Vallen: The Marking (Vallen series #1)

Chapter 36

Kill the king, break the ring.

What did it mean?

The Vallen king was either dead or had no power left. He was useless, no one would try to bring him back. Also, break the ring? What ring?

With a lot of pop culture references in mind, I waited in the headmaster's office. The colours of the stained glass window had started to become more intense as we reached the golden hour of sunlight before it would disappear completely. I received some food after my stomach had decided to make whale mating calls. Professor Woodville first order of business was to stop my death certificate from reaching the officials and to explain the situation to the rest of the staff.

I still felt horrible. I was at least finally getting a bit warmer, but I felt like half my body was still dead.

"There you go sweetie." One of the caretakers said to me. She had gotten the phone working again in the headmaster's office. He barely used it, and it completely stopped working when I tried to turn it on. I needed to call my parents, they had already been informed about my death. In fact, when I woke up they were preparing my body to be driven back to my home.

The phone rang twice before it was picked up.

"Hello?" It was Madelena who answered it. She sounded like she had been crying. I didn't plan ahead of time on how to tell them. I mean who does prepare for something like this?

"I lived." I just said. I heard her go quiet for a few seconds.

"Who is this?" She asked.

"It's Eira." I laughed. "It's not a stupid prank. A lot of things happened, they thought I had died, but I didn't."

Madelena was quiet for a few moments before bursting out into tears. She sobbed and sobbed, trying to make human noises but failing miserably. Eventually, I heard other noises in the background. Madelena said: "She's alive."

"Who is this?" My mother sounded furious while I continued to hear Maddie sob and laugh in the background.

"It's Eira mom," I said. "I didn't die." But I probably will soon.

I hadn't told anyone yet. It felt like a personal thing. They didn't need to be burdened with that. They specifically told me that there was nothing I could do to change it. I would die for the Vallens.

I was on the phone with my family for another hour, trying to talk them out of suing the school. They also wanted to come here, a tempting thought until I realized that that will indeed kill me.

I felt exhausted, like all of the energy in my body had left me. I wanted to go to bed, but I couldn't. Not just yet, there was one more person I needed to see before I could fully relax.

When you're searching for a member of the Lauwers family one must only go to the cafeteria to find them. Today that theory proved itself once more.

I entered the cafeteria doubtingly, my eyes immediately scanning the room for the mountain of the boy who had become my best friend. I spotted him in the corner of the room, accompanied by his two brothers.

He looked tense, like he was ready to fight everyone in this room, which was nothing like the gentle giant I knew him to be. Most of the cafeteria was already deserted, dinner had already long passed, it was now used as a meet-up place for students with small, healthy snacks in the corner of the room.

Eldon spotted me first, even though I was still half a room away. I could see his eyes widen in shock, before he rapidly started tapping Alaric on his shoulder, without breaking eye contact with me. Alaric was annoyed, shrugging Eldon's hand off his shoulder before finally looking up.

He stood up so fast the chair hit the floor with a loud bang. He ran over to me and hugged me tightly. So tightly that for a moment I thought he was trying to break my back.

"You were dead," he said, looking me up and down. "I found you, you weren't breathing. They checked and said you were dead." He started rambling. "I punched Nero." He added. "He told me a few hours ago that he knew you lived. It pissed me off. I think I broke his nose, but Eldon keeps trying to claim that he did that while I fought like a girl." I would feel bad for Nero, but he should have known better. Besides, that broken nose is karma for all the fellow students he snitched on.

"I did die," I told him. "But I came back. It was awful."

Eldon was next to nearly crush me, closely followed by Darius. Thought it looked like Alaric was the only one who had cried, all three of the brothers were ecstatic to see me. Eldon sat me down on one of the wooden chairs, and all three of them looked at me with big eyes, waiting for me to explain what happened.

And explain I did. I told them about going to the room, about finding out about the missing painting and then dying, about the heroes and the riddles they told me and lastly about when I woke up. The only thing I didn't tell them about was when they told me I would die. I wasn't ready to say that out loud, to make it real.

"I didn't notice the missing painting when I found you," Alaric said. "I wasn't thinking. I just grabbed you and brought you to the infirmary." Alaric smiled faintly. "Woodville was acting all smug, like he was happy that you died. When he asked me where I found you I told him that we had plans to meet up and see what the fire did to the graveyard."

"Why did you take so long to find me?" I asked him. He couldn't look me in the eye. It was like he was expecting me to just drop dead again.

"Lamphere made me stay after class for being too lazy." he huffed. "When you didn't show up for dinner I was afraid you got caught. I couldn't go to the West Wing because all the workers were there. It wasn't until the next morning when I asked to go to the bathroom that I could sneak in and have a look." He finally looked me in the eye. "It was awful. I felt so guilty."

The table went quiet. I felt bad that Alaric was the one that found me. I wished that it could have been someone else. Someone who didn't know me.

"It bought me more time with them," I told him. "So, in the end, it was actually a good thing."

"Speaking with the heroes." Eldon huffed, looking prematurely tired. "How the hell do we even strengthen that gift?"