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 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.
The clouds hung low, casting a strange dark light over the gathering. The council of elders stood in a tight circle around a young boy.
“Stormborne, you are now and forever exiled from this village, this clan, and your family,” the elder leader declared, his eyes fixed on the child. Elder Ysra held the ceremonial staff before her, unmoving.
The little boy turned to his family. “Father, I didnot hurt anyone. Please” he begged, but his words were met with silence.
All thirteen of his brothers turned their backs. Then his mother did the same. Conan, his father, hesitated but looked away, knowing he could not stand against the council.
Taranis ran from the camp, tears blinding him as he fled into the woods. His sprint slowed to a walk. He stumbled across berries and gathered nettles to eat. His first meal as an exile—nettles and nuts.
“Not filling,” he whispered, “but the old ones ate it. Mama used to cook it.” He curled against the base of an ancient tree. Overhead, dragons roared. Wolves howled in the distance.
Time stilled. The ache of loneliness pressed down on him. He missed his brothers, his mothers humming, and even his fathers barked commands. He walked on, aimless, until he saw a white wolf. He froze.
The wolf approached, sniffed him, cautious but curious. Then a large black wolf circled nearby.
“We will not hurt you. Iam Boldolph,’ said the black wolf said not aloud, but directly into his mind.
‘You you wont?” the boy whispered as other wolves approached, dropping meat at his feet.
“No,” said the white wolf, lying down. “We are here to help. Your father sent us. I am Morrigan. Come, lie with me. Warm yourself.”
Taranis walked to her and buried himself in her thick fur. Boldolph stood guard, ever watchful.
He had lost his home, his name, and his kin. He had seen a friend die. Three winters passed, and the boy grew thin and pale, cradled in fur and silence. Then one morning, feverish and weak, he was found.
“Father, hes curled up with the wolves,” a boy said.
“We will take him. He will serve as a slave,” the man replied, lifting Taranis with ease.
They carried him to their camp. Women nursed him back to health, but one day he awoke and reached for his neck. A collar.
“Leave it,” said a teenage boy sitting nearby. ‘They will beat you if you touch it.”
“Who are you?” Taranis rasped.
” I am Solaris of black claw. I am one of your owners sons,” he said, offering him bread. “You are in the Black Claw clans camp. My father found you fevered and curled up with wolves. You are to stay here as a slave.”
From that day, Taranis worked from sunrise to sunset. He obeyed without question, learning to serve in kitchens and at the forge. He heard whispers of a cursed child, exiled and touched by dark forces.
On his eighteenth birthday, he hauled stones beneath the harsh gaze of the masters. One man held a branch, ready to strike.
He was tall now, but thin. His back bore scars from the collar and the lash. All he wanted was to see Boldolph and Morrigan again.
A slap of something warm and wet stung his spine.
“Keep it moving!” barked a voice.
The clan leaders sons played nearby. Solaris laughed with his younger brothers by the grain shed. One of them, a tall boy with a cruel grin, threw a rotten turnip.
It struck Taranis in the chest. The others laughed.
“Stop it,” Solaris snapped. “He is not our enemy.”
“He is a slave,” the older boy sneered. “You and Father found him half-dead. No name, no clan. Just stories of a cursed exile.”
That was me. Eight years old, alone in the snow. They said I was cursed. Touched by darkness.
But I was just a child.
He didnot remember lunging only the feel of dirt flying behind his heels. Rage took over.
The branch came down before he landed a punch.
Crack.
Pain burst across his shoulders. A second strike. A third, slower, deliberate.
Taranis didnot cry out.
The man loomed. “You want to fight the leaders sons? Try again, and we will gut the wolves that raised you. Make you skin them yourself.”
That stopped him.
His vision blurred. He tasted blood his or someone else’s he wasn’t sure but then a shadow blocked the light.
Solaris.
He stepped forward, fists clenched but low.
“You will kill him like this,” Solaris said.
“Hes still breathing,” the overseer growled. “Let the beast learn his place.”
“Hes not a beast.” Solaris growled
Silence.
“I have seen beasts. This ones still human.”
That day, there were no more beatings. But no food either.
Night fell cold. Taranis curled beside the embers, shivering.
Footsteps. He didnot lift his head. If they came to hurt him, so be it.
Something thudded beside him. Bread, wrapped in cloth.
“Its Still warm,” Solaris muttered. “I stole it before dinner. Donot die. Not yet.”
“it’s good I don’t intend to” Taranis took the bread in both hands. The warmth bled into his finger as he stared at the fire. There was a time hed healed a bird, mended his brothers broken arm. Even healed his brother but now He touched his collar.
“I will escape. I will kill them all,’ he whispered.
His family was a fading memory. The names Rayne, Drax, Draven, Lore blurred in his mind.
Then he heard a howl. “Thats Silver,” he whispered.” Thats Boldolph. And Morrigan. They stayed near.”
Men came. They dragged him to a tree marked by rope and tied his hands above his head. Children threw scraps at his face. Laughter. Rotten food.
A man approached. Large, green-eyed, wrapped in furs.
“Slave, you will stay here overnight. No food for two days for daring to touch my son,” he said. “Twenty lashes if you try anything.”
Taranis bowed his head. He knew not to speak. Not to fight.
As they walked away, he remained in silence, bound and bruised.
“Two days,” the man said to a woman. “No food. No water. Do not tend his wounds.”
The coals glowed nearby.
“Make him walk it,” said a boy named Root. They prodded Taranis toward hot stones.
He resisted.
“Please don’t make me’ he pleaded his hands rebound and a tether held by another boy.
“Walk,” another growled.
A younger boy smirked as he stepped across the coals unfazed.
“Hes not normal,” whispered Calor. “Is that the one the enemy fears?”
‘He speaks with wolves. And dragons,” the Seer answered.
“Bring our best fighter,” the leader ordered. “Let them fight.”
They dragged Taranis, barely conscious, to the firelit circle. The crowd formed in a crooked ring.
Barefoot, bruised, he stood in the dirt. His collar scraped with every breath.
Rukar, the clans champion, stepped forward. Twice his size. A necklace of teeth. Leather-wrapped fists.
“Fight,” the elder barked.
No weapons. No mercy.
The first punch knocked him flat. The second split his lip.
Thunder cracked. Lightning danced.
“Come on, exile,” someone jeered. “Show us your curse.”
But Taranis rolled. Rukars foot slammed into a stone instead of ribs.
Taranis launched upward, shoulder-first into Rukars knee. The brute staggered.
Dirt in the eyes. A headbutt. Teeth bared like a wolf.
Rukar swung. Another blow grazed Taranis temple. Blood poured.
This was not about victory.
It was about survival.
He twisted low, locking Rukars arm. A snap echoed. The champion fell, howling.
Silence.
Taranis knelt over him, ready to strike.
He didn’t move. He just stood
Bloodied. Shaking. Alive.
The Seers voice broke the silence. “The wolves taught him well.”
Taranis bowed to the master, kneeling as he had once knelt to his father.
“Take him to the tree,” the leader said. “Hes now a warrior-slave. He will earn his freedom in battle. But punishment for attacking my son still stands.”
They resecured him to the tree, pain burning through every limb.
Later that night, Solaris approached with broth. His father watched.
“You are a warrior-slave now,” Solaris said. “They will send you to war.”
StormborneLore 