiping her hands on her pant legs. “How are you boys doing?” She asked.

“It’s
hotter  than
the gates of hell outside, but otherwise I think we’re fairly good. How are you?”

She looked at Erik and Enak before nodding, not all that comfortable with them it seemed.
“Just busy.”
She tapped her heel on the floor for a moment before she looked up at Mathieu. “I asked you to come here to see something I…found. But where we are going is for you and
I
alone. The others need to stay here.”

Jo stepped between the two of them. Even though he was shorter than both of them, he looked down his nose at Kiev. “I go where he goes. The other two will stay. Understand me?”

Raising her eyebrow, she shrugged one shoulder. “Fine, Jo. Do as you wish. You are not my responsibility, kiddo.”

Jo grinned brightly at her, “Okay!” He hugged the blonde woman around the waist happily.

“Awe.”
She hugged him back,
then
patted his head. “Let’s get going then. I don’t think Mathieu will want to miss this.” She went to the large cat and
pet
it behind the ear; it purred loudly, and got up from where it sat. Going to a chair, it hopped up into it. Leaning down, Kiev pulled the rug aside and opened a hidden panel in the floor, revealing a hole barely large enough for Mathieu, and a ladder. “We go down. There is a passage at the bottom.”

Jo laughed in good spirits and volunteered to go down the hole first. Kiev stepped aside to make room for Jo’s childish enthusiasm, following him down. Mathieu went last.

Mathieu wasn’t the biggest fan of small spaces, but he concentrated on taking the ladder one rung at a time, letting the earthy smell fill his nose as he went down. He realized about halfway down the very long descent that the walls of the hole around him were made of dirt with metal fencing keeping it from falling in on them; this did nothing to make him like the small space any better. He couldn’t help but think that the small hole could collapse in on him at any moment, crushing him to death. That’s
or he could be permanently crippled. It took a while, but eventually his feet found solid ground with a supporting hand on his back. He had made it without dying.

Turning to face Kiev and Jo, he put his hands on his hips and took a deep breath in, looking around. The actual passage was rather crude and made of the same metal caging in an arched hallway while wooden planks were deeply embedded into the ground to create a floor.
“Now that we are away from prying ears, telling me why I’m here, Kiev.”

“I did not know how you wanted to do things. When Nathan was in charge, it wasn’t uncommon that when we…detained someone, he wanted to meet with them in person. We have a ‘someone’ in custody now. However, as far as I can tell, he has no information that is prudent to us.” Her brow furrowed.

“Then why did you ‘detain’ this ‘someone’ to begin with?” He inquired.

“He broke into the headquarters, and was in the kitchen. We weren’t sure if he was a spy.” She rubbed the back of her head with a blush. “It was right after you were elected and I didn’t know how to bring it up.”

Sighing, he ran his fingers through his hair. “Alright, show me. I’ll try talking to him myself.”

Kiev nodded and started down the hallway, Mathieu behind her and Jo at the rear. There were crude wooden doors all the way down the passage, but she bypassed them all, going to a single metal door. “This is it. I feel bad that we kept him down her for so long. Solomon tried to get him to talk but…he really has no relevant
information. The problem is going to be that he can identify Solomon, and
myself
, so we can’t let him go...”

“We’ll figure it out.” He pulled open the door and went into the room. It was just like the hallway with dirt walls, metal netting, and a crude metal floor. In the middle of the room there was a chair bolted to the floor with a man strapped to it by thick leather straps, slumped as far forward as his bindings would let him. The man was barely over a boy, maybe eighteen, with black hair and green eyes. The left side of his face was bruised and swollen, his arms and bare chest covered with cuts made by a thin, precise blade, and his right wrist was clearly broken.

Mathieu summoned a ball of energy to provide more light than the Energy Jewel powered lamp. He knelt before the man and pushed his hair back from his face. “Does he have a name?”

“Wouldn’t say.”

“Hey. Hey.” Snapping his fingers, he waited until the other’s eyes seemed to focus on him. “What’s your name?” He waiting, but no answer came. “Do you even speak?”

The man’s face turned away from him, pulling his upper lip back.

Sighing, Mathieu sat on the wooden floor. “Could you at least tell us why you’re here, even if you don’t want to tell me your name?”

“Don’t bother,” Kiev said. “He won’t answer.
At all.”

“Fine.
I don’t have the time for this. If he’s not going to cooperate, I don’t have time to deal with him. There are more important things to do.” A weird feeling began to tingle at the base of his skull, making his eyes water.

The blond female nodded in understanding and reached down, pulling a knife from her boot. “You can go. I’ll deal with this and clean it up.” Kiev advanced towards the prisoner, putting her hand on top of his head and bringing the blade to his throat.

But her knife met the back of Jo’s hand. While Mathieu had been attempting to talk to the man, Jo had circled around behind and now his hand was placed protectively over the male raven’s throat. He looked over the stranger’s head at Kiev. “Mine.”

“Excuse me?” Her face was pulled into an expression that showed her disbelief.

“Can I keep him, Mathieu? I promise I’ll be responsible for him.
Pleeease?”
His other hand
laid
on the man’s shoulder protectively.

Mathieu looked at him. “Uh…”

Jo’s bottom lip quivered, hugging the man from behind. “I promise he’ll behave. Won’t you?”

To everyone’s surprised, the prisoner nodded. “Yeah…”

“See, you guys just don’t ask politely enough. What’s your name?”

“Lione.”
The stranger said, looking at the floor.

“Good, Lione.” Jo patted his head with a smile. “Now, don’t go attacking like you planned to do.”

Lione looked up at him. “How did you know?”

Jo smiled. “I could feel the shift in air pressure. You’re a Sky Paladin, aren’t you? Wind scythes in this small of an area would be a bad idea. It could hurt you, too.” He pet Lione’s hair like he was a pet.

“And how do you know that?” Mathieu said.

“It was in that book on your desk. I got bored. I’m sorry…”

Mathieu chuckled and shook his head. “Don’t be.” He was just glad
at  the
boy had known what was happening, because he had been clueless.

Jo smiled, proud. “Kiev, can I borrow your knife?”

Kiev looked between him and Lione, but handed over the blade. She watched as Jo cut Lione free. “This still doesn’t mean we can just let him leave…”

Mathieu folded his arms over his chest. “Well, if Jo wants to keep Lione and be responsible for him, he can. Lione,” he waited for the man to look at him, “you have to stay here, alright? If you try to run…well, I’m sure you’re smart enough to figure out what will happen if you do.”

“Yeah, okay.” His teeth ground audibly, clearly not the type that liked to be told what to do.

“Up you get.” Jo helped Lione get to his feet, pulling the taller male’s arm around his shoulders. “There we go.
Let’s get you upstairs and get some food into you.” The duo exited the room, leaving Mathieu and Kiev in the room alone.

“Somehow, I think that this could end badly.” Kiev said.