Everyone turned to her.
“He feels everything,” she explained. “He has a lot of empathy. He once told me that the idea of hurting anything really tore him up. Don’t you guys remember how quiet and withdrawn he got that semester we studied the Great War between our species?”
“I forgot about that. He said he was having trouble sleeping,” Roam said, wiping his hands on his trousers.
“Yeah, me too. He missed a lot that semester,” Zohar confessed.
Bálint nodded. “I always wondered about that when he said he had a stomach bug.”
There was a long pause as everyone became lost in thought.
“It’s hard when you feel you don’t belong.” Adaline’s voice was soft and haunting.
“What do you mean?” Bálint asked.
Alice’s hand found Adaline’s immediately, and she laced her fingers with her cousin’s in fierce comfort. “You do belong.”
Adaline’s smile wavered. “I know that—now. Thanks to this journey. But sometimes, even when people say it, it’s hard to feel it in your bones.”
She drew in a breath. “I look around this room, and all I see are powerhouses. Zohar and Roam are fearless. They dive into danger like it’s a swimming pool. Bálint always wins—every survival test, every mission. Amber and Jade? Geniuses. You build things no one even imagines. Spring has her stealth and her bond with the earth. Alice, you could reshape reality if you wanted to.”
She looked at Phoenix.
“And Phoenix? You literally open portals to other worlds. That kind of magic… it’s awe-inspiring.”
They stared at her like she’d grown a second head.
Zohar frowned. “Adaline… you’re just as powerful as Alice.”
Adaline nodded. “Yes. I know. But that’s the point. Knowing it is everything. That’s what Jabir doesn’t have.”
She looked around the circle, her voice trembling slightly. “He doesn’t know what he’s worth. Not really. He doesn’t see that his kindness is a strength. That his loyalty is fierce. That his laughter is our glue. He thinks because he’s not the loudest, or the fastest, or the most powerful, that he’s somehow less.”
A heavy silence filled the room.
Phoenix swallowed. “He’s not less.”
“No,” Spring echoed. “He’s more. He just doesn’t see it.”
Bálint stared down at his hands, feeling the weight of his carelessness like a yoke around his neck. How many times was his laughter a bit mean when Jabir made a joke instead of landing a hit in combat class? How often had he rolled his eyes when Jabir forgot gear during a training mission but remembered the exact calibration settings of a phased plasma cannon?
He hadn’t meant to dismiss him.
But he had.
And now…
He clenched his jaw.
“No more,” Bálint said, his voice steady, rising. “Jabir has a gift none of us have.”
He looked around the room, his eyes blazing with determination. “He makes us better. Every one of us. He reminds us to laugh. To notice things. To feel. He reminds us who we should be—empathetic, compassionate leaders.”
Zohar stood slowly, his muscles tense. "How should we show him how much we value his presence?”
Bálint stepped forward, lifting his chin. “We have to make him see what we see. We remind him that he belongs with us. That we’re not the same without him.” He let that truth settle into their bones. “Because we’re not just friends.”
“Because we’re dragonlings,” Phoenix said, a soft smile curving her lips. “And dragonlings stick together.”
