Vallen: The Marking (Vallen series #1)

Chapter 30

"I know, I'm on strike fourteen or something." Eldon said after I told him and Alaric the story of what happened in the headmaster's office. "It's amazing. I think you can murder someone but as long as it's not on strike three or six he won't even care."

Classes had started again. Though my shoulder was still pretty banged up, my face was luckily mostly healed. I only had a small scar on my cheek that still needed some time. My hair was a different story. A big part of it was scorched off, and I definitely needed a haircut to fix it. My hair had always been long, I never changed it up. I had to wear a ponytail to hide the giant gap the fire had made.

"But why would I get in trouble for some things that I don't even control." I said. We reached the section where Eldon would have to go left and Alaric and I would go right, to go to Divine studies. "Besides, I still don't know my gift. If I did then I would scream it at the top of my lungs, not try to hide it."

I could tell I said something wrong. I just didn't know what. Eldon looked at me with wide eyes, before looking away from me altogether. Alaric just seemed incredibly uncomfortable and tugged at my sleeve to get me to follow him.

"See you later El." He said to his brother, basically dragging me away.

"What did I do?" I asked him. I must have said something incredibly stupid for them to get this uncomfortable. Like a toddler who accidentally makes a sexual remark at a party or something.

"There are some gifts that are better to hide." Alaric just said like that would clear it all up. He was basically running to class now, even though we had more than enough time to walk there. Now it was my turn to grab his sleeve and stop him.

"What does that mean?" I asked. Alaric sighed and checked to see if anyone was listening in, but all the other students just passed us, happily chatting away.

"Eldon dated a girl." He explained. "He knew her way before they were even marked. She couldn't find her gift and kept on insisting that she didn't know to everyone."

"But she did know." I stated.

"She could control people." He said in a whisper. "Possess them. The gift is outlawed. You get locked away somewhere horrible."

I never even heard about gifts being outlawed. It's kind of logical that the school doesn't tell us that while we are searching for our gifts. It would just add another thing to stress about on my list that is already miles long.

"Did Eldon know she had it?" We slowly started walking again.

"He told the teachers that he didn't." He just answered. It was all I needed to know, and probably everything Alaric wanted to know too. Eldon loved that girl, she may have put him in danger by telling him. It's the best for him to take that secret to his grave, I'm sure the Vallens have a punishment for him too should he confess.

"My parents told everyone she had been controlling him," Alaric added. "He hates them for it."

I felt bad for Eldon, I really did. I felt like an absolute idiot for just blurting that out there. I guess it made sense why Eldon kept such a close eye on me. He didn't want to see anyone else get shipped off.

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SURPRISE UPDATE FRIENDS! I have a bunch of things to do today that are lowkey highkey really annoying so I figured I would start the day of with a positive and hope karma finds me! Also this chapter is shorter than usual so I thought that wouldn't be fair as a Saturday update. Have a nice day!