The morning mist hung low across the valley, veiling the lands of Emberhelm in silver. From the high balcony of his hall, Lord Drax Stormborne watched the world stir awake.
Smoke from hearths curling above thatched roofs. The faint clang of the smithy below, and the distant echo of a horn calling men to the fields.
The realm had been quiet these past weeks, though quiet was not peace. Rome’s presence had spread like frost silent, glittering, and deadly to touch. Their banners were seen on the roads again, their soldiers marching east toward the fort that caged his brother.
Drax’s hands rested on the stone rail. Scarred knuckles gripping the cold edge as if the granite itself were his only anchor.
“Uncle Taranis forgives us all, father.”
The small voice broke the silence. His son stood behind him Caelum, barely thirteen summers. But already bearing the solemn eyes of a man twice his age. The boy held out a folded parchment, its wax seal cracked, its edges smudged with soot.
Drax took it carefully. The writing inside was firm but uneven, written in haste. Forgive nothing. Remember everything. Below, a single mark a lightning bolt drawn in charcoal.
Drax’s chest tightened. His brother’s hand. His brother’s defiance.
“Who gave you this?”
“One of the Roman guards, father,” Caelum replied. “He said… he said Uncle still lives. He fights every day.”
Before Drax answered, boots echoed behind them. Roberto stepped into the chamber, his armour dull and unpolished, the scent of road dust still clinging to him.
“My lord,” he began, voice low, “I spoke with one of the centurions. They see him as a danger now too much influence, even in chains. They’ve moved him deeper into the fort. Isolation. Only the soldiers see him.”
“Do they mistreat him?” Drax asked, though he already knew the answer.
Roberto hesitated. “They tried to crucify him last week. He survived. Yesterday, they threw him to the lions chained, unarmed. He walked out again.”
The hall fell silent. The fire popped in the hearth, throwing orange light across the stone floor. Drax turned back toward the window. his reflection caught in the misted glass grey at the temples, lines of command etched deep across his brow.
“They can’t kill him,” Roberto said quietly. “So they make him suffer.”
Drax exhaled slowly, the weight of his station pressing like iron against his ribs. “Then we’ll keep him alive in every way they can’t stop. Food, silver, messages whatever can reach him, it will.”
He turned to his son. “Caelum, you will remember this. A lord’s duty is not to speak loudest, but to act where no one sees.”
The boy nodded, solemn and still.
That afternoon, Drax rode out beyond the keep. The fields of Emberhelm stretched before him. The broad plains that once echoed with the clash of blades when the Stormborne banners flew proud.
The Farmers bowed as he passed, and he nodded in turn. To them, he was not just a lord. He was the last shield between their freedom and Roman law.
At the river’s edge, he dismounted, crouching where the waters ran dark and cold. He saw his reflection distorted in the ripples older, heavier, but not yet broken.
He remembered when Taranis had knelt in that same river,7 years ago. Swearing an oath to the gods of wind and storm. “We are not born to yield,” he had said, the water lapping at his wrists. “Even if Rome takes the land, they’ll never take the sky.”
Drax closed his eyes. The oath still lived within him, though it had been buried under the weight of command.
When he returned to the hall, he found Aislin. Stood waiting by the hearth his wife, wrapped in a shawl of woven wool. Her hair touched by the faintest trace of silver.
“You’ve heard the news,” she said softly.
He nodded.
“Will you go to him?”
Drax’s jaw tightened. “Not yet. The fort is surrounded. My every step is watched. To move too soon would doom us all.”
“And if you wait too long?”
He met her gaze, steady and unflinching. “Then he dies a legend. And legends, my love, outlast empires.”
She said nothing more. She simply placed her hand over his, and for a moment, the storm in his chest calmed.
That night, the wind rose.
From the balcony, Drax watched lightning fork across the distant hills. He thought of his brother, chained and bloodied, standing alone beneath the roar of lions and the jeers of men. And he swore, silently and fiercely, that this would not be the end.
The Romans thought they had captured a man. They had not realised they had locked away a tempest.
And storms… always find their way home.
The council chamber was dim, lit only by the flicker of oil lamps. Shadows stretched long across the stone floor, dancing like restless spirits.
“Are priests allowed to see Taranis?” Lore asked the centurion, his tone calm but deliberate.
The Roman officer hesitated, eyes flicking between Drax’s advisor and the lord himself. “Only those sanctioned by command, sir. The prisoner is considered… volatile. Dangerous to morale.”
“Dangerous,” Drax repeated quietly . His gaze fixed on the parchment that still bore his brother’s mark a black streak of charcoal shaped like lightning. “That is one word for faith unbroken.”
The centurion shifted, uneasy beneath the weight of the lord’s tone. He had served Rome for years. But there was something about the Stormborne that unnerved him men who spoke softly yet carried storms behind their eyes.
“Tell your commander,” Drax said at last, his voice cool as the mist outside. “that Emberhelm’s temple will pray for Rome’s victory. And for the salvation of the condemned. It would honour the gods to have a priest available for confession before transport.”
The officer nodded stiffly. “I will… relay the demand, my lord.”
When the door closed, Lore exhaled, rubbing his temples. “You plan to send one of ours.”
“Of course.” Drax turned toward the hearth, watching the flames burn low. “If Rome bars us with iron, we’ll walk through with words. Find one of the druids who wears a Roman mask one who can keep silent under pain.”
Lore bowed his head slightly. “A dangerous game.”
“All games are,” Drax murmured, eyes still on the fire, “when the stakes are blood.”
Two days later, beneath a grey dawn, a solitary figure rode from Emberhelm. He wore the plain robes of a Roman cleric, his face shadowed beneath a hood. No weapon hung at his side, no coin jingled in his pouch.
With only a small satchel of herbs, a ring wrapped in cloth, and a wax-sealed blessing marked his purpose.
His name was Maeron. Once a druid of the old faith now known to Rome as Marcus. A man who had survived the purges by trading his oak staff for a prayer scroll.
The road to Viroconium wound through dead forests. The mist-shrouded valleys, the silence broken only by the clatter of hooves and the distant calls of crows.
When he reached the Roman fort, guards searched him roughly, tearing through his satchel and stripping him of his cloak. Finding nothing amiss, they granted him ten minutes with the prisoner.
The cell smelled of iron, straw, and old blood. Chains hung from the walls like spiderwebs.
Taranis sat in the corner, wrists bound, his head bowed. A thin cut traced his cheek, half-healed, crusted with dust. He did not look up when the door opened.
“You come to pray?” His voice was low, worn smooth like riverstone.
“I come to remind you,” Maeron whispered.
Taranis lifted his head slowly, and for a moment the fire in his eyes banished the gloom. Maeron knelt before him and drew from his sleeve a small gold ring. its inner band engraved with the sigil of storm and flame.
Drax’s mark.
“Drax?”
“He watches,” Maeron said softly. “He waits. He sends this so you’ll know you are not forgotten. Food and coin move under Rome’s banners carried by men who owe him debts. You will have what you need to endure.”
Taranis reached for the ring. The chains clinked, faint as falling rain. “Tell him I am no longer enduring. I am learning.” His voice strengthened, each word edged with iron. “They think they cage me. But they are teaching me their weaknesses.”
He leaned closer, his gaze sharp, unyielding. “Tell Lore, Drax, and Draven I shall endure so they are safe. Tell them… the storm remembers.”
Maeron bowed deeply. “The gods still listen, even in Rome’s shadow.”
Taranis’s lips curled faintly. “Then let them listen to thunder.”
Outside, as Maeron was escorted back through the gates, lightning cracked across the horizon. The guards muttered that the storm came early that season.
Drax, miles away, looked up from his balcony at the same flash of light. whispered beneath his breath “Brother… I hear you.”
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The dawn was cold, a thin veil of mist curling over the ramparts of the Roman fort. Taranis awoke to the metallic tang of iron and the distant clang of the blacksmith’s hammer.
His chains clinked softly as he shifted. The cold biting into bruised wrists, but the fire in his chest remained unbroken. He had learned to sleep with storms in his mind; the thunder never ceased, even when the sky cleared.
The sentries passed with measured steps, their eyes avoiding his. Even in chains, Taranis carried the weight of warning: a storm was bound, not broken.
Marcos stirred beside him, shoulders tense with age and pain. “They move you today,” he muttered, voice low. “Legionaries say they march prisoners to the amphitheatre. Another show… or training for others. Rome’s curiosity is insatiable.”
Taranis flexed his wrists against the iron, listening to the rhythm of the camp. The clatter of swords, the measured steps of patrols. The faint murmur of Latin all part of the pulse of this cage. He did not fear. He calculated.
The centurion arrived just as the morning sun began to pierce the mist. A figure of red and bronze framed against the wooden palisade.
“Stormborne,” he said, voice sharp, “prepare to march. Rome watches, and your survival is… optional.”
Taranis rose slowly, chains rattling in protest.
“Optional,” he echoed, smirk tugging at his lips, “like the wind choosing which trees to break.”
The march was silent, the prisoners lined in pairs, shields clinking and armor scraping. Taranis felt the eyes of the Romans on him, not all hostile.
The Curiosity and caution blended in the same gaze. Word had spread of his defiance surviving crucifixion. But unyielding under whip and sword and whispers of the “Storm of Emberhelm” made even hardened legionaries pause.
They crossed the outer hills and entered the amphitheatre grounds. Dust rose from the packed earth, carrying the scent of sweat, straw, and fear. The arena awaited not yet for combat, but for demonstration, for Rome’s fascination with endurance.
Taranis’ chains were secured to a central post. Around him, other prisoners fidgeted and whispered. He noticed the boy from the march days ago. A little child of six years old hiding behind a stack of crates, pale fingers gripping a fragment of bread. Their eyes met, and Taranis gave a faint nod not reassurance, not command, just acknowledgment.
A guard stepped forward, coiling a whip in his hand. “Today, we measure the storm,” he said in Latin, the words sharp as steel. “Let us see if the barbarian bends to Rome.”
Taranis let the chains pull taut, shoulders braced. “Storms bend only to themselves,” he whispered, almost to the wind.
The first demonstration began. Spears and short swords were thrust toward him, each movement designed to test, to gauge. Taranis shifted with the grace of the hunted and the hunter intertwined. As he continues deflecting, twisting, and using the very pull of the chains to redirect momentum.
Every strike met resistance, every thrust was countered. The audience of soldiers murmured in disbelief.
Marcos watched from the side, leaning heavily on his staff. “Still untamed,” he muttered. “Still Emberhelm.”
The sun climbed, and with it, Taranis’ endurance was tested further. Roman instructors pressed harder, pushing his limits, yet he remained unmoved, his grey eyes sharp as lightning.
When at last the centurion called an end, sweat streaming and blood staining the mud, Taranis did not collapse.
He simply lowered his gaze, catching a brief glimpse of the distant hills beyond the fort. Freedom waited there, somewhere beyond chains and Roman order.
As the prisoners were herded back to their quarters, Taranis’ mind raced. Rome could cage him, whip him, measure his endurance, but it could not touch the storm in his heart. The pulse of Emberhelm beat in every step, every breath, every thought of revenge, strategy, and survival.
That night, as firelight danced across the walls of the fort and the whistle of wind through battlements echoed like distant thunder, Taranis sat, chained but unbroken, and whispered to himself:
“Let Rome watch. Let them wait. Storms do not obey. Storms endure. And storms return.”
Night in the Roman fort was never truly silent. Even beneath the canopy of stars, there was always the creak of timber. The shuffle of soldiers on watch, the hiss of oil lamps dying in the cold wind. Yet somewhere beyond that human rhythm, another sound pulsed faint, rhythmic, like the heartbeat of the land itself.
Taranis listened.
He had learned to hear through walls of stone and iron. The whispers of chains, the breath of the wind through narrow slits.All were messages if one knew how to listen.
Marcos stirred nearby, groaning as he rolled against the rough bedding. “You hear it again,” he murmured, voice barely a rasp. “The storm that waits?”
Taranis’ eyes were half-shut, the dim firelight carving hollows beneath his cheekbones. “The storm doesn’t wait,” he said softly. “It watches.”
He turned the small iron shackle at his wrist, feeling for the weak link not yet ready, but close. Every night he tested it. Every day, he marked the rhythm of the guards, the rotation of their watch. Patience, he reminded himself. Storms struck only when the wind was right.
Beyond the barracks, the faint roar of the sea carried inland. Somewhere past those black waters lay the route to Gaul and beyond that, Rome. The thought of being caged beneath marble arches made his blood run colder than the chains.
The door creaked open. A shadow slipped inside small, quick, hesitant. The boy from the arena. He carried a satchel and a half-broken torch.
“They’ll see you,” Marcos hissed.
The boy shook his head. “The north wall guard sleeps. He drinks too much. I brought you this.” From the satchel, he pulled a narrow blade no longer than a hand, its edge dulled but serviceable.
Taranis took it without a word, his fingers brushing the boy’s for a heartbeat. “Why?” he asked.
The boy’s voice trembled. “Because you didn’t kill me when they told you to. Because the others they say you were a king once.”
Taranis looked up then, eyes grey as frost. “A king?” He almost smiled. “No. A storm given form. And Rome can chain storms, but it can not make them serve.”
The boy swallowed, uncertain whether to fear or believe him. “Then what will you do?”
Taranis turned the blade in his hand, the firelight glinting off the iron. “Wait,” he said. “And remember.”
He hid the weapon within the straw bedding, marking its place with a small twist of rope. Then he looked toward the sliver of moonlight cutting across the dirt floor. A thought of home of the high ridges above Emberhelm, of his brothers’ faces fading in memory. Rayne’s eyes full of guilt. Drax’s silence. Draven’s quiet grief.
He did not hate them. Not yet. But the distance between them had become as sharp as any blade.
When dawn came, the fort stirred again the horns of the morning watch echoing across the fields. The centurion approached, flanked by two guards.
“Stormborne,” he said, voice cold. “The governor himself has taken interest. You are to be moved south to Londinium within a fortnight.”
Taranis met his gaze. “To be paraded, then? Or displayed?”
Taranis’ jaw tightened, but his eyes betrayed nothing. Inside, the storm turned once more.
He whispered beneath his breath, too low for the Romans to hear:
As the guards led him from the barracks. He caught a glimpse of the horizon low clouds gathering over the hills, rolling in from the west. It was almost poetic.
“Emberhelm still breathes.”
That night, the chains whispered again not with fear, but with promise. The weak link shuddered beneath his fingers. And when the next storm broke over Viroconium, it would not be made of rain.
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.
Dawn broke over the Roman camp like a blade drawn through fog. Grey light pooled across churned mud and sharpened stakes, catching on helmets and spearheads lined in perfect order.
The night’s rain had thinned to mist, and every droplet clinging to the leather tents shimmered like glass. The smell of smoke, sweat, and iron hung heavy in the air the scent of empire.
Taranis stirred. His back ached where the whip had bitten, skin raw beneath crusted blood. Yet the fire inside him burned brighter than pain the storm had not passed. It gathered.
Across from him, Marcos watched with his one good eye. The old fighter’s face a map of old wars and fading loyalties. “Rome wants to see storms broken,” he murmured, voice gravel-deep. “They’ll test you again today. But storms… storms don’t break. They shift. They wait.”
Taranis tilted his head, a faint smirk cutting through exhaustion. “And if they try?”
Marcos shrugged, rough amusement in his tone. “Then you show them the wind can cut as deep as the sword.”
Trumpets blared as the camp came alive in a heartbeat. Orders barked in Latin, armor clattered, horses stamped restlessly against their ropes. Two guards approached, eyes cold, hands twitching near the whips at their belts.
“On your feet,” one barked.
Taranis rose slowly. Chains clinked. His shoulders squared, each movement deliberate. The iron at his wrists and ankles was heavy a reminder that for now, he belonged to Rome.
Yet even bound, he carried the air of something untamed. The guards kept their distance, as though the storm in his eyes strike.
They led him toward a cleared space at the edge of the camp. A makeshift ring had been marked out with stakes and rope a place for training, punishment, or testing.
The centurion stood nearby, expression carved from granite. The boy from last night watched from behind a cart, pale fingers gripping the wood. He didn’t dare speak.
The centurion’s voice carried over the murmurs. “The barbarian survived crucifixion,” he said in clipped Latin. “He has killed Roman soldiers with sword, axe, and bow. Let us see if his storm can be harnessed or if it dies in the mud.”
Taranis met his gaze.
“Let him watch,” he murmured in Brythonic the tone sharp, almost ceremonial. The centurion frowned, not understanding, but the words left a chill in the air.
A guard offered him a practice axe, a short sword, and a small round shield. The weapons were worn, dulled, mockeries of what he once wielded but they would do.
He ran a thumb along the axe’s handle, testing the balance. The first bout began.
Two legionaries stepped into the ring, boots sinking into wet earth. They grinned, confident, soldiers against a chained barbarian. Taranis didn’t move until they struck.
The first swing came from the right clean, practiced.
He stepped aside, caught the motion with the rim of his shield, and turned it aside. The counter came low and fast a backhand with the axe that cracked into the soldier’s guard, splintering the wood. Mud sprayed. Gasps followed.
The second soldier lunged from behind. But Taranis ducked, dragging his chain taut to trip him, then drove an elbow into his ribs.
He rose without looking back. Breathing steady. Eyes cold.
He didn’t grin. He didn’t boast. He simply waited.
The crowd quieted. Even the centurion lowered his stylus for a moment.
“Again,” he said.
Another pair entered. Then another. By the third round, Taranis’s arms burned and his wrists bled where the chains bit into skin. Yet his movements only grew sharper measured, adaptive, each strike like thunder rolling closer.
Marcos leaned toward a watching soldier. “That’s no wild man,” he muttered. “That’s a storm that learned to fight back.”
By midday, silence had fallen across the ring. The spectators no longer laughed. They watched uneasy, enthralled, afraid.
The centurion finally raised a hand. “Enough,” he ordered. “Feed him. Let him rest. He will fight again tomorrow with steel.”
Taranis tilted his head, the faintest smirk touching his mouth. “Feed the storm,” he murmured, “and see what it grows into.”
The boy crept closer, slipping a crust of bread from his tunic and setting it by his side.
Taranis nodded once not gratitude, but recognition. A gesture between survivors.
As they led him away, one of the younger guards spoke quietly, incapable of concealing his curiosity. “They say you fought crucifixion itself and lived. What man survives that?”
Taranis turned his head slightly. The grey in his eyes caught the light. “Not a man,” he said. “A storm that forgot to die.”
Marcos barked a laugh, shaking his head. “Gods help Rome,” he said. “They’ve chained lightning and think it’ll sit still.”
When they finally removed his restraints for cleaning, Taranis flexed his wrists, skin bruised and torn. He studied the marks, then smirked.
“At least they removed the restraints,” he said quietly. “I grew up fighting in them.”
The centurion said nothing. The sky grumbled overhead thunder rolling distant but deliberate.
Then, softly, as if remembering something half-buried in blood and rain, Taranis spoke again.
“They put me up,” he said, eyes fixed north. “Nailed me in on the hill at Salinae”
Marcos frowned. “And yet here you are.”
Taranis flexed his fingers, old scars catching the light. “I ripped myself off,” he said simply.
Silence cracked through the camp. Guards shifted. Somewhere, a dog began to howl.
“Rome thinks it crucified me,” he murmured. “But the dead don’t stay nailed not when the gods still have use for them.”
Thunder answered. Closer this time.
Rome had not yet learned that storms do not serve. They return.
The smoke of Emberhelm still clung to the hills when I rode east, following the path we had carved in blood and ash. Behind me, the storm of Taranis’s fury faded, replaced by the steady march of Rome’s legions.
My heart did not leap at his capture only a calm, cold certainty. Survival, I had told myself. Survival for the people, for the line of the Ring.
They would call me traitor. They would whisper my name with venom. Let them. History is written by those who endure, not by those who fall screaming in the mud.
I thought of the thirteenth stone, split and silent, and of my brothers, scattered like crows in a gale.
Drax’s eyes had burned with anger. Lore’s had flashed with prophecy. Even Draven had known, in the briefest flicker of fear, that the world had shifted. And yet… no fire of regret touched me. Only the quiet pulse of inevitability.
Taranis would survive, I knew that. He always did. But survival alone was not enough. Rome would temper him, break him, and in that forging, perhaps he would learn that not all storms are born to rage. Some are meant to settle, to bring change unseen.
I rode on, keeping my gaze forward. The wind carried the salt from the sea, the same salt that Rome coveted. Every step away from the shattered circle was a step into the future I had chosen. And in that future, perhaps the people would live.
I was no hero. I was no villain. I was Rayne, and the Ring was broken.
The rain had followed them south. Turning the clay of Staffordshire into a sucking mire that clung to boots and hooves alike.
The Romans marched as though it were paved stone beneath them, shields squared, helmets gleaming dull beneath the Grey sky. Between their ranks, chained at wrists and neck, walked Taranis Storm.
Every step tore at his ankles where the iron bit into flesh. Every breath was smoke and ash and memory. Behind him lay the broken circle of stones, the Black Shields scattered or slain. Ahead, only Rome.
The villagers came out to see. From hedges and low doors they watched the prisoner dragged past their fields, whispers coming like crows. The Stormborne, Ring-bearer. Betrayed. Some spat into the mud, others lowered their eyes.
A few, bold enough to remember, lifted hands in the old sign of the ring. when the soldiers were not looking.
At the front of the column the standard rose a square of blue cloth. That had been painted with a face in iron helm, cheeks daubed red with victory.
The mask grinned as though in mockery. The Romans called it their mark of order. To Taranis it was something else: the face of the empire that had swallowed his people.
He fixed his gaze on it as they dragged him past the rise where the heath opened wide. He thought of Boldolph and Nessa, of the wolf in the trees. He remembered the cairn and the promise beneath the oak. The chain jerked and he stumbled, but he did not fall. Not yet.
The centurion rode beside him, face shadowed beneath his crest.
“You see the banner, barbarian? Rome wears a smile even when it breaks you.”
Taranis lifted his head, eyes dark as storm clouds. “Smiles fade. Storms do not.”
The soldiers laughed, but unease rippled through their ranks all the same. For the wind carried his words across the heath, and even bound in chains, Taranis Storm did not sound broken.
By dusk the column reached the ridge where the woods thinned and the land opened to heath. Smoke already rose ahead straight, disciplined pillars from square fires. The marching camp of Rome.
The soldiers moved with the same precision as their shields: digging trenches, raising palisades, planting stakes.
Every camp was a fortress, stamped into the soil like a brand. The ground of Cheslyn Hay, once quiet pasture, now bristled with iron.
Taranis was dragged through the gate cut into the new rampart. The ditch still stank of wet clay, the sharpened stakes gleamed with fresh sap.
Inside, order reigned the tents in perfect rows, fires burning with measured rations, horses tethered and groomed. No laughter. No chaos. Just Rome.
The banner with the painted helm was planted at the camp’s centre. Beneath it the centurion dismounted, barking orders in clipped Latin. Slaves scurried to fetch water and oil for the men.
A scribe scratched notes into a wax tablet, not once looking up at the prisoner he recorded.
Taranis stood, wrists bound, staring at the banner. Its painted grin leered back at him, mockery frozen in blue and black.
Around him the soldiers muttered in their tongue some calling him beast, others trophy.
A soldier shoved him down beside the fire trench, close enough to feel its heat on his raw wrists.
“Sit, storm-man. Tomorrow the legate will decide whether you march to Wroxeter or Luguvalium. Either way, Rome will bleed you for sport.”
The word spread through the camp: arena.
Taranis lowered his head, though not in submission. He closed his eyes and listened. Beyond the walls of the camp, the wind still carried the smell of rain-soaked earth.
The whisper of fox and owl. And beneath that, deeper still, a memory: wolves circling, dragons wheeling, the voice of the tree.
Rest, child of storm. The road is not ended.
When he opened his eyes again, the firelight caught the glint of iron. Not on the chains, but in his gaze.
Even in Rome’s order, storm can find a crack. And cracks spread.
The fire burned low, and the camp settled into its rhythm. As guards pacing in pairs, dice rattling in the barracks-tents, the low cough of horses in their lines. The rain had eased, leaving the air damp, heavy with smoke.
Taranis sat in silence until he felt movement beside him. A figure shuffled forward, ankles hobbled, wrists bound with rope rather than iron. The man lowered himself onto the earth with a grunt.
“Storm of Emberhelm,” he rasped in Brythonic, his accent from the northern hills. “I thought the tales were lies. Yet here you sit, same chains as me.”
Taranis turned his head. The prisoner was older, his beard streaked white, his face cut with old scars. One eye clouded, blind. The other burned sharp as flint.
“And who are you,” Taranis asked, “that Rome keeps alive?”
The man chuckled, though it ended in a wheeze. “They call me Marcos now. Once, I was Maccus of the Ordovices. I led men against the Eagles before your birth.
Rome does not waste good meat. They break us, bind us, and sell us to the sands. I’ve fought in two arenas. Survived them both.”
Taranis studied him. The weight of years hung from his shoulders, yet there was steel still. “Then you know what waits.”
“Aye.” Marcos lifted his bound hands, showing knotted scars across his forearms. “The crowd roars for blood. Some fight once and die. Some fight a hundred times and die slower. But all die.”
The fire popped. Sparks leapt into the dark.
Taranis leaned closer, his voice low. “Not all. The storm endures.”
Marcos’s eye narrowed. “You think to outlast Rome?”
“No.” Taranis’s mouth twisted into something not quite a smile. “I think to break it.”
For the first time, the older man was silent. He searched Taranis’s face, weighing his words. Then he gave a slow nod.
“If you mean what you say, Storm of Emberhelm, then I’ll stand at your side when the time comes. Better to die tearing the eagle’s wings than caged beneath them.”
Chains clinked as they shifted nearer the fire. Around them the camp slept, unaware that in its shadow two sparks had met. Sparks that yet become flame.
The guards had thrown scraps of barley bread to the captives, little more than crusts softened with rain. Most fell on them like dogs, clutching and hiding their share as if it were treasure.
But when the boy, thin as a willow switch, glanced to where Storm sat, his brow furrowed. The man beside him Marcos noticed at once.
“What’s wrong, lad?” the old warrior asked, shifting his chains.
The boy’s voice was a whisper. “Why haven’t they fed him?” His gaze fixed on Taranis, who had taken nothing. His hands still resting on his knees, his eyes far away. as if listening to some thunder only he hear.
Marcos gave a grunt. “Rome plays its games. They starve the strong first. Weak men die quick, but a beast like him…” He lowered his voice. “They want to see how long he lasts. How much fury stays in him when his belly is empty.”
The boy clutched his crust but then held it out with trembling fingers. “He should eat.”
Taranis turned his head at last. His eyes, Grey as storm clouds, fell on the offering. He did not take it. Instead, he placed his bound hand gently over the boy’s.
“Keep it,” he said. His voice was rough, hollow from thirst, yet steady. “Storms do not starve. But you” he pressed the bread back into the boy’s palm, “you must grow.”
For a moment, silence hung around them. The boy swallowed hard, then nodded, biting into the bread with tears in his eyes.
Marcos watched, the ghost of a smile tugging at his scarred face. “A storm, indeed,” he muttered.
Above the camp, thunder rumbled faintly though the sky was clear.
“I’m fine ” Taranis smirked seeing a whip in someone’s hand and wood
“What’s going on?” The boy asked
The guard with the whip dragged a stake of green wood across the mud, planting it near the fire trench. Two soldiers followed, uncoiling rope and hammering pegs into the ground.
The boy’s eyes widened. “What’s going on?” he whispered, clutching what remained of his bread.
Marcos’s face hardened. “Discipline.” His single eye slid to Taranis. “Or rather a spectacle.”
One of the soldiers smirked. “The barbarian thinks himself storm. Tonight, he learns Rome is thunder.”
They hauled Storm to his feet. Chains clattered, mud spattered across his bare shins. The whip cracked once in the air, sharp as lightning.
The boy tried to rise, but Marcos gripped his arm and pulled him back down. “Don’t,” he hissed. “They’ll flay you too. Watch, and remember.”
Taranis did not resist when they bound him to the post. His wrists were raw, but he set his shoulders square. lifting his chin to meet the eyes of the gathered legionaries. The smirk never left his mouth.
The centurion stepped ahead, whip coiled in his hand, iron studs gleaming wet in the firelight. He spoke in Latin, slow and deliberate, for the advantage of his men:
“This is Rome’s law. Defiance is answered with the lash.”
The first strike fell. Leather snapped against flesh. The soldiers cheered.
Storm did not cry out. His lips moved, barely more than breath: words in the old tongue, prayer or curse, the guards could not tell.
The boy’s knuckles went white around his crust of bread. Marcos leaned close, his voice low. “Look at him, lad. That is what Rome fears most. A man who will not break.”
The whip cracked again. Blood ran down his back.
And yet, when the centurion paused, Taranis raised his head and laughed. a rough, hoarse sound, but laughter all the same.
“You call this thunder?” he spat. “I’ve stood in storms that would drown your gods.”
The camp fell uneasy. The centurion snarled and drew back the whip again. But already some of the soldiers shifted, unsettled by the chained man’s defiance.
The guard sneered as he coiled the whip in his hand, the wood of the handle slick with rain. He pointed it at Taranis.
“On your feet, barbarian. Let’s see if your tongue is sharper than your back.”
Taranis smirked, rising slowly, the chains clinking as he straightened to his full height. The firelight threw shadows across his scarred face, making him seem larger than life.
“Screw you,” he said, the words spat like iron nails.
The boy gasped, his hands clutching the crust of bread. “What’s going on?” he whispered to Marcos.
The old warrior’s one good eye didn’t leave Taranis. “Rome’s testing him,” Marcos said quietly. “They want to see if he breaks before the whip… or after.”
The guard cracked the lash across the ground, sparks leaping from the wet earth. Soldiers nearby turned to watch, eager for the show.
But Taranis only tilted his head, the faintest grin tugging his lips. “Go on,” he said. “Try.”
And in the silence that followed, the storm seemed to shift, waiting.
Taranis straightened, chains rattling as he rolled his shoulders. His eyes met the guard’s without a flicker of fear.
“Screw you, ass,” he growled, voice steady. “I’ve dealt with worse.”
The words landed like a stone in still water. A few soldiers chuckled uneasily, but others muttered, shifting in place. The boy’s eyes went wide, his crust of bread forgotten in his hands.
Marcos gave a dry, wheezing laugh. “Storm’s got teeth. Rome should be careful putting its hand too close.”
The guard snarled and snapped the whip through the air once, twice before bringing it down toward Taranis’s back.
But Taranis didn’t flinch. He stood, broad shoulders braced, chains biting his wrists, and took the first strike in silence.
The wind rolled down from the mountain like a warning.
Three days had passed since the Trial by Fire. Taranis had been seen walking beside Grael’s warhorse, the shattered collar left behind, and the obsidian pendant still warm against his chest. But not everyone had accepted his transformation.
Some called him storm-marked. Others, cursed.
In a low tent near the edge of camp, whispers brewed.
“He defied the gods,” one said.
“Walked through flame and came out smiling,” said another.
“Flame tricks the weak. It blinds.”
The men gathered around the edge of the fire, cloaks pulled close against the creeping mist. They weren’t Grael’s most loyal, nor Solaris’s brothers. They were wolves without a pack mercenaries who had once served the Clawclan, now waiting for coin and chaos.
They didn’t wear Stormborne colours. Not yet.
“Tonight,” muttered Kareth, his eyes gleaming with spite. “We do what fire could not.”
A few nodded.
“He should’ve died in chains. He’s no warrior. He’s a beast.”
“And beasts don’t get reborn.”
They struck after moonrise.
Taranis had gone to the stream to refill his waterskin, alone as he often did, choosing solitude over celebration. The camp had begun to sleep. The guards were half-drunk from fermented berry wine.
They came from the trees six of them. Faces covered, blades drawn.
The first blow caught him across the shoulder, sending him to the ground.
“Traitor,” one hissed. “Freak.”
Taranis fought back with bare fists, striking like the wolf they feared but it was too many. A second dagger found his ribs. A club broke across his spine.
He fell to one knee.
They kicked him until he stopped moving.
Until his breathing went quiet.
Until he bled into the moss and stones.
They dragged the body to the far side of camp, past the standing stones, into a hollow in the woods where no firelight reached.
They left no markers. No words. Just dirt over his body and a curse on their breath.
“He walks no more,” Kareth said. “The storm dies in silence.”
And they returned to camp, blades clean, alibis ready.
No one would find him.
No one would weep.
They believed the gods had finally corrected their mistake.
But Taranis was not dead.
He dreamed of fire.
He dreamed of wolves.
He dreamed of the black dragon watching from above not with pity, but with fury.
And beneath the soil, his fingers twitched.
The early morning sin rose and grael could be heard hollering
“STORMBORNE WHERE ARE YOU?” grael shouted looking around for taranis
“He fled, he’s a coward” one of kareths men said smirking Wolves circled where his body lay leading them to discover taranis body still and cold.
Two days passed “we will find him tether him again no escape this time.” A warrior said as the wolves circled a piece of land “Hes dead grael” a Saris said “He deserves a real burying ” another said
The earth did not keep him.
Not on the first day, when silence reigned. Not on the second, when the wolves came. But on the third the wind changed.
At first, just a shift. A stillness. Then, a scent.
Morrigan arrived first. White fur gleaming against the ash-darkened trees. She paced in a wide circle around the hollow. Then came Boldolph, the black wolf, teeth bared, hackles raised.
They howled.
A low, haunting sound not grief. Warning.
Grael rode at once, followed by Solaris and half the guard. When they reached the hollow, they found the wolves digging. Claws tearing through dirt, paws flinging soil like rain.
Grael dismounted. Something in his chest cracked.
“Taranis…”
Solaris dropped to his knees beside the wolves, hands trembling.
“Help me dig!”
No one moved until the first scrap of cloth was exposed. A torn edge of tunic, blood-black, crusted to the earth.
Then the digging began in earnest.
It took three men and two wolves to drag the body out.
He was pale. Lips cracked. Blood dried to his skin. The obsidian pendant still hung around his neck, dirt pressed into the ridges.
One eye was swollen shut. Bruises ran like vines across his chest and arms.
But he was breathing.
Shallow. Ragged. But alive.
Solaris shouted for the healer. Grael stared at the boy like he was seeing a ghost.
“No burial mound,” he said softly. “No cairn. Just a shallow grave… and a storm too stubborn to die.”
The healer worked in silence, hands quick and firm. Crushed pine and fireweed were pressed into the wounds, stitched with thread made from gut and hope. Taranis didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. Each time the wind shifted, the wolves growled low in their throats, sensing the old power flicker just beneath his skin.
By nightfall, they had moved him to a guarded hut near the heart of camp. Four warriors stood watch. Grael gave orders that anyone who tried to enter unbidden would be struck down no questions asked.
Solaris sat beside the boy, wiping dried blood from his temple.
“You stubborn bastard,” he whispered. “Even the grave gave up on you.”
Taranis didn’t reply. But his eyes opened barely and fixed on the obsidian pendant now laid upon his chest.
Grael returned before moonrise.
“Speak if you can,” he said.
Taranis’s voice was a thread. “They buried me.”
“I know.”
“They didn’t even check.”
“I know that too.”
“Will you punish them?”
Grael paused. “I already have.”
He tossed something at Solaris’s feet a piece of fur, torn and bloodied.
“Kareth?”
“Gone,” Grael said. “Dragged into the trees by Boldolph. I don’t expect him back.”
Silence settled between them again.
“I should be dead,” Taranis murmured.
Grael nodded slowly. “You were.”
That night, as the wind moaned through the valley, a scout returned from the northern ridge.
“There’s smoke again,” she said. “Not ours. Not Clawclan. Something… older.”
She hesitated before finishing.
“There’s no fire. But trees are blackened. Stones cracked. Something passed through.”
“What kind of something?” Grael asked.
The scout swallowed.
“The kind that flies without wings.”
By dawn, word had spread. Taranis had survived. Taranis had risen.
They called it impossible. Witchcraft. Proof of corruption.
But some whispered another name.
Stormborne.
He stood the next morning.
Not for long, and not without pain, but he stood.
Morrigan watched from the doorway. She did not enter only nodded once, her red eyes gleaming.
“Even the wolves thought you were lost,” Solaris said.
“I was,” Taranis replied, voice raw. “But I heard them. In the soil. Calling.”
He stepped out into the morning light slow, stiff, but upright. The warriors turned to look. One dropped to a knee. Another stepped back in fear.
Grael met him near the edge of the camp.
“We’re riding soon. There are still wars to fight.”
Taranis nodded. “Then I’ll ride.”
“No packs,” Grael said. “No chains.”
Solaris handed him his cloak. “And no grave can hold you.”
Taranis turned to the standing stones, where birds now circled. Thunder echoed in the far hills.
He placed his palm against the earth the earth that had tried to hold him.
“Not today,” he whispered. “I am not done.”
In Emberhelm, the elders would speak of that day for generations.
The day the Stormborne rose from the grave. The day the wolves howled not for mourning but for warning.
And from that moment on, no one dared bury him again.
The trial fire still burned in the hearts of the warriors long after the flames had faded.
They left the stone circle at sunrise, the air thick with silence. Taranis walked unbound now, but still marked the collar firm around his neck, his wrists bruised, the pendant of obsidian pressing warm against his chest beneath the tunic Solaris had given him.
No one spoke of the dragon.
They didn’t need to. Its shadow had burned itself into every man’s memory.
By midday, they reached the edge of a sprawling war camp carved between high ridges and pine forest. Smoke rose from scattered fires. Grael dismounted first and gave the order for rest and supplies. Taranis stood nearby, posture straight, though his limbs ached from the days of trials and visions.
A hush followed him wherever he moved. Some men nodded. Others turned away.
One older warrior spat at his feet and muttered, “Dragon-kissed freak.”
Taranis didn’t respond. But Grael saw and said nothing.
Inside the central tent, the tension grew.
“You should exile him,” said Kareth, a clan captain with blood on his hands and ambition in his eyes. “Or bind him again. The men are talking.”
“This boy walks free after breaking formation, defying orders, and drawing the attention of beasts older than the gods?”
Grael looked up from the war map.
“Exactly. He walked through fire and survived. He fought off Clawclan while half my guard bled out in the dirt. He was named by a Seer. You want to leash him again? You do it.”
Kareth hesitated. “If he leads a rebellion, it’ll be your head.”
“No,” Grael said. “It’ll be his. If he earns death, he’ll find it. But if he earns something more, I won’t stand in the way.”
That night, Taranis sat near the outer fire, the pendant warm against his chest again. Solaris approached with a fresh poultice and a torn piece of roasted meat.
A growl echoed in the hills not wolf, not wind. Something deeper. Some warriors looked up. A few rose to check their weapons.
A young scout came running from the ridge.
“Smoke! North side. Something’s burning!”
They scrambled toward the hill’s edge and saw it.
A rival clan’s border camp was ash and ruin. No screams, no survivors. Only smoldering black earth and claw marks in the rock.
“Raiders?” Solaris asked.
“No,” Taranis said quietly. “It’s a warning.”
Grael joined them, silent, jaw tight.
Kareth was already shouting. “This is what he brings! The dragon follows him. Death follows him!”
“No,” Taranis said. “The dragon doesn’t follow me. It watches.”
“Same thing.”
Grael raised a hand. “Enough. We return to Emberhelm. There, the chieftains will decide what happens next.”
The journey to Emberhelm took two days. The stone fortress carved into the mountains stood stark against the dawn ancient, proud, watching the valley like a sentinel.
When they entered, the whispers turned to stares.
Children peeked from behind barrels. Elders crossed their arms. A group of shieldmaidens flanking the gate parted only after Grael rode forward and gave the sign.
Taranis dismounted, cloak billowing slightly behind him. No chains. No mask. Only the obsidian pendant.
In the Great Hall, the Five Voices of the War Council sat in a semi-circle.
Old warriors. Mothers of fallen sons. Leaders of lesser clans.
One stood Sern, a matriarch with fire in her eyes and silver in her braid.
“We saw the storm,” she said. “We saw the dragon’s wings. We heard the Seer’s cry.”
Another voice cut in a young man named Fenric, blood cousin to the boy Taranis had crippled.
“He’s cursed. He bled our kin, broke our laws, walked with beasts. Now you bring him here unbound?”
Grael stepped forward. “I bring you a warrior.”
“Not yet,” Sern said. “Not until the rite is finished.”
“What rite?” Taranis asked.
She pointed to the firepit at the centre of the chamber.
“You were bound by man. Now let the flame judge if you are bound by fate.”
They handed him a staff and stripped him to the waist. The collar remained. So did the pendant.
The fire was lit with dried hawthorn, wolf hair, and elder root.
He stepped into the circle.
“Do you claim name or no name?” Lady Sern asked.
Taranis raised his head. “I claim the storm.”
A gust of wind blew through the open doors behind him.
“Then speak your vow.”
Taranis closed his eyes.
“I was chained as beast. I was broken by man. But I rise not to rule only to walk free. I serve the flame, the wolves, the storm. If I break my word, may the dragon turn from me.”
He thrust the staff into the fire.
It did not burn.
Instead, the flame spiraled into the air and far above, the sky answered with a distant roar.
The hall went silent.
Lady Sern bowed her head.
“Then you are no longer beast. Nor slave. Nor tool.”
She placed her hand on his collar.
“From this day, you are Stormborne.”
She broke the collar with a hammer of bronze.
The pieces fell to the stone floor like the last chains of a life left behind.
Does that mean he’s free?” Solaris asked.
Taranis placed a hand to his neck, fingers brushing the worn ridge where the collar had once pressed deep.
“Or am I to be exiled?”
A hush fell again, broken only by the wind rustling through the pine above.
“Exile him,” came a voice from the gathered crowd, “and I will hunt him myself.”
All heads turned.
It was not Grael who spoke, nor one of the regular warband. It was a man cloaked in dark fur, standing apart from the others near the treeline scarred face, sun-dark skin, hair braided with bone. A chieftain from another clan.
“He bears the storm’s mark. He’s no beast. No slave. And not mine to cast out.” His voice was low, graveled with age and fire. “But if you send him away, don’t expect him to come back.”
Taranis didn’t flinch. His eyes locked on the stranger’s. He neither bowed nor raised his head. Just… endured.
Grael stepped forward.
“He’s not exiled,” the general said. “Nor is he yet free. The trial burned away the mask, but chains leave scars longer than flame.”
“And what is he now?” Solaris asked.
Grael looked to the warriors, the gathered villagers, the scouts and wounded men who had seen the dragon descend.
“He is Stormborne,” he said. “Named not by man, but by thunder. And while I draw breath, that name will be honoured.”
There was a ripple in the crowd not agreement, not rejection. Just change. Unease becoming belief.
Taranis turned to Solaris. “Then I stay?”
Solaris nodded. “If you want to.”
“I don’t know what I want,” the boy admitted. “I only know I’m still breathing.”
Beside him, the black scale the one left by the dragon was now strung on a simple leather thong, hanging from his belt like a forgotten relic. He touched it once, gently.
A woman stepped forward from the watching crowd. She carried no weapons only a clay bowl filled with ash and herbs.
“I came from the ridge when I heard the trial fire was lit,” she said. “If the dragon marked him, then his wounds must be sealed properly. Not with chains. With earth.”
She knelt before Taranis and dipped two fingers into the bowl. Ash and sage stained her fingertips. She reached up and slowly touched each side of his jaw where the mask had pressed hardest.
“You have walked through smoke,” she whispered. “Now rise through flame.”
Taranis stood, a little taller than before.
Grael gave a curt nod. “We break camp tomorrow. Clawclan still stirs in the lowlands. But the boy rides his own horse now. No packs. No tether.”
“And the collar?” Solaris asked.
Grael glanced at it now lying in the dirt.
“Leave it where it fell.”
As the crowd began to scatter, a new chant rose quietly from the younger warriors near the fire.
After the fight taranis was dragged back to the hut. He knew the boy was harsh on other slaves and couldn’t miss the looks of hatred in some of the villagers eyes. The mask now back in place along with the tether and binds meant he couldn’t move his head. As soon as his hut was reached he stepped in and the door shut behind him.
He sat in the corner of his hut prisoner of war common, exile and excommunication was common but his life was far from the normal. He was more than a slave he was a tool to be forged and weilded at graels command. He was left with his thoughts uncomfortable and in pain as solaris walked in with a warriorand healer.
“Grael ordered fir you to see the healer. ” the Warrior stated “if we remove the mask you going to be good?”
Taranis tried his hardest to nod after a few minutes the mask was off.
“Are you OK? Grael said you can talk for a bit ” solaris said
“I’ve had worse you know that, thank you for everything.” Taranis said “how’s your brother?”
“Hes awake, says he can’t feel his legs but father told him to take it that the gods punishment for lying and dishonoured our ancestors. The wolves came they sit outside “
“Are they going to kill me?” Taranis asked
“No but your new master Grael is not an easy man. We move out in the morn, you’ll leave this behind you and fight. battles and wars, deliver food and water to troops train. One of our men needs a pack horse you’re it.” The Warrior said “but you’ll meet dragons”
“A pack horse?” Solaris asked
“Tanaris will be in binds and harnessed all the warriors belongings attached to this boy and the boy tethered to a horse. One thing falls then it’s the whip but he will be fed and watered “
“Just like with the water I spill a drop I’m beaten. It’s a slaves life solaris, I might survive or I might die but if I die it’s in battle”
“Honourable death” the Warrior said
“If that’s my future so be it.” Taranis said hearing the chieftain and freezing
“I want him dead Grael”
I want him dead, Grael!” the chieftain shouted from the edge of the fire circle. “That boy humiliated my son. The slaves whisper his name like he’s some hero!”
Grael didn’t flinch. He stepped forward slowly, hands clasped behind his back.
“Then teach your son not to lose.” “He can’t walk!” the chieftain barked. “Then perhaps next time, he’ll stand with honour before charging at one who’s already bleeding.”
Taranis stayed kneeling, the tether tightening each time he moved his neck. He didn’t dare speak but Solaris stood beside him, jaw clenched.
“He’s a slave, Grael. You’re a general why defend him?”
Grael stepped into the firelight.
“Because he fought. Because your warriors complain when it rains, but this one trains while bleeding through the mask. He obeys orders. He endures.”
A silence settled over the camp.
“Kill him,” Grael said flatly, “and you lose me. You lose your general, and every warrior loyal to my command.”
The chieftain said nothing for a long time.
Finally, he spat into the dirt.
“Then he’s your problem. But if he steps out of line he dies.” The chief stated seeing taranis being dragged for the final whipping.
Grael nodded once. “Fair.”
He turned to Taranis. “You leave at dawn. You’ll carry a warrior’s gear. You’ll bleed if you drop it. But you’ll eat. And if you survive… you may earn more than chains.”
They didn’t let him sleep and two guards sat with him watching every move he made and woke him up when he fell asleep.
He was bound to the horse before the sun rose. Packs were strapped to his chest, shoulders, and hips weapons, cloaks, food, firewood, even a spare shield. His arms were still tied at the wrists. A long leather tether looped from his collar to the saddle.
When the horse moved, he had to follow he struggled as his hands and ankles was secured and tried to fight out.
“Move like a beast,” one warrior sneered, “or we treat you like one.”
Solaris walked beside him for a while, silent. He didn’t speak until the ridge came into view.
“You won’t die today, Taranis.”
“I might.”
“No,” Solaris said. “I heard the wolves howl last night.”
By midday, the warriors halted for water and cold ashcakes. Taranis was given a small share enough to stand, not enough to rest.
One soldier deliberately dropped his pack just to watch Taranis stumble and get whipped.
“One drop, boy,” the punisher whispered. “One drop and I taste your blood again.”
But still he walked.
That night, they made camp near the edge of the highlands. The wind carried the scent of pine and smoke. The sky churned with clouds.
Taranis sat tethered to a post beside the horses, his mask unhooked for only minutes as he drank from a wooden bowl.
He didn’t speak. He listened.
The warriors talked of raids and dreams. Some whispered about dragons. One swore he’d seen a shadow in the sky.
“It was just a bird.”
“A bird doesn’t shake the trees when it lands.”
“Shut up. The general says we ride at dawn. We’ll see no dragons.”
But Taranis felt it.
There was a change in the air not wind, but something deeper. Older.
That night, chained and exhausted, he dreamed of fire. Of wings. Of eyes that glowed like suns.
And of a voice, not his own, whispering in the dark.
“The storm remembers you.”
The battle faded. Clawclan retreated, dragging their wounded into the trees.
Taranis collapsed onto his knees.
Solaris limped to him, his cheek slashed open. “You saved us,” he whispered.
Grael stepped forward. He looked down at the boy who, only days ago, had been whipped, starved, and muzzled like a beast.
“You’re bound. And still you fight.”
Taranis didn’t speak.
“You could’ve run. You didn’t.”
Still, silence.
“I said you’d be a tool. Maybe you’re more than that.”
He reached down and, without a word, cut the tether with his dagger.
“You still wear the collar. But from now on… you walk beside the horse.”
Taranis looked up just long enough to nod.
And far above them, in the grey sky beyond the trees, something passed overhead. Something large. Something with wings.
No one saw it clearly.
But Taranis looked to the sky and whispered, under his breath:
“I remember you.”
“They talking about him?” A warrior asked
“Yes I remember his birth, the sun and moon crossed the wolves howled and dragons roared. He’s been chosen by our ancestors and gods but the Seer said he was cursed “
Taranis looked to the boy then grael “am I to be the pack horse?’
Grael didn’t answer right away.
He crouched down, blood drying on his jaw, and looked the boy in the eye.
“You were meant to carry our burdens. Now you carry our survival.”
Taranis looked down at his wrists. The rope marks were deep. He flexed his fingers slowly testing the damage, testing the truth of the moment.
“Then I carry it,” he said quietly. “Until I break… or become something else.”
A few warriors exchanged glances.
One spat. Another bowed his head.
“Let him sleep near the fire tonight,” Grael ordered. “No post. No chains. The wolves already guard him.”
Taranis blinked.
“What about the mask?”
“That’s your punishment,” Grael said. “And your shield. When you’ve earned the right to speak freely, I’ll take it off.”
He turned to walk away, but paused.
“You fight like a beast. You serve like a soldier. But the way you looked at the sky… you don’t belong to either.”
“Then what do I belong to?” Taranis asked.
Grael didn’t answer.
That night, they laid him near the fire. Not close enough for comfort but not tied like an animal.
He lay on his side, the stars overhead flickering like coals in the stormclouds.
Solaris sat a few feet away, rubbing his wounded cheek.
“You saw it too, didn’t you?” Taranis whispered.
“The shape in the sky?”
Taranis nodded.
“It wasn’t a bird. It was watching.”
Solaris didn’t reply, but the fire cracked loudly. The wolves had not returned but they were near.
And from the distant hills, a single, low roar echoed through the trees.
Taranis closed his eyes.
“I remember you,” he whispered again.
The following morning taranis worked on preparing food for the warriors his keepers and master even though the mask was on tight he tried to remove it
“Leave it ” grael ordered “let the villages we pass through see you, now we rebind your hands but you walk next to your escorts horse. “
The following morning, Taranis worked on preparing food for the warriors, his keepers, and his master. Though the mask was tight across his face, he kept trying to loosen it with his bound hands.
“Leave it,” Grael ordered. “Let the villagers we pass through see you. Now we rebind your hands but you walk beside your escort’s horse.”
Taranis said nothing. He only lowered his head and allowed them to tie his wrists. He wasn’t sure if it was obedience or something colder, something heavier settling over him like rain.
They passed through two valleys and a narrow ridge before making camp near the edge of a standing stone circle. Some of the warriors murmured uneasily. Even Grael gave the stones a wide berth.
That night, they made no fire.
Taranis was tethered again, not far from the edge of the trees. The air turned colder, sharper. Mist crept along the earth like breath from a wounded god.
No wolves howled. No birds sang.
And yet, he heard something.
It was not sound. It was presence. A warmth in the back of his skull. A shimmer in the spine.
He shifted in the darkness, straining against the binds. The mask scraped his face. He whispered to no one:
“Are you still watching me?”
Then something answered.
Not with words. With flame.
The world tilted. He saw fire not burning but dancing. Wings that cast no shadow. Eyes that looked through memory, through bone, through time itself.
He saw wolves white and black running beside him. He saw the collar fall. He saw the whip break. He saw himself standing atop a high ridge, cloaked in storm.
And the dragon. Always the dragon.
Massive. Black. Eyes like dying stars. Its breath shimmered with lightning. Its wings spread wider than the sky.
“You are not made. You are called.”
The voice was thunder in his chest, in his blood. His limbs burned but not with pain. With recognition.
“You are not theirs. You are ours.”
He fell.
He didn’t remember hitting the earth, but when he woke, the sun had not yet risen. His shirt was soaked with sweat. The tether was still tied but something was different.
The mask was gone.
He sat up, panicked, reaching for it, expecting punishment.
But there, in the grass before him, was a single black scale.
No one else was near. Not Solaris. Not Grael. Just the wind, and the watching stones.
And footprints.
Not human. Not wolf.
Clawed. Burnt into the soil like coals had kissed it.
He stared at them, wide-eyed, breath catching in his throat.
Behind him, a voice broke the silence.
“I heard you cry out.”
It was Grael.
Taranis turned, expecting fury but Grael only studied the ground.
He knelt, picked up the black scale, held it to the sky.
“I’ve seen this once before,” he murmured. “When I was a child, a dragon fell on the coast and scorched the rocks. My father said it was an omen. A war was coming.”
Taranis didn’t speak.
Graell looked at him. Not as a slave. Not as a tool.
As something else.
“Did it speak to you?” he asked.
Taranis hesitated. Then, slowly, nodded.
“It remembered me,” he whispered.
Grael studied him for a long time.
Then, instead of shouting or binding him tighter, he tossed the scale back into the dirt.
“We leave at sunrise,” he said. “But you ride now. No pack, no tether.”
“But?”
“Don’t argue. The wolves walk tonight. I won’t have them mistaking my general for a jailer.”
He left without another word.
Taranis looked once more at the scale.
He didn’t pick it up.
He didn’t need to.
Because far above, in the mist just clearing from the trees, he saw it.
A black shape. Not flying circling.
Watching.
The trail narrowed where the pines grew thicker. Roots tangled like veins across the path, and a wet mist clung low to the earth. It was the kind of mist that swallowed sound, choked movement, and stirred old tales of spirits that walked in silence.
Taranis walked beside the horse, arms still loosely bound, though the reins were slack. No mask, but the bruises where it had been were livid. He moved stiffly, eyes always searching. Behind him, Solaris coughed twice, limping slightly from his wound.
They passed under an arch of old stone weathered, moss-covered. No one knew who had built it. Even Grael avoided looking at it for too long.
“Hold,” came the call. Grael raised a hand. The warriors stopped. The silence was heavy, too heavy.
Birds had vanished. The wind had gone still.
Taranis felt it first. Not fear instinct. A tremor through the earth. He reached for the horse’s mane, steadying it. The animal was restless, nostrils flaring.
Then movement.
From the mists came arrows.
Three struck the front scout before he could cry out. Grael shouted and drew his axe, but shadows surged from the trees on both sides. Raiders or worse. Perhaps Clawclan remnants, or wild clans untamed by any banner.
The battle was chaos. Horses reared, warriors scattered. Solaris was knocked to the ground. Grael fought like a bear, roaring commands.
Taranis didn’t hesitate.
The bindings fell away in the confusion a mercy or a mistake, he didn’t know. He grabbed a dropped spear and ran.
Two raiders cornered Solaris. One raised a club.
Taranis screamed a guttural, wordless sound and drove the spear through the attacker’s side. Blood sprayed his face. The second turned too late. Taranis tackled him, fists flying.
It wasn’t grace. It was rage. Raw survival.
Behind him, Solaris scrambled up, eyes wide.
“Taranis!”
But the boy didn’t stop. Another warrior was down the horse wounded. He yanked the reins and shouted, forcing the beast to rise and kick. Then he turned, grabbed a fallen axe, and joined the circle around Grael.
They fought back-to-back.
The mist swallowed screams.
The enemy fled at last dragging bodies, howling curses.
Taranis stood bloodied, panting, face cut and limbs shaking. Grael stared at him.
“You broke formation,” the general said.
“I saved Solaris.”
“You disobeyed orders.”
Taranis nodded.
“And?”
Grael’s mouth twitched.
“And you live. That’s more than can be said for six of mine.”
He turned to the surviving warriors. “Form ranks. Bury the dead. Leave the cursed.”
Taranis felt the weight of that last word. But no one bound him again.
Solaris came to him later, pressing a bandage to his side.
“You shouldn’t have done that.”
“They would’ve done worse if I hadn’t.”
He stared at the mist, which still hung beyond the stones.
“They were hunting me, I think. Not you.”
Solaris didn’t answer. But he didn’t argue.
That night, the dragon circled again. But this time, Taranis didn’t flinch.
He stood outside the camp’s firelight, head raised to the clouds.
And whispered, “I’m not done yet.”
Vision and the Flame
The sun had barely risen, and the mist still clung to the hills like a shroud when they set out again. Taranis rode beside the horse now, his wrists still bound to the mane, but the pack had been removed. His shoulders ached from days of carrying warrior burdens, but now they felt strangely light too light, as if something unseen pressed down instead.
Behind them, the standing stones faded into the fog, silent witnesses to whatever had happened the night before.
Solaris walked beside him.
“You dreamt again, didn’t you?” he asked.
Taranis gave a slow nod.
Solaris leaned in. “Was it him?”
“I think so. Not a man. Not a god. Not… entirely dragon either.”
Solaris frowned. “Then what?”
Taranis didn’t answer.
Grael rode ahead, silent but alert, his eyes scanning the ridgeline as if expecting danger. The rest of the war party followed in a narrow column. They were headed toward the cliffs of Mornhallow, where Clawclan had last been seen regrouping.
By midday, they halted to rest at a wide outcrop overlooking a valley. Taranis was allowed to drink, but his hands remained bound. Solaris crouched near him with a waterskin.
“You’re changing,” Solaris said quietly. “Even they see it. Some of the warriors bowed their heads this morning when you passed.”
“I’m still a slave.”
“You’re something else too.”
Taranis turned away, but not before Solaris caught the flicker of doubt in his eyes.
The sky darkened again before the meal was finished. Smoke not campfire smoke, but thick, rising plumes was seen in the east. Grael gave the signal. They moved quickly, descending the ridge, navigating goat trails that wound between crag and cliff.
By the time they reached the valley floor, the earth trembled.
At first, they thought it was an earthquake. But no quake smelled of sulfur. No quake hissed like breathing from beneath the earth.
And then came the roar.
Not beast. Not storm.
Something older.
The horses bucked. One warrior fell and screamed as his leg snapped under a panicked hoof.
Taranis barely stayed upright. His tether snapped and he fell, face-first into the mud. The mask bit into his skin.
Solaris was shouting. Grael drew his blade.
Then the sky opened.
A shape black and massive hurtled through the clouds. It didn’t land. It circled once. Twice.
And then it vanished beyond the cliffs.
Silence followed. Every man stared.
“Did we just”
“A dragon,” another whispered. “Not a tale. Not a shadow. A real one.”
Taranis rose slowly. His knees shook. Not from fear but from recognition.
“That’s the one,” he muttered.
Solaris helped him up.
“You knew it would come.”
“I don’t know how I knew. But it saw me again.”
Before anything more could be said, the sound of warhorns echoed from the east.
Clawclan.
They hadn’t been retreating. They’d been setting a trap.
Grael didn’t hesitate.
“We hold the ridge. Shield line at the rocks. Archers up high. Taranis stay behind.”
Taranis stepped forward.
“No.”
Grael turned. “You’re not armed.”
“Then arm me.”
For a moment, the general stared at the boy.
Then he nodded once.
Solaris tossed Taranis a short spear and a wooden shield with a dented rim.
“You know how to use these?”
“I’ll learn fast.”
They made their stand on a narrow path between two jagged boulders. Only five could pass at once. Perfect for defense, if they could hold.
Clawclan came like thunder painted warriors, snarling and shirtless, brandishing stone blades and axes. Their faces were streaked with blood. Their chants shook the cliffs.
Taranis took his place beside Solaris, shield raised, heart pounding.
“Steady,” Grael called. “Let them come.”
And they did.
The first wave slammed into the shield wall. Taranis staggered but held. He drove his spear forward, felt it sink into flesh. A scream. Blood sprayed across his mask.
Another came, swinging wildly. Taranis ducked. The shield cracked from the impact, but he held the line.
Beside him, Solaris shouted and slashed.
More fell.
More came.
Then the sky split again.
A streak of flame carved across the cliffside. Rocks exploded into the air. The Clawclan halted mid-charge. Some turned and ran.
Above them, the dragon hovered.
Its wings didn’t beat they ruled the air.
Its eyes twin suns fixed on Taranis.
And it roared.
This time, Taranis didn’t flinch.
He stepped forward, mask dripping blood, shield broken, spear held in both hands like a torch.
And the dragon landed.
Right before him.
The warriors fell back. Even Grael froze.
But Taranis walked forward.
Closer.
Closer.
Until the dragon lowered its head.
And spoke.
Not aloud. Not with words.
But in fire, and wind, and memory.
“You remember me. And I… remember you.”
Taranis knelt.
Not as a slave.
Not as a beast.
But as something becoming.
The dragon blinked once.
Then, with a gust that knocked warriors off their feet, it took flight.
And vanished again into the clouds.
Solaris approached, wide-eyed.
“Why you?”
Taranis looked up, face pale beneath the blood and ash.
“I don’t know.”
Grael finally stepped forward, voice low.
“I do.”
Taranis stood.
“You are the storm’s child,” Grael said. “Not born to chains, but tested by them.”
And no one, not even the elders, spoke against it.
They reached the war camp by dusk.
The Clawclan had vanished into the trees, routed and broken. The warriors murmured as they set up their shelters some glanced at Taranis with wide eyes, others crossed themselves when he passed. The dragon’s presence still hung over them like a storm that refused to break.
Taranis was no longer tethered.
He walked freely hands still raw, the mask still slung at his belt, but his stride had changed. Even Solaris noticed it.
“You walk like one of us now,” he said.
“I’m not.”
“You’re not one of them either.”
Grael called the warriors to the central fire. It blazed tall and angry, fed with cedar and hawthorn. The general stood before it, arms crossed.
“We lost three. The rest live. And we saw a dragon today,” he began.
No one argued.
He looked to Taranis.
“This boy stood when others fell. He held the line. He walked forward when we stepped back. And the dragon” he paused, “bowed its head to him.”
A few warriors whispered. One spat again, but more now watched with quiet awe.
“Some say he is cursed. Others, chosen.”
A new voice cut the air.
“The prophecy speaks of one who carries fire without flame.”
Everyone turned.
A woman stepped from the darkness.
Tall, hooded, robes stained with travel and blood. Around her neck hung bones carved with ancient sigils.
“The Seer,” Solaris whispered.
Taranis stood still as she approached. She carried no weapon, yet everyone stepped aside.
She looked into his face without blinking.
“You have seen it,” she said.
He nodded.
“The wings. The storm. The breath that burns without smoke.”
Another nod.
“You wear no mark, and yet you are marked. You are not born of dragons, but they know your name.”
Grael stepped forward, cautious. “You spoke of this before?”
“I saw it in the flames when he was born,” she replied. “I warned the elders. They said he was cursed that wolves would follow him, that chains would bind him, that thunder would weep at his death.”
Taranis narrowed his eyes.
“At my death?”
She touched his shoulder. Her hand was cold. “You must die to rise.”
The fire cracked loudly.
Grael frowned. “Speak plainly.”
The Seer turned toward the flame. “He must break. Only then will the storm choose him. And only then will the dragon name him.”
Taranis looked at her sharply.
“The dragon has no name?”
“None that mortals are worthy to speak,” she said. “But it may grant him one. If he survives what’s coming.”
Solaris stepped forward. “What is coming?”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she reached into her cloak and drew out a pendant obsidian carved with a spiral.
She placed it in Taranis’s hand.
“You’ll know when to use it.”
He stared at the stone. It was warm. Pulsing, almost. Like a heartbeat.
The Seer turned to go.
“Wait!” Taranis called.
“What am I?”
She paused at the edge of the firelight.
“You are not yet.”
And then she vanished into the dark.
The camp slowly quieted. No one laughed. No one sang. They drank in silence.
Taranis sat beside the fire, the pendant still in his hand. Solaris joined him.
“You believe her?”
“I don’t know what I believe,” Taranis whispered. “But I remember that dragon. Not just from this week. From before. From… childhood. Dreams.”
Solaris tilted his head. “You think it’s the same one?”
“I know it is.”
The wind shifted. Smoke curled into the stars.
“Then you’re not just a slave, Taranis,” Solaris said. “You’re the start of something.”
Taranis stared into the fire.
“I don’t want to be.”
“Too late.”
He closed his fist around the pendant.
And far in the distance, where the cliffs met the clouds, the dragon watched.
I did not choose the chains, but I learned their shape. Learned the weight of silence, the taste of hunger, the way rope sings when it bites through bone.
They thought the collar would teach me stillness. But stillness is not silence, and I was never empty.
I remember the wolves beneath moonlight, the breath of frost against my skin, the old songs in my blood that no blade can carve out.
I am not the boy you cast away. I am not the beast you tried to break. I am the howl that returns when you think the dark is done with you. I am the storm that waits beneath your quiet sky.
Let the mask bite. Let the tether burn. I do not beg. I endure.
StormborneLore 