Tag: Boldolph

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
The Chronicles of the Gold Ring Chapter Eleven

Boldolph the Wolf brother, shield, spirit of the wild. Painted on clear acrylic, one of a kind.
Part 11 of The Chronicles of the Gold Ring is now live where the wolf walks again in the trees.”

The Wolf in the Trees

The rain had not stopped since the hill.
It drummed on oak leaves, hissed across the ash of the fire, slicked every blade of iron until the men and women of the Black Shields looked like shadows burnished in oil. The night smelled of wet earth and smoke, of wounds bound with linen that would not stay clean.

Storm slept little. When he closed his eyes, the hammer fell, and the nails drove, and he woke with the sound of iron in his skull. So he stayed upright with his back to the birch, watching the drip of water through branches, listening to foxes bark and owls call, waiting for morning.

At dawn, a shape lingered beyond the edge of the fire’s reach. Low, black, moving between trunks with the patience of hunger. Storm’s hand went to the haft of his knife before he realised what he saw.

A wolf.

Not the lean carrion-pickers that shadowed armies, but broad in the shoulder, thick in the ruff, eyes burning with a colour no dog had ever worn. It did not growl. It did not flee. It stood in the bracken and watched him.

“Boldolph,” Storm breathed, though he knew the beast before him was no man, no brother, no shieldmate returned. But something in the tilt of the head, in the way it lifted its nose as if to scent not flesh but memory, made his chest tighten.

The others woke one by one. Cadan saw it first and rose with his knife ready.
“Leave it,” Storm said. His voice was rough with the weight of command.
Brianna squinted through the rain. “Is it a sign?”
Storm shook his head. “It is a wolf. That is enough.”

But when the wolf turned and padded into the thicket, Storm followed. He did not tell the others to stay; they knew.

The trail wound between dripping ferns and stones slick with moss. Once, the wolf vanished altogether, and Storm thought he had been chasing a ghost but then the shape appeared again on a rise of ground, waiting. Guiding. Testing.

At last they came to a hollow ringed with oaks older than any fort or cross. Their roots knotted together like clenched fists. At the centre lay a cairn of stones blackened with age.

The wolf set its paws upon the mound, lifted its muzzle, and gave one long, shivering call. Not to the pack for there was no pack—but to the world itself. Then it was gone, as if the trees had folded and swallowed it whole.

Storm touched the cairn. Cold. Wet. His fingers came away with lichen and soil. And something else. A groove cut deep, filled with rain. A mark he knew from chalk scratched on gateposts and painted on stolen shields. A ring.

The Gold Ring.

He knelt, pressing his forehead to the stone. For a breath he smelled not wet earth but smoke from a hall long gone, heard not rain but the laughter of those who had died before him. Nessa. Morrigan. Boldolph. Rayne.

The voices came like wind through hollow wood: Hold fast. The story is not done.

Storm rose. His wrist throbbed where the nail had kissed bone, but his grip was steady when he returned to the camp.

Brianna looked at him, sharp-eyed. “What did you find?”
“A place,” Storm said. “A promise buried under stones.”
Cadan spat into the fire. “More promises.”
“Not words,” Storm answered. “A mark. The old ring. It waits for us.”

The rain eased then. Just enough to let the fire breathe.

That night, when the Black Shields moved again, they did not march as hunted rebels, but as something else. A rumour clothed in rain, a shadow given teeth. And always at the edge of the path, in the corner of sight, Storm thought he saw the wolf pacing them between the trees.

© StormborneLore Emma Hewitt, 2025. All rights reserved.

Futher Reading

The Library of Caernath

August 19, 2025
The Wilderness Years Part 7

The Grave That Couldn’t Hold Him

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.

Because legends, once born, do not stay buried.

© 2025 StormborneLore by EL Hewitt. All rights reserved.

THE WILDERNESS YEARS Part 1.

THE WILDERNESS YEARS PART 2

Taranis The Wilderness Years Part 3.

The Wilderness Years Part 4

The Wilderness Years Part 5

The Wilderness Years Part 6

The Iron Voice of Grael.

One Foot in Two Worlds

July 20, 2025
After the Duel

A Fireside Conversation

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.

Thank you for reading.© 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.

July 13, 2025
Training Day at Ignis

A tale from the halls of Emberhelm

The morning mist clung to the valley like a second skin. Emberhelm’s courtyard steamed with breath and sweat, the scent of stone, ash, and boiled roots heavy in the air. Around the inner circle, newly chosen warriors waited nervous, eager, some barely out of boyhood. Others bore scars older than Taranis himself.

At the centre stood the High Warlord of Caernath. His cloak cast aside, sleeves rolled, storm-grey eyes fixed on the line before him.

“No blades today,” he said. “Not until your hands know what weight feels like.”

He tossed a staff to the first in line. Then another. And another. Each warrior caught their weapon or fumbled it those who dropped theirs were told, simply, “Again.” And made to run.

On the other side of the training ground, beneath the shadow of the stone wolf banner, Boldolph paced in silence.

His pack half-men, half-beasts, with eyes like old moons watched him without blinking. He spoke low, but his voice carried like thunder over ice.

“You are not pets. Not soldiers. You are guardians.”
A pause.
“You see a child in harm’s way, you do not wait for orders. You act. That is the law of the wolf.”

One of the younger wolves whimpered. Boldolph turned sharply.
“Fear is not failure. Freezing is. Move even if it hurts.”

Across the field, Taranis raised his voice again.

“This is Ignis. This is fire. You’re not here to impress me. You’re here to withstand the storm, and stand through it.”

He glanced at Boldolph.

“Or do you want to spar with his lot instead?”

A low growl rippled from the wolf-warriors.

The chosen laughed nervously until Boldolph nodded. One of his warriors, a massive figure with a half-healed burn across his chest. stepped ahead, gripping a staff as thick as a child’s leg.

Taranis smiled. “Right then. Let’s see who learned to dance.”

The wolf-warrior advanced, silent but for the low crunch of earth beneath padded feet. His height matched any war-chief. His eyes amber, slit like a blade of dusk fixed on the line of young recruits now stepping back.

Taranis caught Boldolph’s eye.

The old wolf-man crossed his arms, his growl half amusement, half challenge.

“Too much for them?” Taranis asked.

“They need to know pain has teeth. And that not all enemies snarl first.”

The recruits shifted nervously. One tried to step ahead, but Taranis raised a hand.

“No,” he said. “Not yet.”

Then, slowly, he removed the silver cuff from his wrist. The one shaped like twisted flame and dropped it into the dust.

The courtyard hushed.

Boldolph straightened, his expression unreadable.

“You mean to fight me?” he said, stepping ahead, voice low.

Taranis rolled his shoulder and took a training staff from the rack.
“Not to wound,” he replied. “To remind.”

Boldolph took his own heavier, gnarled like a branch torn from an ancient tree.

They circled.

The recruits, wolf-men, and even dragons above watched in stillness.

Then Boldolph struck fast, low, aiming to knock out Taranis’s legs. But the warlord leapt, twisting mid-air, landing in a crouch with a grin. He swept his staff up, tapping Boldolph’s ribs before stepping back.

“Sloppy,” he said. “You’re slower in your old age.”

Boldolph snarled, but it wasn’t anger. It was the old dance.
The rhythm of claw and command.

He lunged again this time a full force blow. Their staffs cracked like thunder as they met. Sparks flew from the impact. Recruits flinched. One dragon above rumbled softly, folding its wings to watch closer.

They moved like storm and shadow:

Taranis fluid, forged in battlefields and flame.

Boldolph grounded, brutal, unshakable like the old hills.

Neither aimed to kill.
But neither held back.

A final clash and both stopped, locked staff to staff, breathing heavy, eyes locked.

“You’ve grown,” Boldolph said, finally. “Not just in size.”

“And you’ve not changed,” Taranis replied, sweat on his brow. “Still the rock I lean on.”

He broke the hold, stepped back, and offered a hand.

Boldolph took it without hesitation. The courtyard erupted in cheers both from humans and wolves alike.

Taranis turned to the watching recruits.
“This,” he said, gesturing between them, “is how you lead. Not with fear. But with fire, with honour, and with those who would bite your enemies long before they betray your trust.”

Boldolph gave a rare smile.

“And don’t forget,” he growled to the recruits, “the wolves are watching.”

Further Reading

The Prophecies and Tales of Taranis Unfolded

July 12, 2025
100 Tales from the Halls of Emberhelm 🐉

100 posts. 19 days. 6 tales a day.

From the first howl on the wind to the firelit feasts of Caernath, StormborneLore now stands tall a living archive of myth, memory, and meaning.

In these past 19 days, you’ve journeyed through:

✨ Poems of Spirit and reflections from wolves, dragons, outcasts, and gods
🔥 Tales of Hardship and Hope, stories born in darkness, rising toward the light
🍖 Feasts of the Ancients, recipes inspired by the meals of warriors, crones, and storm-born kings.
⚖️ Truths of Our Time articles echoing modern struggles: disability, injustice, survival, and healing

Each post is more than just a page — it’s a voice from the halls of Emberhelm.

“When all the world forgets us, we will still sing around the fire.” Taranis Stormborne

To every reader who’s wandered these halls, thank you. To every warrior, wolf, and flamekeeper yet to come welcome home.

StormborneLore
Fiction forged in myth. Truth written in fire.

July 10, 2025
The Houses of Caernath Part 6

The Path They Choose

StormborneLore Original Story

Draven watched his younger brother with the quiet reverence of a man who had walked through fire. To find a home on the other side. Though the aches in his ribs still tugged at his breath, he laughed a genuine, full-throated laugh. as he caught Rayne peeking from behind a weathered oak near the feast.

Rayne’s cloak hung awkwardly over one shoulder, and though his hands were free. He held them stiffly as if still expecting chains.

Draven looked back to Taranis, who stood tall and proud. The firelight glinting off the rings etched into his forearms marks of every clan he’d freed, every vow he’d kept.

“You’re not the only one who can’t die, Taranis. The bards will call us the Eternal Lords. The Man of the Woods, the Warrior of the March… But what about you, brother? What will they say?”

Taranis grinned, but his eyes stayed on Rayne.

“The Lord with a Heart. The Flame that Walks. The Warlord who Wept.”

He turned to Draven. “What ails him, truly?”

Draven’s smile dimmed.

“He survived,” he said softly. “And survival… isn’t as easy to wear as a legend.”

Taranis nodded, the smile gone. “Then I’ll not offer him a title. Or a command. I’ll offer him what was once denied us all.”

He walked from the firelight and toward the shadows where Rayne stood alone, arms folded and eyes like flint.

“You Came Back.”
Rayne didn’t speak as Taranis approached. His jaw twitched. He stepped backward out of habit until his heel hit a root and stopped him.

Taranis said nothing at first. He simply sat on the fallen log nearby, stretching his legs and sighing into the evening air.

“When I was your age,” he said, “I thought silence made me strong. That if I didn’t speak of the beatings, or the exile, or the hunger… then I had won.”

He picked up a small stone and turned it over in his hand.

“But silence doesn’t win. It buries. And buried things don’t stay buried, brother. Not forever.”

Rayne looked down, fists clenched.

“They said you were dead.”

“So did I,” Taranis replied. “And then I woke up… and realized I wasn’t done.”

Rayne’s voice cracked.

“Why didn’t you come for me?”

Taranis flinched not visibly, but somewhere behind the eyes.

He finally looked up, tears bright in his eyes. “And I believed them.”

Taranis didn’t speak. He rose slowly, walked the short distance, and pulled Rayne into his arms.

Rayne stood stiff as iron pthen broke. His head fell against Taranis’s shoulder, and the boy who had been a slave sobbed like the child he never got to be.

The Wolves Watched
From the trees, Boldolph watched, crouched low, Morrigan beside him.

“He’s not ready,” the black wolf growled.

“He’s more ready than you were,” Morrigan said softly.

Boldolph grunted. “He’s not like Taranis. Or Draven. The fire isn’t in him.”

Morrigan smiled. “No. But the river is.”

Boldolph glanced at her, confused.

“Some of us are made for flame and rage. Others for healing and flow. Rayne… is the river that remembers every stone.”

Morning Comes to Emberhelm
By dawn, the fires had burned low and the children were asleep in bundles of wool and bracken.

The warriors sat nursing sore heads and full bellies, and the dragons Pendragon and Tairneanach lay curled in silence, watching the horizon like guardians of an old dream.

Taranis stood before the gathering. His cloak flapped in the morning wind, and behind him the stone cairns of Caernath glowed faintly as if the ancestors were listening.

“Brothers. Sisters. Flamekeepers. Healers. Shadowwalkers and Stormborn alike. You have all walked through fire, through blood, through the turning of the old ways. Now it is time to choose.”

“Today we name the Three Houses of Caernath not for power, but for purpose. No longer shall bloodlines dictate loyalty. From now on, you choose where you belong.”

“Those who fight whose strength lies in blade and storm come to the House of the Storm.”

“Those who heal, protect, and serve who hold flame and lore come to the House of the Flame.”

“And those who walk between who guard the forgotten places, who speak to shadows, or carry wounds that cannot be seen come to the House of the Shadow.”

Rayne Steps Ahead
The crowd murmured. Solaris stood tall near the Flame. Draven took his place beneath the storm banner. Morrigan stood beneath the flame, Boldolph beside her though his stance was still more wolf than man.

And then slowly, silently Rayne stepped forward.

All eyes turned.

He walked past the flame. Past the storm. And stood alone beneath the third banner, woven with deep purples and grey threads: the House of the Shadow.

Gasps rippled.

Rayne turned, voice calm but steady.

“I am not whole. But I am not broken.”

“I have walked in chains. I have worn silence like a second skin. I am no warlord, no healer, no dragon-slayer.”

“But I remember. And I will not let the forgotten be lost again.”

After the Choosing
Later that night, Taranis found him by the cairnstones.

“The House of the Shadow,” he said. “I never thought someone would choose it first.”

Rayne smiled faintly. “Someone had to.”

“You know… I think it might be the strongest house of all.”

Rayne nodded. “We carry the weight.”

[TO BE CONTINUED]

Further Reading

July 10, 2025
The Houses of Caernath Part 5

The Feast of Echoes

As the feast burned on into the night, the firelight danced on stone and skin. The laughter of children clashed like wooden swords as they played warriors. Dashing between the legs of old veterans now soft with wine and bread.

From the edge of the great hearth-circle, Boldolph. The ever watchful wolf-man, stood with arms crossed, one eye scanning the shadows beyond the firelight.

Beside him, the High Warlord of Caernath. Stood wrapped in a dark cloak trimmed with the dragon’s sigil, grinned like a rogue caught in mischief.

Morrigan, seated nearby with a healer’s grace. But a wolf’s patience, gave Taranis a sharp look one that said plainly: “Behave. Don’t test those who would die for you.”

Taranis gave a half-bow and a lopsided smile.

“I know, fair lady. I’m not the cub I once was but has everyone forgotten?” He raised his arms wide, as if to embrace the stars. “I can’t die. I’ve walked out of battles far worse than the ruins of old clans left to rot.”

At that moment, two small children ran up and collided with his legs, eyes wide with awe. They looked to their fathers for permission then to Taranis as if gazing upon the man behind the myth.

One boy stepped ahead, voice clear:

“We’ve heard the tales, sir. Especially of Stormborne how the dragons flew above the ridge and bowed to you. How Boldolph and Morrigan led the wolves into battle. Everyone fought, but only you walked out untouched.”

Before Taranis answer, Solaris, seated close to the fire, his collar gone but his voice steady, spoke quietly:

“No… I think he means the Cave of Skulls. One hundred and fifty men, women, and children trapped. Clawclan sealed the tunnels, left their own behind. But you…” Solaris met Taranis’s gaze. “You went back. You left the manor of Rock. You found the torture dens. You should have walked away. Instead, you tried to free us.”

His voice grew softer.

“My father cursed your name that day. My mother tried to calm him. But the slave the one who defied the lords had stirred the dead to rise.”

Taranis looked into the fire.

“They caught me. Tortured me. Bound my hands in chains of bone. Months passed. They set the date of my execution and buried me beneath the stone the very slab the warlords dined upon.” He paused, the flames reflecting in his eyes. “But they didn’t expect me to climb back out. From under their own table.”

He turned to the children, his voice gentler now.

“As long as I draw breath,” he said, “you will not face this world alone. Nor shall horrors befall you while I yet live.”

A hush fell over the feast, broken only by the crackle of fire. And in that silence, some said they heard it faint but unmistakable:

The low, mournful howl of a wolf, rising from the northern hills. And then another.

And another.

As if the old ghosts, the ones buried in bone and memory, were listening.

“they’ are howling for you Taranis, a lord they can all trust, a man leading his people to better days.” Morrigan said with a gracious smile

© StormborneLore. Written by Emma for StormborneLore. Not for reproduction. All rights reserved.

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Further Reading

The Prophecies and Tales of Taranis Unfolded

The Chronicles of Drax

Join the Adventure in Tales of Rayne’s Universe

Ancient Magic and Myth of the Stormborne

July 10, 2025
The Houses of Caernath. Part 4

The Wolf and His Warlord

The scent of blood still hung on the morning mist. Mingling with the smoke from the still-burning ridge beyond Emberhelm’s eastern watch.

The gates had only just been sealed behind the last returning scouts. The courtyard was filled with low murmurs and the clang of steel being resharpened.

Taranis Stormborne stood alone beneath the stone arch, his shoulders squared but his body streaked in ash and dried blood. The battle had ended. Victory had been claimed.

And yet, the courtyard was quiet. Too quiet.

Then came the growl.

It rumbled low at first, barely more than a whisper on the wind. Before shaping itself into something unmistakable the warning bark of a wolf that knew disappointment far more intimately than fear.

Boldolph emerged from the shadow of the stables, his half-wolf form towering, claws still sheathed in crusted gore. His red eyes burned with something deeper than rage. Not fury. Not even grief.

It was wrath tempered by love.

“You damned fool,” Boldolph snarled, stalking toward the warlord. “You should’ve waited.”

Taranis didn’t flinch. He met the wolf-man’s gaze with that same infuriating storm-steeled calm. “I had to act.”

“You had to die?” Boldolph’s snarl cut through the air. “That’s what you wanted? To fall alone so the bards sing about it later?”

“I had to protect them,” Taranis snapped. “The Black Claw”

“Were expecting you.” Boldolph’s voice was thunder now, claws clenched at his sides. “They wanted you to come alone. You gave them exactly what they needed — the head of the storm without the wind behind him.”

Taranis looked away. The silence between them thickened.

Boldolph stepped closer. “You are the High Warlord now. You bear the storm in your veins and ride the dragon in the sky. But to me, you’re still that cub who couldn’t see the trap until he stepped into it.”

Taranis said nothing. He couldn’t. Not when he knew Boldolph was right.

Taranis moved to speak, but Boldolph raised a clawed hand.

“No,” the wolf-man growled. “You don’t get to explain it away with honor or duty or some poetic rot about sacrifice. You’ve earned your scars, Taranis but so have we. And we didn’t survive hell just to watch you walk back into it alone.”

The warlord took a breath. His face, still smeared with ash and dried ichor, softened. “I thought”

“That’s the problem,” Boldolph snapped, “you thought. You didn’t ask. Not me, not Lore, not Drax, not Solaris. You didn’t trust any of us to stand beside you.”

Taranis’s jaw clenched. “I trust you all with my life.”

“Then why won’t you trust us with your death?”

The words struck like a hammer.

Taranis staggered a step back not from force, but from the weight of truth. Boldolph’s eyes didn’t waver.

He looked less like a beast and more like a grieving elder. Wearied by a child who couldn’t yet see his own worth beyond the blade.

“You think being the High Warlord means dying on your feet,” Boldolph said, voice roughening. “But what it really means is living long enough to carry others. That’s what the storm is for. Not just to burn. To shield.”

The fire pits crackled in the stillness. From the northern walkway, Lore stood quietly, arms folded, having heard the last of it. He said nothing only nodded to Boldolph, and then vanished back into the shadows.

“You’re not alone anymore,” Boldolph continued, softer now. “You have brothers again. You have warriors, wolves, dragons. And you have people who’d bleed for you, not because you command them but because they love you.”

Taranis sat slowly on the stone steps beside the training pit. For once, the weight of his own armor seemed too much to bear. “I’ve spent so long fighting to survive,” he said, staring at the sky. “It’s hard to let go of that.”

“I know,” Boldolph murmured. “But surviving isn’t living. And we didn’t break our curses just to watch you chain yourself to a ghost.”

The wolf-man crouched beside him, joints creaking.

“I made a vow to your father when you were exiled. I swore to watch over you even when you didn’t know I was near. I failed once. I won’t again.”

Taranis turned to him. “You were there… even then?”

Boldolph nodded. “Always.”

They sat in silence, the roar of the battlefield replaced by the quiet whistle of wind between towers. In the distance, children’s laughter echoed from the lower courtyard. where Morrigan was teaching younglings to bind wounds with willow bark and song.

Boldolph sighed. “You need to speak to them. To all of them. Tell them what you’re fighting for. What we’re building.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Then let your silence be honest. But show them, Taranis. Not the warlord the man. The brother. The one who came back from the brink and built something no storm can wash away.”

Taranis stood slowly, shoulders still tense, but eyes clearer.

“You’re right,” he said. “I’ve been leading from the front but I’ve been doing it like I’m still alone. Like that eight-year-old boy who was cast out into the wilds.”

Boldolph rose beside him, towering and fierce. “Then stop being that boy. And become the storm the world remembers.”

Taranis gave a faint smile. “You’re more of a father than ours ever was.”

“I know,” Boldolph grunted. “You lot are exhausting.”

“Drax I’m sorry please forgive me’ tanaris told his oldest brother “just. ‘

“No I’m not hearing excuses young brother. You know boldolph asked morigan if he eat either you or your dragons ” Drax smirked

“that…that is definitely something Boldolph would say. I trust my mother wolf said no” Tanaris grinned. AS he folded his arms with a grin as morigan gave him a cautionary look.

Further Reading

The Prophecies and Tales of Taranis Unfolded

The Chronicles of Drax

A Journey Through My Poetic Collection

Join the Adventure in Tales of Rayne’s Universe

Ancient Magic and Myth of the Stormborne

July 10, 2025
The Houses of Caernath Part 3

The Feast of Blood and Bond.

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):

Starter:

Wild Nettle & Leek Soup

Nettle leaves (free if foraged)

Leek or spring onion

Pearl barley

Garlic & herbs

Main:

Braised Lamb Neck or Shoulder (cheap cuts)

Honey-roasted root veg (parsnip, carrot, turnip)

Mashed turnip/potato

Vegetarian choice: wild mushroom & nut loaf

Dessert:

Berries & Graincake

Stewed blackberries/crab apples

Honey/oats cake

Optional: hazelnuts

Further Reading

The Prophecies and Tales of Taranis Unfolded

The Chronicles of Drax

Join the Adventure in Tales of Rayne’s Universe

Ancient Magic and Myth of the Stormborne

The Houses of Caernath – Act I: The Broken Howl

The Houses of Caernath – Act II: The Forgotten Blood

Solaris’s Kitchen:

Rustic Bronze Age Lamb Recipe: A Diabetic-Friendly Delight

July 8, 2025