Category: Cannock Woods

Chapter II The King’s Hunter Arriveson Christmas Day.

Dawn never came softly to the Stormborne.

Grey light seeped through the shutters in thin, trembling lines.
Rain whispered against the roof.
The inn, which had felt too small the night before, now felt like a burial chamber.

Rægenwine was already awak7e, cloak drawn tight, eyes on the door.

Dægan and Leofric stood over a rough map of the road. They had not been planning escape anymore, but counting the minutes until hooves thundered up the lane.

Thunorric sat at the end of the table, cloak around his shoulders, wet hair falling near his face. His sons pressed against him, refusing to let go.

“Da… stay,” Wulfie whispered for the tenth time.

Thunorric placed a hand on the boy’s head, fingers trembling only slightly.

“I’ll try,” he murmured. “Storm willing.”

But they all knew the storm wasn’t willing.

The storm had come to collect him.

Outside, steel rang against saddle buckles.

The first horn sounded low, mournful, a beast calling across the marshes.

The boys jumped.
Harold clutched Bram and Rægenwine flinched.

Dægan’s jaw tightened.
“They’re here.”

Another horn.
Closer this time.

Leofric stepped to the window, lifting the shutter an inch.

The colour drained from his face.

“Thirty men… at least. Spears. Shields. One rider with a wolf-banner.”

The room froze.

Dægan muttered, “The hunter.”

Footsteps pounded on the floorboards above them. Black Shields rushed to the windows, faces pale beneath their tattoos. Even the bard dropped his harp.

Thunorric didn’t move.
His sons clung harder.

The door shook.

Not from a knock but from the weight of horses circling the inn like wolves around a trapped stag.

A voice outside thundered:

“By the order of Coenwulf, King of Mercia! Surrender Thunorric Stormborne, outlaw and oathbreaker!”

Harold whimpered.
Bram pressed his forehead to his father’s arm.

Thunorric inhaled slow, steady.
That same deadly calm from the night before.

Rægenwine whispered, “If you run… they’ll burn the inn.”

Thunorric nodded slowly.
“Aye. I know.”

Wulfie’s voice cracked.
“Da… don’t go.”

Thunorric stood.

Every man in the room held his breath.
Even the storm paused.

He knelt before his sons and cupped their faces, one by one.

“You lads listen to me. You stay with your uncles. You stay together. You don’t look back.”

“Da….”

“Look at me.” His voice trembled. “I’ll come back if there’s breath in me. I swear it.”

“Promise,” Bram whispered.

Thunorric pressed his forehead to Bram’s.

“I promise.”

The door boomed under a spear-butt.

“Stormborne! Come out!”

Dægan stepped in front of him.
“No. I won’t let you do this.”

Leofric’s voice was a ghost.
“Brother… their orders aren’t to take him alive.”

Another slam.
Another roar.

Thunorric placed a hand on Dægan’s shoulder.
“Stormwulf… let me go.”

“No.”

“Brother,” Thunorric said softly, “you once told me… the world needs less war.”

“And you think dying helps that?” Dægan’s eyes blurred.

“No. But I won’t have my lads grow up hunted.” Thunorric smiled sadly.

The hunter’s voice cut through the rain.

“Thunorric!
Come out now, or we take the children!”

Wulfie cried out.
Rægenwine swore and drew his blade.

Thunorric straightened, jaw set.

“That’s enough.”

He kissed each of his sons’ foreheads, one last time.

Then he walked toward the door.

Dægan grabbed him not hard but as if trying to hold on to a dying star.

“You don’t have to do this,” Dægan whispered.

Thunorric leaned in, pressing his brow to his brother’s.

“I do.”

Leofric placed a hand on both their shoulders, voice breaking.

“If you walk out now… we will not see you again.”

Thunorric swallowed hard, lightning in his chest.

“Aye,” he whispered. “But if I don’t… they’ll kill everyone here.”

He stepped past them.

Hand on the latch.

Breath steady.

Heart pounding.

He looked back only once.

At his family.
At the boys.
At the life he would never have again.

Then he opened the door the rain hit him like cold fire.

The hunters aimed spears.
Horses stamped and snorted.
Shields glinted like teeth.

The wolf-banner flapped in the storm wind.

And the king’s hunter tall, hooded, voice like gravel leaned ahead in his saddle.

“So,” he growled. “The Stormwulf’s shadow finally steps into the light.”

Thunorric lifted his chin.

“No shadow,” he said. “Just a man.”

The hunter smirked.

“Not for long.”

His hand rose thirty spears lowered instantly as Dægan shouted inside the inn. Brother Leofric cried out a warning to anyone who listened. The young ones huddled scared confused and upset together crying.

But Thunorric did not look back.

Not once.

Not ever.

Rain hammered the earth as if trying to drown the dawn itself.

Thunorric stood in the mud, cloak heavy with water, as thirty spears formed a wall of iron before him. The king’s hunter dismounted slowly, boots sinking deep into the wet ground.

The wolf-banner snapped above them, its black shape cutting the storm-grey sky.

Inside the inn, Wulfie screamed his father’s name.

Thunorric didn’t flinch.
Not even a blink.

The Hunter Approaches

The hunter circled him once, appraising him like a butcher measuring a stag.

“You came willingly,” he said, voice low and dangerous. “Unexpected.”

Thunorric smirked faintly.
“I’ve been full o’ surprises since before your father had teeth.”

A few of the king’s men chuckled nervously.

The hunter didn’t.

He stepped closer, close enough that Thunorric smell iron. , leather, and the bitterness of a man who enjoyed his work too much.

“On your knees,” the hunter ordered.

Inside the inn, Dægan roared, “NO!”

Leofric held him back by the cloak.

Thunorric lifted his chin.
“Not until my sons are taken inside and the door shut.”

The hunter frowned, annoyed by the demand but he motioned to his soldiers.

A few men approached the doorway.
Rægenwine snarled at them, blade raised, but Leofric spoke sharply:

“Let them take the boys. It’s what he wants.”

Wulfie, Bram, Harold, and James were pulled back into the shadows of the inn, crying, reaching out.

“DA!”
“Da, don’t go!”
“DA!”

Thunorric closed his eyes at the sound just for one heartbeat.

Then he opened them again.

Calm.
Resolved.
Unyielding.

He lowered himself to one knee.

The mud splashed against his cloak like spilled blood.

The hunter smiled.

“That’s better.”

He stepped behind Thunorric and ripped the cloak from his shoulders. Rain soaked through the clean shirt beneath, running along scars old and new. Some were pale. Some were angry red. Roman brands. Whip marks. Blade lines from men long dead.

The hunter lifted his chain.

“Bind him.”

The Stormborne Intervene

Dægan burst through the doorway like a wolf breaking a trap.

“Touch him and I’ll gut you!”

Half the king’s men moved instantly, spears lowered toward Dægan’s chest.

Leofric shoved through after him, staff in hand, fury burning in his usually calm eyes.

“He’s done nothing to earn this.”

“Silence,” one soldier snapped. “He’s an outlaw.”

“Then so am I,” Leofric hissed.

Thunorric didn’t look back.

“Dægan. Lore.”
His voice was soft, but the brothers froze at once.
“Stand down.”

Dægan’s hands shook with pure rage.

“I won’t watch them take you.”

“You will,” Thunorric said.

Rain dripped down his jaw.

“Because my lads need you alive more than they need me free.”

Leofric’s throat closed.

Dægan’s fury bled into heartbreak.

“Brother…”

“Go inside,” Thunorric said. “See to the boys.”

Dægan’s chest heaved like a man drowning.

“I can’t let you”

“You can,” Thunorric whispered. “And you will.”

A moment of silence.
A lifetime of pain held in one breath.

Then Dægan stepped back.

Leofric caught him as he stumbled.

The Chains

The hunter fastened shackles around Thunorric’s wrists with unnecessary force. The iron bit into old scars.

Thunorric didn’t react.

The hunter leaned close and whispered:

“You’ve no idea how long I’ve waited for this.”

Thunorric smirked.

“Aye. But you should always be careful what you wish for.”

The hunter’s hand tightened on his hair, yanking his head back.

“Still got that tongue,” he growled.

Thunorric’s smile faded.

“Oh, lad… I’ve got worse.”

The hunter shoved him forward.

“On your feet.”

He rose without struggle.

The Walk Through the Rain

The king’s men parted, forming a corridor of steel.

Thunorric walked between them, chained but unbroken.

Every man stared.
Some in awe.
Some in hatred.
Some in fear because even bound, Thunorric radiated the quiet, terrifying presence of a storm about to break.

From the inn doorway:

Dægan leaned against the frame, eyes red, hands gripping the wood until it cracked.

Leofric held the boys tight, all four crying into him.

Raegenwine stood beside them, jaw clenched, sword lowered but still in hand.

Even the Black Shields watched in stricken silence, heads bowed.

Thunorric glanced back once.

Just once.

At them.
At the inn.
At the life he would not keep.

Then he faced ahead again.

And kept walking.

The Hunter’s Judgment

At the road’s edge, the hunter raised his voice.

“Thunorric of the Stormborne!
By decree of Coenwulf, King of Mercia
You will be tried at dawn and executed at dusk!”

Leofric clutched the boys tighter.

Dægan sagged against the doorframe.

The rain hammered down harder.

Thunorric lifted his chin.

“Dusk, is it?” he murmured.
His voice was steady.
Almost amused.

“Aye.
Dusk’ll do fine.”

The hunter sneered.

“You’ll die begging.”

Thunorric’s eyes flashed.

“You first.”

The soldiers shoved him ahead.

The chains rattled as the last Stormborne walked into the storm.

And the inn behind him broke into sobs.

© 2025 Emma Hewitt StormborneLore. The characters, stories, names, and world-building elements of the Stormborne Saga are original works.

This includes Thunorric, Dægan, Leofric, the Black Shields, and all associated lore. They are owned exclusively by the author. Unauthorised copying, reposting, distribution, or adaptation of this content is strictly prohibited without written permission.

Futher reading :

Chapter 1: the last night at Raegenwine inn

The Prophecies and Tales of Taranis Unfolded

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Thank you for reading and happy Christmas or. Yule.

December 26, 2025
Taranis Stormborne: The Broken Road

By E.L. Hewitt StormborneLore

The dawn came slow and grey, dragging itself through the fog. As Taranis stood by the brook, cloak heavy with rain, listening to the groan of trees in the wind.

The men were stirring mud streaked, bone-tired, but still breathing.
Caedric coughed, spitting into the fire’s ash.

“Reckon we’ve outfoxed ‘em, lord. Romans don’t fancy these woods no more than wolves do.”

Taranis gave a crooked grin. “Aye, an’ I’ll keep it that way. Chase belongs to the storm, not the eagle.”

He slung his satchel, nodding north. “Pack up. We take the old path up past Wyrley Hill, through the firs. If the gods favour us, we’ll reach the ford ‘fore night.”

“An’ if they don’t?” muttered one of the younger lads.

Taranis looked over his shoulder, eyes pale as lightning. “Then we make ‘em.”

They set off through the trees, boots sucking at the mire, breath fogging in the cold. Above, the sky split in pale streaks of silver and white, like a scar the world hadn’t healed.

By midday, the Chase fell behind them and the road opened wide broken Roman stones, weeds clawing through the cracks.

Caedric slowed, squinting. “Watling Street, once. My da said it stretched all the way to the sea.”

Taranis ran a gloved hand over one of the stones. “Sea don’t matter. Storm reaches farther.”

He turned to the others. “Keep low. Scouts’ll be watchin’ the high ground.”

They crossed in silence, shadows sliding between the birch trunks. A crow cried overhead, sharp and lonely.

Then movement was seen over the ridge. A figure on the ridge, half-hidden by mist. A glint of bronze.

Caedric hissed, “Bloody Romans?”

Taranis lifted a hand, quieting him.
“Nah,” he said after a long look. “One man. Cloak’s too dark. Looks more like one o’ ours.”

The shape moved closer. A limp. Familiar.

“Taranis?” a voice called, rough as gravel. “By all that’s left o’ the gods, it is you.”

From the fog stepped an older warrior, scar cut deep across his jaw.
“Byrin,” Taranis breathed. “Didn’t think the storm’d spare you.”

Byrin laughed, short and hollow. “It near didn’t. Lost three good lads south o’ Salinae, an’ near my own arm with ‘em. But word spreadsfolk say you’re gatherin’ again. Stormborne, back from the grave.”

Taranis gave a small, weary smile. “Not the grave yet, though Rome keeps diggin’.”

He looked at his men mud-smeared faces, eyes bright with a spark that hadn’t been there yesterday.

“Then it’s true,” said Byrin, glancing north. “You mean to march again?”

Taranis nodded. “Not march. Rise. Rome’s road breaks here our land, our law. Time we made ‘em remember.”

He drew a small blade, slicing a mark into the nearest stone a spiral, storm’s sigil.

Caedric watched, grinning. “Yow think they’ll see that, lord?”

Taranis met his gaze, voice low as thunder.

“Aye. An’ when they do, they’ll know the storm’s still breathin’.”

The wind rose, carrying the scent of rain and ash.
Somewhere in the distance, thunder answered deep, slow, and close.

:

© 2025 E. L. Hewitt / Stormborne Arts. All rights reserved.
Unauthorized copying or reproduction of this artwork and text is prohibited.

Thank you for reading.© 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.

If you want to read more about Taranis please see The Prophecies and Tales of Taranis Unfolded

Author’s Note

The Black Country dialect woven through this story carries the sound of the land Taranis once called home old speech born from forge and field.

Where words still echo the rhythm of hammers, storms, and stories told by firelight.

Much of The Broken Road is inspired by the landscapes around Cannock Chase, Wyrley, and Watling Street places where the ancient and modern meet in the same mist.

In those quiet corners, the past never quite sleeps, and the storm still remembers its name.© 2025 E. L. Hewitt / StormborneLore. All rights reserved.

October 21, 2025
Blood and Oath

The sun stood high as Praefect Drax Stormborne lingered beside the fire, cloak folded tight against a thin breeze.

“Hello, brother,” a teen voice said, and Drax’s hand went to the hilt of his sword before he turned.

“Taranis, show yourself now,” he said, keeping his tone even.

“Why? So you can look at me and scowl?” Taranis’s voice came from the trees. “I’m fine here, where you can’t see me but I can see you. I see you have children now, and you look smart in the Roman uniform of their law-men.”

“You acknowledge that, brother?” Drax asked, eyes narrowing.

“I acknowledge,” Taranis replied, stepping from the shade with a faint smile. “but I do not bow not to you, my liege, nor to your Roman overlords. We all do what we must to survive.” He paused, then added, quieter, “But try anything and I’ll snap your men like twigs.”

A small boy tugged at Drax’s sleeve. “Father, who is he?” the child asked.

“Is he a barbarian, father?” another eight-year-old whispered, peering toward the tree-line.

“Julius that’s our uncle Taranis?” a smirking boy offered. “The legendary gladiator Lupus… wasn’t he exiled?”

Drax let the questions run off him like rain. He studied Taranis as if measuring a blade. Blood and oath pulled between them one brother in Roman order, the other a storm wearing man’s skin.

The campfire crackled, throwing sparks into the brittle afternoon air. For a heartbeat, the world held its breath two brothers standing on opposite shores of the same river.

Taranis tilted his head slightly, the ghost of a smile curving his lips.
“Exiled, yes,” he said softly. “But storms don’t vanish, brother. They wait for the right sky.”

Drax said nothing. His men shifted uneasily, hands brushing spear shafts, glancing between the prefect and the outlaw.

“You shouldn’t have come,” Drax murmured finally. “Rome watches even the wind that bends near me.”

“I’m not here for Rome,” Taranis replied,. his gaze flicking toward the boys proud, uncertain, wearing their father’s steel in miniature. “I came to see what became of the man I once followed into the fire.”

“You followed because you had no choice,” Drax snapped, voice sharp enough to cut the air.
“And you bowed because you wanted one,” Taranis countered.

Silence fell again. The forest around them seemed to lean closer, listening.

Julius, the youngest, tugged at Drax’s sleeve.

“Father… he doesn’t look like a villain,” the boy whispered.
“No,” said Drax quietly, eyes still locked on Taranis. “That’s what makes him dangerous.”

Taranis laughed then, low and bitter. “Dangerous? I bled for this land before Rome knew its name. If danger is survival, then yes I am a danger.”

A faint roll of thunder trembled beyond the horizon. Both men turned toward it, instinctively.

“Storm’s coming,” said one of Drax’s soldiers.

Taranis met his brother’s eyes one last time.
“No, soldier,” he said, voice like wind through iron. “The storm’s already here.”

He vanished into the trees before anyone move. leaving only the fading echo of his words and the scent of rain.

Drax stood long after he was gone, until his eldest spoke softly:
“Will we see him again, Father?”

Drax’s jaw tightened. “If the gods have mercy or none at all.”

The thunder answered for him.

Julius started to run after his uncle.

“No, child,” Drax called, voice tight.

Taranis turned, the stormlight catching on the scars that crossed his jaw. He knelt so his eyes met the boy’s.
“Your place is with your father,” he said softly. “He’s a good, honourable man.”

Julius frowned. “How did you get off the island?”

Taranis’s mouth twitched into a smirk. “I built a boat.”

He rose, cloak stirring in the wind as thunder growled again in the distance.
“Remember that, boy when the world cages you, build your own way out.”

Then he was gone once more, the forest swallowing him whole.

Drax stood in silence, watching the trees sway. His men busied themselves with meaningless tasks tightening straps, banking the fire anything to avoid the weight in the air.

The prefect’s eyes lingered on the path his brother had taken.
“Stormborne,” he murmured, the name a curse and a prayer all at once.

Above them, the first drops of rain began to fall.

Thank you for reading if you enjoyed this story. Please like subscribe and follow for more.

Futher reading

The Chronicles of Drax

The tales of Rayne

The Prophecies and Tales of Taranis Unfolded

The Keeper of Cairnstones: Myths and Mysteries Revealed

October 13, 2025
The Crone

Written by

emma.stormbornelore
in

The moon shone in the darkest of nights as I gathered the herbs.Around my cave herbs of healing yarrow and nettle being the most used by our clan.

Only eight winters ago the leader of claw clan approached me. My son in custody I see him a bone chain around his neck.

“What do you want Clun?” I asked the small balding man dressed in simple furs .

“We promise no harm to the children,” said the tall man wrapped in makeshift coats. He thrust a small vial towards me “You’ll have your son by sunrise. Just brew a sleeping draft. Put Camp Utthar to sleep.”

I hesitated. The chief of Utthar had been good to us took my family in when no one else would. But River was my son. My blood. My only hope my future what else I do?

I nodded slowly but looked to my boy a sadness stirred in me. Ad i gathered berries, roots, sacred herbs and stirred them into the pot by firelight. That night, the warriors, the women, the children… all fell into deep, enchanted sleep.

So deep was the sleep that no one stirred when the men of Clun entered the encampment. As The Clun men crept in silent as shadow, savage as flame.

I watched from the trees as my eldest, Ryn, was dragged into camp forced to witness the massacre. His voice was broken when he turned to me:

“What did you do, Mother?!”Ryn cried

A silent attack killing women children and men who remained within the camp. Fifty men died that night warriors hunters their wives and children.

“You promised you’d leave the children” I cried

I was aware that utther wife had been taken to a local cave. A safe place where she would give birth when the time was right.

“Foolish old lady, why would we leave our enemies children? When they will grow to seek vengeance” Clun smirked riding away

I was left staring at the devastation . The next days passed and the Chief returned from battle, his warriors behind them. The chiefs horn was heard and his sons replied with the wolfs howl. But they ran with newborns in their arms Boldolph leading the charge.

Time froze the wind stilled as boldolph approached his father

“They came in the still of night no one would wake up. The claw killed all of then father and she helped” boldolph replied as if giving his report

Suddenly the screams came

“Take her! Bind her!” Raven shouted.
“She betrayed the family! Everyone’s dead! Mother’s alive but in labour!”

One of the wounded men pointed at me with blood on his chest.

“We heard her whispering with the Clun.
She brewed the sleeping draft… then brought death upon us.”

I turned and ran wishing for cover ducking from branches and jumping over roots from trees. The sound of hounds barking after me my heart racing beating like the drums. The hounds found me first. The men were not far behind.

They bound me in ropes and dragged me back to camp, fear pounding through my veins like war drums. Then he came…

Boldolph stood at seven feet tall.
“Let me have her,” he growled but his eyes softened when they found Morrigan, his wife, weeping with in a cave

“Lox is dead she did it” morrigan said

“We have her,” a man spat, dragging me by the hair.i screamed trying to fight against the men holding me

The chieftain stood tall.

“Whitehair, you have betrayed your tribe. Look around you. This is your doing you butchered them in their sleep.” The cheiftan said “Take her to the rocks. Strip her name. Cut her nose and tongue. Then bind her and take her far from here.”

The punishment was swift.

The curse came faster.

Before they dragged me away, my final spell shattered the night:

“May your line suffer,
May your form twist,
Until one born cursed by storms,
Breaks the wheel with mercy and fire.”

And then, the transformation.

As I was dragged out I could hear the howls of pain and anguish from boldolph and his mate morrigan. as Boldolph the giant, and Morrigan the gentle, were torn from flesh and given fur. Wolves. Forever cursed.

Later, bound and broken, I was dragged to the sacred stone. They beat me. Stripped me of sound. My nose. My tongue. My name.

Blindfolded, I was taken to lands unknown far beyond the reach of kin or mercy.

But my magic remains.
So does the curse.
And the storm is not yet done.

I could still taste blood.

The salt of my torn tongue. The copper of betrayal. The earth where they left me bound, blindfolded. my hands lashed with nettles so tightly i still bear scars decades later.

They called it mercy.

But mercy would have been death.

Instead, they gave me exile: cast beyond the sacred stones with only the breath in my lungs. The curse they feared more than her voice.

Ad i crawled for days dragging my broken body through marsh and thorn. Wolves circled but did not bite. Ravens flew overhead but did not cry. And the spirits… the spirits walked with me.
I did not die i became something else.

Something older than their laws.

As i found shelter in the hollow of a tree once used by midwives. A place where blood had been spilled in both birth and death. There, pressed my palms to the bark, and for the first time in weeks, i did not feel pain.

Only power.

It rose from the roots. From the bones buried deep the old ones, the forgotten, the nameless. Their stories rushed into me like a storm tide.

And over time i remembered my own name.

Not the one they spat when they cursed me. Not the one the elders tore from the village scrolls.

But the one my mother gave me beneath the silvery moon.

“Cceridwyn,” whispered, mouth bleeding, lips cracked.

As the Years passed more people feared me. As i walked among the bones now, barefoot and veiled. My form barely seen except by those on the edge of death or madness. Her tongue never healed. Her voice never returned. But her curse… her curse remained intact.

And more potent than ever.

For every 13th child born of her bloodline, a sign would come:
A sickness no healer cure.
Eyes the colour of stormlight.
A voice that spoke truths no one taught.

The 13th of the 13th would be the end or the beginning.

She waits still.
Her bones lighter now, her spirit heavier.
Watching as the stories repeat,
as her great-grandson walks into the same woods where she once crawled.

Taranis.
The boy with the storm in his chest.

The one they tried to exile, like her.

But this time…
the storm remembers.

© written and created by ELHewitt

October 13, 2025
The Weight of Emberhelm

The fires in Emberhelm burned low, their glow tracing the hall’s carved beams in dull amber. Outside, wind howled through the moors, carrying the echo of the horn that had once called the clans to war. Now it was only memory.

Lord Drax Stormborne sat alone in the council chamber, a single goblet of wine untouched beside him. The maps and missives lay strewn across the oak table. Roman reports, messages from border scouts, pleas for grain from villages too frightened to send men to market.

He had not slept. Sleep meant dreams, and dreams brought Taranis.

His brother’s face haunted him not in death, but in defiance. Bound, bloodied, yet unbroken. There was strength in that memory, but guilt too.

“You always were the fire,” Drax murmured, voice low. “And I the stone that smothered it.”

A faint shuffle broke the silence. Caelum lingered at the doorway, unsure if he was welcome. “Father,” he said softly. “Marcos sent word. The Romans will move east toward the river forts. He says it’s only a patrol.”

Drax’s lips curved into something that have been a smile. “Marcos says many things to make Rome sound smaller than it is.”

He rose, the movement slow, heavy with sleepless weight. “Tell the men to prepare rations, but not weapons. We will not meet them with steel not yet.”

Caelum hesitated. “Uncle Taranis wouldn’t wait.”

“No,” Drax said, turning toward the window, where mist swirled over the dark moorlands. “He would burn the world to free one man. I must keep the world standing long enough for him to have one to return to.”

The boy nodded but did not understand. Few ever would.

Drax rested his hands on the cold stone sill, the wind tugging at his hair. Somewhere beyond the horizon, his brother still fought, still endured. And Drax the eldest, the anchor bore the burden of every storm that raged beyond his reach.

“Forgive me, brother,” he whispered to the wind. “I keep the hearth burning, not because I’ve forgotten you… but because I know you’ll come back to it.”

Further Reading

The Chronicles of Drax

October 7, 2025
The Chains of Blood and Brotherhood

The storm had not yet left his veins. Even in exhaustion, Taranis’s breath came sharp as lightning through rain. The iron on his wrists bit deeper with each movement, the weight of Rome’s victory heavy, but not finished.

He heard them before he saw them the measured tread of Caelum and Marcos. The murmur of soldiers giving way as they entered the cell yard. The torches flared against the damp walls, shadows stretching long like reaching fingers.

“Uncle Marcos,” Caelum’s voice was quiet but edged with fear. “Can those chains come off him?”

Marcos paused beside the centurion who held the keys. His gaze lingered on Taranis, bloodstained and silent, the faint curl of defiance still etched into his mouth. “They can,” Marcos said slowly. “But they won’t. Not yet.”

Caelum’s jaw tightened. “He’s bleeding. If he dies”

“He won’t,” Marcos interrupted, eyes never leaving Taranis. “He’s too stubborn to die.”

Taranis lifted his head then, a slow, deliberate motion. “You sound almost proud, Marcos.” His voice was hoarse, roughened by sand and roar, but steady. “Tell me how does it feel, watching Rome chain another son of the storm?”

Marcos stepped closer, the metal of his own armour glinting in the firelight. “It feels like survival,” he said quietly. “A lesson you still refuse to learn.”

“Survival,” Taranis repeated, the word tasting like ash. “You call it that. I call it submission.”

The centurion moved between them, keys jangling. “Enough talk.” But Marcos lifted a hand not to command, but to stay him.

“Let him speak,” Marcos said. “Words weigh less than chains.”

Caelum’s eyes flicked between them, confusion and pain warring in his young face. “He fought lions, Uncle. Bears. He lived through what no man should. Why must you treat him like this?”

“Because,” Marcos

“You know they say deaths the final lesson?” Taranis grinned…Marcos’s eyes hardened, but not with anger with something closer to grief.

“Death teaches nothing,” he said. “It only silences the unteachable.”

Taranis laughed then a low, ragged sound that echoed off the stone like distant thunder. “Then maybe silence is what Rome fears most. A man who dies still defiant who doesn’t give them their spectacle.”

The centurion stepped ahead impatiently. “Enough of this.” He seized Taranis by the shoulder, but the bound warrior’s gaze did not waver.

“Do you see it, Caelum?” Taranis rasped. “Chains don’t make a man loyal. They only show who fears him most.”

Caelum swallowed hard, torn between the authority of his uncle and the raw conviction before him. “Uncle… he’s right. Rome fears him.”

Marcos turned sharply. “Rome fears no man.” Yet even as he said it, his voice faltered, as if the walls themselves disagreed.

A moment of silence fell the kind that breathes between lightning and thunder.

Then Taranis whispered, “You once said the blood of the storm can’t be trained. You were right. It can only be bound… for a while.”

The torches flickered, shadows dancing like spirits around the three men the Roman, the youth, and the storm-bound prisoner.

Marcos finally turned away. “Clean his wounds,” he said curtly to the centurion. “He fights again at dawn.”

As they left, Caelum lingered by the gate, his eyes locked on Taranis’s. “I’ll come back,” he said softly.

Taranis’s faint grin returned. “Then bring thunder, boy. Rome hasn’t heard enough of it yet.”

The cell door slammed shut, iron against stone but somewhere, deep beneath the fortress, thunder rolled.

© 2025 Emma Hewitt / StormborneLore. All rights reserved.Unauthorized copying or reproduction of this content is prohibited.

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Futher Reading

The Prophecies and Tales of Taranis Unfolded

October 7, 2025
The Silent Rebellion

“Taranis is our baby brother, no matter what some think,” Drax growled, his voice low and edged with iron. His gaze locked on Rain across the firelight, sharp enough to cut stone. “You betrayed him when he was a child and you betray him now.”

Rain’s jaw tightened, but he did not speak. The silence stretched between them, thick with memory and regret.

The old priest, Maeron, lifted his hand gently. “He forgives you, Rain,” he said, his tone weary yet steady. “He wanted Drax, Draven, and Lore to know he will endure what they give him. So that you three will survive. He says to make choices that will keep you all safe and your people.”

Drax’s expression did not soften, though his eyes flickered with something that have been pain. “He forgives far too easily.”

Maeron inclined his head. “Forgiveness is not weakness, my lord. It is the weapon of those who can’t be broken. The Romans won’t rule forever. Prepare for what comes next.”

At the edge of the fire, Caelum shifted uneasily, his young face caught between fear and pride. “But what about my uncle’s meals?” he asked suddenly. “Uncle was exiled from the Circle years before they caught him. I was a baby then. Now I’m fourteen he shouldn’t be forgotten again.”

The words silenced the hall. Even Rain, for all his bitterness, not meet the boy’s gaze.

Drax rose slowly, the firelight glinting off his scars. “He will not be forgotten,” he said at last. “Not while the storm still bears our name.”

“But won’t they strip him of his name?” Caelum pressed, voice trembling now. “If Rome erases it, how will anyone know he lived?”

Drax looked down at his son the fire’s glow. Reflected in the boy’s wide eyes and placed a steady hand on his shoulder.

“Names can be taken,” he said quietly. “But legacies can’t. The Romans think power is carved in stone. Ours is carved in memory.”

He turned back to Maeron. “Tell him that. Tell him Emberhelm remembers.”

The priest nodded, rising to leave. But before he turned, his gaze swept the circle of men gathered in the hall. “When the storm returns,” he said softly, “I hope you are ready to stand beneath it.”

When Maeron’s footsteps faded into the night, the hall remained silent. The storm outside broke, rain hammering against the shutters like the echo of distant drums.

Drax stood by the window long after the others had gone. He could not see the fort from here, but he could feel it the iron cage that held his brother. The empire pressing closer each season. Yet as lightning flashed over the valley, he smiled grimly.

Because storms, no matter how long they’re caged, always find their way home.

The road to Viroconium was slick with rain. Drax rode beneath a low sky, his cloak heavy with water, the wind biting at his face. Beside him, Maeron’s hood was drawn deep, the priest’s silence carrying the weight of things better left unspoken.

When they reached the outskirts of the Roman fort, the air stank of smoke and iron. The rhythmic clash of hammers and the cries of soldiers echoed through the mist. But above it all, there was another sound low, strained, human.

Drax reined his horse sharply, his eyes narrowing.

At the edge of the square, raised above the mud and the murmuring crowd. Hung a man bound to a crude wooden cross. Blood streaked his arms, his body marked by lashes and bruises. His hair clung to his face in the rain. But the set of his jaw the defiant lift of his head was unmistakable.

Taranis.

Drax’s heart clenched as the legionnaire stepped forward, spear in hand. “He struck a guard and tried to run,” the man said stiffly. “By Roman law, the punishment is public display.”

“Law,” Drax echoed, his voice quiet, almost a whisper but Maeron flinched at the tone. “You call this law?”

The soldier hesitated, but before he could respond, Maeron laid a hand on Drax’s arm. “Careful,” he murmured. “The walls have ears.”

Drax dismounted, boots sinking into the mud. He walked forward until he stood before the cross, rain washing the grime from his face. Taranis raised his head slowly, eyes bloodshot but burning with that same inner fire that no empire could snuff out.

“Brother,” Drax whispered.

Taranis gave a faint, broken smile. “You shouldn’t have come.”

“And leave you to the crows?” Drax’s voice cracked like thunder. “Never.”

Maeron stepped forward, murmuring Latin prayers under his breath for the watching soldiers. Though his words were laced with druidic meaning ancient phrases meant to shield, not to save. His fingers brushed the iron nails that bound Taranis’s wrists. “These are not deep,” he said quietly. “They did not mean to kill him. Only to shame.”

Taranis’s laugh was hoarse. “They can’t shame what they don’t understand.”

The centurion appeared, cloak heavy with rain. “This man belongs to Rome,” he declared. “You will step back, Lord of Emberhelm.”

Drax turned slowly, the weight of centuries in his gaze. “And yet Rome forgets whose land it stands upon.”

The centurion stiffened. “Do you threaten?”

“No.” Drax’s tone softened to a dangerous calm. “I remind.”

The priest raised his hands quickly. “My lord only seeks mercy,” Maeron said. “Let him pray with his brother before the gods.”

After a pause, the centurion gestured sharply. “You have one hour.”

When the soldiers withdrew to the gatehouse, Drax knelt beside the cross. The rain had turned to sleet, stinging against his skin. “Hold on,” he murmured. “We’ll get you down when the watch changes.”

Taranis shook his head weakly. “No. Not yet. If you cut me down, they’ll know you came. They’ll burn Emberhelm.”

“Then let them come,” Drax growled.

But Taranis only smiled faintly. “Storms must wait for the right sky, brother.”

Maeron placed a hand on Drax’s shoulder. “He’s right. Endurance, not rage. That is his rebellion.”

Drax bowed his head, jaw clenched. He hated the wisdom in those words. He hated that Taranis could still smile through chains and nails.

As dusk fell, lightning cracked beyond the hills, white and wild. The storm gathered again over Viroconium.

And though Rome saw only a prisoner’s suffering. Those who remembered the old ways knew the truth:
A storm had been crucified and still, it did not die.

Further Reading

The Chronicles of Drax

October 5, 2025
The Weight of the Crownless Lord

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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October 5, 2025
The Chains of Emberhelm

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?”

The centurion smiled faintly. “Displayed, perhaps. Studied, certainly. Rome values curiosities.”

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.

It would be made of iron.

FURTHER READING

The Prophecies and Tales of Taranis Unfolded

October 5, 2025
The Iron Silence

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.

If you enjoyed this story, like, share, or leave a comment. Your support keeps the storm alive and the chronicles continuing.

Further Reading

The Prophecies and Tales of Taranis Unfolded

October 4, 2025