The Storm Returns

The tide was retreating when they found the broken chains. The sight of melted iron through as if struck by lightning.

“Gods preserve us,” whispered one of the guards, stepping back. “No blade have done that.”

Tiberius knelt beside the scorched links. “He didn’t break free,” he muttered. “He shed them.”

The centurion barked orders.,Sending riders to the northern watch and ships to sweep the channel. But even as they moved, the sky began to darken. The wind shifted, dragging the scent of iron and rain across the water.

“He’s gone home,” Tiberius said at last. “Back to the place Rome never tamed.”

“To Britannia?” asked the young guard again, voice shaking.

“Aye,” said the older legionary. “And if the stories are true, every storm between here and there will answer his call.”

From the cliffs, they can see the faint shimmer of the sea calm for now, but seething beneath.

The Emperor’s standard flapped once, hard enough to snap its pole.

“Should we tell the mainland?” the centurion asked.

Tiberius stood slowly, eyes on the horizon. “Tell them nothing. Let them think he drowned. If the gods favour us, maybe they’ll believe it.”

But none of them truly did.
Even as the orders went out, the men felt the pressure in the air, that strange stillness before thunder. Somewhere far to the north, in the heart of Britannia, the wind began to rise.

“What if he’s caught out there commander?”

Tiberius didn’t answer at first. His eyes stayed on the sea, the horizon split between light and shadow.

“If he’s caught,” he said finally, “then the sea itself will break first.”

The young guard frowned. “You speak as if he’s a god.”

Tiberius turned to him, his face hard. “You weren’t here when they brought him in chains. You didn’t see the storm that followed. The ships burned before they reached the harbour. No oil, no fire arrows, just lightning, and him standing in the rain, laughing.”

The guard swallowed, his knuckles white around his spear.

Another soldier older, scarred, voice low spat into the dirt. “Men like that ain’t gods. They’re reminders. Rome builds, Rome burns, and the earth keeps its own count.”

Thunder rolled far out to sea, deep and slow.

“Get word to the docks,” Tiberius ordered. “Seal the forges. Lock down the armoury. And if the Emperor asks…”
He paused, eyes narrowing.
“…tell him the storm never left the island.”

The men scattered to obey, but above them, the gulls were already fleeing inland.

The wind picked up again not from the west, but the north.
And on the water, beneath a bruised sky, something vast and dark moved with purpose.

Taranis stood at the prow of the small boat, the sea hissing beneath its hull as if warning him back.
He only smiled.

The wind carried the scent of earth his earth and beyond the mist. The cliffs of Britannia rose like the bones of old gods. Behind him, the island of exile vanished into shadow. Before him lay vengeance, memory, and the ghosts of his kin.

“Home,” he murmured. “Or what’s left of it.”

His brothers would be the first. Drax, bound by Rome’s gold and law; Rayne, lost between loyalty and freedom. Then the old comrades, the broken men who once bore the wolf upon their shields.
The Black Shields would rise again not as soldiers. But as something Rome can not name and never kill.

He shifted his weight, watching the distant shoreline of Letocetum take shape through the fog.

Beyond that lay the salt pits of Salinae. The forests near Vertis, the villages that still whispered his name like a curse and a prayer.

“Word travels faster than ships,” he said to the empty wind. “By the time I step ashore, they’ll already know.”

Lightning rippled across the far horizon, faint but deliberate, as though the heavens themselves answered.

He gripped the tiller and laughed quietly to himself not with joy. But with the fierce certainty of a man who had waited too long to be mortal anymore.

When the first gulls circled overhead and the shore drew near, Taranis whispered the words that had haunted his exile.

“Rome fears the storm. Now it will remember why.”

The tide carried him in. Somewhere in the fort at Rutupiae Drax Stormborne turned toward the sea. With a feeling of dread, without knowing, that the storm had come home.

Thank you for reading.

© 2025 Emma Hewitt / StormborneLore. All rights reserved.
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