Mathieu (White Flame Trilogy) - By Paula Flumerfelt Page 0,112

scowled into the tea that was placed in front of him by Zerieve. “He’s a jerk who avoids confrontation and serious relationships…”

“Don’t I know it.” Zanika said under her breath, munching on another cracker.

Mathieu looked at her. “What do you mean by that?”

Zerieve grinned in an almost cruel way, “Don’t you know? He and Zanika were a couple for years.”

He gave the girl a blank look before taking a gulp of the scolding tea, using the pain to test if he had nodded off to sleep. There were no words to express the tightness in his chest that he felt over this tidbit of information. Sure, he and Solomon hadn’t been talking or anything lately, but that didn’t mean that he had stopped caring about the blond. Hearing about him with someone else…it made him feel sort of choked. “Seriously, do I have a tattoo on my forehead that says ‘Bring up Solomon, I’d love to hear it’? Jeez.” Mathieu finally responded, shifting uncomfortably.

Zanika give him a somewhat pitying look, then took his hand and pulled him out of his seat. “Come on, cutie. Let’s leave the chickens to cluck and go do something fun, okay?” Without leaving room for argument, she pulled him out the door. “I need to go see the children, anyhow, so you’ll just come with me. They’ll like you.”

He didn’t want to like this bubbly girl, still unsure how he felt about her and Solomon supposedly being a thing a long time ago.

“Uh, just forget what Zerieve said, okay? How are things going at Nathan’s? You know, before the whole ‘dead’ thing…”

“Well, we met with the kid and the god,” Mathieu recounted vaguely. “Two new members joined us from Unith, and I got my first sword.”

As they walked Zanika sort of floated from side to side, humming sometimes. “I wonder what will happen now, you know what?” She sighed, “But I guess we don’t get much of a saw. We’re going to leave it to the others to figure out. You and I are going to go play with the children and not think about anything sad.” She proclaimed.

“Alright. I’m game for anything that doesn’t involve being sad.” He slung an arm over her shoulders and gave her a smile; but just a little one.

“Hhave you ever played soccer?” She asked him as a cloud of dust came into view. There were shouts and grunts coming from it and he wondered if there was a brawl.

Mathieu made a sound of discomfort. “I’ve played a few times, but I’m generally not very good at it….”

“Don’t worry, I promise the kids will take it easy on you.”

“Jeez, thanks.” He rolled his eyes as they walked down a small slope onto another road, putting them much closer to the dust cloud. “So…what exactly is your gift?”

Zanika shrugged one shoulder, “That should have been obvious. My power is darkness that I can channel into anything I want. Mostly it’s just weapons. Zerieve and I prefer bows because archers are practically non-existent in our little army. I do okay with hand-to-hand with things like daggers, though.”

“You don’t have to have Lenore make your weapons, do you?”

“Nope. We can shape our darkness to whatever we need it to be.” Zanika explained, distracted by the children they could now see. Mathieu coughed slightly, now in the middle of the dirty air.

Mathieu’s reply was cut short by the screams of excited children when they realized who was interrupting their game. A few of them jumped up and down while others were running towards them. A little girl giggled as she slammed into Zanika, clinging to her leg. “Zani! Zani!”

The brunette smiled down at them, “Hey there, little ones. What is going on?”

“Zani! I need you to braid my hair!”

“No, no, braid mine!”

“I’ve got a splinter, help!”

“Make a daisy chain with me!”

“Come play soccer with us!” And that got all the kids going, chanting ‘soccer, soccer’ as one voice.

Zanika laughed and scooped up one of the children, carrying her. “Alright, kiddos. Everybody just calm down. I see we already have teams formed.” Mathieu thought she might be referring to how some of the kids were covered in a lot more dust than the others, but he didn’t ask.

In the group of clamoring children, one had stayed quiet. But now she raised her hand, her curly hair swaying in a slight breeze. “Uh, Zanika, there’s a less dusty field on our farm. Papa won’t mind if we use it.” Her voice was soft, but it