The Forgotten Blood
Rayne collapsed before the cairnfire, the thick iron collar still tight around his neck. Etched with the jagged insignia of the Black Claw. Solaris had rushed to his side. Morrigan gathered water from the well, whispering healing words she barely remembered. Lore cast protective wards. Boldolph paced, fuming, red eyes narrowed beneath a heavy brow.
“This is madness,” Boldolph snarled, watching the collar pulse faintly with some cursed sigil. “The boy’s half-starved, and that brand it reeks of shadow magic.”
“He’s not a boy anymore,” Drax muttered. “He’s seen things. Same as the rest of us.”
“No child should wear chains,” Solaris said, voice tight. “Not in Emberhelm.”
Lore knelt by Rayne’s side, laying fingers over the rusted iron. “It’s not just a collar. It’s a seal. A blood-binding rune carved into bone. They meant for him to die wearing it.”
“And yet he made it back,” Morrigan added, her hand resting gently on Rayne’s fevered brow. “That means something.”
Taranis hadn’t spoken since Rayne collapsed. He stood just outside the circle of firelight. Eyes locked on the far horizon where Black Claw lands stretched like bruises across the night. Pendragon shifted restlessly behind him, wings tight to his sides.
“They have Draven,” Rayne had rasped before falling unconscious. “They kept him… because of me.”
That had been enough.
Without another word, Taranis had mounted the black dragon and taken to the sky.
The wind screamed around him, colder than it should have been for summer. Taranis kept low over the ridges, scanning the burned-out lands for signs of encampments. Black Claw banners once flew here clawed glyphs torn into hides, marked with bone. Now, they hid in the ruins, like maggots beneath ash.
Pendragon dove suddenly, a cry bursting from his throat.
There a ridge of slate carved into makeshift battlements. A fortress not meant to keep armies out, but prisoners in.
Taranis landed hard, blade drawn before his boots touched the ground. He didn’t speak. He didn’t call out.
He moved.
Two guards fell before they could scream lightning dancing along the edges of his blade. A third tried to flee. Pendragon caught him mid-run and dropped him without effort.
Taranis moved through the ruined keep like a storm incarnate silent, swift, merciless. These were slavers, torturers, the kind who’d once held him in chains. He knew every sound of their cruelty.
He’d been trained in their darkness. Now he wielded it against them.
In the lower chamber, he found Draven.
Naked but for rags, wrists chained above his head, bruises blooming along his ribs. He lifted his face at the sound of boots.
“Taranis?” he croaked.
“I’m here,” his brother said.
“You came back…”
“I always come back.”
Taranis cut the chains in two strokes, catching his brother as he fell.
“Can you walk?”
“No.”
“Then I’ll carry you.”
He slung Draven over his shoulder and stormed out as the keep burned behind him.
Not once did he look back.
By the time Taranis returned to Emberhelm, Rayne was awake.
Solaris had removed the collar with Lore’s help shattering it against a carved cairnstone. It took three days of chanting, and a night of fire that refused to go out. Boldolph had offered to chew the thing apart. Morrigan declined the offer.
Rayne sat in the healing hall, bandaged and trembling. When Taranis entered carrying Draven, the boy’s face crumpled.
“You got him.”
“I said I would.”
Morrigan rushed forward. “Lay him here.”
Taranis set Draven down gently. Lore began his work, murmuring ancient words. Solaris lit the fire with a whispered flame. Rayne crawled forward and took his brother’s hand.
“I’m sorry,” Rayne whispered. “I told them everything. They used me. And I still couldn’t save him.”
“You survived,” Taranis said. “That was enough.”
Drax entered moments later, axe slung over his back.
“You went alone.”
“I didn’t need an army.”
“You’re lucky I like you, brother.”
Boldolph huffed from the doorway. “I told you not to go alone. Next time, I’m riding the dragon.”
Pendragon let out a soft growl as if agreeing.
“Next time,” Taranis said, “there won’t be a need.”
That night, they gathered in the Hall of Storms. The Three Houses stood beneath banners newly hung. The thunder-mark of Tempestras, the flame glyph of Ignis, and the silver eclipse of Umbra.
Rayne, still weak but standing, stepped forward.
“I was taken when I followed a shadow beyond the border. They said my blood would buy silence. But my silence almost cost a life.”
Taranis laid a hand on his brother’s shoulder.
“It is not your shame to carry.”
“No,” Rayne said, looking around, “but I want to stay. I want to fight. I want to belong.”
Lore smiled. “Then choose your house.”
Rayne hesitated.
Then: “House of the Shadow.”
Umbra’s banner unfurled behind him.
Draven, barely upright, spoke next.
“I never stopped believing we’d meet again. Even when they broke my ribs and chained my hands. I clung to the howl of a wolf I couldn’t see. I thought it was memory. Now I know it was Boldolph.”
The great wolf-man stepped forward, placing a fist over his chest.
“You’re one of us.”
Draven smiled through broken teeth. “Then I choose House of the Storm.”
The warriors roared their approval.
Taranis turned to Solaris.
“We’ve brought them back. But we’re not finished, are we?”
“No,” Solaris replied. “Not until all chains are broken.”
Boldolph grunted. “I say we raise a hunt. Take out the last Black Claw den.”
Drax cracked his knuckles. “Been waiting for that.”
Lore added quietly, “We’ll need more than swords. The blood magic they used—it’s older than the cairnstones.”
Taranis nodded.
“Then we rebuild. We teach. We prepare.”
He turned to face the assembled tribes.
“The era of exile is over. The age of the Stormborne rises.”
And above them, Pendragon howled not in anger.
But in unity.
Later, as the fires dimmed, Boldolph stood outside the gates, leaning on his axe like a watchful father. Morrigan brought him stew.
“You stayed.”
“I always stay.”
“Still think about eating Taranis?”
“Not lately.”
They laughed quietly.
“Do you think they’ll ever stop fearing him?” Morrigan asked.
“No,” Boldolph said. “But that’s not what matters.”
He turned to her, eyes soft.
“They follow him anyway.”
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