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