The fire still smouldered in the trial circle. Ash drifted across the camp like falling snow, silent and strange. But Taranis was already moving.
“There’s one more thing I need to do.”
Grael watched him from the shadows. He didn’t speak. He didn’t stop him either.
Boldolph padded beside Taranis in silence. Solaris followed, clutching a waterskin and a roll of cloth. Morrigan trailed at a distance, her red eyes glowing faintly.
They passed the old fletcher’s tent, the burned tree where whippings once took place, the bone pits that had once broken men.
“Where are we going?” Solaris asked quietly.
Taranis didn’t answer. He was listening not to voices, but to memory. He remembered a cough in the dark. A cry. The scraping of small fingers against stone.
“There’s a cage,” he said. “Near the quarry. They kept the youngest there. Said they were too small to work.”
The Pit They reached it just after dusk. The trees pressed tight around the stone hollow. At first, it looked abandoned broken boards, a slanted gate, silence.
Then a sound. A whimper.
Boldolph’s ears twitched.
Taranis crouched and pulled aside the brambles. A metal grate, rusted and choked with moss, covered a square hole in the earth.
“Help me,” he said.
Solaris held the torch. Boldolph tore at the frame with claws. Morrigan bared her teeth and bit through the last knot of rope.
Beneath, the darkness shivered.
A child peered up.
Eyes too wide. Bones too thin.
“We’re not guards,” Taranis said gently. “We’ve come to end this.”
There were eleven in total.
Some crawled. Some limped. One couldn’t speak. One clutched a half-rotten toy made from bark and wool. They emerged into the night like ghosts made of dirt and silence.
Taranis knelt before each one and touched their shoulders.
“No more pits. No more cages. I swear it.”
The eldest maybe ten looked at the wolves with fear. Then at Taranis.
“They’ll just chain us again.”
“Not if I teach you to fight,” he said. “Not if I teach you to speak.”
He turned to Solaris.
“They will need warmth. Names. A place.”
Solaris nodded.
“We will give them more than that. We will give them stories.”
A New Fire That night, Taranis did not return to his tent. He built a new fire at the edge of the camp. The children gathered near it, cautious, blinking at the light.
He laid out bowls of stew. He let them sit in silence.
Then he rose and spoke to the camp.
“They were buried alive in your shadows. Chained so young they forgot their own names.”
“This camp lives because of silence. But not anymore.”
“I will raise them. Feed them. Train them.”
“And one day, they will raise others.”
Grael stood from the back. He did not speak, but he gave a slow nod.
The Seer who had named Taranis walked to the fire and added herbs to it. The scent rose sharp rosemary and root. A symbol of memory.
“This fire,” she said, “is the first fire of the Order of Dawn.”
Taranis looked to Boldolph and smiled. There was fire behind his storm-grey eyes.
But he didn’t move.
Instead, he turned his gaze toward the centre of camp. A wide ring of bark and stone had been cleared where the warriors gathered in a hush that pressed against the skin. Grael stood tall at its edge, arms folded, flanked by his elite. One Seer stood silently with her staff grounded. Another stood beside her, cloaked in black and waiting.
Boldolph’s voice was low.
“You know this is bait.”
“I know,” Taranis said. “Let them bite.”
He raised his voice so all could hear.
“So where are the others, Grael? There were six of them. Six men who buried me alive. Are they here?”
Grael said nothing. His jaw clenched but no order came. The silence stretched like a drawn bowstring.
Taranis stepped forward. His torn cloak dragged behind him. Dirt still clung to his skin. The obsidian pendant swung from his chest, sharp as a blade and darker than the sky.
“You trained them. You gave them command. You stood idle when they dragged me from my fire and threw me in the earth like a beast.”
A ripple of movement stirred the crowd. Solaris moved silently to the left of Boldolph, his eyes alert. Morrigan circled the outer edge, her gaze sharper than any blade. The wolves were close, not quite in the circle, but near enough to strike.
The cloaked Seer stepped forward, her voice smooth and cold as river ice.
“And what are you now? A firewalker? A spirit in flesh? A wolf’s loyal mutt? You defied your masters. You broke laws. You call yourself marked as if it were a blessing. It is a curse.”
Taranis turned to face her. His tone was calm, but his voice carried like distant thunder.
“I am marked. Yes. Marked by flame and by fang. Marked by gods your kind no longer dare name.”
He looked across the ring, locking eyes with those who once saw him as nothing more than a chained boy.
“I wore the collar. I bore the mask. I bled into your soil and came back stronger. The dragon did not strike me down. It bowed.”
The first Seer the one who had first spoken of prophecy moved forward without a word. She laced her bone staff on the earth between them, the sound like a drumbeat in the dirt.
“Then let truth be spoken. Words before war. This circle is the law.”
The Circle Two lines formed. One stood behind the cloaked Seer and the old ways. The other stood in silence, eyes uncertain but shifting, behind the Seer who had named him Stormborne.
Grael remained between them all. He spoke nothing. But the weight of his silence was a blade in the dust.
The rival Seer raised her chin, her cloak fluttering as a sudden gust caught the air.
“Storms are sent as punishment. They do not crown kings. They drown them.”
Taranis stepped into the centre and lifted the obsidian pendant high.
“Then why did the storm not drown me?”
He turned slowly, meeting the eyes of warriors, elders, hunters, servants — and children.
“You speak of punishment. But where was your justice when a boy was chained for speaking truth? Where was your mercy when they threw me into a grave and danced over it?”
A murmur passed through the gathering, slow and spreading like rising smoke.
A healer stepped forward. She clutched a satchel of herbs, her hands trembling, but her voice rang clear.
“I stitched that boy once. His ribs were bruised. His wrists bled. I said nothing. I was afraid. But I will not stay silent again.”
Taranis gave her a solemn nod.
“Then speak now. Let every voice rise. This land will not be ruled by silence.”
The cloaked Seer opened her mouth to answer, but no sound came. She felt the tide turn and stepped back. The people had shifted.
A father stepped forward next, then a girl who’d once carried water to chained boys. An older warrior, limping from an old wound, nodded slowly. For the first time, Grael’s expression flickered — not with rage, but with understanding.
Verdict Grael finally stepped into the circle. The pressure broke like thunder in the air. He scanned the faces around him — warriors he had trained, people he had led. Then he looked to Taranis.
“The six who attacked you are dead or have run. That is not mercy. That is law. They broke it.”
He turned toward the Seers.
“But from this day, we follow one voice. Not the loudest. Not the oldest. The one the flame has not burned. The one the dragon did not kill.”
He turned his eyes on Taranis.
“The one who rose.”
From the back of the crowd, a girl no older than ten stepped forward. Her hair was matted but her eyes were bright with memory. She held a scrap of wolf-fur in her small hands.
“You pulled me from the pit. The dark place. I saw you in the fire. You held the sun in your hand.”
Taranis knelt before her, gently resting a hand over hers.
“Then keep that memory. Let it burn in you, not through you.”
He rose slowly, the firelight catching in his eyes. Then he turned to face the whole circle.
“No more collars. No more chains. No more silence. This is no longer a camp. It is a beginning.”
The wolves howled not out of hunger or fury, but in echo of a vow they once made long ago. A vow that now passed from wolf to man, and from man to child.
The first Seer stepped beside Grael and whispered a single truth.
“Stormborne.”
Solaris stepped closer, his voice a whisper only Taranis could hear.
“So what does that make you now?”
Taranis looked out at the crowd, at the firelit faces, the broken chains now lying in the dust, the wolves resting at the edge of the light. Then he looked to Solaris and smiled.
“A man. A friend. A warrior, if Grael will train me. Perhaps a healer. First in the line of the Order of Dawn.” He paused, gaze rising to the stars above. “Or maybe just someone who lived when he should have died.”
He turned back to Solaris, his voice soft.
“Who knows what tomorrow will give?”
And for the first time since exile, Taranis Stormborne laughed not out of pride, not out of pain, but because for once, the wind didn’t sting.
The wind rolled down from the mountain like a warning.
Three days had passed since the Trial by Fire. Taranis had been seen walking beside Grael’s warhorse, the shattered collar left behind, and the obsidian pendant still warm against his chest. But not everyone had accepted his transformation.
Some called him storm-marked. Others, cursed.
In a low tent near the edge of camp, whispers brewed.
“He defied the gods,” one said.
“Walked through flame and came out smiling,” said another.
“Flame tricks the weak. It blinds.”
The men gathered around the edge of the fire, cloaks pulled close against the creeping mist. They weren’t Grael’s most loyal, nor Solaris’s brothers. They were wolves without a pack mercenaries who had once served the Clawclan, now waiting for coin and chaos.
They didn’t wear Stormborne colours. Not yet.
“Tonight,” muttered Kareth, his eyes gleaming with spite. “We do what fire could not.”
A few nodded.
“He should’ve died in chains. He’s no warrior. He’s a beast.”
“And beasts don’t get reborn.”
They struck after moonrise.
Taranis had gone to the stream to refill his waterskin, alone as he often did, choosing solitude over celebration. The camp had begun to sleep. The guards were half-drunk from fermented berry wine.
They came from the trees six of them. Faces covered, blades drawn.
The first blow caught him across the shoulder, sending him to the ground.
“Traitor,” one hissed. “Freak.”
Taranis fought back with bare fists, striking like the wolf they feared but it was too many. A second dagger found his ribs. A club broke across his spine.
He fell to one knee.
They kicked him until he stopped moving.
Until his breathing went quiet.
Until he bled into the moss and stones.
They dragged the body to the far side of camp, past the standing stones, into a hollow in the woods where no firelight reached.
They left no markers. No words. Just dirt over his body and a curse on their breath.
“He walks no more,” Kareth said. “The storm dies in silence.”
And they returned to camp, blades clean, alibis ready.
No one would find him.
No one would weep.
They believed the gods had finally corrected their mistake.
But Taranis was not dead.
He dreamed of fire.
He dreamed of wolves.
He dreamed of the black dragon watching from above not with pity, but with fury.
And beneath the soil, his fingers twitched.
The early morning sin rose and grael could be heard hollering
“STORMBORNE WHERE ARE YOU?” grael shouted looking around for taranis
“He fled, he’s a coward” one of kareths men said smirking Wolves circled where his body lay leading them to discover taranis body still and cold.
Two days passed “we will find him tether him again no escape this time.” A warrior said as the wolves circled a piece of land “Hes dead grael” a Saris said “He deserves a real burying ” another said
The earth did not keep him.
Not on the first day, when silence reigned. Not on the second, when the wolves came. But on the third the wind changed.
At first, just a shift. A stillness. Then, a scent.
Morrigan arrived first. White fur gleaming against the ash-darkened trees. She paced in a wide circle around the hollow. Then came Boldolph, the black wolf, teeth bared, hackles raised.
They howled.
A low, haunting sound not grief. Warning.
Grael rode at once, followed by Solaris and half the guard. When they reached the hollow, they found the wolves digging. Claws tearing through dirt, paws flinging soil like rain.
Grael dismounted. Something in his chest cracked.
“Taranis…”
Solaris dropped to his knees beside the wolves, hands trembling.
“Help me dig!”
No one moved until the first scrap of cloth was exposed. A torn edge of tunic, blood-black, crusted to the earth.
Then the digging began in earnest.
It took three men and two wolves to drag the body out.
He was pale. Lips cracked. Blood dried to his skin. The obsidian pendant still hung around his neck, dirt pressed into the ridges.
One eye was swollen shut. Bruises ran like vines across his chest and arms.
But he was breathing.
Shallow. Ragged. But alive.
Solaris shouted for the healer. Grael stared at the boy like he was seeing a ghost.
“No burial mound,” he said softly. “No cairn. Just a shallow grave… and a storm too stubborn to die.”
The healer worked in silence, hands quick and firm. Crushed pine and fireweed were pressed into the wounds, stitched with thread made from gut and hope. Taranis didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. Each time the wind shifted, the wolves growled low in their throats, sensing the old power flicker just beneath his skin.
By nightfall, they had moved him to a guarded hut near the heart of camp. Four warriors stood watch. Grael gave orders that anyone who tried to enter unbidden would be struck down no questions asked.
Solaris sat beside the boy, wiping dried blood from his temple.
“You stubborn bastard,” he whispered. “Even the grave gave up on you.”
Taranis didn’t reply. But his eyes opened barely and fixed on the obsidian pendant now laid upon his chest.
Grael returned before moonrise.
“Speak if you can,” he said.
Taranis’s voice was a thread. “They buried me.”
“I know.”
“They didn’t even check.”
“I know that too.”
“Will you punish them?”
Grael paused. “I already have.”
He tossed something at Solaris’s feet a piece of fur, torn and bloodied.
“Kareth?”
“Gone,” Grael said. “Dragged into the trees by Boldolph. I don’t expect him back.”
Silence settled between them again.
“I should be dead,” Taranis murmured.
Grael nodded slowly. “You were.”
That night, as the wind moaned through the valley, a scout returned from the northern ridge.
“There’s smoke again,” she said. “Not ours. Not Clawclan. Something… older.”
She hesitated before finishing.
“There’s no fire. But trees are blackened. Stones cracked. Something passed through.”
“What kind of something?” Grael asked.
The scout swallowed.
“The kind that flies without wings.”
By dawn, word had spread. Taranis had survived. Taranis had risen.
They called it impossible. Witchcraft. Proof of corruption.
But some whispered another name.
Stormborne.
He stood the next morning.
Not for long, and not without pain, but he stood.
Morrigan watched from the doorway. She did not enter only nodded once, her red eyes gleaming.
“Even the wolves thought you were lost,” Solaris said.
“I was,” Taranis replied, voice raw. “But I heard them. In the soil. Calling.”
He stepped out into the morning light slow, stiff, but upright. The warriors turned to look. One dropped to a knee. Another stepped back in fear.
Grael met him near the edge of the camp.
“We’re riding soon. There are still wars to fight.”
Taranis nodded. “Then I’ll ride.”
“No packs,” Grael said. “No chains.”
Solaris handed him his cloak. “And no grave can hold you.”
Taranis turned to the standing stones, where birds now circled. Thunder echoed in the far hills.
He placed his palm against the earth the earth that had tried to hold him.
“Not today,” he whispered. “I am not done.”
In Emberhelm, the elders would speak of that day for generations.
The day the Stormborne rose from the grave. The day the wolves howled not for mourning but for warning.
And from that moment on, no one dared bury him again.
The trial fire still burned in the hearts of the warriors long after the flames had faded.
They left the stone circle at sunrise, the air thick with silence. Taranis walked unbound now, but still marked the collar firm around his neck, his wrists bruised, the pendant of obsidian pressing warm against his chest beneath the tunic Solaris had given him.
No one spoke of the dragon.
They didn’t need to. Its shadow had burned itself into every man’s memory.
By midday, they reached the edge of a sprawling war camp carved between high ridges and pine forest. Smoke rose from scattered fires. Grael dismounted first and gave the order for rest and supplies. Taranis stood nearby, posture straight, though his limbs ached from the days of trials and visions.
A hush followed him wherever he moved. Some men nodded. Others turned away.
One older warrior spat at his feet and muttered, “Dragon-kissed freak.”
Taranis didn’t respond. But Grael saw and said nothing.
Inside the central tent, the tension grew.
“You should exile him,” said Kareth, a clan captain with blood on his hands and ambition in his eyes. “Or bind him again. The men are talking.”
“This boy walks free after breaking formation, defying orders, and drawing the attention of beasts older than the gods?”
Grael looked up from the war map.
“Exactly. He walked through fire and survived. He fought off Clawclan while half my guard bled out in the dirt. He was named by a Seer. You want to leash him again? You do it.”
Kareth hesitated. “If he leads a rebellion, it’ll be your head.”
“No,” Grael said. “It’ll be his. If he earns death, he’ll find it. But if he earns something more, I won’t stand in the way.”
That night, Taranis sat near the outer fire, the pendant warm against his chest again. Solaris approached with a fresh poultice and a torn piece of roasted meat.
A growl echoed in the hills not wolf, not wind. Something deeper. Some warriors looked up. A few rose to check their weapons.
A young scout came running from the ridge.
“Smoke! North side. Something’s burning!”
They scrambled toward the hill’s edge and saw it.
A rival clan’s border camp was ash and ruin. No screams, no survivors. Only smoldering black earth and claw marks in the rock.
“Raiders?” Solaris asked.
“No,” Taranis said quietly. “It’s a warning.”
Grael joined them, silent, jaw tight.
Kareth was already shouting. “This is what he brings! The dragon follows him. Death follows him!”
“No,” Taranis said. “The dragon doesn’t follow me. It watches.”
“Same thing.”
Grael raised a hand. “Enough. We return to Emberhelm. There, the chieftains will decide what happens next.”
The journey to Emberhelm took two days. The stone fortress carved into the mountains stood stark against the dawn ancient, proud, watching the valley like a sentinel.
When they entered, the whispers turned to stares.
Children peeked from behind barrels. Elders crossed their arms. A group of shieldmaidens flanking the gate parted only after Grael rode forward and gave the sign.
Taranis dismounted, cloak billowing slightly behind him. No chains. No mask. Only the obsidian pendant.
In the Great Hall, the Five Voices of the War Council sat in a semi-circle.
Old warriors. Mothers of fallen sons. Leaders of lesser clans.
One stood Sern, a matriarch with fire in her eyes and silver in her braid.
“We saw the storm,” she said. “We saw the dragon’s wings. We heard the Seer’s cry.”
Another voice cut in a young man named Fenric, blood cousin to the boy Taranis had crippled.
“He’s cursed. He bled our kin, broke our laws, walked with beasts. Now you bring him here unbound?”
Grael stepped forward. “I bring you a warrior.”
“Not yet,” Sern said. “Not until the rite is finished.”
“What rite?” Taranis asked.
She pointed to the firepit at the centre of the chamber.
“You were bound by man. Now let the flame judge if you are bound by fate.”
They handed him a staff and stripped him to the waist. The collar remained. So did the pendant.
The fire was lit with dried hawthorn, wolf hair, and elder root.
He stepped into the circle.
“Do you claim name or no name?” Lady Sern asked.
Taranis raised his head. “I claim the storm.”
A gust of wind blew through the open doors behind him.
“Then speak your vow.”
Taranis closed his eyes.
“I was chained as beast. I was broken by man. But I rise not to rule only to walk free. I serve the flame, the wolves, the storm. If I break my word, may the dragon turn from me.”
He thrust the staff into the fire.
It did not burn.
Instead, the flame spiraled into the air and far above, the sky answered with a distant roar.
The hall went silent.
Lady Sern bowed her head.
“Then you are no longer beast. Nor slave. Nor tool.”
She placed her hand on his collar.
“From this day, you are Stormborne.”
She broke the collar with a hammer of bronze.
The pieces fell to the stone floor like the last chains of a life left behind.
Does that mean he’s free?” Solaris asked.
Taranis placed a hand to his neck, fingers brushing the worn ridge where the collar had once pressed deep.
“Or am I to be exiled?”
A hush fell again, broken only by the wind rustling through the pine above.
“Exile him,” came a voice from the gathered crowd, “and I will hunt him myself.”
All heads turned.
It was not Grael who spoke, nor one of the regular warband. It was a man cloaked in dark fur, standing apart from the others near the treeline scarred face, sun-dark skin, hair braided with bone. A chieftain from another clan.
“He bears the storm’s mark. He’s no beast. No slave. And not mine to cast out.” His voice was low, graveled with age and fire. “But if you send him away, don’t expect him to come back.”
Taranis didn’t flinch. His eyes locked on the stranger’s. He neither bowed nor raised his head. Just… endured.
Grael stepped forward.
“He’s not exiled,” the general said. “Nor is he yet free. The trial burned away the mask, but chains leave scars longer than flame.”
“And what is he now?” Solaris asked.
Grael looked to the warriors, the gathered villagers, the scouts and wounded men who had seen the dragon descend.
“He is Stormborne,” he said. “Named not by man, but by thunder. And while I draw breath, that name will be honoured.”
There was a ripple in the crowd not agreement, not rejection. Just change. Unease becoming belief.
Taranis turned to Solaris. “Then I stay?”
Solaris nodded. “If you want to.”
“I don’t know what I want,” the boy admitted. “I only know I’m still breathing.”
Beside him, the black scale the one left by the dragon was now strung on a simple leather thong, hanging from his belt like a forgotten relic. He touched it once, gently.
A woman stepped forward from the watching crowd. She carried no weapons only a clay bowl filled with ash and herbs.
“I came from the ridge when I heard the trial fire was lit,” she said. “If the dragon marked him, then his wounds must be sealed properly. Not with chains. With earth.”
She knelt before Taranis and dipped two fingers into the bowl. Ash and sage stained her fingertips. She reached up and slowly touched each side of his jaw where the mask had pressed hardest.
“You have walked through smoke,” she whispered. “Now rise through flame.”
Taranis stood, a little taller than before.
Grael gave a curt nod. “We break camp tomorrow. Clawclan still stirs in the lowlands. But the boy rides his own horse now. No packs. No tether.”
“And the collar?” Solaris asked.
Grael glanced at it now lying in the dirt.
“Leave it where it fell.”
As the crowd began to scatter, a new chant rose quietly from the younger warriors near the fire.
The campfire had burned low when Solaris approached the general.
Taranis knelt nearby, his wrists loosely bound, the bone collar still tight against his throat. The punishment mask lay beside him, waiting.
“Sir?” Solaris said cautiously. “Are we binding him again?”
Grael didn’t answer immediately. He watched the boy the blood-crusted bruises, the unspoken tension in his shoulders, the way his eyes never stopped scanning the shadows.
“He walks beside the horse now,” Grael said. “Not behind it. That’s earned.”
“But he’s still tethered?” solaris said
Grael nodded. “Until he earns trust with more than fire.”
Solaris stepped closer, lowering his voice. “And the food? He eats with us now?”
“He eats what he earns. No more. No less.” grael said
Taranis stirred then, lifting his head. His voice cracked as he spoke.
“Now I’ve got one foot in both worlds… the world of a chosen, and one of an outcast.” He looked at them both. “One move and I could be executed. The other move, and be honoured.”
Solaris winced as the mask was fitted back over the boy’s face.
“Why the mask again?” he asked.
“To remind him,” Grael said. “And to remind us.”
“Of what?”
“That chains and power aren’t opposites. They’re a balance.”
Taranis tried to move from grael and the other warriors tried to move his head so the mask wouldn’t go on as a dragon flew over head
“Put it on” grael ordered
“No I’m human just like you”
Taranis jerked back, blood still dried in the corners of his mouth. The dragon’s shadow passed again overhead, and something ancient stirred in his chest not rage, not fear, but refusal.
“I said no!” he growled, voice muffled but defiant.
Solaris stepped between him and the other warriors. “Wait. He’s not”
Too late.
One of the guards lunged forward, grabbing the mask. Taranis shoved back, throwing his shoulder into the man’s chest. The warrior stumbled, caught off guard by the boy’s strength.
Another grabbed his arm but Taranis twisted, slammed his elbow into the man’s face.
Blood sprayed.
Chaos erupted.
Three warriors tried to restrain him now. Grael did not move. He watched.
Taranis fought like a cornered wolf. Wild. Desperate. Silent.
The mask hit the ground and cracked in two.
When they finally wrestled him down, he was bleeding from the nose and lip, panting like an animal. His wrists were raw, eyes wild.
But he was smiling.
“You see me now?” he said through gritted teeth. “I’m not yours.”
Solaris stood frozen. The broken mask lay at his feet.
Grael finally stepped forward.
“Enough,” he barked.
The warriors pulled back.
Taranis didn’t rise. He waited.
“Let him up,” Grael ordered. “And don’t touch him again tonight.”
“But sir” a guard started.
“I said don’t.”
Grael looked down at the broken mask, then at the blood on Taranis’s knuckles.
“You broke it,” he said flatly.
“I’d break a hundred more,” Taranis spat.
Grael didn’t respond. Instead, he knelt.
“You want to be seen? Fine. Then let the clans see what you are.”
He picked up the shattered halves of the mask.
“You’ll wear no disguise. No shield. Not until you earn a new one.”
Taranis met his gaze. “Good.”
Grael stood.
“But remember this, boy there’s a cost to being seen. You can’t take it back.”
Taranis said nothing.
The dragon roared again in the sky.
Solaris knelt beside him later, whispering, “You’re going to get yourself killed.”
Taranis looked at the stars.
“Or freed.”
“What will it take for him to be freed?” Solaris asked
“Freedom for him? He crippled your brother, he killed a farmer, used by the gods themselves, stories say he killed a bird as a child and his village was killed before his exile freedom is a long way off. What do you say grael ?” A warrior asked
Grael remained silent for a long while. The fire crackled. Embers danced. “I say,” he murmured, “we’ve seen men freed for less… and killed for more.”
He tossed the shattered mask into the flames.
“If he was sent by the gods, then they’ll test him again. Until then, he walks. He bleeds. He earns.”
A warrior scoffed. “And when the next village sees that face?”
“Then let them decide,” Grael said. “Fear him. Pity him. Curse him. But they’ll see him without the mask. And so will we.”
Taranis didn’t flinch. He stared into the fire, as if daring it to speak.
Grael remained silent for a long while.
The fire crackled between them. Sparks drifted upward into the night, like fleeing ghosts. Taranis sat still, blood streaking his jaw, the collar tight around his throat. The broken mask lay shattered near the flames.
He stepped forward and tossed the mask into the fire. It hissed as it cracked deeper, flames licking the black bone.
A warrior scoffed. “And when the next village sees that face? He crippled a boy. His own kin say he’s cursed. What do we tell them?”
“Tell them the truth,” Grael replied. “He wears no mask because he broke it. He walks unchained because I said so. And if that offends them, they can challenge it by trial.”
Another man spat. “The Seer warned us he carries the fire without flame. You think a prophecy makes him safe?”
“I think,” Solaris said quietly, “he didn’t run when he could’ve. He fought. He stood. He bled beside us.”
Silence settled again.
Then Grael turned to his men, sweeping his eyes across the ring of warriors.
“Fine,” he said. “Let the clans decide. Those who want him gone, speak now.”
A few murmurs, but none stepped forward.
“Those who would test him, not as a slave, but as a warrior raise your blades.”
One sword lifted. Then another. And another.
Not all.
But enough.
Taranis watched them. His chest rose and fell slowly. The embers reflected in his eyes.
“So be it,” Grael said. “Tomorrow at first light, he joins the line. No chains. No mask. One trial. If he survives the boy becomes flame.”
A hush fell across the camp.
Solaris leaned down beside him. “You’ve got one shot.”
Taranis looked up, a flicker of defiance in his eyes.
“Then I’ll make it burn.”
The company reached the ancient ruins just after dusk.
Twisted trees clawed at the moonlight, their roots entwined with blackened stones. Smoke drifted from old hearth pits, and torches lined the perimeter of what once had been a stronghold now just skeletal walls and broken pillars.
They called it the Bones of Fire, where traitors, exiles, and monsters were judged in the old ways.
Taranis was unshackled but flanked by two guards. His collar still bit into his skin, and dried blood streaked his jaw. He walked unbound, but every step echoed like thunder. Warriors lined the central circle, murmuring. Some remembered his defiance. Others remembered the dragon.
At the heart of the ruins stood a black stone altar scorched by lightning, older than the clans themselves. Grael waited there, sword at his side, expression unreadable.
A Seer stood beside him the same woman from the fire, robed in bone and shadow.
“This place,” Solaris whispered, stepping beside Taranis, “is where they test souls.”
“I thought I already failed,” Taranis said, not looking at him.
“No. This is where they see if you can rise.”
The crowd hushed as Grael raised his hand.
“Taranis of no clan. Slave by judgment. Exile by blood. Chosen by storm or cursed by fire,” the general said. “You stand here not as a man, but as a question. The people demand an answer.”
The Seer stepped forward, her voice like wind through hollow bones.
“You are accused of rebellion, violence, and breaking the old order. But the gods remember your name. So the trial shall be by the elements by Fire, by Bone, and by Storm.”
Murmurs rippled through the crowd.
Grael gestured, and three warriors brought forth the tools: a flame bowl carved of obsidian, a bone blade wrapped in cords of sinew, and a weathered spearhead struck once by lightning.
“You will face each,” the Seer said. “If you fall, your death is justice. If you rise, you walk reborn.”
Solaris stepped forward. “He saved us. He held the line”
“And still the trial stands,” Grael said. “This is not for you, Flamekeeper. This is between him and the gods.”
Taranis stepped into the circle.
“I’m not afraid,” he said.
“You should be,” the Seer whispered.
They began with Fire.
Taranis knelt before the obsidian bowl. Flames danced without smoke. The Seer extended her hand.
“Reach into the fire. Take the coal. Speak no sound.”
He did.
Pain erupted, white and total, but he did not scream. The coal branded his palm. Smoke curled from his clenched fist but his jaw never broke. When he stood, the mark glowed faintly.
Next came Bone.
He was handed the blade and told to carve a single rune into his chest a mark of truth.
“Only the worthy know which symbol to choose,” the Seer said.
Taranis hesitated.
Then slowly, he pressed the blade to his chest and etched a spiral. Not of chaos, but of growth the same symbol the Seer had once placed in his hand. Blood streamed down his ribs. Still, he stood.
Then came Storm.
They placed him at the peak of the ruin, where the wind screamed like a thousand dead warriors. He had to face the sky and remain standing until the gods answered or until the storm broke him.
Lightning gathered. Thunder rolled.
The dragon came.
Not with flame, but with presence a black silhouette circling high above.
StormborneLore 