After the Storm

The mist had thinned, but grief still clung to the air like smoke.

Taranis stood among the dead — not as a child, not as a god, but as something forged between. Blood crusted his brow. His sword hung limp at his side. All around him, the battlefield whispered names he would never hear spoken again.

Then he saw them.

Lore, bruised but unbroken, dropped to one knee. “You came back.”

Drax stood behind him, arms folded, eyes shining with something too old for tears. “And you brought a storm.”

Taranis tried to speak, but the words failed. His gaze searched the horizon for his mother, his father, the other brothers who once mocked and trained beside him. No answer came.

“Where are they?” he asked at last.

Lore looked down.

“Gone,” Drax said, the word cutting sharper than any blade. “Only we remain.”

For a moment, the storm inside him stilled. Taranis bowed his head, and the silence between them became sacred.

They were brothers again — not because of blood, but because of what they had survived.