A man of honour a man who cares A man who shared the darkness yet brought the light.
His tables long but round
with a star of five points So his warriors can all hear his point From near and far.
While the dragons fly over head The wolf-man warrior by his side tall, protective like a father figure Our leader raised by cursed wolves but with his grace freed his friends No slaves exist in Caernath he made it so
The high war lord of Caernath rules equal with charm and grace. but fury like the darkest of storms His group of 12 warriors, seers, healer. around the table making laws, deciding wars and peace.
Come one, come all,
to hear the tales of. The High Warlord of Caernath. A giant in spirit, a friend in kin, Whose heart burns brighter than the wrath of wind.
He lets no soul go hungry nor cold. For in his eyes, all people hold The spark of flame, the worth of kin. No exile too lost, no outcast too thin.
The fire burns bright at Emberhelm’s gate, For weary travellers and those burdened by fate. Hungry, tired, or wounded deep, He offers food, a place to sleep.
So if you wander, far or near, Know this truth and hold it dear. The High Warlord of Caernath stands, With open heart and open hands.
A colorful illustration of a bird soaring above a vibrant landscape, surrounded by a decorative border.A striking illustration of a red wolf howling, symbolizing strength and kinship in the narrative of Emberhelm.A howling wolf painted against a vibrant blue background, embodying themes of kinship and wilderness.A striking artwork of a wolf howling at the moon, set against a vibrant purple background, symbolizing strength and spirit in the context of kinship.A vibrant illustration depicting a dragon surrounded by nature, showcasing the essence of storytelling and fantasy.
The great hall of Emberhelm pulsed with firelight. Smoke curled upward from the long hearth, rich with the scent of charred lamb fat, root vegetables, and sweet herbs.
It was a scent that stirred memory of winter hunts. Harvest feasts, and nights when the storm howled but the fire held fast.
Taranis stood at the head of the long stone table. His arms folded behind his back, a rare softness in his eyes. To his right sat Lore, robes still dusted with ash from the spell that broke the curse. To his left, Drax toyed with his carving knife, his appetite as fierce as ever.
But it was the spaces beyond that caught the eye.
Boldolph sat with his broad, wolfish shoulders hunched, a strip of roast meat gripped in one clawed hand. Morrigan.
Once white wolf, now flame-haired woman, laughed as she stirred a pot near the hearth beside Solaris. Who sprinkled crushed nettle and wild garlic into the steaming soup.
And near the fire, two boys sat on a bench Nyx and Rayne. The latter still bore the bruises of captivity, but his shoulders had relaxed, his collar gone. Nyx offered him a chunk of honeyed root and a crude wooden spoon. The boy’s smile was slow, cautious. But it came.
Taranis raised a horn of wild berry wine.
“Tonight, no war. No judgment. No weight of kingship or curse. Tonight, we eat.”
A cheer rang through the hall.
The first course was served hearth-brewed vegetable broth, thick with barley, wild leeks, and stinging nettle. Simple, earthy. Morrigan’s touch. The nettle had been boiled thrice, mellowing its sting but keeping its iron-rich heart.
Then came the main feast braised lamb neck, rubbed with ash salt and roasted on iron spits. It fell from the bone into honeyed mash made of parsnip and turnip, flanked by fire-roasted carrots. leeks, and bruised apples wrapped in dock leaves.
A vegetarian version of roasted nuts, wild mushrooms, and legumes. Bound with barley and wild garlic was passed to those who’d taken vows of gentleness.
The hall grew louder with warmth and full bellies. Solaris poured ladle after ladle of broth. Boldolph, face still savage, offered a growled blessing in the tongue of old wolf-warriors. Even Lore smiled briefly.
And then came dessert.
Forest fruit compote slow-stewed blackberries, crab apples, and hazelnuts served over a rough cake of grain and honey. It wasn’t sweet in the way of sugar, but it hummed with the wild tang of the land.
As the fire cracked lower, Taranis rose once more.
“We have reclaimed brothers,” he said. “Rayne is free. Draven will return soon. Boldolph and Morrigan have chosen forms of their own. Solaris has cast down his chains. And you my kin you have chosen your Houses.”
He turned, gesturing to three newly hung banners behind the head table.
Tempestras storm-grey with blue lightning: the House of the Storm.
Ignis flickering red and gold: the House of the Flame.
Umbra shadowed silver moon eclipsing a burnt-orange sun: the House of the Shadow.
“Caernath lives again,” Taranis said. “Not through conquest but through kinship. Through the storm we were broken. But by fire and shadow, we are reforged.”
Rayne rose, slowly, holding up a crude carving the three brothers etched into a cairnstone, side by side.
“Then let it be known,” he said, “that Stormborne is no longer just a name. It is a vow.”
Lore pressed a hand to the stone, then nodded.
“A vow… and a future.”
And beneath the storm-beaten beams of Emberhelm, the wolves howled once more not from pain or exile, but from joy.
Feast Notes (Modern Budget Version approx. £10 total):
By the time the boy was dragged into the fire-circle, Solaris already knew what the verdict would be.
The child barely ten summers old had stolen from the Emberhelm kitchens three times in as many weeks. This last time, he’d taken smoked venison, enough for three mouths.
It wasn’t a clever theft either; he’d left claw-marks in the ash like some wild cub. They’d found him crouched behind the root cellar with a bone in one hand. His little sister clutched to his side, shaking from fever.
Taranis sat high above, throne of blackened oak behind him, his blade resting point-down in the dirt. His eyes storm Grey and quiet met Solaris’s across the fire.
“Third offence,” the warlord said, not unkindly. “You know the law.”
Solaris bowed his head.
He had known it would come to this.
The fire crackled between them amber light dancing against carved cairnstones. The gathered clan murmured like wind in the pines. Some looked away. Others watched with cold detachment.
From the shadows near the far cairn, Boldolph crouched in wolf-man form, eyes glowing red in the dusk. Morrigan stood beside him, silent and still, her white fur streaked with soot from an earlier hunt. Neither beast moved.
The boy trembled, snot running down his nose. His sister was nowhere in sight.
One of the younger guards bristling with duty dragged the child ahead. “What’s the order, High Warlord?”
Taranis looked not at the boy, but into the flame. “Three thefts. All marked. The hand goes.”
A stillness fell. Not outrage. Not shock. Just a silence.
Solaris stepped ahead.
He didn’t ask permission. He never had.
“My lord,” he said softly, “I speak?”
Taranis’s jaw tightened, but he nodded.
“Come.”
Solaris walked slowly into the circle, his linen tunic soot-streaked, hands calloused from tending both fire and blade. He stopped beside the boy who flinched at his nearness then turned to face Taranis directly.
“You talk of mercy, sir,” Solaris said. “Of giving your people hope. Of forging something better than the clans before us. Yet you would take a child’s hand for hunger?”
“It’s not the first time,” the warlord said.
“No,” Solaris agreed. “It’s the third. Which tells me we failed twice already.”
Murmurs rose again uneasy, uncertain.
Taranis said nothing.
Solaris went on.
“Do you remember when we met, Taranis? You were half-starved. Barefoot. Curled between two wolves like a dying branch in the snow.” His voice cracked, just a little. “You think Morrigan would’ve taken your hand? Or Boldolph watched you bleed?”
Boldolph’s snarl low, thoughtful rumbled through the circle.
“Do not compare me to that child,” Taranis said, but the edge was gone from his voice. “I was cast out by my own blood. He broke a law.”
“So did you,” Solaris said, gently. “You stole from death. You defied exile. You bonded with a dragon.”
The flames snapped high.
Behind them, Lore stepped quietly into the circle’s edge, arms crossed. Drax lingered further back, sharpening his axe with deliberate rhythm.
“The law is clear,” Taranis said, but softer now. “What’s your counsel, Solaris?”
Solaris exhaled.
“The hand stays. Cut his rations. He works the ash pits. But let the sister be seen. She’s burning from within.”
A pause.
Then: “Do we have a healer who treats the children of thieves?”
Solaris gave the barest smile. “We have a Flamekeeper who remembers that fire burns all the same.”
Taranis stood.
He turned to the guards. “The child’s hand stays. Halve his meals for two moons. The sister—tend her.”
“And after that?” the guard asked.
Taranis glanced to Morrigan.
“We watch,” he said.
Later that night, Solaris sat by the embers of the great hearth. The kitchens had long since emptied. The scent of root broth clung to the stones. He stirred a mix of wildfire oil and willow sap in a clay bowl, preparing a balm.
The door creaked. Taranis entered, shoulders still dusted with ash.
“She’ll live,” Solaris said, not looking up. “The girl. The fever broke at dusk.”
“You were right,” Taranis murmured.
“No. I remembered something you forgot.”
He set the bowl down and finally looked up.
“You’re not a tyrant, Taranis. But you are tired. Tired men return to old laws.”
Taranis sat across from him, resting his blade beside the hearth. “They look to me to be strong.”
“Then be strong enough to bend.”
They sat in silence a moment.
Then Taranis said, “What would you have me do? End the slave laws? Free them all?”
Solaris’s eyes softened.
“I’d have you start with one.”
A pause. Fire popped.
“My children,” Solaris said. “You let them stay with me. You feed them better than the others. You trust me with your fire. But still, by law, I am bound. My collar is light, but it is still iron.”
Taranis didn’t speak.
“I do not ask for release,” Solaris said. “I ask for meaning. If I am to be your Flamekeeper, let it not be as your property. Let it be as your kin.”
Taranis rose slowly.
He walked to the wall, lifted a flame braided chain from its hook, and placed it at Solaris’s feet.
“I will ask the cairn council to rewrite the bond,” he said. “You’ll take no collar again.”
Then, softly: “And neither will your children.”
Days passed. The fevered girl recovered. The boy, now under Solaris’s quiet supervision, took to the ash pits with a haunted gaze but steady hands.
At dawn, he brought Solaris firewood without being asked.
At dusk, he left a hand-carved wolf at the hearth.
Taranis watched from the upper cairn, Morrigan seated beside him.
“He’ll never steal again,” Taranis said.
“No,” Solaris replied, stepping beside him. “Because now he belongs.”
Taranis looked at his old friend, the man who had once been enemy. Then servant, then brother in all but blood.
“Thank you, Solaris.”
The Flamekeeper only smiled and added another log to the fire.
That evening, Solaris’s eldest son, Nyx, approached. He carried a plate of meat and grain, handing it to his father before setting his own aside.
“You scorn the meal, boy?” Taranis asked.
“No, sir,” Nyx said. “But it’s not right I get meat and grain while my father gets broth.”
Taranis tilted his head. Then smirked.
“Bring your father a plate from my stores.”
Then added, almost as an afterthought
“And Solaris it was never one dragon, was it? Two stood beside me all along.”
One Week Later Postscript to The Flame That Counsels
“He’s gone mad. The Highlord’s either broken or possessed.”
The guard’s words hit like ash in the lungs. Solaris said nothing, hands deep in the roots he was cleaning for poultice. He’d heard rumors all morning that Taranis had dismissed the old slave branders, torn the punishment scrolls in half, and ordered the cairnstones rewritten.
Another voice joined the first: “They say he talks to the dragons now. Not just rides them talks. Pendragon flew south and turned back. Refused to land in Gaedrix’s old territory.”
Then came softer steps. Young Nyx, barefoot and breathless, ran across the ash-warmed floor of the kitchen hall.
“Uncle Solaris!” he grinned, waving a carved wolf bone. “Father says you can visit him. No chains. No guards. Just you. He said it’d be good to see you without your collar.”
Solaris froze. Slowly, he turned — not to the boy, but to the collar hanging near the forge. Empty. Cold.
“Why now?” he asked, kneeling.
Nyx beamed. “He says the laws are wrong. That you helped him remember who he was. That it’s time to make them right.”
The fire cracked behind him. Solaris closed his eyes.
Later that dusk, in the central hall of Emberhelm, Taranis stood before his people — not in war-gear, but in storm-black robes, his sword sheathed at his back, Morrigan and Boldolph flanking him like ghosts.
A hush fell.
Then he spoke.
“I was cast out as a child chained not by iron, but by fear. I lived. I burned. I changed.
So hear me now.
From this day onward, Stormborne law changes:
First crime: a warning, carved in cairnstone. Second: servitude, no longer than a season’s moon. Third: magical judgment the storm or the shadow will decide. No child shall ever be born in chains. Dragons will not fly over lands where children are enslaved. All who labor shall eat. None shall go hungry. The broken, the maimed, the soul-wounded they will have a place. We are not the Clawclan. We are Stormborne. The fire will not consume us. It will make us whole.”
Lore lit the cairnstones behind him. Solaris stepped forward and cast his collar into the flame. Pendragon circled overhead.
Taranis met his gaze with quiet steel.
“You are no longer mine,” he said. “But you are still my kin.”
Solaris bowed low, not as slave but as Flamekeeper.
And above them, the wolves howled, and the fire did not flicker.
Taranis turned to Morrigan and Boldolph, who stood unmoving beneath the runestone arch. A chant had begun low in their throats a strange, old language from before the cairns were raised.
“That is, if you’ll stay, Solaris?” Taranis asked quietly.
Then to the wolves:
“Boldolph. Morrigan. You’ll be free of this too. The curse ends with fire and brotherhood. You’ll walk again in human form.”
The chant rose.
The fire roared.
And somewhere in the high wind above Emberhelm, the storm broke not in rage, but in light.
“Let others raise the blade. I raise the truth.” Lore Stormborne
🕯️ Keeper of the Flame. Brother of Storm. Lore Stormborne is more than a warrior he is the voice of memory, the keeper of names, and the bearer of the fire that binds tribe to tribe, and age to age. Born the youngest of the Stormborne brothers, Lore walks the path between word and weapon, prophecy and pragmatism.
Where Taranis is storm and Drax is stone, Lore is firelight quiet but searing, patient but unyielding.
He writes not only with ink, but with action.
Lore Stormborne, the Flamebearer of Hearthrest, meticulously writing history and preserving knowledge.
📜 From Shadows to Scrolls In childhood, Lore followed in the shadow of his brothers Taranis, the storm-marked exile, and Drax, the hardened shield. But even then, Lore saw what others missed: patterns in myth, warnings in the stars, truth beneath tradition.
When Taranis was exiled, Lore did not speak but he remembered. When Drax rose through the ranks, Lore was already mapping the past.
His weapon was never just steel it was knowledge. And it burned just as brightly.
Lore Stormborne, the Flamebearer of Hearthrest, conjures fire in a display of power and wisdom, embodying the essence of his role as the keeper of ancient rites.
🔥 Flamebearer of Hearthrest Lore governs Hearthrest, the wooded sanctuary of sacred stones and old rites. There, within the ancient stone circle, he tends the Eternal Flame of the Stormborne lit only in times of great need. It is said he can hear the voices of ancestors in the fire.
To the warriors, he is their truthkeeper. To the children, he is the story-weaver. To the Stormborne, he is their lore.
Lore Stormborne, the Flamebearer of Hearthrest, wielding fire magic in a display of power and resolve.
⚔️ A Warrior When Needed Though often seen as a scholar, Lore is no stranger to battle. In the war against the Clawclan, he stood beside Taranis and Drax at Rykar’s Ridge, calling down the old flame-magic inscribed into cairnstones. His staff of flamewood, carved from lightning-struck ash, is both relic and weapon.
When dragons fell from the sky, Lore stood firm. When the storm rose, he whispered its name.
The Flamebearer of Hearthrest, Lore Stormborne, embodies wisdom and strength, standing as the keeper of ancient stories and the guardian of the Eternal Flame.
🧠 Mind of Flame Measured, articulate, and always listening, Lore speaks less than most but when he does, his words linger. He believes that the world is not saved through strength alone, but through stories preserved, names remembered, and wisdom passed on.
He is the bridge between storm and silence. And his fire never goes out.
Lore Stormborne, the Flamebearer of Hearthrest, walking through ancient stone circles with a torch to illuminate the path of tradition and memory.
✴️ Known As: The Flamebearer of Hearthrest
Keeper of the Cairnstones
Lore of the Stormborne
Fire-Walker
Voice of the Old Flame
The sacred grove of Hearthrest, a mystical sanctuary of standing stones and ancient rites.
🌳 His Realm: Hearthrest, Caernath A wooded region of sacred groves and standing stones. Home of the Eternal Flame and ancient rites. Governed not by sword, but by tradition and firelight.
The fire had long gone out, and the cold crept in like a snake through the underbrush. Taranis sat with his back to a stone outcrop, shivering in silence. His breath came in misted gasps, though he dared not build another fire. Fire drew eyes. And eyes mean death.
He was only nine winters old skin and bones beneath a damp wolf-pelt, alone since exile. Alone… or so he believed.
Until that night.
A low growl rolled from the darkness.
Taranis reached for his stick-spear crude, splintered, tipped with flint and rose to a crouch. The growl came again, closer. Deep. Measured. Not hunger. Not rage. Warning.
The trees parted.
A shadow, massive and black, emerged from the mist.
The wolf.
Not just any wolf this one had eyes like embered blood. A scar down his left side that caught the moonlight. He have snapped Taranis in two.
But he didn’t.
Instead, the wolf circled once, then lay down, his tail wrapping around his legs. He did not blink. He just watched.
Taranis lowered his spear.
“You’re not here to eat me,” he said, voice hoarse from days without speech.
The wolf said nothing, but his ears twitched.
Taranis crept closer, sat back down beside the dying fire pit. He wrapped the pelt tighter and leaned ahead.
“I don’t know why they hate me,” he whispered.
The wolf’s eyes did not move.
“I saved my brother. I didn’t ask for the fire, or the storm. I just… did what I was told.”
Still the wolf said nothing, but his breathing was calm, deliberate like he was listening.
Taranis closed his eyes.
In the morning, he woke to warmth. Not from a fire, but from the wolf curled around him, sheltering him from the frost.
From that day onward, Boldolph never left his side.
He didn’t need to speak. His presence was enough. His strength, a shield. His silence, a vow.
Taranis never asked him why.
But deep down, he knew.
Boldolph had seen something in him not just a boy, not just a fire-starter. Something ancient. Something kin.
And Taranis, though still just a child, reached out and rested a hand on the wolf’s thick fur.
A vibrant child’s drawing depicting a pastoral scene with sheep, flowers, and a pond under a colorful sky.
Historical Insight Series
In the shadow of ancient hills and stone-crowned ridges, the Welsh Marches whisper stories long forgotten. Winds race across the Long Mynd.
Caer Caradoc looms in silent watch. Yet somewhere beneath the earth, fragments of the lives. Once lived by Bronze Age women stay buried in urns, marked in pottery, etched in the soil itself.
Though no names were written, no songs preserved their deeds in ink. These women shaped the land and its legacy just as surely as their male counterparts.
In this post, we explore what archaeology reveals about their roles. struggles, and power during a time of shifting tribes, emerging hillforts, and mythic memory.
A vibrant, colorful painting featuring a tree with colorful leaves. A stylized sun, and a bright blue sky, embodying a connection to nature and artistic expression.
Life in the Bronze Age Welsh Marches:
The Female Thread, settlements and Society.
Sites like Llanilar, Moel y Gaer, and the Breiddin Hillfort give us glimpses of structured settlements roundhouses. Aswell as storage pits, and hearths.
While many daily activities stay unrecorded, it’s women who managed food preparation, textile production, tool-making, and child-rearing. Their hands shaped the rhythm of Bronze Age life.
Burial Practices and Reverence.
At Allt Y Crib and nearby burial cairns. The remains of women have been discovered alongside grave goods beads, pottery, bronze tools.
These finds suggest women were not merely laborers. But held positions of respect, spiritual or familial leaders whose deaths warranted ritual care.
Pottery and Cultural Identity.
Decorated pots, many found in ritual pits and barrows, often bear feminine associations. Women have been central to their crafting, shaping not only vessels, but cultural identity through art, trade, and tradition.
Celtic knots, landscape abstract arts
Stone Circles and Ritual
Mysterious sites like Cerrig Duon and Y Garn Goch offer insight into ceremonial life. While we can’t say definitively that women led rituals. Their burial proximity and symbolic items hint at possible priestess roles guardians of knowledge, seasons, and ancestral memory.
Subsistence and Survival
The Grinding stones, charred grains, and animal remains suggest women were active in agriculture, foraging, and preservation. They ensured continuity passing down wisdom in planting cycles, herbal lore, and the ways of fire and feast.
Silent Influence, Lasting Echo
Though no written records survive from the Bronze Age, the archaeology of the Welsh Marches speaks in its own language. Women’s influence is woven into every excavated hearth, every grave good, every pottery shard.
They were not background figures they were central to survival, culture, and possibly leadership.
Whether as midwives, weavers, warriors, or spiritual guides. The women of the Welsh Marches helped forge the legacy of the land Drax now calls home in StormborneLore.
A vibrant illustration of Boldolph the black wolf howling at the moon. Embodying the mischievous spirit of the character from the poem.
(As sung by the kitchen fires)
Boldolph the black wolf sniffed the stew, His belly growled: “This meat will do!” He tiptoed past the snoring men, And dipped a paw in the broth again.
Morrigan caught him, gave a glare, “You thieving pup, don’t you dare!” But Boldolph smirked with sausage pride, And gobbled half the pot inside.
The cooks awoke to clatter and howl, The stew was gone, the bowl was foul. They found a trail of bones and crumbs, And one big wolf with sleepy gums.
Now every night the guards are warned, “Keep watch on Boldolph, ever adorned. For if you blink or turn your back, He’ll steal your soup and leave no snack!”
A vibrant illustration of a dragon, embodying the whimsical spirit of the story ‘A Ballad of Bronze-Age Bouncing’.
(A Ballad of Bronze-Age Bouncing)
The dragon smirked and gave a wink, Then launched him skyward in a blink. A loop-de-loop, a spiral twirl Drax flailed like a dizzy girl.
“I’ve got this!” he cried, “I’m born to fly!” Pendragon laughed and rolled the sky. Down he tumbled, flapping fast Till Tairneanach caught him at last.
Oh mighty Drax, with sword so wide, Declared, “It’s time for me to ride!” He climbed Pendragon’s scaly back, And shouted loud, “Let’s hit the track!”
The dragons chuckled, playing catch, With Drax the ball in every match. He swore and shouted, “Put me down!” While Taranis watched with half a frown.
“Next time,” said Lore with knowing grin, “Just stick to marching less of a spin.” But Drax just grinned and gave a cheer, “Best flight I’ve had all flaming year!
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The hillfort rose like a scar upon the earth raw, unfinished, powerful in its promise.
Stones clattered as men worked shoulder to shoulder. Logs were rolled into place, lashed with thick rope and secured by wedges of bone and bronze. Children ran between the scaffolds, delivering water or watching with wide eyes as their future took shape.
It was a day like no other.
The sun hung low over the horizon, casting a golden sheen across the half-built wall. Birds circled above, uneasy. The animals in the nearby woods had gone silent.
Sir Gael, the oldest warrior among the fort’s guardians, paused to wipe sweat from his brow. His grey-streaked beard was heavy with dust. He glanced upward, his hand stilled mid-motion.
“Commander Drax,” he said, his voice strangely calm. “Look.”
Drax turned his shoulders broad, his eyes as sharp as the spear he carried.
Above them, the sky split.
A roar echoed across the valley not of wind, nor beast, but something far older. The builders dropped their tools. The children froze. Heads tilted toward the heavens.
The clouds churned as if afraid. And from them, something vast and terrible descended.
A dragon.
Wings wide as the river’s span. Scales that shimmered with green, gold, and a glint of crimson. Pendragon, King of the Sky. A creature from legend — spoken of in firelit whispers and dream-songs passed down by the Flamekeepers.
And on his back rode a man.
Tall. Armoured in blackened bronze. A red cloak fluttered behind him like a banner of blood and flame. His grey eyes gleamed with the fury of storms.
Taranis Stormborne.
The exiled boy. The returning myth. The High Warlord.
Sir Gael dropped to one knee. The others followed not out of fear, but reverence.
“Is it truly him?” someone whispered.
A small girl tugged at her father’s tunic. “Daddy… is he the one the Seer spoke of?”
Her father a scarred builder named Halvor looked to Drax for guidance.
Drax did not speak at first.
He simply nodded.
“It’s possible, young one.”
The dragon roared again. Pendragon spiralled downward, his wings churning the air so fiercely that dust clouds rose from the hilltop. Yet the High Warlord stood unshaken upon his back, one hand on the saddlehorn, the other raised in greeting.
He did not fall.
Not once.
He rode the wind like it was his birthright.
When Pendragon finally landed upon the high ridge, silence followed. Even the wind dared not move.
Taranis slid down with the ease of a seasoned warrior. His boots hit the ground with a thud like thunder. Behind him, the dragon crouched, its golden eyes watching all with quiet fire.
Drax stepped forward.
“Taranis,” he said, voice cracking. “You’ve returned.”
Taranis nodded. “And you’ve begun.”
He looked past his brother to the rising fort, half-finished but brimming with hope.
“Stone and sweat,” he said. “It’s a good beginning.”
Lore emerged next from the shadows, staff in hand. “The prophecy breathes,” he said.
“It was written: When sky and fire meet the hill. The son shall return to shape the land with storm and blood.”
A murmur passed through the gathering crowd.
Taranis took a slow breath, then turned to the workers.
“I am no king,” he said, voice deep and sure. “I do not bring crowns or glory. I bring a future. A place for the broken and the brave. A shield for our young. A fire for our old.”
He lifted his sword.
“This land this fort will stand not just for the Stormborne. It will stand for all who remember. For those cast out. For those who bled. We rise not to conquer, but to endure.”
Cheers broke across the hilltop.
Some wept. Others simply stared, mouths open, unsure if they stood in a dream or waking world.
The children gathered near the dragon’s feet, staring up in awe. Pendragon blinked slowly and lowered his head so they touch his scaled snout.
The girl from before her name was Marla reached out, fingers trembling.
“He’s warm,” she whispered.
Sir Gael stood beside Drax, smiling through his years.
“I thought the stories were just that,” he said. “Stories.”
“Some stories,” Lore said, “are simply waiting for the right time.”
That night, fires were lit along the hilltop. The beginnings of the wall gleamed in the torchlight, casting long shadows over the land. Meat was roasted. Bread was broken.
At the centre sat the brothers Stormborne Taranis, Drax, and Lore their heads bent together, planning the days to come.
Boldolph and Morrigan, the sacred wolves, lay on either side of the war table. Watchful. Silent.
Above them, high in the sky, Pendragon remained perched. His wings wrapped around the star-streaked air like a guardian angel of old. Next to the dragon was a black dragon
“They fought with us and now they returned “
“I’m staying as long as needed ” taranis knelt to the children “this beast us pendragon and that ones Tiarneach “
StormborneLore 