Category: Emberhelm

The Crone

Written by

emma.stormbornelore
in

The moon shone in the darkest of nights as I gathered the herbs.Around my cave herbs of healing yarrow and nettle being the most used by our clan.

Only eight winters ago the leader of claw clan approached me. My son in custody I see him a bone chain around his neck.

“What do you want Clun?” I asked the small balding man dressed in simple furs .

“We promise no harm to the children,” said the tall man wrapped in makeshift coats. He thrust a small vial towards me “You’ll have your son by sunrise. Just brew a sleeping draft. Put Camp Utthar to sleep.”

I hesitated. The chief of Utthar had been good to us took my family in when no one else would. But River was my son. My blood. My only hope my future what else I do?

I nodded slowly but looked to my boy a sadness stirred in me. Ad i gathered berries, roots, sacred herbs and stirred them into the pot by firelight. That night, the warriors, the women, the children… all fell into deep, enchanted sleep.

So deep was the sleep that no one stirred when the men of Clun entered the encampment. As The Clun men crept in silent as shadow, savage as flame.

I watched from the trees as my eldest, Ryn, was dragged into camp forced to witness the massacre. His voice was broken when he turned to me:

“What did you do, Mother?!”Ryn cried

A silent attack killing women children and men who remained within the camp. Fifty men died that night warriors hunters their wives and children.

“You promised you’d leave the children” I cried

I was aware that utther wife had been taken to a local cave. A safe place where she would give birth when the time was right.

“Foolish old lady, why would we leave our enemies children? When they will grow to seek vengeance” Clun smirked riding away

I was left staring at the devastation . The next days passed and the Chief returned from battle, his warriors behind them. The chiefs horn was heard and his sons replied with the wolfs howl. But they ran with newborns in their arms Boldolph leading the charge.

Time froze the wind stilled as boldolph approached his father

“They came in the still of night no one would wake up. The claw killed all of then father and she helped” boldolph replied as if giving his report

Suddenly the screams came

“Take her! Bind her!” Raven shouted.
“She betrayed the family! Everyone’s dead! Mother’s alive but in labour!”

One of the wounded men pointed at me with blood on his chest.

“We heard her whispering with the Clun.
She brewed the sleeping draft… then brought death upon us.”

I turned and ran wishing for cover ducking from branches and jumping over roots from trees. The sound of hounds barking after me my heart racing beating like the drums. The hounds found me first. The men were not far behind.

They bound me in ropes and dragged me back to camp, fear pounding through my veins like war drums. Then he came…

Boldolph stood at seven feet tall.
“Let me have her,” he growled but his eyes softened when they found Morrigan, his wife, weeping with in a cave

“Lox is dead she did it” morrigan said

“We have her,” a man spat, dragging me by the hair.i screamed trying to fight against the men holding me

The chieftain stood tall.

“Whitehair, you have betrayed your tribe. Look around you. This is your doing you butchered them in their sleep.” The cheiftan said “Take her to the rocks. Strip her name. Cut her nose and tongue. Then bind her and take her far from here.”

The punishment was swift.

The curse came faster.

Before they dragged me away, my final spell shattered the night:

“May your line suffer,
May your form twist,
Until one born cursed by storms,
Breaks the wheel with mercy and fire.”

And then, the transformation.

As I was dragged out I could hear the howls of pain and anguish from boldolph and his mate morrigan. as Boldolph the giant, and Morrigan the gentle, were torn from flesh and given fur. Wolves. Forever cursed.

Later, bound and broken, I was dragged to the sacred stone. They beat me. Stripped me of sound. My nose. My tongue. My name.

Blindfolded, I was taken to lands unknown far beyond the reach of kin or mercy.

But my magic remains.
So does the curse.
And the storm is not yet done.

I could still taste blood.

The salt of my torn tongue. The copper of betrayal. The earth where they left me bound, blindfolded. my hands lashed with nettles so tightly i still bear scars decades later.

They called it mercy.

But mercy would have been death.

Instead, they gave me exile: cast beyond the sacred stones with only the breath in my lungs. The curse they feared more than her voice.

Ad i crawled for days dragging my broken body through marsh and thorn. Wolves circled but did not bite. Ravens flew overhead but did not cry. And the spirits… the spirits walked with me.
I did not die i became something else.

Something older than their laws.

As i found shelter in the hollow of a tree once used by midwives. A place where blood had been spilled in both birth and death. There, pressed my palms to the bark, and for the first time in weeks, i did not feel pain.

Only power.

It rose from the roots. From the bones buried deep the old ones, the forgotten, the nameless. Their stories rushed into me like a storm tide.

And over time i remembered my own name.

Not the one they spat when they cursed me. Not the one the elders tore from the village scrolls.

But the one my mother gave me beneath the silvery moon.

“Cceridwyn,” whispered, mouth bleeding, lips cracked.

As the Years passed more people feared me. As i walked among the bones now, barefoot and veiled. My form barely seen except by those on the edge of death or madness. Her tongue never healed. Her voice never returned. But her curse… her curse remained intact.

And more potent than ever.

For every 13th child born of her bloodline, a sign would come:
A sickness no healer cure.
Eyes the colour of stormlight.
A voice that spoke truths no one taught.

The 13th of the 13th would be the end or the beginning.

She waits still.
Her bones lighter now, her spirit heavier.
Watching as the stories repeat,
as her great-grandson walks into the same woods where she once crawled.

Taranis.
The boy with the storm in his chest.

The one they tried to exile, like her.

But this time…
the storm remembers.

© written and created by ELHewitt

October 13, 2025
Secrets of the Western Marches: A Tale of War and Loyalty

The dawn broke pale and brittle over the Western Marches. Mist clung to the hillsides like the remnants of a long-forgotten battle. The scent of wet earth hung thick in the air.

Drax Stormborne rode alone, the wolf badge at his breast glinting faintly in the weak light. Each hoof beat a steady rhythm against the quiet of the land.

Reports had come from the southern villages. Whispers of movement along the coast, smuggled supplies disappearing into the night, and the black shields stirring in secret. Rome called it rebellion. Drax called it preparation.

He paused at the ridge, scanning the valley below. The smoke curled from chimneys, thin and innocent. Yet he saw in it the same threads of tension that had always followed his family. Every glance, every movement, was a calculation an unspoken war between loyalty, law, and blood.

A courier approached, riding hard across the hill track. Drax reined in his horse. The rider’s eyes were wide with urgency, breath steaming in the cold morning.

“High Sheriff,” the courier gasped, bowing slightly. “The exiles… they’ve moved. South, toward the old Roman fort. But there are… signs. Traps, and sentries placed where none should be.”

Drax’s jaw tightened. He dismounted slowly, brushing mud from his cloak. “And our men?”

“Silent,” the rider said. “They wait, as you instructed. Patient. Watching.”

Drax nodded, feeling the familiar weight of responsibility press upon him. Patience, observation, action the long game. His thoughts flickered to Taranis, chained in distant Rome. Memories of the oath that bound him not just to the Empire, but to family. To storm.

He turned to the courier. “See to it that no one moves without my signal. Keep the villages safe. Let Rome believe all is still. But let our shadow fall across the fort when the time is right. The storm will not wait forever.”

Lightning fractured across the distant sky, a whisper of thunder rolling over the hills. Drax lifted his gaze and felt it stir through him, golden and alive. The storm was patient, and so would he be.

For when the winds finally tore through the land, nothing not even Rome would withstand it.

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

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your support keeps the storm alive and the chronicles continuing.

October 10, 2025
Volcanic Echoes: The Forgotten Island’s Tale

The Fire of the Forgotten

The island smoldered beneath a grey dawn, volcanic ash drifting in spirals that mirrored the labyrinth of the Black Shields’ training paths. Taranis Stormborne stood atop a jagged cliff, chains long gone, his shadow cast over the men who moved like echoes of his command.

“Strength is patience,” he reminded them, voice low but unyielding. “Silence is more than absence; it is a weapon.”

The men obeyed, their movements precise, their eyes alert to every change in wind or light. Exiles, criminals, and freed soldiers had become something else entirely a force of quiet purpose. In the flickering smoke of the island’s vents, Taranis traced lines in the sand, marking the future with symbols only they understood.

A scout returned, breathless and wide-eyed. “Rumors, Lupus… Rome speaks of shadows in the hills, whispers of an army unknown.”

Taranis nodded, the storm within him mirrored in the sky above. Lightning tore across the horizon. “Let them whisper,” he said. “Every shadow will remind them: the storm bends, but it never breaks.”

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

If you enjoyed this story, like, share, or leave a comment your support keeps the storm alive and the chronicles continuing.

October 10, 2025
Rayne: Master of Shadows and Discord

They call him the storm, the unbroken one, but they do not see the cracks beneath the surface. I do. I have always seen.

From the shadows of Rome’s streets to the secret alleys where whispers become currency, I move like a shadow with purpose. The Black Shields rise under Taranis, but they are not invincible and I am patient. One misstep, one flicker of hesitation, and the scales will tip.

My brothers do not trust me nor should they. Loyalty is a chain, and I have never been bound. Drax enforces law. Lore watches omens. Taranis commands storms. And I… I navigate the spaces in between, sowing discord where it will serve me best, testing their strength, and waiting for the moment the tide shifts in my favor.

Rome believes in its security, its arenas, its chains. Let them. I move unseen, the quiet question mark, the shadow that unsettles even the bravest hearts.

“Every storm has a fissure. Every chain a weak link. And I will find them.”

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October 9, 2025
Exile and Legends: The Story of Taranis and His Chains

The Echoes of Chains

A hundred years had passed since the storm was bound.

A hundred winters since Taranis Stormborne’s chains had sung beneath Rome’s hand yet still, his name whispered across the camps and the courts like a ghost too proud to fade.

In the hall of the Legion’s veterans, laughter rose among the embers.
Drax, Draven, and Lore sat together with old friends, all bound by immortality, all marked by the centuries. The world had changed around them Rome had fallen, risen, and reshaped itself but some wounds did not age.

“They want to see how far they can push him before he dies,” one of the legionnaires said, swirling wine dark as blood in his cup. “The Empire’s still obsessed with him. Calls him champion now.”

Draven’s brow arched. “Champion?” he repeated, half with scorn, half with disbelief. “The Emperor’s champion? Then he’s no prisoner he’s a prize.”

Another man leaned closer, the firelight cutting sharp lines across his face. “Word is they’ll grant him exile. An island of his own. Somewhere the storms never touch.”

Lore laughed softly though there was no warmth in it. “Exile,” he said. “Rome’s mercy always comes wrapped in iron.”

Marcos older than them all, though untouched by time raised his cup. “Your brother’s no man anymore,” he said quietly. “He’s a story they can’t kill. A weapon they don’t understand.”

The hall fell silent. Only the fire spoke a low hiss, a breath of smoke curling upward.

A woman’s voice, cool as silver, broke the quiet. Calisto, immortal like the brothers, leaned against the pillar’s shadow. “Calisto owns your brother now,” she said. “Gladiator. Slave. Sold to noble women to keep their beds warm and their secrets buried.”

Draven’s hand tightened on the table. “You speak lies,” he growled.

Marcos shook his head slowly. “Not lies. Rome believes a man can be broken if he’s humiliated long enough.” His eyes darkened. “They never understood what blood he carried.”

Drax stared into the fire, jaw set like stone. “Then they’ve forgotten what happens when storms remember,” he murmured.

Outside, thunder rolled faintly over the hills distant, but coming closer.

October 7, 2025
Unlocking Ancient Powers: Lore Stormborne’s Awakening

The Whisper Beneath Stone

Artistic representation of Lore Stormborne, featuring intricate patterns and vivid colors, symbolizing his connection to ancient powers and storms.

Rain fell soft upon Emberhelm not in sheets, but in threads, weaving through the night like strands of memory. Each drop whispered against the walls, tracing paths down stone carved before empires rose. The air smelt of iron, damp moss, and prophecy.

Lore moved through the Hall of Echoes with deliberate silence. The torches burned low, their flames bending in strange rhythm, as though swayed by unseen breath. Beneath the central arch lay the dais of oath and upon it, the gold ring.

It shimmered faintly in the half-light, a pulse of life within metal. Not the glow of firelight, but of something older.

Lore hesitated before it. His reflection warped in its surface his eyes darker, sharper, his face marked by the faint runes of bloodline and burden. “The ring of storm and oath,” he murmured. “The bond of the five.”

He reached out. The moment his fingers brushed it, the hall sighed.

A low hum filled the air not from stone or wind, but from within.

Then came the voice.

“Brother…”

The word was barely sound more vibration, more memory. It coiled through him like smoke through glass.

“Taranis…” Lore whispered, his voice trembling. The name itself seemed to awaken something. The torches guttered. The shadows around the walls began to move not randomly, but with purpose, forming the faint outlines of chained figures, of men bowed beneath lightning.

The ring pulsed again, once, twice. Gold bled to storm-grey.

“Show me,” Lore said. “Show me where he walks.”

The pulse deepened and suddenly, the hall was gone.

He stood in mist. Iron gates loomed before him, slick with rain. Beyond them, sand bloodstained and torn an arena. He heard the roars of lions, the clash of blades, the chanting of a foreign crowd. And there, in the centre, Taranis bare-armed, chained, and unbroken. His eyes like stormlight.

“Still he stands,” Lore breathed.

The vision shattered like glass beneath a hammer. He was back in the hall, gasping, knees to the stone floor. The ring still glowed in his palm, its pulse slowing to match his heartbeat.

He knew then: his brother lived but the bond between them had stirred something greater. The old powers beneath the land the ones the druids had whispered of were waking again.

A new sound reached him. A voice, aged as winter bark.

“The ring calls the storm again,” said Maeve, the seer. She stepped from the shadowed archway, her staff crowned with raven feathers and iron charms. “You’ve felt it too the pulse of the deep earth, the cry of the stones.”

Lore rose slowly. “He lives. I saw him. Rome cannot hold him.”

Maeve’s gaze was sharp, knowing. “No but when the storm returns, it will not come gently. Bonds such as yours were not forged for peace. The land remembers its oaths, Lore Stormborne. The blood remembers. And blood always calls for blood.”

He turned toward the open window, where thunder rolled faintly beyond the hills. The storm clouds were gathering again not yet upon them, but coming.

“Then let it come,” he said softly. “We are Stormborne. We do not kneel to the Empire. We endure… and when the sky breaks, we rise.”

The gold ring flared once more, bright as lightning and somewhere far to the south, in a Roman cell slick with rain, Taranis felt it too.

October 7, 2025
The Weight of Emberhelm

The fires in Emberhelm burned low, their glow tracing the hall’s carved beams in dull amber. Outside, wind howled through the moors, carrying the echo of the horn that had once called the clans to war. Now it was only memory.

Lord Drax Stormborne sat alone in the council chamber, a single goblet of wine untouched beside him. The maps and missives lay strewn across the oak table. Roman reports, messages from border scouts, pleas for grain from villages too frightened to send men to market.

He had not slept. Sleep meant dreams, and dreams brought Taranis.

His brother’s face haunted him not in death, but in defiance. Bound, bloodied, yet unbroken. There was strength in that memory, but guilt too.

“You always were the fire,” Drax murmured, voice low. “And I the stone that smothered it.”

A faint shuffle broke the silence. Caelum lingered at the doorway, unsure if he was welcome. “Father,” he said softly. “Marcos sent word. The Romans will move east toward the river forts. He says it’s only a patrol.”

Drax’s lips curved into something that have been a smile. “Marcos says many things to make Rome sound smaller than it is.”

He rose, the movement slow, heavy with sleepless weight. “Tell the men to prepare rations, but not weapons. We will not meet them with steel not yet.”

Caelum hesitated. “Uncle Taranis wouldn’t wait.”

“No,” Drax said, turning toward the window, where mist swirled over the dark moorlands. “He would burn the world to free one man. I must keep the world standing long enough for him to have one to return to.”

The boy nodded but did not understand. Few ever would.

Drax rested his hands on the cold stone sill, the wind tugging at his hair. Somewhere beyond the horizon, his brother still fought, still endured. And Drax the eldest, the anchor bore the burden of every storm that raged beyond his reach.

“Forgive me, brother,” he whispered to the wind. “I keep the hearth burning, not because I’ve forgotten you… but because I know you’ll come back to it.”

Further Reading

The Chronicles of Drax

October 7, 2025
The Chains of Blood and Brotherhood

The storm had not yet left his veins. Even in exhaustion, Taranis’s breath came sharp as lightning through rain. The iron on his wrists bit deeper with each movement, the weight of Rome’s victory heavy, but not finished.

He heard them before he saw them the measured tread of Caelum and Marcos. The murmur of soldiers giving way as they entered the cell yard. The torches flared against the damp walls, shadows stretching long like reaching fingers.

“Uncle Marcos,” Caelum’s voice was quiet but edged with fear. “Can those chains come off him?”

Marcos paused beside the centurion who held the keys. His gaze lingered on Taranis, bloodstained and silent, the faint curl of defiance still etched into his mouth. “They can,” Marcos said slowly. “But they won’t. Not yet.”

Caelum’s jaw tightened. “He’s bleeding. If he dies”

“He won’t,” Marcos interrupted, eyes never leaving Taranis. “He’s too stubborn to die.”

Taranis lifted his head then, a slow, deliberate motion. “You sound almost proud, Marcos.” His voice was hoarse, roughened by sand and roar, but steady. “Tell me how does it feel, watching Rome chain another son of the storm?”

Marcos stepped closer, the metal of his own armour glinting in the firelight. “It feels like survival,” he said quietly. “A lesson you still refuse to learn.”

“Survival,” Taranis repeated, the word tasting like ash. “You call it that. I call it submission.”

The centurion moved between them, keys jangling. “Enough talk.” But Marcos lifted a hand not to command, but to stay him.

“Let him speak,” Marcos said. “Words weigh less than chains.”

Caelum’s eyes flicked between them, confusion and pain warring in his young face. “He fought lions, Uncle. Bears. He lived through what no man should. Why must you treat him like this?”

“Because,” Marcos

“You know they say deaths the final lesson?” Taranis grinned…Marcos’s eyes hardened, but not with anger with something closer to grief.

“Death teaches nothing,” he said. “It only silences the unteachable.”

Taranis laughed then a low, ragged sound that echoed off the stone like distant thunder. “Then maybe silence is what Rome fears most. A man who dies still defiant who doesn’t give them their spectacle.”

The centurion stepped ahead impatiently. “Enough of this.” He seized Taranis by the shoulder, but the bound warrior’s gaze did not waver.

“Do you see it, Caelum?” Taranis rasped. “Chains don’t make a man loyal. They only show who fears him most.”

Caelum swallowed hard, torn between the authority of his uncle and the raw conviction before him. “Uncle… he’s right. Rome fears him.”

Marcos turned sharply. “Rome fears no man.” Yet even as he said it, his voice faltered, as if the walls themselves disagreed.

A moment of silence fell the kind that breathes between lightning and thunder.

Then Taranis whispered, “You once said the blood of the storm can’t be trained. You were right. It can only be bound… for a while.”

The torches flickered, shadows dancing like spirits around the three men the Roman, the youth, and the storm-bound prisoner.

Marcos finally turned away. “Clean his wounds,” he said curtly to the centurion. “He fights again at dawn.”

As they left, Caelum lingered by the gate, his eyes locked on Taranis’s. “I’ll come back,” he said softly.

Taranis’s faint grin returned. “Then bring thunder, boy. Rome hasn’t heard enough of it yet.”

The cell door slammed shut, iron against stone but somewhere, deep beneath the fortress, thunder rolled.

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

If you enjoyed this story, like, share, or leave a comment. Your support keeps the storm alive and the chronicles continuing.

Futher Reading

The Prophecies and Tales of Taranis Unfolded

October 7, 2025
The Price of Survival

Night in the fort brought no peace only whispers.

Chains clinked like faint echoes of the arena’s roars, and the scent of iron still clung to the air. Taranis Storm lay awake in the half-darkness, eyes open to the stone ceiling, counting the rhythm of the guards’ boots. Rome slept, but the storm within him did not.

He had won his life for another day, but victory came at a cost. He had shown them what he was. Not a beaten barbarian, but something far more dangerous a man who learned.

At dawn, Marcos appeared at his cell door, shadowed by two guards.
“You’ve made them talk,” Marcos said quietly. “The governor himself wants to see you.”

Taranis said nothing. The chains around his wrists jingled as he stood.

They led him through the inner halls of the fortress, where Roman banners hung stiff and silent. Soldiers stared as he passed some curious, others wary. A man who defied lions and bears without breaking was not easily forgotten.

In the governor’s chamber, incense burned thick. Maps of Britannia sprawled across a marble table, marked with red ink and small figurines of silver legions.

The governor, Decimus Varro, was not a cruel man by Roman standards merely pragmatic. “You are a spectacle,” he said, voice calm. “A man who fights like the gods themselves favour him. Tell me, Briton what drives you?”

Taranis met his gaze. “The same thing that drives Rome. Freedom.”

Varro smiled faintly. “Freedom is an illusion. Order is what endures.”
He leaned forward. “Serve Rome, and you’ll live well. Defy us again, and your death will be remembered only as noise in the sand.”

Silence stretched between them, thick as the smoke that coiled from the brazier. Then Taranis spoke, slow and deliberate.

“I have no wish to be remembered. Only to finish what began in the storm.”

Varro frowned not in anger, but thought. “Then we understand each other.” He gestured to Marcos. “Train him. Watch him. If he can be tamed, he’ll fight for Rome. If not…”

Taranis was taken to the training grounds. Men waited there gladiators, soldiers, slaves who had survived too long to be careless. The air rang with the sound of iron on iron. Marcos tossed him a blade, better balanced than the last.

“Your real trial starts now,” Marcos said. “In the arena, you fought to live. Out here, you’ll fight to learn what Rome fears most a man they can not own.”

For the first time since his capture, Taranis smiled.
The storm had found a new horizon.

© 2025 Emma Hewitt / StormborneLore. All rights reserved.Unauthorized copying or reproduction of this content is prohibited.If you enjoyed this story, like, share, or leave a comment. Your support keeps the storm alive and the chronicles continuing.

Futher Reading

The Prophecies and Tales of Taranis Unfolded

October 6, 2025
The Whispering Stones of Emberhelm

They say the stones at Emberhelm still whisper when the wind moves right a low murmur that rises from the earth like the breath of something ancient, waiting.

Farmers avoid the place now. Shepherds drive their flocks wide, and children dare each other to touch the outer ring, laughing until the laughter falters. Only the old remember that once, before Rome, before even the clans, the stones were not dead things.

Each one bore a mark storm, fire, tide, and light carved by hands that no longer walk the world. Together they formed a circle, a promise between the gods and those who spoke their tongue. The Circle of the Gold Ring.

When the brothers swore their oaths there, thunder split the air. The eldest spoke of wisdom, the youngest of freedom, and the middle ones of strength, loyalty, and truth. But the sky heard more than words it heard pride. And pride is the chisel that breaks all stone.

Now, when lightning rolls across Cannock’s high fields, some claim to see figures between the stones. Not ghosts, not living men something between. They say one wears chains that sing when he moves, another bears a sword that hums with the weight of unspoken guilt, and one more walks with his hands clasped behind his back, watching the storm as though it answers to him.

The villagers leave offerings there still a bowl of salt, a coin, a lock of hair just in case the whispers are not only echoes, but memories listening for their name.

Because in Emberhelm, even silence remembers.

October 6, 2025