Vallen: The Marking (Vallen series #1)

Chapter 31

We sat down in our regular seats at divine studies. Though I had helped Kamau escape the fire he still very much hated me, maybe even more now that a human helped when he, the mighty Vallen, could have died. I thought there was a joke somewhere in there, but he disagreed.

The lesson was surprisingly boring. Not even Kamau was in a good mood to make our lives a living hell. Instead, he just gave us some work to do and ignored us the entire hour.

I had to sit out during Archery because of my shoulder, so I spend that hour annoying Alaric with comments like 'a little higher' and 'perfect stance!' every time he shot an arrow. Professor Swilthin thought it was hilarious and eventually joined in on it.

"I hate you." Alaric said to me after he walked out of the changing rooms. The last class of the day was, as always, gift search. We parted ways as he went to enhance his gift while I started to feel even worse about mine.

What if my gift is also outlawed? I don't want to be locked away somewhere for the rest of my life. Maybe I can just live in the underground chamber until Alaric graduates, I would then also be fully a Vallen and can go back to living amongst humans, maybe my parents will even take me in.

The fire had done another good thing. Two of my classmates had found their gift. It was now only me and a boy named Silus Silje in gift search.

"Only until about fifteen years ago we used to find gifts by exposing the students to imminent dangers." Professor Wolfe said to us. "Eventually we stopped because we lost more students during gift search than during their transformation, that's when the gift database started."

Every gift known to the Vallens is in that database. It also had the level of the gift, the limitations and the strongest wielder of it. We had been working it off week after week.

"Sir?" I said. "What happened if a gift is not in the database yet?" Silus nodded along with me. He was a nice guy who I haven't spent a whole lot of time yet. He was on my list of people to show the photo to, but I hadn't worked up the courage just yet.

"Well, Ms Lovell." He said. "That would mean that you are the first wielder of it. The Gift department would do debate to see if your gift is allowed and then the old families would have to give their blessing as well."

"And then you get a lot of money." Silus whispered in my ear. Maybe that wasn't that bad. I had completely given up on a manageable gift, so one that would make me rich also sounded good.

That lesson we found out about two things: first of all we would no longer be searching alongside our student mentors, they would only come and help us in gift enhancement. Second of all: Neither of us had the gift of psychometry.

My shoulder was almost done healing over the weekend. I had been dreading it for a while, but Alaric and I finally sat down for a haircut.

"Have you ever cut a girls hair before?" I asked Eldon. Darius was already happily cutting away at Alaric's golden locks, neither of them seemed very worried about it, not even when he accidentally cut into Alaric's ear.

"Hair is hair Eira." Eldon just answered. My hair used to come down all the way to my lower back, but the fire burned off too much for me to just wait until it grows out again. I decided that it was probably for the best to cut it all off to the same length. It now only just brushed against my shoulder. And even though I was terrified and flinched a lot: Eldon came through. It looked almost straight.

I got loads of compliments on it on Monday, and I was feeling pretty good about myself when I walked into the worst class of the day: Social studies.

Professor Adesso got out of the fire safely, completely ignoring the fact that I helped her as much as Kamau had. I wasn't asking for a celebration, just for them to see me as a Vallen.

"Mrs Lovell." She dragged me from my thoughts about halfway through the boring lesson. "Please tell me the reason why not all government officials keep a painting of Edda above their desk."

Edda.

A light bulb went on in my head. My tattoo wasn't a log or a cake, it was a scroll. Like the scrolls the man took on the night of the fire. How could we have been this stupid? The fire was in the west wing, but it wasn't lit to kill the teachers, like most of us had assumed. It was to steal the paintings in the underground chambers. He passed right by us with scrolls that are worth more than the entire castle and we didn't realize it.

"Do you speak English, Mrs Lovell?" I have to go to the underground room. I have to see if I'm right.

"Because some of them see Edda as a child, and therefore not as a fully-fledged Vallen yet." I finally answered, realizing I had been staring blankly ahead of me the entire time. I was just lucky to actually know the answer to the question. Disgruntled that I answered correctly, Adesso went to torture the next student.

"The underground room," I whispered to Alaric. "The man that passed us was carrying scrolls, there are no other paintings in the west wing." Alaric's eyes widened in realization.

"Your tattoo." He whispered. I nodded quickly.

"It was a clue, we have to check the room." I said. This time he hesitated before nodding. He just glanced back to Adesso, who was scolding Lyra Stavros for not knowing the answer and whispered:

"Later."

I was on the edge of my seat for the rest of the lesson. I vaguely heard more about the current head of the old families but nothing came through the wall my mind had put up. I have to think.

What do we do? We need to make sure that the paintings are still there, we may be the only people that know of their existence.

I jumped out of my seat the moment the old school bell rang. Alaric didn't seem as bothered by it and took his damn time getting out of the classroom.

"We can't skip class for it Eira." He said as soon as we good out of Adesso's classroom.

"Paintings that are worth more than what the richest family possesses." I immediately shot back. "You said that. Not me."

He sighed and glanced over at our classmates, trying to decide on what to do. If it hadn't been for him I would have never found the underground chamber in the first place, he must be at least curious about it.

"I'll tell Lamphere that you're not up for PE yet." He finally said. "You go look and tell me everything after Gift enhancement okay?" I nodded reluctantly, the thought of going there all by myself did not help to calm my nerves.