The march south had stripped the world of meaning.
Days blurred into rain and dust, dawn into dusk, until even time seemed shackled beside him.
By the time they reached the Roman fort near Corinium, Taranis Storm no longer knew how many nights had passed.
Only the rhythm of iron and boots. The murmur of Latin commands, and the distant echo of thunder in his bones.
The fort loomed ahead stone and order built upon the bones of chaos.
Walls cut sharp against the grey horizon, guarded by rows of pikes and men who moved like clockwork.
To Taranis, it felt wrong. A place without wind, without life.
Every sound was contained, controlled, sterile.
Even the air smelled of discipline oil, smoke, and iron.
The storm in him recoiled.
They dragged him through the gates in chains. Soldiers gathered, curious and cautious. Some spat, others stared.
Whispers followed him like ghosts daemon, barbarus, filius tempestatis.
Son of the storm.
He smiled faintly. They weren’t wrong.
The cell they threw him into was little more than a pit of stone and shadow. The walls sweated damp, the floor slick with moss.
Above, a slit of light cut through the dark too narrow to touch the ground.
He sat in the half-dark, wrists raw and heavy with iron. The silence of Rome pressed close, cold and absolute.
He did not pray.
He waited.
When the footsteps came, they came as they always did measured, deliberate, Roman.
The door creaked open, spilling lamplight like a wound across the floor.
Three entered.
A centurion, broad and cold-eyed, his crimson cloak pristine even in the grime.
A scribe, pale and thin, clutching a wax tablet as if it were a shield.
And a woman cloaked, silent, her gaze as sharp as a blade. Her presence was wrong for this place; too poised, too knowing.
“Taranis of the Stormborne,” the centurion began, voice clipped and ceremonial.
“You stand accused of rebellion against Rome. The murder of imperial soldiers, and the disruption of trade along the Salt Road. Do you understand these charges?”
Taranis raised his head. His hair hung in dark, tangled strands, but his eyes were steady the colour of gathering thunder.
“I understand,” he said. “You’re afraid.”
The scribe faltered mid-stroke. The centurion’s jaw tensed.
Only the woman’s expression remained still.
“You will answer with respect,” the Roman said.
“I already have.”
The blow came fast a strike across the face that turned his head with the sound of split skin.
Taranis straightened slowly, blood sliding from the corner of his mouth.
His stare did not break.
The silence that followed was heavier than the hit.
The woman stepped forward. When she spoke, her accent carried the soft inflection of the East Greek, or something older.
“You fought well,” she said. “Even Rome admits that. There are ways to survive this. Serve us. Lead men under our banner. Take Roman land, a Roman name. You need only kneel.”
Taranis smiled faintly, the expression more weary than cruel.
“Rome offers gold to every man it fears. But my kind do not kneel. We weather.”
She tilted her head slightly. “Weather breaks.”
He met her eyes. “Only if it stops moving.”
For the first time, something flickered in her expression curiosity, maybe even a trace of respect.
The centurion, however, had no such patience. “Enough. He will be moved south to Londinium in three days. If he refuses Rome’s mercy, he will die as a slave.”
The woman’s gaze lingered on him a moment longer before she turned away. “He won’t bend,” she said quietly. “Not yet.”
They left him in the dark once more. The door slammed shut. The iron bolts fell into place.
Taranis exhaled slowly. The air was thick with the scent of blood and damp stone.
He tasted iron on his tongue metal, blood, defiance.
The light from above had shifted again, sliding across the wall like the movement of time itself.
He whispered, barely a sound.
Not to gods, nor ghosts, but to the storm that still lived within his chest.
It was quiet now, resting waiting.
But it would come again.
It always did.
When the night settled deep, the sound of rain returned, gentle against the stones.
In that rhythm, he found memory of his brothers’ faces in the torchlight. Drax’s steady eyes, Rayne’s trembling defiance, Draven’s silence.
He had told them he would return.
He intended to keep that promise.
The fort around him slept in its illusion of control.
But beyond the walls, clouds were gathering over the hills slow, patient, inevitable.
The storm was not gone.
Only waiting.
© 2025 Emma Hewitt / StormborneLore. All rights reserved.Unauthorized copying or reproduction of this content is prohibited.
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