The name hung in the air between them, solid as the border stones. Kragen. Thorne's mind reeled, scrambling to reconcile the legend with the flesh-and-blood man before him. The hero of the waterfall, the martyr of the eastern ridges—alive. The first instinct was a surge of wild, disbelieving joy, but it was instantly drowned by a colder, sharper tide of suspicion. Thirty years. Where had he been? Why return now, stepping out of the shadows as if from a tale?
Before Thorne could voice the protest burning in his throat, the forest around them stirred. The Hella scouting party, summoned by his alert whistle, emerged from the trees in a silent, coordinated ring. Four hunters, bows half-drawn, expressions hard and assessing as they took in the scene: their Alpha facing a mountain of a stranger in bear fur.
One of them, an older scout named Borin with a patch over a missing eye, lowered his bow first. He squinted, his single eye widening in disbelief. He took a stumbling step forward, his weathered face crumbling into an expression of pure shock. "By the blood of the fallen…" he breathed. His voice, usually a gravelly whisper, rose in tremulous awe. "Lord Kragen?"
The stranger—Kragen—turned his grey gaze from Thorne to Borin. A flicker of recognition passed over his scarred face. "Borin. Still cheating at dice, I see."
It was confirmation. Borin dropped to one knee, a fist clenched over his heart in the old Vanguard salute. The other scouts, younger men who knew the name only from fireside epics, gaped, slowly lowering their weapons.
"We… we thought you captured. Or dead in the Valdahal," Borin said, rising, his eye glistening. "Lady Xena… she'll weep. She'll weep and then she'll box your ears for taking so long."
At the mention of his mother, Thorne finally found his voice, though it was rough, unfamiliar to his own ears. "Wait." The word cut through the reverence. All eyes turned to him. He kept his gaze locked on Kragen. "You vanish for a lifetime. You let her believe you were dead. You let me believe it. And you just… walk back?"
Kragen met his stare, the fondness in his eyes now tempered by an understanding of the pain his absence had caused. "The path back was longer than the path away, boy. And it required a different kind of fighting." He turned back to Borin, his tone shifting to one of command, the natural authority of a born captain slicing through the emotional chaos. "Take me to Mnior. Now. And to my sister."
It was not a request. It was the order of a man who had led armies, a tone that brooked no delay, not even from a skeptical nephew who was now Alpha. Thorne saw the scouts straighten, old reflexes kicking in. The confusion on their faces was being overridden by a deeper, ingrained loyalty.
Thorne's jaw tightened. This man, this ghost, was usurping his authority on the very border he was sworn to protect. The rage from the ritual, still simmering beneath his skin, found a new focus. But before he could assert himself, Kragen was already moving, following Borin who led the way with a reverent urgency. The other scouts fell in around him, a makeshift honor guard for a resurrected hero.
Thorne stood rooted for a moment, Axel coming to his side. "Thorne…" Axel murmured, his face a mask of bewildered concern.
"Follow him," Thorne growled, the words tasting of ash. He fell into step behind the group, his mind a churn of conflicting emotions. The man from the ritual—the young, fierce protector turning to face a Lord—was here, aged and hardened. What scenes had his life been filled with? The question was a splinter in Thorne's mind.
As they moved deeper into Hella territory, past the hidden sentinel points and into the heart of the settlement, a strange procession formed. Word spread with the speed of a forest fire. Doors of bark and hide opened. Faces appeared, etched with curiosity that swiftly transformed into stunned recognition among the older members. Whispers became murmurs, then hushed, reverent exclamations. "Is that…?" "It can't be!" "The Shield of Valdahal…"
Kragen walked through it all with a weary, deliberate pace, acknowledging the stares of the old warriors with slight nods, his expression unreadable. He was absorbing the changes, the thirty years of growth and hidden life. His gaze took in the clever tree-dwellings, the training yards, the small, sturdy forge mythe kingdom in exile Mnior and Xena had built from sweat and will.
As they approached the central clearing where Mnior's great lodge stood, built into the base of a trio of intertwined oaks, Kragen stopped. He turned, his eyes finding Thorne again in the growing crowd. He looked at him, really looked, from his boots to the set of his shoulders, to the storm in his grey eyes. The earlier smile returned, but it was different now—proud, fierce, and tinged with an infinite sadness.
"He grew," Kragen said, not to Thorne, but to the space beside him, as if speaking to a memory.
A man Thorne recognized as Aldin, one of Mnior's original captains, materialized at Kragen's elbow. He was one of the few who had known Kragen as more than a story. In a low, choked voice, he answered the unspoken thought. "Aye. Strong. Like his father in stature. But with your sister's fire, and your own… relentlessness." Olwen placed a tentative hand on Kragen's fur-clad shoulder. "It is good to see you, brother. We feared the mountain had taken you."
Kragen placed his own massive hand over Aldin's, a brief, powerful squeeze. "The mountain tried," he rumbled. Then he continued walking, his stride more purposeful now, a man nearing the end of a decades-long journey.
They approached Mnior's lodge. The activity of the clearing had hushed, dozens of Hella pack members watching in a silence thick with anticipation. At the entrance to the lodge, a woman stood on a low stool, hanging a freshly washed bear fur on a stretching frame. Her back was to them, her movements efficient and strong, her dark hair streaked with silver braided neatly down her back.
Kragen stopped. The entire world seemed to stop with him. He made no sound, but his presence was a tremor in the air.
Xena, sensing the profound silence, paused. She turned, a faint line of irritation between her brows at the interruption. Her eyes, those storied storm-grey eyes, swept over the gathered crowd, passed over Thorne's tense form, and landed on the giant in the bear-fur cloak.
Time fractured.
Her hands, which had been firm and sure on the fur, fell to her sides. The color drained from her face, leaving her pale as moonstone. Her lips parted, but no sound came out. She took a half-step back, her heel missing the stool. She would have fallen if the frame hadn't been there to catch her.
For a long, agonizing moment, she simply stared, her mind refusing to process the image. It was a face from her deepest nightmares and her most desperate prayers, aged by decades of hardship, scarred by battles she could only imagine, but undeniably, irrevocably his. The brother who had been her other half. The shield who had promised to draw the hunt away.
A single, ragged breath shuddered through her. Then another. The shock in her eyes melted, transforming through a lightning-fast journey of disbelief, dawning, impossible hope, and a love so vast it shook her slender frame.
The word that finally broke the silence of thirty years was not a shout, not a sob, but a whisper that carried across the clearing with the force of a thunderclap.
"Brother."