Vallen: The Marking (Vallen series #1)

Chapter 25

The flames licked the stone walls like it was nothing, fueled up by the wind. They grew higher and higher each second. They easily ate up the vines that grew outside of the walls.

Upon further inspection, I saw that it wasn't the entire school that was on fire. The eastern wind blew the flames away from both the student towers but to the west wing. Where the teachers slept.

"What do we do?" the girl shrieked. I was at a loss for words for a few moments. It didn't look like a whole lot of people knew. The ones that did just ran over to alert the boys tower, probably not really realizing where the flames were.

"Start knocking on doors," I told her hastily. "Wake people up and go down to the town to get some help."

It seemed like a logical thing to do. In my old high school, we were always told to leave to the designated area. Except we didn't have a parking lot to wait around on. There would probably be some Vallens in the town that knew what to do. I stood by the window for a little while longer realizing one thing: I could see the sky bridge. No one was coming out of the teacher chambers that way. The other way was entirely blocked by the flames, they couldn't possibly go out that way

I started jumping down the stairs, taking more steps at the time than my legs and brain could keep up with. I need to do something. But what? I couldn't just run in there, I'd get burned myself.

I fully knocked into a classmate of mine. Aviana looked a bit dazed, still clutching her vibrantly pink blanket around her shoulders.

"Waz goin on?" she asked. Her blonde hair was poking out from all sides and she positively looked like she was just sleepwalking.

"The castle is on fire." I said trying to move passed her. That was until I saw Victorine Polley glancing at the flames from a window. A plan started forming in my head.

"You control ice right?" I asked Aviana, who immediately understood where I was going. I grabbed Victorine's arm and pulled her along as we ran towards the graveyard, which nickname had never been more accurate.

"Aviana you keep the flames at bay," I told her. "Vic, you start shouting at the teachers to get out. I think they're still asleep." If they haven't been toasted yet.

We passed a group of boys that looked like they were trying to form a plan of attack too.

"Any of you have the gift of fire or water?" Victorine immediately asked them, totally ignoring the fact that they were seniors. It didn't seem to matter now. None of us wanted to be responsible for letting our teachers be burned alive. Sure I wouldn't mind if Professor Kamau got a little burnt but even him I wouldn't want to see die when I could've done something.

"I have water." One of them said. He was lanky and had black greasy hair that covered half his face. The guys looked incredibly raddled all together. It looked kind of funny actually, we were all standing there in our pyjamas. 

Each and every one of us had a powerful gift, okay I didn't know mine yet but I could still help, but no one seemed to be aware of their own strengths. It felt like we were all useless humans at that point.

"Come with us." I said and broke into a sprint. After months and months of gruelling PE lessons at least I had definitely gotten into a better shape. We ran up four flights of stairs like it was nothing, where normally I would have gotten winded from walking up to my room on the first floor back home.

Aviana opened the door after the sky bridge and I could immediately feel the warmth of the flames hitting my face. She reached for the doorknob but I hit her hand away. My old school always made us take fire drill safety lessons, if I was correct that doorknob would be scalding hot.

One of the older guys kicked it down. The flames were on both sides of the room, eating up the curtains and wooden doors first. Thankfully it hadn't started on the floorboards just yet.

"Go! start shouting." I urged Victorine on. Aviana and the greasy guy that controlled water were working together to try and diminish the flames, but they didn't seem to be able to do it. The guy only managed to create small drops, which weren't nearly enough for Aviana to work with.

"It's too dry!" He shouted. The gift of water only works near water, which could be from either the sink or the ocean, or by getting the water out of the air if the Vallen had a strong connection to their gift. The flames had made the room too dry for their underdeveloped gifts to work.

Victorine's shout was only slightly louder than mine would have been, I doubted they would have even been able to hear it. Her gift was too underdeveloped still, it barely made a difference. It felt like we were trying to save our teachers with our legs tied.

"We need Professor Swilthin." One of the other guys said to me. I had watched Professor Swilthin perform his gift of fire on new years, and it was definitely impressive. He was known as one of the strongest in the world. So saying that we needed his help was a definite understatement.

The door at the end of the hall was kicked down from the inside. We saw Professor Kamau emerge from his room. He was swaying heavily, his face already blackened from the smoke. Two of the guys ran up to him and let him lean on them.

"Professor," I said as he got closer. "Which one of the rooms is Swilthin's?"

"205." He coughed out. "One floor above us."

Everyone seemed to be frozen in their spots. Professor Kamau insisted on helping before collapsing to the floor altogether. The two biggest guys from the group had to drag him out, handling him a little bit harsher than necessary.

Our only defence against the hot flames wasn't working. Aviana couldn't do anything without a steady supply of water and the only water the senior could get from the air were mere drops. Victorine was still shouting away, though it hardly did anything.

Think Eira, think. There must be something we can do.

"Get more people out," I shouted a the rest of the lost puppies. "Kick down their doors." If all of them had already inhaled as much smoke as Professor Kamau had we would be in deep shit. We needed Professor Swilthin badly. I could only hope that the flames up there wouldn't be as bad already.