Category: Original Story

Taranis and Drax: The Clash of Empires

The river carried him through the marshes like an old friend whispering secrets of home. The oar bit into the brown water, steady, unhurried. Ahead, smoke rose in thin curls Roman campfires. His brother’s camp.

Taranis smiled faintly. Drax always did love his rules and rituals.

He pulled the boat onto the bank, the mud sucking at his boots, and paused to listen. The faint clang of armor, the laughter of children. The low murmur of Latin prayers so out of place in this land of bog and stone.

Then he saw him.
Drax, standing by the fire, cloak draped in perfect folds, a soldier carved out of duty itself.

“Hello, brother,” Taranis called, his voice light but carrying weight enough to stir the air.

Drax turned, hand on his sword. Typical.

“Taranis. Show yourself.”

“Why?” he asked from the shadows. “So you can look at me and scowl like the Roman you’ve become?”

The words were easy, but his chest ached as he stepped ahead. He had dreamed of this moment through a hundred lonely nights on the island his brother alive, unbroken.

“I see you have sons,” he said softly. “And a fine uniform. Praefect now, are we? Rome’s loyal hound.”

Drax’s eyes hardened. “You acknowledge their law, then?”

“I acknowledge survival,” Taranis said. “But I bow to no empire.”

His gaze flicked toward the boys—curious, brave, full of questions. One of them smiled at him, and for a moment, the years fell away. He saw his brother laughing beside him on the cliffs above Letocetum. Before the legions came, before blood was traded for banners.

“You shouldn’t have come,” Drax said.

“I didn’t come for Rome.” He met his brother’s eyes. “I came for what’s left of us.”

The words hung between them, raw and quiet.

The youngest boy tugged at Drax’s cloak. “He doesn’t look like a villain, father.”

Taranis almost laughed. “No, lad. Villains rarely do.”

Then thunder rolled, deep and distant, like memory returning.

Drax looked to the horizon, and Taranis knew he felt it too—the pull of storm and blood.

“The storm’s coming,” one soldier muttered.

Taranis turned toward them, eyes bright with mischief and grief.
“No,” he said. “The storm’s already here.”

He stepped back into the trees, the forest closing around him.
When the boy’s voice called after him—“How did you escape the island?”—he turned once more, smiling through the rain.

“I built a boat,” he said simply. “Remember that when the world tries to cage you.”

Then he was gone.

Behind him, the Roman camp crackled in the rain, and his brother’s name lingered on the wind.

Stormborne.
Once curse, always kin.

© 2025 Emma Hewitt / StormborneLore. All rights reserved.Unauthorized copying or reproduction of this content is prohibited.If you enjoyed this story, like, share, or leave a comment. Your support keeps the storm alive and the chronicles continuing.

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

October 15, 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.

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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
Whispers from the Sea

Written by
emma.stormbornelore

The wind off the coast carried a strange scent that morning salt, smoke, and something older.

Drax Stormborne stood upon the cliffs of Caerwyn. His cloak drawn tight, eyes narrowed toward the southern horizon where the sea met the clouds. The gulls wheeled low, uneasy, their cries sharp against the stillness.

Behind him, his second-in-command approached, boots crunching on frost-slick stone. “Another ship’s gone missing,” the man said quietly. “Roman, they say. A patrol near Carthage. The reports claim a storm took it.”

Drax didn’t turn. “A storm,” he repeated, voice low. “Or something that wears its name.”

The man hesitated. “You think it’s him?”

For a moment, only the wind answered. Then Drax’s gloved hand closed around the hilt of his sword, fingers tracing the worn leather grip. “Taranis never drowned easy,” he murmured. “If the Empire bleeds at sea, then he’s drawing the blade.”

He moved to the edge of the cliff, gazing down at the waves hammering the rocks below. The sea had always been Rome’s pride a wall of conquest, a promise of control. But now it whispered rebellion.

“Send word to the northern outposts,” Drax said. “Quietly. Tell them the Black Shields move again. No banners. No noise. Just watch the tide.”

The officer nodded and left, his footsteps fading into the mist.

Alone, Drax drew his sword, holding it toward the sea. The steel caught the dawn light, flashing gold for a heartbeat like lightning beneath the clouds.

“Brother,” he said softly, as the first drops of rain began to fall. “If the storm returns… then so do I.”

The thunder answered, rolling like distant drums of war.

The Empire called it weather.
The Stormborne called it warning.

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

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October 12, 2025
The Island of Ash and Iron: A Tale of Resilience

The Island of Ash and Iron

Written by
emma.stormbornelore

The island steamed beneath a blood-orange dawn. Black sand hissed as the tide pulled back, revealing fragments of broken shields and driftwood charred by lightning.

Taranis Stormborne stood among the wreckage, cloak torn, hair slick with salt. Around him, the Black Shields gathered the fallen in silence.

No victory songs were sung only the slow rhythm of men. Who understood the cost of silence and the weight of patience.

“Bury them high,” Taranis said at last. “Let the wind speak their names.”

He turned his gaze inland, where the volcanic ridges rose like the spines of sleeping beasts. Smoke drifted from fissures in the rock, thick with the scent of iron and ash.

Beneath those ridges lay the forge a secret his men had built in defiance of empire.

As the storm’s light faded behind the clouds, a scout approached, breath ragged.

“Lupus… Rome has sent word north. They know a fleet was lost, but not how. They think it was a storm.”

Taranis’s mouth curved into a faint, weary smile.

“Then let the lie live. Storms are easier to fear than men.”

He knelt beside a shattered shield half-buried in sand. Its surface was scorched black, the emblem of the wolf barely visible beneath the soot. With slow care, he traced the mark with his thumb, leaving a streak of silver ash.

“This island is no longer exile,” he murmured. “It’s the forge of the next age. And when Rome’s thunder fades, ours will remain.”

Above him, a distant rumble rolled through the clouds not thunder, but the awakening of something older.

The storm had learned to wait.

Thank you for reading.

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Unauthorized copying or reproduction of this content is prohibited.

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October 12, 2025
The Resilient Sea: Taranis’s Defiance Against Rome

The sea was restless that night, black as iron and twice as cold. Taranis Stormborne stood at the prow of the ship, his cloak heavy with salt and rain. Behind him, the Black Shields moved in silence, their faces hidden, their oars cutting through the water with a rhythm older than empire.

Rome’s ships had been sighted near Carthage a patrol too far from home, too confident. This voyage was not conquest, but message.

Lightning split the horizon. Taranis lifted his gaze toward the thunderclouds, their light catching the gold in his eyes.

“Do you fear the storm?” one of the younger soldiers whispered.

Taranis’s answer was soft, almost drowned by the wind.
“I am the storm.”

The first Roman galley loomed ahead, torches guttering in the wind. The Black Shields struck swift and silent, grappling hooks biting wood, blades flashing in the rain. No horns, no cries only the sound of waves breaking and chains rattling as old fears were unmade.

By dawn, the sea was calm again. The Roman ship burned behind them, its mast sinking like a dying pillar of the old world.

Taranis watched the smoke fade into the clouds. “Let them think it was lightning,” he said. “Let them think the gods themselves strike against their arrogance.”

He turned back toward the island, where fire and training awaited. The storm had passed but the Empire would wake to the scent of rain and know its name.

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

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October 11, 2025
Secrets of the Western Marches: A Tale of War and Loyalty

The dawn broke pale and brittle over the Western Marches. Mist clung to the hillsides like the remnants of a long-forgotten battle. The scent of wet earth hung thick in the air.

Drax Stormborne rode alone, the wolf badge at his breast glinting faintly in the weak light. Each hoof beat a steady rhythm against the quiet of the land.

Reports had come from the southern villages. Whispers of movement along the coast, smuggled supplies disappearing into the night, and the black shields stirring in secret. Rome called it rebellion. Drax called it preparation.

He paused at the ridge, scanning the valley below. The smoke curled from chimneys, thin and innocent. Yet he saw in it the same threads of tension that had always followed his family. Every glance, every movement, was a calculation an unspoken war between loyalty, law, and blood.

A courier approached, riding hard across the hill track. Drax reined in his horse. The rider’s eyes were wide with urgency, breath steaming in the cold morning.

“High Sheriff,” the courier gasped, bowing slightly. “The exiles… they’ve moved. South, toward the old Roman fort. But there are… signs. Traps, and sentries placed where none should be.”

Drax’s jaw tightened. He dismounted slowly, brushing mud from his cloak. “And our men?”

“Silent,” the rider said. “They wait, as you instructed. Patient. Watching.”

Drax nodded, feeling the familiar weight of responsibility press upon him. Patience, observation, action the long game. His thoughts flickered to Taranis, chained in distant Rome. Memories of the oath that bound him not just to the Empire, but to family. To storm.

He turned to the courier. “See to it that no one moves without my signal. Keep the villages safe. Let Rome believe all is still. But let our shadow fall across the fort when the time is right. The storm will not wait forever.”

Lightning fractured across the distant sky, a whisper of thunder rolling over the hills. Drax lifted his gaze and felt it stir through him, golden and alive. The storm was patient, and so would he be.

For when the winds finally tore through the land, nothing not even Rome would withstand it.

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

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your support keeps the storm alive and the chronicles continuing.

October 10, 2025
Volcanic Echoes: The Forgotten Island’s Tale

The Fire of the Forgotten

The island smoldered beneath a grey dawn, volcanic ash drifting in spirals that mirrored the labyrinth of the Black Shields’ training paths. Taranis Stormborne stood atop a jagged cliff, chains long gone, his shadow cast over the men who moved like echoes of his command.

“Strength is patience,” he reminded them, voice low but unyielding. “Silence is more than absence; it is a weapon.”

The men obeyed, their movements precise, their eyes alert to every change in wind or light. Exiles, criminals, and freed soldiers had become something else entirely a force of quiet purpose. In the flickering smoke of the island’s vents, Taranis traced lines in the sand, marking the future with symbols only they understood.

A scout returned, breathless and wide-eyed. “Rumors, Lupus… Rome speaks of shadows in the hills, whispers of an army unknown.”

Taranis nodded, the storm within him mirrored in the sky above. Lightning tore across the horizon. “Let them whisper,” he said. “Every shadow will remind them: the storm bends, but it never breaks.”

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

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October 10, 2025
Rayne: Master of Shadows and Discord

They call him the storm, the unbroken one, but they do not see the cracks beneath the surface. I do. I have always seen.

From the shadows of Rome’s streets to the secret alleys where whispers become currency, I move like a shadow with purpose. The Black Shields rise under Taranis, but they are not invincible and I am patient. One misstep, one flicker of hesitation, and the scales will tip.

My brothers do not trust me nor should they. Loyalty is a chain, and I have never been bound. Drax enforces law. Lore watches omens. Taranis commands storms. And I… I navigate the spaces in between, sowing discord where it will serve me best, testing their strength, and waiting for the moment the tide shifts in my favor.

Rome believes in its security, its arenas, its chains. Let them. I move unseen, the quiet question mark, the shadow that unsettles even the bravest hearts.

“Every storm has a fissure. Every chain a weak link. And I will find them.”

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October 9, 2025
Stormborne Chronicles: Tales of Magic, Power, and Betrayal

Artistic representation of the Grimoire’s quaternary knot, symbolizing protection and balance within the Stormborne legacy.

The Grimoire lay open before me, its pages whispering in the flickering torchlight. Symbols, long forgotten by men, danced across vellum knots, spirals, and sigils that spoke of storms, of blood, and of the unseen threads that bound the Stormborne brothers.

I traced my fingers along the quaternary knot etched into the parchment, feeling its pulse beneath my skin. Four directions. Four elements. Protection. Balance. The old magic hums beneath the empire’s walls, forgotten by generals and augurs alike, but I remember.

Outside, the world churns armies march, fires burn, and Rome believes itself eternal. But I know the storm waits, patient, unyielding. Each spell, each word, each calculated gesture draws the threads tighter. Taranis trains men in secret. Drax moves through the law like a shadow of justice. And Rayne… I watch him, always a question mark, a traitor lurking in plain sight.

And I, the chronicler, the mystic, record all. For when the time comes, the Grimoire will speak, and the empire will remember the Stormborne name or regret it.

“Power is not given, it is woven. And I will weave it carefully.”

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October 9, 2025
Mystery and Duty: Drax Stormborne’s Journey

The mist lay thick over Britannia’s hills, silver and cold in the dawn light. Drax Stormborne rode through it in silence, his cloak trailing behind his horse like a banner of shadow. The seal of his office a bronze wolf set in iron hung heavy at his breast. Praefect of the Western Marches.

Rome had granted him the title, but the people called him something older. The Lawkeeper. The Storm’s Hand.
Sometimes, when whispers rose of rebellion or strange omens in the south. they spoke another name High Sheriff, as though the tongue of the future already sought him.

For weeks, Drax had heard the same rumours. A golden-eyed warrior training exiles in secret. Smugglers vanishing near the coast. Symbols carved in ash and stone a black shield marked by lightning.

He reined in his horse upon a ridge and looked east, where the mists thinned toward the sea. Somewhere beyond those waters, Taranis Stormborne still lived. His brother. His blood. His curse.

Duty demanded silence, but loyalty demanded truth. He not betray his oath to Rome, nor he ignore the storm rising beyond its borders.

“They call it rebellion,” he murmured, gloved hand tightening on the reins, “but it feels like fate.”

The wind rose, cold and sharp. Somewhere distant, thunder rumbled faint, like a memory.

“If this is the end of empires,” Drax said softly. “then let the Stormborne stand ready to shape what comes after.”

He turned his horse toward the fading sun, the wolf badge glinting on his chest. Law and blood would soon meet, and the legend of the Stormborne name would start anew.

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

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October 9, 2025