The river carried him through the marshes like an old friend whispering secrets of home. The oar bit into the brown water, steady, unhurried. Ahead, smoke rose in thin curls Roman campfires. His brother’s camp.
Taranis smiled faintly. Drax always did love his rules and rituals.
He pulled the boat onto the bank, the mud sucking at his boots, and paused to listen. The faint clang of armor, the laughter of children. The low murmur of Latin prayers so out of place in this land of bog and stone.
Then he saw him.
Drax, standing by the fire, cloak draped in perfect folds, a soldier carved out of duty itself.
“Hello, brother,” Taranis called, his voice light but carrying weight enough to stir the air.
Drax turned, hand on his sword. Typical.
“Taranis. Show yourself.”
“Why?” he asked from the shadows. “So you can look at me and scowl like the Roman you’ve become?”
The words were easy, but his chest ached as he stepped ahead. He had dreamed of this moment through a hundred lonely nights on the island his brother alive, unbroken.
“I see you have sons,” he said softly. “And a fine uniform. Praefect now, are we? Rome’s loyal hound.”
Drax’s eyes hardened. “You acknowledge their law, then?”
“I acknowledge survival,” Taranis said. “But I bow to no empire.”
His gaze flicked toward the boys—curious, brave, full of questions. One of them smiled at him, and for a moment, the years fell away. He saw his brother laughing beside him on the cliffs above Letocetum. Before the legions came, before blood was traded for banners.
“You shouldn’t have come,” Drax said.
“I didn’t come for Rome.” He met his brother’s eyes. “I came for what’s left of us.”
The words hung between them, raw and quiet.
The youngest boy tugged at Drax’s cloak. “He doesn’t look like a villain, father.”
Taranis almost laughed. “No, lad. Villains rarely do.”
Then thunder rolled, deep and distant, like memory returning.
Drax looked to the horizon, and Taranis knew he felt it too—the pull of storm and blood.
“The storm’s coming,” one soldier muttered.
Taranis turned toward them, eyes bright with mischief and grief.
“No,” he said. “The storm’s already here.”
He stepped back into the trees, the forest closing around him.
When the boy’s voice called after him—“How did you escape the island?”—he turned once more, smiling through the rain.
“I built a boat,” he said simply. “Remember that when the world tries to cage you.”
Then he was gone.
Behind him, the Roman camp crackled in the rain, and his brother’s name lingered on the wind.
Stormborne.
Once curse, always kin.
© 2025 Emma Hewitt / StormborneLore. All rights reserved.Unauthorized copying or reproduction of this content is prohibited.If you enjoyed this story, like, share, or leave a comment. Your support keeps the storm alive and the chronicles continuing.
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