Vallen: The Marking (Vallen series #1)

Chapter 18

We spend the entire afternoon exchanging answers and eating chocolates, which were absolutely delicious. They did make me feel better about the entire exam situation. I am not sure if I totally showed Professor Kamau that I belong here, but I feel like I did pass.

We ended up writing the letter to Gregory Welt that night. We weren't sure whether or not to write it in german or English. So we brought Eldon up to speed, who translated our English text into far better german than Alaric ever could.

Eldon seemed to be very pleased that I was trying to find out who my parents were. He thought it was a good way of getting closer to my Vallen roots, and he didn't refrain from telling me every other minute.

"And you'll get even closer tomorrow." He said. Both Alaric and I looked at him a bit confused. We had just finished a week of exams, what the hell were we doing tomorrow?

"The visit to the town?" Eldon said once he saw our faces. "You didn't forget did you?"

Alaric sighed like it was a bad thing, but I thought it was amazing! I had watched what happened down in the town from nearly every window in the building. It looked amazing down there.

I really needed a break. More and more people had started finding their gift, and I still wasn't one of them. There were only twelve people that still hadn't found it, Alaric and I included. We had now reached level 4 and I noticed that people had already started treating me differently because of it. 

Victorine Polley still wasn't my number one fan, but during language classes, she had tried to start up a conversation with me about what could possibly be my gift. She had just found hers, it was called Sonic Scream. It meant that if she trained it enough she could make people pass out just by her screaming. I thought that it definitely fits her.

Eldon didn't give up hope yet. He seemed to become more enthusiastic every lesson we had together. Every time we found out that today's lesson wouldn't be my gift either he got even happier.

Alaric still wasn't very excited about visiting the town the following day, when we were lining up to leave the school. I however was only a few moments away from bouncing up and down in happiness. I was used to being able to go wherever I wanted.

 My parents had trusted me to be smart ever since I was twelve years old when they had to watch a far more adventurous Madelena. I had grown to absolutely love Woodville Castle, but some days it felt like being stuck in jail. A very well decorated prison, but still a prison. We weren't even allowed alone on the surrounding school grounds as freshmen, there always needed to be at least an older student with us.

We marched down from the castle to the town in a straight line, but once the dirt roads were exchanged by the cobblestone ones our class split up.

Starting from the second year the students were allowed to go to the town whenever they wanted, granted it was not during the time that they were supposed to be in class. So there were hardly any other students here with us today, only the ones who wanted to watch a younger sibling experience the town for the first time. That included both Darius and Eldon.

Darius was joined by his girlfriend Rosine Niho, a pretty senior with long pitch-black hair that came down all the way to her upper thighs. She was nice to me, even offering to hit Eldon once when he made a joke about my humanness.

We didn't really have a plan when it came to exploring the town. We passed by the main street first, where Darius bought Rosine a rose at Floros Flowers under heavy protest of his brothers, who kept on making throw up sounds the entire time. Rosine was blushing all the way through it, but seemed to be enjoying the attention Darius gave her.

"So are you ready?" Eldon asked Alaric after we had been in the town for only thirty minutes. I wasn't ready to leave yet! I did not spend weeks in the castle only just to-

"As ready as I'll ever be." Alaric answered and turned to me. "So about my family."

"What about them?" I said, still looking around. We had reached one of the more secluded town squares. There was a small fountain with two golden statues and a few benches. Only one of them was occupied by what looked like a young couple. Most of the shops seemed to be closed.

"They are here." He said. "They always come the first weekend. Do you want to meet them?"

"Sure." I shrugged, not getting why he looked so nervous. Most of the colour had drained from his face and he didn't seem like the happy, laughing Alaric I knew.

"So they are kind of intimidating." He said. Eldon walked on one side of me and Alaric on the other. Suddenly I was second-guessing my easy 'sure' to his question. They looked like they were my bodyguards almost.

"Kind of intimidating is an understatement," Eldon added to the conversation. "Try very."

"Listen Eira," Alaric said, stopping me before we exited the alley and walked into more of a public area. Eldon gave Alaric a small nod and left us. All and all it was starting to look like his family was worse than mine.

"My parents have absolutely no filter on their mouth." He said, straightening his back and looking around as though they would pop up and kill him for just that statement. "We are next in line to become an old family."

A lot of things just started making sense.

If Alaric's family was going to be part of the old families they would get to enjoy a lot of wealth and power. They wouldn't want one of their sons to be friends with someone who is associated with humans. I now understood why Eldon chose to be my student mentor, instead of rejecting me like everyone else. He wanted to see if I was worthy for the family.

"Are you sure they'd want to meet me?" I asked him back. The old families were known, even to me, as people that stuck to old traditions. If anyone would hate me, it would be them.

"They know about your human parents." He answered. "They also know that you haven't found your gift yet." He shrugged. "I told them that we were friends, they'll have to accept it."

I know it was supposed to make me feel better, but I just felt more nervous to meet them. What if they hated me and told Alaric to stay away from me? I hadn't made a whole lot of other friends yet, just acquaintances. None of them were stupid enough to go into an unknown underground room with me.