Tag: books

Shadows Between Brothers

The camp lay quiet beneath a bruised sky.

“Father, what does exile mean?” Julius asked, peering up with wide, uncertain eyes.

Before Drax could answer, Marcus spoke first, his tone full of the confidence only youth could forge.
“It means Father can kill Uncle Taranis. It means Uncle has no home, and should be on his island. Right, Father?”

The fire crackled. For a long moment, Drax said nothing. The weight of the question pressed heavier than the armour across his shoulders.

“No, Marcus,” he said at last, voice low. “Exile does not always mean an enemy. Sometimes it means Rome has no place for a man who refuses to kneel.”

The boys exchanged a glance, uncertain. Julius frowned. “But you serve Rome. Uncle does not.”

Drax looked out toward the dark treeline where his brother had vanished. The smoke twisting like ghostly fingers into the grey sky. “I serve peace,” he said. “Rome just calls it something else.”

“Will you fight him, Father?”

Drax’s jaw tightened. “If I must. But I hope the gods grant me a choice before that day.”

Marcus turned back to the fire, his expression thoughtful. “Uncle said the storm’s already here.”

“Aye,” Drax murmured, his gaze distant. “And sometimes the storm wears a familiar face.”

Thunder grumbled again, rolling through the valleys. Drax drew his cloak closer. Feeling the weight of legacy settle across him the burden of blood and oath, of brotherhood turned to legend.

Somewhere beyond the hills, Taranis walked free.

Drax, bound by Rome and duty, wondered who among them was truly exiled.

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

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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
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.

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

October 9, 2025
The Ceremony of Chains

The sea that carried him south was blood-red at dusk. The waves flecked with gold like the veins of a dying god.

Taranis stood chained at the bow . His eyes fixed on the horizon where Sicily’s black cliffs rose from the mist. Around him, soldiers whispered prayers, unsure if they guarded a man or something older.

Rome had sent for him again.
The Emperor’s priests claimed the island’s fires would cleanse the gods’ anger. But that the immortal gladiator Lupus. The Storm of the North must walk in chains through their sacred flames to renew Rome’s favour.

They called it The Ceremony of Chains.

As the ship docked, the air thickened with incense and fear. Bronze masks watched from the shore senators, generals, augurs, all gathered to witness what none understood.

“Bring him forth,” ordered a centurion.
Marcus obeyed, his jaw tight. He had seen Taranis survive pits that killed a hundred men, storms that tore stone apart. As he led him down the ramp, he murmured under his breath, “Don’t give them what they want, Lupus.”

Taranis smiled faintly. “I never have.”

They chained him to the altar of basalt, the metal glowing as the fire licked the air. The priests began their chants words of dominion, of empire everlasting.

But the wind shifted. Smoke twisted against their rhythm, curling into strange shapes wings, or storm clouds forming in defiance.

Then the first crack of thunder rolled across the sea.

The Emperor rose, hand trembling on the railing. “What is this?”

Marcus stepped back, eyes wide. “It’s him, sire. The storm doesn’t serve you. It never did.”

Lightning tore through the sky, striking the temple spire. The crowd scattered. Chains melted, ringing against stone like falling bells. Taranis stood midst the fire, eyes burning gold, his voice carrying across the chaos.

“Your empire fed on storms. Now taste one.”

When the smoke cleared, the altar was empty.

Only the scent of ozone and a single iron shackle remained cracked, blackened, and humming softly like a heartbeat.

© 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 9, 2025
Unseen Forces: The Rise of Taranis in Rome

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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Further Reading

The Prophecies and Tales of Taranis Unfolded

October 8, 2025
The Island of Fire

The island rose like a wound from the sea. Cliffs blackened by smoke and jagged rock, licked by molten streams that hissed as they met the waves.

Taranis Stormborne stepped onto the scorched soil, chains clinking, eyes burning with quiet fury. The guards flinched at his gaze, sensing a storm that would not be tamed.

Days and nights blurred into one endless trial. He lifted stones heavier than any sword, endured storms that tore at his flesh., Taranis bore the mockery of Rome’s guards.

Yet each hardship was fuel. Each lash, each shout, An each impossible task was a lesson in patience. In endurance, in power that is quiet but absolute.

He was not alone for long. The exiles, criminals, and broken soldiers were gathered by the emperor’s decree.

Taranis was sent to the island as unwanted remnants of a fading empire. Many despaired, some sought only survival. But Taranis saw potential. In every desperate man, he saw loyalty waiting to be earned, strength waiting to be honed.

Under the cloak of night, he gathered the willing. They trained in secret. The volcanic caves became their arena; the cliffs their obstacle course. The ash-strewn beaches their battlefield. Each man swore a quiet oath, blackened by soot and sealed with the mark of the hand.

They were no longer prisoners. They were the first of the Black Shields the Ordo Scutorum Nigrorum.

Messages traveled beyond the island. But the smugglers whispered of shadows moving in the hills. As escaped slaves returned bearing tales of a golden-eyed gladiator who taught men the secrets of survival and strategy. Rome did not yet hear the name, but the seeds were planted. A storm was coming, and it carried the memory of chains.

In the stillness of volcanic nights, Taranis would climb the cliffs alone, facing lightning forks across the horizon. He lifted his face to the sky, the wind whipping across scars older than the empire itself.

“Soon,” he whispered, voice low as distant thunder,
“the storm will awaken. And all who have betrayed the storm will bow… or fall.”

Years passed like tides, and the island became a crucible. Every man, every strike of the hammer, every lesson whispered in the dark. Was a note in a symphony that only Taranis heard. The Ordo grew, silent and unstoppable. Not an army, not yet. But a promise. A shadow. A storm that waited.

The world beyond the cliffs continued, oblivious to the wheels turning in secret. And when Rome faltered, as it always would, the storm would be ready to rise again.

“Hey, what’s his Roman name? I heard it’s Lupus,” a young boy said, looking to Marcus as he walked to his cell.

“I don’t care what they call me,” Taranis replied, voice low and rough. “But answer me this, Dominus when do I see the arena again? Or am I deemed too dangerous?”

© 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 8, 2025
Empire’s Fall: The Story of Taranis Stormborne

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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© 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 8, 2025
Exile and Legends: The Story of Taranis and His Chains

The Echoes of Chains

A hundred years had passed since the storm was bound.

A hundred winters since Taranis Stormborne’s chains had sung beneath Rome’s hand yet still, his name whispered across the camps and the courts like a ghost too proud to fade.

In the hall of the Legion’s veterans, laughter rose among the embers.
Drax, Draven, and Lore sat together with old friends, all bound by immortality, all marked by the centuries. The world had changed around them Rome had fallen, risen, and reshaped itself but some wounds did not age.

“They want to see how far they can push him before he dies,” one of the legionnaires said, swirling wine dark as blood in his cup. “The Empire’s still obsessed with him. Calls him champion now.”

Draven’s brow arched. “Champion?” he repeated, half with scorn, half with disbelief. “The Emperor’s champion? Then he’s no prisoner he’s a prize.”

Another man leaned closer, the firelight cutting sharp lines across his face. “Word is they’ll grant him exile. An island of his own. Somewhere the storms never touch.”

Lore laughed softly though there was no warmth in it. “Exile,” he said. “Rome’s mercy always comes wrapped in iron.”

Marcos older than them all, though untouched by time raised his cup. “Your brother’s no man anymore,” he said quietly. “He’s a story they can’t kill. A weapon they don’t understand.”

The hall fell silent. Only the fire spoke a low hiss, a breath of smoke curling upward.

A woman’s voice, cool as silver, broke the quiet. Calisto, immortal like the brothers, leaned against the pillar’s shadow. “Calisto owns your brother now,” she said. “Gladiator. Slave. Sold to noble women to keep their beds warm and their secrets buried.”

Draven’s hand tightened on the table. “You speak lies,” he growled.

Marcos shook his head slowly. “Not lies. Rome believes a man can be broken if he’s humiliated long enough.” His eyes darkened. “They never understood what blood he carried.”

Drax stared into the fire, jaw set like stone. “Then they’ve forgotten what happens when storms remember,” he murmured.

Outside, thunder rolled faintly over the hills distant, but coming closer.

October 7, 2025
Unlocking Ancient Powers: Lore Stormborne’s Awakening

The Whisper Beneath Stone

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.

October 7, 2025