A vibrant painting depicting a colorful tree beneath a bright blue sky, symbolizing life and renewal.
Rest Beneath the Tree
At last they came to the tree.
It rose from the earth as though the hill itself had forced it skyward roots tangled deep, bark silvered with age, branches spread wide like the arms of a giant blessing or warning all who passed beneath. The ground around it was hushed, as if even the wind dared not trespass too loudly here.
Storm staggered to its shade and lowered himself to the roots. The weight of his wounds and weariness pressed him down, yet the tree seemed to hold him as gently as a cradle. He breathed slow, leaning against the trunk, and for the first time since the hill of ashes he felt his heart’s trembling ease.
The others made camp nearby, but left him undisturbed. Brianna spread her cloak by the fire, her eyes flicking often toward where he lay. Cadan tended the embers, muttering half-prayers, half-jests. The boy slept curled by the packs, his face still wet with the salt of grief.
Storm closed his eyes.
The world changed.
The tree shone with light, its roots glowing as though molten, its crown alive with whispering voices. Wolves circled him in the half-dark Boldolph and Morrigan among them, their eyes like coals, their howls joining others long gone. Above the branches wheeled Pendragon and Tairneanach, wings stirring thunder in a sky that was not a sky.
The gold ring gleamed on his finger once more. Its weight was not a burden but a bond. And the tree’s voice, deep as the earth itself, rolled through his marrow:
Rest, child of storm. The road is not ended. Every root remembers. Every leaf bears witness. You are bound to us, as we are bound to you.
Storm reached out and pressed his palm to the bark. He felt its strength answer, steadying his own. When his eyes opened, dawn was breaking.
Brianna stood ready with her blade. Cadan was already packing. The boy stirred from sleep.
Storm rose slowly, his body aching but his spirit steadier, and gave the tree one last look. The mark of his hand remained upon the trunk, a faint glow where blood and dream had mingled.
Told from Morrigan’s point of view. Lyrical, sorrowful, protective.
They buried him where the roots run deep, beneath a sky that would not speak. No stone, no name, no parting word just silence where the storm once stirred.
But we are not gods, nor men who flee. We are wolves, and wolves still see.
I smelled his blood. I heard his cry. I knew the truth, he did not die.
They called him beast, then cast him low but ash does not forget the glow.
So we dug with fang, with heart, with howl, we marked the traitors, bone and soul.
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 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.”
The courtyard had long emptied. The ash of the fire pits still glowed faintly, casting soft light on stone walls and weary limbs.
Taranis sat alone, legs stretched, a jug of broth in one hand,. the other flexing and sore from the clash with Boldolph.
The crack of staffs still echoed in his bones.
Footsteps approached not boots, but clawed paws. Heavy, padded, unmistakable.
Boldolph.
Without a word, the old wolf-man knelt beside him, a strip of clean linen in hand. He took Taranis’s wrist and began to bind the bruises, slow and methodical, like a ritual done a hundred times.
“You didn’t hold back,” Taranis said after a moment.
“You didn’t ask me to.”
The silence between them was old, familiar. Like the stillness before a storm. Or the hush before a boy became a warlord.
“I needed them to see I bleed too,” Taranis muttered, wincing as the linen tightened. “That I fall. That I get back up.”
Boldolph grunted.
“They already know you bleed,” he said. “They just needed to see you still feel it.”
Taranis looked toward the sky. Smoke trailed like threads into the blackness. One dragon circled high above, a quiet sentinel.
“I keep thinking,” he said, “about when I was exiled. Alone in the wilds. All I had was that storm inside me and the promise that no one was coming.”
He looked down at the staff beside him.
“And now… now there’s you. Solaris. Lore. Drax. Rayne. Even Draven. I have everything I never thought I would. And I don’t know how to hold it without crushing it.”
Boldolph didn’t speak at first. Just poured a second jug of broth and handed it to him.
Then he said, low and hoarse: “Every beast that’s ever bared teeth knows fear. Not of pain. Of losing what it’s fought to protect.”
He paused, eyes distant.
“I was exiled once too. Long before you were born. I clawed through snow and silence, not knowing if I was cursed or chosen. I still don’t.”
Taranis turned to him.
“You stayed. Even cursed. Even as a wolf.”
Boldolph nodded.
“Because someone had to. And because I believed that one day, the one I guarded would understand the weight of the fire he carried.”
The flames crackled beside them. Taranis took a slow sip of broth.
“I understand it now.”
Boldolph gave a grunt soft, almost approving. Then he stood, stretched, and turned toward the shadows.
“You’re not alone anymore, High Warlord,” he said. “Stop trying to fight like you are.”
Then he was gone, back into the night, tail flicking behind him like a whisper of old magic.
Taranis sat a while longer.
Then he smiled.
Not like a warlord. Not like a weapon.
Like a man who had bled, fallen, and been lifted again by the hand of a wolf.
They say it happened on the edge of the fire season. When the trees stood crisp as tinder and the sky was low with storm breath. The boy was no longer just a boy then not quite a man, not quite a ghost. They called him Taranis Stormborne, though none dared speak it aloud after what he did that day.
He had been wandering for days with Boldolph limping and Morrigan stalking ahead like a shade. Hunger bit at them, sharp and constant. The streams were low, and even the birds had gone quiet. But it was not food that found them first it was smoke.
Taranis crouched low in the bracken and smelled it before he saw it: the reek of burning pitch, not wildfire. Deliberate. He motioned with his hand, and the wolves flanked him in silence. Through the underbrush, he saw it the den.
Nestled beneath the roots of an ancient yew was a she-wolf, panting, bloodied, and gravid with life. Around her lay ash and ruin. Two men not of Taranis’s tribe circled the den with torches and stone axes. Laughing. Taunting.
One of them stepped too close, and the she-wolf lunged. He clubbed her across the snout, and she crumpled, still breathing. Taranis felt something stir in his chest something hot and ancient, older than exile.
“She has done no wrong,” he muttered to the wind. “Then why do I burn?”
He rose from the bracken like thunder. The wolves ran with him, all teeth and fury. The first man turned and Taranis’s spear was already flying. It found flesh.
The second man screamed, torch raised but Morrigan leapt, black shadow, and his cry was cut short. The woods howled then, louder than wolves, louder than any storm. A torch dropped. The dry brush caught.
Flame leapt into the canopy.
Taranis didn’t run.
He tore the yew’s roots apart with bleeding hands and dragged the she-wolf to safety. Boldolph howled into the fire’s roar, guiding him. He covered her with his own cloak and stood between her and the blaze, smoke pouring into his lungs.
When the fire passed, the glade was scorched, the sky blackened and the she-wolf was alive.
She gave birth beneath the ashes, three pups whimpering in the smoldering earth.
One with a streak of red across its back. One with golden eyes. One with fur white as ash.
They say those pups were no ordinary wolves. They say the Phoenix’s line began that night the fire born. The storm guided, the ones who would follow only him.
But when Taranis rose from the ruin. His face black with soot and eyes like lightning, the people stopped calling him cursed.
They called him something else.
Stormfire. Brother of Wolves. Protector of the Ashborn.
StormborneLore 