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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