At five years old, most children in Ebonreach were just beginning to swing wooden blades and chant the battle hymns of old.
Quinn? He did all that -- and more.
He had no elemental fire to conjure. No bloodspears to summon from the marrow of his bones. No skin that could harden like stone, or strength that could tear down walls. He had nothing but a mind too sharp for his age and a fire in his chest that refused to go out.
"Talent is inherited", Quinn Elira once td him, kneeling beside him in the training yard as the first light of dawn caught the flicker of soulfire in her eyes. Her voice was soft, but steady--like a lullaby forged from steel." But courage... Courage is earned. And if you earn enough of it, even the gods might take notice."
Those words burned brighter in him than any flame.
So every morning, Quinn rose before the sun. While the other noble children still stirred in silk-lined beds, he was already outside -- feet buried in sand, blade in hand, breath fogging the cold air. Under the relentless eye of commander varek. A man carved from war and worn down by years of it-- Quinn trained like a soldier twice his age.
He learned to fall without fear. To move like water and strike like a viper. His hands blistered, his muscles ached, but he never stopped. Pain became a familiar rhythm. And when his limbs trembled too hard to hold a blade, he crawled to the fortress libraries and lost himself In ancient knowledge--bestiaries, war chronicles, siege diagrams, forbidden royal texts.
They whispered behind his back: neutral, useless, wasted blood.
He let them whisper.
Because his mother's voice echoed louder.
" Even the gods might take notice"
So he trained harder. Read deeper. Endured longer.
Because deep down, Quinn knew: magic or not, gift or not, he would become strong enough.
Strong enough to protect her. Strong enough to protect them all.