The Riftstorm had quieted.
The Warden ships didn't fire. Half of them left. Some stayed—not as guards, but as watchers. Curious. Quiet.
And Jackie knew:
This was the only time she'd get to shape something before the world tried to shape her again.
---
🜂 The Gathering
Vael'tharuun slept beside the mountain.
Kael stood at her side. Loyal now not because he had to be, but because he chose to stay.
And Jackie sent the call.
Not with a beacon. Not through official channels.
> Through fire. Through memory. Through instinct.
To anyone who ever felt their chest burn when they saw dragon wings in the sky.
To the misfits, the outcasts, the ones who felt wrong in their world… but right in their dreams.
She didn't expect anyone to come.
But they did.
---
🜂 The First Four
They came one by one over the following days.
Mira – a quiet girl with violet flame in her veins, once exiled from a Riftspire academy for "uncontrolled outbursts." Her hands trembled with power she never understood—until Jackie lit her spark and said, "That's not a curse. It's a beginning."
Dane – older, former Warden deserter, one eye blind from Riftburn, but still sharp. He didn't trust Jackie at first—until her fire healed his arm in a moment of pure instinct.
Kaien – born to a family of Rift-touched nomads. Could breathe ash like steam. Could hear dragons in his dreams. When he saw Vael'tharuun, he knelt.
Luci – she didn't speak at all. But when she touched Jackie's flame, it changed color—for both of them. She became the first to mirror Jackie's power directly.
---
They didn't come to be soldiers.
They came to learn how to live.
Jackie watched them train, laugh, cry, burn.
And finally realized:
> This is what they took from Jazira.
Not power.
Not glory.
Family.
---
🜂 The Flamebound Code
Around a new bonfire, Jackie carved four words into stone.
"Not Born. Chosen. Together. Unafraid."
The beginning of something bigger than rebellion.
Bigger than survival.
> A future where dragons weren't monsters—or martyrs.
They were more.
And she was no longer the last of anything.
She was the first of what came next.