UNGIFTED

PROLOGUE

T hick layers of dust and solitude covered the throne room from east to west. And although the  occasional ray of sun would slip through the thick curtains revealing dust motes floating in slow motion through the air, it was darkness that reigned the room. What once was a hall filled with life, today stood still filled with emptiness and sorrow. The blue throne, that had once provided comfort to generations of royal heirs, remained hidden under a large white cloth like the rest of the unique furniture in the elegant palace. 

And it is just that the last time royal blood had sat on the throne of Donumdell had already been more than a quarter of a century ago. When, after multiple centuries of reign, the long line of kings and queens of the valley came to an end the day the young reigning King Petroc was found dead in his bedchamber. His death, as mysterious as the existence of black holes in the center of each of the galaxies, caused a lot of talk in such small town. Rumors and theories ran through the streets and alleys; words that over time were washed away by the wind and soon forgotten.

But not all rumors were easy to quell. Some rumors still remained; implanted in the memory of older Donumdellians. Rumors about an alleged heir to the throne; a baby conceived out of wedlock. Stories of how the king had fallen in love with a young woman and had serious intentions of marrying her. But she was far below his social status, and was often outspoken about matters that contradicted the ideas that the council wanted to impose. Which is why the king's council had done everything in their power to prevent their union from happening.

Even after King Petroc's passing, there were rumors that stated how the fruit of their love and future heir grew in the womb of that mysterious woman. Each one of them being quickly shut down by the people in power stating how the stories were absolute creation of a desperate woman without a gift who only wanted to gain advantage through deception.

And soon nothing more was known about her. But still some people believed there could be a little blue-blooded heir out there. Who maybe had been born outside the valley, where not many managed to survive; Prisoner of a cruel destiny simply because of the absence of a mark on their mother's wrist.

Meanwhile, desperate to silence all kinds of rumors and cover up strange situations for the common public, and with the need for a new leader as their main objective -or excuse-, the town council came together and agreed to create a group of selected people capable of somehow filling the void that had been left after king Petroc's death. Hoping to bring calm to the desperate people who found themselves lost without a leader.

That was how the Elders were born. Thoroughly-selected people, gifted in different areas and with different abilities. An odd numbered group, that consisted of five different people, with contrasting points of view and personalities who, together, would be in charge of bringing order into their society.

A society like no other. Where gifts and soulmates were common currency. From its foundation and to the present day, it was what distinguished those who lived in the valley. From a very young age, that was all its citizens were instituted on. And they knew for a fact that at some point in their lives, mainly between the ages of twelve and twenty-five, they would receive two marks on one of their wrists.

One in a pitch-black shade, denoting the type of gift they had been assigned at birth. And a second one, in shades of white, indicating that whoever shared that same mark was supposed to be their soulmate and with whom they would spend the rest of their lives.

The system simplified things a lot. So much so that one did not have to worry about those things. It was as if once those marks were traced on their skin, suddenly everything fell into place. Everything was resolved within seconds. Their love life, their profession. And crazily enough, the system hardly failed. Individual after individual; couple after couple; generation after generation. Each one of those marks worked like one perfect algorithm.

But just like in any other system, errors could occur. And although they were not the most frequent thing, it was possible for some people to be born with only one of their marks or, even worse, without any mark at all. As it has already been mentioned before, it was not something that happened often but, even so, there was a protocol to be followed on that type of situations since it was not very well seen to lack any gift in the town where having a gift was what gave purpose to its population.

The result to anyone that failed that brief process and strict protocol, one might wonder, imminent exile.