Drakebound Youth
The Generation That Refuses to Hide.
They are not soldiers.
Not yet.
Old enough to stand at the edge of the war council. Too young to be given a place in the shield wall. The four of them stand at the uneasy edge between childhood and war, watching the adults carry scars they are only beginning to understand.
Nyla Stonebreaker carries stone in her blood and defiance in her spine. A Terrabound like her father, she moves with the same rooted strength, though hers is not yet hardened by loss. Torvak fights to keep her safe. Nyla trains to prove she does not need to be kept from anything. She remembers smoke and flame only in fragments, but she knows the Veil took her mother and brother. She knows her father’s silence carries more weight than his armor.
Tomas burns brighter than is wise. A Pyreborn with sparks flickering at his fingertips when his temper rises, he speaks before thinking and volunteers before being asked. Fire answers him easily. Discipline does not. He dreams of standing beside Gavrik in battle and believes courage alone will make him ready.
Joren watches the sky even beneath the forest canopy. Stormwrought and restless, he moves too quickly and thinks too far ahead. Lightning hums beneath his skin when tension climbs. He longs for open horizons, for the day the Resistance stops hiding and starts reclaiming what was taken.
Lysa listens to water that others do not hear. A Tidebound with a quiet presence, she feels shifts in emotion the way others feel wind. She steadies the others when arguments flare, diffusing conflict with a calm beyond her years. Of the four, she understands most clearly that freedom will not come without cost.
They train in secret clearings. They spar with blunted steel. They argue about strategy as if they are already commanders. They measure themselves against Darren and Seraphis and the others, trying to close a gap that experience refuses to shorten.
The elders see recklessness. Eryndor sees potential. Torvak sees danger. They see a future worth fighting for.
The Veil of Embers burned their homes, chained their kin, and taught them what fear looks like. It did not teach them to kneel.
They are the generation growing up in hiding.
And they do not intend to stay there.