An artistic interpretation titled ‘The Shadows of an Empire’ by StormborneLore, showcasing intricate patterns and vibrant colors.
The Whispering Blades
“You’ll see the arena again, Lupus when the Empire finds another crowd worth impressing. But empires fade. Storms… they wait.”
“So what then? More isolation for the beast brought out to haul rocks or is he permitted to do what he wants?” another guard asked, half mocking, half wary.
Marcus didn’t answer at first. His gaze lingered on the prisoner the golden-eyed giant who once made cities tremble. Even in chains, there was something unyielding about him. The air seemed heavier when he stood too close, as if the storm itself remembered him.
“Let him work,” Marcus said finally, voice low. “If the gods haven’t broken him by now, we won’t.”
Taranis lifted the stone in silence, the weight nothing to him. His eyes met Marcus’s through the drifting ash not with hatred, but understanding. Men like Marcus were cracks in the Empire’s armour, and he already felt the storm beginning to seep through.
That night, whispers spread through the camps. The slaves spoke of tools vanishing, guards turning blind eyes. The strange marks carved into the rock walls of the caves symbols of the storm.
The Ordo was no longer training in secret. It was beginning to move.
The Whispering Blades
It began with the disappearance of a centurion. No body, no blood just his helmet left beside the sea. Then came the merchant ships that docked with half their crew missing and their cargo of weapons gone.
Rome’s prefects called it piracy. The guards called it witchcraft. But Marcus knew better. He had seen the marks black circles intersected by lines like lightning. Carved into the stones where the missing men last stood.
The storm’s sigil.
On the island, Taranis moved through shadow. The Ordo had become something more not merely prisoners, but a network. Smugglers, spies, deserters, slaves. Men who owed no loyalty to Rome but to one another, bound by the mark and by his word.
Their blades were not drawn in open rebellion but in silence. Messages replaced banners; coded phrases replaced oaths. In the dark corners of the empire, the name Lupus became a warning. A curse whispered between soldiers before they slept.
And from time to time, Marcus would find strange bundles left near the guardhouse. Parcels of food, maps, and notes written in a language he did not know. The storm was moving faster than he was capable of reporting.
One night, a messenger boat came through rough seas bearing the Emperor’s seal. A new order had been given:
“Transfer the prisoner known as Lupus to Sicily. The Emperor demands his presence for a special ceremony.”
Marcus read the scroll three times. The words were clear, yet something in him hesitated. He looked toward the cliffs, where lightning split the horizon. The faint echo of a hammer striking iron rang out in the volcanic dark.
The storm was preparing to leave its island.
In the morning, Taranis stood by the docks, chains freshly bound. The soldiers dared not meet his eyes. As he stepped aboard, the sea hissed against the hull, and the sky grumbled above them.
Marcus saluted him not as a guard, but as a soldier to another.
“The gods will tire before you do, Stormborne,” he said quietly.
Taranis smiled faintly, the expression like distant thunder. “They already have.”
The ship set sail toward Sicily. Behind them, the island burned in the dawn. A black wound sealed by smoke, hiding the thousand blades that whispered beneath it.
The storm was no longer waiting. It was coming ashore.
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Artistic depiction reflecting the themes of dominance and rebellion in ‘The shadows of an Empire’ by StormborneLore.
The chains had not grown lighter with time, only quieter. Iron had long since given way to gold, yet weight was still weight . Taranis Stormborne felt every ounce of Rome’s fear in the links that bound him.
The ship that bore him south groaned through black waters. The guards would not meet his eyes. Some crossed themselves; others muttered old charms beneath their breath. When lightning flared over the horizon, a single flash revealed the island ahead jagged, volcanic, crowned with smoke.
His new world. His cage.
They called it Vulcarum Minor, a place for Rome’s unwanted gods.
The emperor had decreed he would not die, only vanish buried in salt and silence, where storms not reach. Yet the sea itself seemed to bow as the chained gladiator stepped onto the black sand. The air shimmered with heat and the scent of sulfur; the cliffs glowed faintly with fire beneath the stone.
There were others there broken soldiers, condemned priests, thieves who had stolen from temples. Men without names. And when they saw him, some whispered, “The Unbroken One.”
At night, when the guards slept, he spoke to them not of rebellion, but of memory.
Of oaths that outlast empires. Of the storm that lived in blood and bone.
Soon the whispers changed shape. The condemned began to mark their shields and cuffs with a blackened handprints. A sign of allegiance in the dark. They trained by moonlight, silent and tireless, forming a circle beneath the cliffs.
Taranis called them his Scutorum Nigrorum the Black Shields.
Not an army, not yet. A brotherhood. A promise.
As weeks became years, their network grew beyond the island. Soon ferrymen, smugglers, slaves who vanished and reappeared with gold, soldiers who served two masters. The storm’s reach was returning, invisible and patient.
When thunder rolled across the straits of Sicily, the guards whispered it was a warning from the gods. But Taranis knew better.
It was a reminder.
That no empire lasts forever.
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Artistic representation of Lore Stormborne, featuring intricate patterns and vivid colors, symbolizing his connection to ancient powers and storms.
Rain fell soft upon Emberhelm not in sheets, but in threads, weaving through the night like strands of memory. Each drop whispered against the walls, tracing paths down stone carved before empires rose. The air smelt of iron, damp moss, and prophecy.
Lore moved through the Hall of Echoes with deliberate silence. The torches burned low, their flames bending in strange rhythm, as though swayed by unseen breath. Beneath the central arch lay the dais of oath and upon it, the gold ring.
It shimmered faintly in the half-light, a pulse of life within metal. Not the glow of firelight, but of something older.
Lore hesitated before it. His reflection warped in its surface his eyes darker, sharper, his face marked by the faint runes of bloodline and burden. “The ring of storm and oath,” he murmured. “The bond of the five.”
He reached out. The moment his fingers brushed it, the hall sighed.
A low hum filled the air not from stone or wind, but from within.
Then came the voice.
“Brother…”
The word was barely sound more vibration, more memory. It coiled through him like smoke through glass.
“Taranis…” Lore whispered, his voice trembling. The name itself seemed to awaken something. The torches guttered. The shadows around the walls began to move not randomly, but with purpose, forming the faint outlines of chained figures, of men bowed beneath lightning.
The ring pulsed again, once, twice. Gold bled to storm-grey.
“Show me,” Lore said. “Show me where he walks.”
The pulse deepened and suddenly, the hall was gone.
He stood in mist. Iron gates loomed before him, slick with rain. Beyond them, sand bloodstained and torn an arena. He heard the roars of lions, the clash of blades, the chanting of a foreign crowd. And there, in the centre, Taranis bare-armed, chained, and unbroken. His eyes like stormlight.
“Still he stands,” Lore breathed.
The vision shattered like glass beneath a hammer. He was back in the hall, gasping, knees to the stone floor. The ring still glowed in his palm, its pulse slowing to match his heartbeat.
He knew then: his brother lived but the bond between them had stirred something greater. The old powers beneath the land the ones the druids had whispered of were waking again.
A new sound reached him. A voice, aged as winter bark.
“The ring calls the storm again,” said Maeve, the seer. She stepped from the shadowed archway, her staff crowned with raven feathers and iron charms. “You’ve felt it too the pulse of the deep earth, the cry of the stones.”
Lore rose slowly. “He lives. I saw him. Rome cannot hold him.”
Maeve’s gaze was sharp, knowing. “No but when the storm returns, it will not come gently. Bonds such as yours were not forged for peace. The land remembers its oaths, Lore Stormborne. The blood remembers. And blood always calls for blood.”
He turned toward the open window, where thunder rolled faintly beyond the hills. The storm clouds were gathering again not yet upon them, but coming.
“Then let it come,” he said softly. “We are Stormborne. We do not kneel to the Empire. We endure… and when the sky breaks, we rise.”
The gold ring flared once more, bright as lightning and somewhere far to the south, in a Roman cell slick with rain, Taranis felt it too.
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.
The morning broke pale and cold, a thin mist rolling across the fields like a ghost that had forgotten its name. My horse shifted beneath me, uneasy. The world felt quieter than it should have been not the quiet of peace, but the kind born from expectation. Something waited ahead.
I had traveled for weeks now, keeping to forgotten roads, trading false names and favours for shelter. Rome’s messengers had ceased for a time, and that silence was heavier than any command. I began to wonder if I had been released… or abandoned.
At night, when the campfire dwindled, I caught myself tracing the symbol of the Ring into the dirt a circle broken clean through. No matter how many times I erased it, my hand drew it again. Habit or guilt, I couldn’t tell. Perhaps both.
Rumours reached me in fragments: a rebellion rising in the north, whispers that Drax had taken to leading the scattered tribes, and that Lore had vanished into the mists of the west, chasing prophecies no man could name. Draven was silent. And Taranis… Taranis had become a legend again.
They said he had escaped Rome’s chains, that his eyes burned brighter than ever, that lightning followed where he walked. I did not believe all of it but I wanted to. The world is easier to bear when its ghosts refuse to stay buried.
One night, beneath a blood-red moon, I reached the edge of the marshlands near Ravenmere. The air there was heavy, each breath tasting of iron and old secrets. The ruins of an outpost stood crooked against the skyline Roman stones built upon older foundations. It felt… familiar.
Inside, beneath moss and dust, I found carvings of the Circle faint, half-effaced by time. Words I had spoken in another life echoed in my memory: “We are the Ring. Bound by oath, unbroken by fear.”
I knelt, running my hand over the stone, feeling the groove of each line. “I broke it,” I whispered. “But perhaps it was already breaking.”
Something stirred in the shadows not human, not beast, but presence. A warmth against the air, like breath drawn from memory itself. For the first time since Emberhelm, I felt the Ring respond.
A whisper, faint but unmistakable, rippled through the ruin. “The Circle is never broken, only divided. The storm remembers.”
I rose slowly, the hairs on my arms prickling. Whatever force had once bound us had not died it waited, fragmented, patient. And now, it was calling.
When I rode from Ravenmere at dawn, I carried no banner, no ally, no command. Only purpose.
The Ring was broken but not gone. And if Taranis still lived, if the others still walked their paths… then the storm was far from finished.
“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.
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 circle of stones stood under a bruised sky. The thirteenth stone, already cracked from the battle at Emberhelm, seemed to strain against itself as though it knew what was coming. Thirteen seats. Only twelve filled.
Taranis Storm to his outlaws stood at the centre. His cloak was damp from rain, his wrist still bandaged from the Hill of Ashes. Around him, the brothers of the Ring shifted like wolves uneasy in their own skins.
Drax spoke first. “The Black Shields raid in your name. The people whisper of you, not of us. The balance is broken.”
“It was never balanced,” Taranis replied. His voice was low, bitter. “We bled for fields that gave us no bread. Rome takes salt from our earth while we quarrel. If I raid, it is to feed our people, not to wear a crown.”
Lore’s eyes flicked to the sky. “And yet the crown follows you, brother. The omens have turned. The storm no longer waits.”
Then Rayne stepped forward, the firelight showing the sly curve of his smile. “No storm lasts forever. Some of us have chosen survival.”
From the shadows came the tramp of iron boots. The air filled with the rhythm of Rome square shields, horsehair crests, iron blades that gleamed even in the grey. The circle of stones was surrounded.
Draven’s face went pale. His lips moved as if to speak, but no words came.
“You led them here,” Taranis said.
Rayne did not deny it. “Our people will live beneath Rome’s law. Better chains of iron than graves of ash.”
The thirteenth stone split with a sound like thunder. Dust trickled down its face. The Ring was broken.
Battle erupted. Drax drew steel, Lore called fire from the runes, Aisin shielded the cradle where Caelum slept. Nessa’s blade sang bright before she was dragged into the fray, her cry lost in the clash.
Taranis fought like the storm itself blade flashing, shield breaking, each stroke cutting down another soldier. But for every man he felled, three more closed in. Nets weighted with lead tangled his limbs. Chains of iron bit deep.
He roared once, a sound that shook the stones. Lightning split the sky as if the gods themselves mourned. Then the Romans dragged him down. His black shield shattered under their boots.
“Take him alive,” the centurion barked. “Rome has use for beasts like this.”
When the fighting ended, the circle lay in ruin. Smoke curled from broken fires. Brothers lay wounded or scattered. The thirteenth stone was nothing but rubble.
Taranis, Storm of Emberhelm, was shackled in chains and marched south along the salt road. Behind him, the old world fell silent. Ahead lay the lash, the arena, and the roar of foreign crowds.
He lifted his head once to the sky and whispered through bloodied lips:
“If I must fight, let it be as storm, not as slave.”
Smoke still curled above the hills, but for now, the killing had paused. The Ring had demanded silence, and the land obeyed with the uneasy stillness of a wolf watching from the edge of firelight.
Taranis sat by the river, sharpening a blade he hadn’t drawn in days. The sound was steady, comforting a ritual older than words.
“You missed your council seat,” Nessa said behind him.
He didn’t turn. “Let them speak in circles. The wind will tell me what they decide.”
She stepped closer, arms folded, eyes sharp as ever. Her hair was damp from the river, her scar still raw but healing.
“You’re their warlord whether you wear a crown or not,” she said. “They listen for your storms.”
“I’m tired of storms,” he said, standing slowly. “I want peace.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Peace from war? Or from yourself?”
That hit deeper than he expected. He turned, finally, and faced her. “Do you ever stop fighting?”
“Only when I’m sleeping.” A half-smile appeared on her face “And sometimes not even then.”
He studied her in the fading light the blood on her hands that hadn’t come from mercy, the way she stood like someone expecting betrayal at any moment. And yet, she was still here.
“They called me cursed,” he said. “Storm-marked. Said I was born to end things, not build them.”
Nessa’s gaze didn’t waver. “Then build something anyway. Let the curse bite its own tail.”
He stepped toward her. Close enough to feel her breath, to see the flecks of gold in her eyes.
“You speak like a seer,” he said.
“I speak like a woman who’s already lost too much to superstition.”
He wanted to reach for her but didn’t. Instead, he offered his hand. Just his hand.
She stared at it like it was a blade, then took it.
No vows were spoken. No gods were called.
But something passed between them in that moment not love, not yet. Something older.
Something true.
Later that Night Emberhelm
Lore lit the sacred fire at the centre of the stone ring. The flame flared blue for a moment unnatural. Ominous.
Draven flinched. Rayne smiled.
“Balance is shifting,” Lore muttered, eyes on the flame. “Something has stirred it.”
Drax stood at the edge of the circle, arms crossed. “He’s with her again.”
Rayne’s voice was soft and snake-slick. “Then let him be. Let him forget his duty.”
Draven shifted uneasily. “If Taranis lets her in, he could let in worse.”
“Or better,” Lore countered. “She may be a sword that cuts both ways.”
Rayne’s grin widened. “Then let’s see what she severs first.”
Outside the circle, a storm began to gather. Quiet, coiled. Watching.
The Circle of Stones, Emberhelm The storm broke slowly, not with thunder, but with footsteps.
Boots echoed between ancient stones as Taranis stepped into the sacred ring, his cloak still damp from river mist. Nessa walked a pace behind him, her eyes wary, her scar bright under the firelight.
The brothers stood in silence as he approached. Drax by the child’s cradle, Lore near the flame, Draven wringing his hands in shadow. Rayne stood like a blade left out in the cold smiling, but never warm.
Taranis’s voice cut through the stillness like flint on steel.
“I know what you speak when I’m not here. I hear it in the wind. I feel it in the ground. You question my loyalty because I do not sit with you every day. Because a girl now walks beside me.”
He looked at each of them in turn not as brothers, but as warriors who once bled beside him.
“Let me be clear. My oath to Caernath stands. I have not broken it. I will not.”
He turned briefly to Nessa, then back to the Ring, his voice rising with quiet fury.
“But I am not made of stone. I am not your thunder without end. Like you, I bleed. I grieve. And I deserve gods be damned to feel joy. To be loved.”
A gust of wind swept through the circle, snuffing one of the smaller fires. The shadows leaned in.
Taranis stepped closer to the central flame, gaze hard now.
“One of you will betray me. I don’t know when, or how. But it will be for power, land, and coin. That truth rots in the air. But hear me now.”
He unsheathed his blade, slowly, and drove it into the earth beside the flame.
“If you seek to take my crown, then come for me openly. Not with poison. Not with lies.”
His eyes flicked to Rayne just a heartbeat.
“Because I will forgive a blade. But I will not forgive a coward.”
The wind stilled. Even the stones seemed to listen.
Drax stepped forward first, his voice low and steady.
“My brother, I believe you. And should the time come I will not stand behind you. I will stand with you.”
Lore said nothing, but he placed his palm on the stone rune before him the sign of silent accord.
Draven looked down, unable to meet anyone’s gaze.
Rayne only smiled, slow and wolfish.
“You speak of storms and love as if either can save you,” he said softly. “But I wonder, brother… which will break you first?”
After Taranis walks away from the fire:
Nessa followed a few paces behind him, silent until they were beyond the edge of the circle. She spoke without looking at him.
“That wasn’t a warning. That was a reckoning.”
Taranis’s voice was low.
“They needed to hear it. And I needed to remember who I am.”
“And who is that?” she asked.
He paused, fingers brushing the hilt of the blade still buried in the earth behind them.
“A man who has been many things. But never loved and still whole.”
StormborneLore 