Tag: Celtic Shadows

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 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
The Broken Circle: Rayne’s Fight for Survival

The Shattered Path

The roads ahead were quiet, the wind carrying the scent of burnt heather and distant sea. Each hoofbeat of my mount reminded me that the choice I had made was mine alone, and yet its echo stretched far beyond my chest.

Whispers followed me like shadows. Some were real the wary eyes of villagers, the wary glances of traveling merchants. Others were imagined, the scornful voices of my brothers, of Taranis, of the Ring itself. I did not flinch. Survival was colder than fear, sharper than guilt.

The circle was gone, fractured beneath my hand, yet its memory clung to the land. I felt it in every hollow, every mound, every stone left untouched, as if the earth itself remembered the covenant we had sworn. I had broken it not for power, not for spite, but for a chance to bend fate toward life.

Rome was patient. I knew that. And I knew too that the storm I had once sought to command in Taranis’s fury could now rise in me, subtle, quiet, lethal if misjudged. The choice of the traitor is never simple. It is measured in survival, in timing, in knowing the cost before the world dares to demand it.

Ahead, a ridge cut the horizon, the pale sun glinting over the salt flats. I pulled my cloak tighter, letting the chill remind me that I was still breathing, still moving, still in control of this shattered path.

The Ring was broken. But perhaps, in that fracture, a new pattern could emerge. One I alone might trace.

I rode past the remnants of burned villages and overturned carts, careful to keep to the high ground. From this distance, nothing looked alive; yet every shadow could be a scout, every rustle a whisper of accusation. I had betrayed the circle, but I had not betrayed survival. That distinction, razor-thin, I carried like a blade at my side.

Even so, the memory of Taranis lingered. I imagined him, bound in chains, his eyes storm-grey beneath a sky that mirrored his wrath. Some part of me hoped he hated me. Another part the part I refused to acknowledge wished he would understand.

I reached the edge of a woodland and dismounted. The quiet crackle of dead leaves underfoot reminded me of my childhood in Compton, of paths once walked under open skies, where choice had been play, not consequence. Here, choice was survival. Choice was betrayal.

A messenger approached, a thin man with a letter sealed in the eagle of Rome. I took it with careful fingers, breaking the seal only when I was certain no eyes watched. The words were simple, direct, and chilling:

“Keep the Ring moving. Keep the pieces apart. Rome watches, and the storm will be rewarded or crushed at our discretion.”

I folded the letter slowly, feeling its weight far heavier than the paper it was written on. Rome had not forgotten, and neither had the Circle though I was its only witness now.

I paused at a stream, letting my mount drink, listening to the water whisper over stones. I thought of my brothers, of Drax, of Lore, of Draven. Each had reacted differently to Taranis’s capture, to my choice. Some with anger, some with fear, some with silent, unspoken questions. And some… had already begun to take paths I could not predict.

Even here, on the open road, I felt the pull of power, subtle and insidious. The Ring had been broken, yes, but its legacy endured. That legacy could guide me—or consume me.

As night fell, I made camp beneath a lone oak, its twisted branches scratching the dark sky like fingers of fate. I allowed myself a single, quiet thought before sleep claimed me:

The storm does not always strike. Sometimes it waits, gathers, watches… and then it returns, quiet, inevitable, unstoppable.

The following morning, I rode again, the mist curling around the trees like living breath. Villagers had begun to recognize me, whispers trailing my passage. Traitor. Survivor. Coward. Protector. All names carried weight, none carried comfort. I ignored them. Survival required more than comfort; it required cold calculation.

By mid-morning, I encountered a small party of mercenaries scouts from a northern lord, curious about the broken Circle. They eyed me cautiously, their hands brushing the hilts of swords. I allowed a faint smile, enough to disarm suspicion. Words were sharper than steel when wielded carefully.

“I go where the path leads,” I said, voice steady. “I am alone. None should follow.”

They studied me, hesitated, then nodded, scattering into the woods. Even in my isolation, the choices of others shifted around me. Allies, enemies sometimes the line blurred, sometimes it vanished entirely.

Hours later, I made camp near a ruined chapel, overgrown with ivy and stones worn smooth by centuries. Flames licked at damp wood as I pondered the Circle, Taranis, and the pieces of the Ring now scattered across Britain. I could feel their influence, subtle, almost like a heartbeat beneath the earth. The storm of Emberhelm was not gone. It only waited.

A shadow moved near the edge of the firelight. I tensed, hand brushing the hilt of my dagger. The figure emerged: an old acquaintance, one of the scouts I had trained alongside in youth. His face betrayed both awe and fear.

“You broke the Circle,” he whispered, voice shaking. “And yet… you ride on.”

“I did what was necessary,” I said simply. “The Circle survives only in memory if we all fall. I intend to endure.”

He nodded, unease clinging to his gaze. “And Taranis?”

The name struck like a lance, but my expression remained calm. “He lives. That is enough for now. The storm is his. And perhaps it will return to me when I need it most.”

Night deepened. I lay beneath the ivy-draped stones, listening to the forest breathe. Each rustle, each call of distant creatures reminded me that life persisted, even when the world was fractured.

Survival, I reminded myself again, was not glory. It was endurance, patience, and the quiet shaping of what must come next.

And somewhere, far beyond the reach of my sight, the echoes of Emberhelm stirred, waiting for the right moment to rise again.

October 4, 2025
The Chronicles of the Gold Ring

Chapter Thirteen – The Shattered Circle

The circle of stones stood under a bruised sky. The thirteenth stone, already cracked from the battle at Emberhelm, seemed to strain against itself as though it knew what was coming. Thirteen seats. Only twelve filled.

Taranis Storm to his outlaws stood at the centre. His cloak was damp from rain, his wrist still bandaged from the Hill of Ashes. Around him, the brothers of the Ring shifted like wolves uneasy in their own skins.

Drax spoke first. “The Black Shields raid in your name. The people whisper of you, not of us. The balance is broken.”

“It was never balanced,” Taranis replied. His voice was low, bitter. “We bled for fields that gave us no bread. Rome takes salt from our earth while we quarrel. If I raid, it is to feed our people, not to wear a crown.”

Lore’s eyes flicked to the sky. “And yet the crown follows you, brother. The omens have turned. The storm no longer waits.”

Then Rayne stepped forward, the firelight showing the sly curve of his smile. “No storm lasts forever. Some of us have chosen survival.”

From the shadows came the tramp of iron boots. The air filled with the rhythm of Rome square shields, horsehair crests, iron blades that gleamed even in the grey. The circle of stones was surrounded.

Draven’s face went pale. His lips moved as if to speak, but no words came.

“You led them here,” Taranis said.

Rayne did not deny it. “Our people will live beneath Rome’s law. Better chains of iron than graves of ash.”

The thirteenth stone split with a sound like thunder. Dust trickled down its face. The Ring was broken.

Battle erupted. Drax drew steel, Lore called fire from the runes, Aisin shielded the cradle where Caelum slept. Nessa’s blade sang bright before she was dragged into the fray, her cry lost in the clash.

Taranis fought like the storm itself blade flashing, shield breaking, each stroke cutting down another soldier. But for every man he felled, three more closed in. Nets weighted with lead tangled his limbs. Chains of iron bit deep.

He roared once, a sound that shook the stones. Lightning split the sky as if the gods themselves mourned. Then the Romans dragged him down. His black shield shattered under their boots.

“Take him alive,” the centurion barked. “Rome has use for beasts like this.”

When the fighting ended, the circle lay in ruin. Smoke curled from broken fires. Brothers lay wounded or scattered. The thirteenth stone was nothing but rubble.

Taranis, Storm of Emberhelm, was shackled in chains and marched south along the salt road. Behind him, the old world fell silent. Ahead lay the lash, the arena, and the roar of foreign crowds.

He lifted his head once to the sky and whispered through bloodied lips:

“If I must fight, let it be as storm, not as slave.”

The storm rolled east with him, into Rome.

© StormborneLore Emma Hewitt, 2025. All rights reserved.

The Library of Caernath

Stormborne Arts

The Chronicles of the Gold Ring Chapter Twelve

September 20, 2025
The Chronicles of the Gold Ring Chapter Twelve

A vibrant painting depicting a colorful tree beneath a bright blue sky, symbolizing life and renewal.

Rest Beneath the Tree

At last they came to the tree.

It rose from the earth as though the hill itself had forced it skyward roots tangled deep, bark silvered with age, branches spread wide like the arms of a giant blessing or warning all who passed beneath. The ground around it was hushed, as if even the wind dared not trespass too loudly here.

Storm staggered to its shade and lowered himself to the roots. The weight of his wounds and weariness pressed him down, yet the tree seemed to hold him as gently as a cradle. He breathed slow, leaning against the trunk, and for the first time since the hill of ashes he felt his heart’s trembling ease.

The others made camp nearby, but left him undisturbed. Brianna spread her cloak by the fire, her eyes flicking often toward where he lay. Cadan tended the embers, muttering half-prayers, half-jests. The boy slept curled by the packs, his face still wet with the salt of grief.

Storm closed his eyes.

The world changed.

The tree shone with light, its roots glowing as though molten, its crown alive with whispering voices. Wolves circled him in the half-dark Boldolph and Morrigan among them, their eyes like coals, their howls joining others long gone. Above the branches wheeled Pendragon and Tairneanach, wings stirring thunder in a sky that was not a sky.

The gold ring gleamed on his finger once more. Its weight was not a burden but a bond. And the tree’s voice, deep as the earth itself, rolled through his marrow:

Rest, child of storm. The road is not ended.
Every root remembers.
Every leaf bears witness.
You are bound to us, as we are bound to you.

Storm reached out and pressed his palm to the bark. He felt its strength answer, steadying his own. When his eyes opened, dawn was breaking.

Brianna stood ready with her blade. Cadan was already packing. The boy stirred from sleep.

Storm rose slowly, his body aching but his spirit steadier, and gave the tree one last look. The mark of his hand remained upon the trunk, a faint glow where blood and dream had mingled.

Then he walked on.

© StormborneLore Emma Hewitt, 2025. All rights reserved.

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Futher Reading

The Library of Caernath

August 27, 2025
Discover Legends: The Stormfire Saga Part 2

The mist churned with the heavy breath of the earth. It was a blanket of silence, thick as the sorrow that weighed on the air. The warriors stood, unsure whether to kneel or fight to greet their kin, or strike at their curse. There had been no warning, no word of Taranis’s return. He had simply appeared the shadows parting to reveal him like a storm-born god.

Taranis stood tall in the heart of them, his broad shoulders cut against the rolling mist. The wolves at his side. Boldolph, his red-eyed companion, a shadow of night itself, prowled silently beside him.

Morrigan, a beautiful white wolf, ever the ghost, her eyes glittering like twin embers. Moved with the grace of wind, barely disturbing the earth beneath her paws.

Above them, the storm was waiting watching. Tairneanach and Pendragon, the dragons, were not of this earth. But they lingered in the skies, their wings beating the air like the rhythm of war itself.

He did not call for battle. He did not raise a spear. He simply let the storm guide his steps. The weight of his presence alone seemed to shift the land. The earth trembling as though it too remembered what the boy now a man had become.

The warriors of his homeland, who had once been his brothers. Now looked upon him with a mixture of awe, fear, and guilt. Lore, his older brother, stood before him, his face shadowed with grief and anger. There was no joy in his eyes, only the harsh weight of lost years and lost family.

“You return, Taranis. But what have you come back to?” Lore’s voice cut through the stillness. There was no warmth in his tone. Only a coldness that ran deep, a layer of resentment that not be overlooked.

Taranis’s voice, nonetheless, was steady as thunder in the distance, resonating with the storm that had followed him for years. “I return for blood,” he said. “Not just for yours, but for mine.”

A wave of motion the clash of steel, the growl of beasts. But it wasn’t just the tribe who sought war. From the far ridge, a war band of strangers approached, their figures shrouded in shadow. They were not just raiders.

These men had come for something more like. They had heard the legends of the boy who had been cast out. The one who had walked through the storm. They had come to test the power of the Stormborne bloodline.

Taranis didn’t wait. He swept ahead, his blade gleaming like the edge of the storm, glowing with fury. Boldolph leapt alongside him, his jaws snapping at the air. A creature of black shadow and red fire, creature of his own making. Morrigan, ever the shadow, darted forward like a streak of vengeance. her white fur glowing as if the moon itself had poured through her.

The first strike landed. Taranis’s blade cut through the flesh of his nearest foe with the ease of wind through the trees. Blood sprayed from the wound, but it wasn’t just mortal men he was fighting. The storm answered him, the air vibrating as if the heavens themselves would break apart.

The Storm Unleashed
Taranis fought as though he was the very storm itself. Each swing of his blade cutting through flesh like lightning raking the sky. His movements were fluid, practiced not from years of training, but from something older. He had become the storm, the blade in his hand merely an extension of his fury.

Boldolph was a black shadow beside him. His jaws closing around an enemy’s throat, tearing through flesh like a force of nature. Morrigan struck with the elegance of wind, swift and deadly, cutting through men. As though they were nothing more than smoke in the air.

Her eyes burned with the same fire that danced in Taranis’s chest. Morrigans presence was a reminder of the wildness that had shaped him.

The warriors of the rival tribe faltered under the weight of the storm that followed Taranis. The mist, which had once cloaked them in mystery. As it began to burn away, replaced by a swirling cloud of rage and prophecy. The ground rumbled beneath their feet, the clash of steel mingling with the roar of dragons in the sky.

Above them, the dragons spiraled, their forms flickering in and out of the thunderclouds. Pendragon, the King of Dragons, seemed to grow in size with each heartbeat of battle. His wings tearing through the air like the flaps of fate itself.

Tairneanach, the storm dragon, called down bolts of lightning, sending the enemy scattering in terror. He was not of the world below. But his power filled it with such force that even the mightiest warriors. were little more than ants beneath his gaze.

Lore, still standing firm at the edge of the battlefield, shouted over the chaos, his voice tinged with fear,.

“Taranis! This battle is ours to win, but not with blood alone. The storm has a price.”

Taranis glanced at his brother, the bond between them still intact despite the years of separation. Lore’s face was etched with worry, and Taranis saw the doubt in his eyes. They had fought together once, long ago. But the battlefield was different now, and so were they.

Taranis nodded, raising his sword to the sky. Pendragon roared, and the ground trembled beneath them. The clash of steel and the roar of dragons echoed across the hills as the battle raged on.

The Turning Point
Taranis had always fought for survival, but now he fought for something more his legacy. This battle was more than a struggle for land or tribe. It was a struggle for what would stay of the Stormborne name. The tribe, his family, and the ancient bond of blood and storm were all tied to this moment.

Drax, his brother, caught sight of him in the thick of the battle. Their eyes met across the chaos. Drax had once been the fierce, unrelenting warrior, the protector. But now, his eyes were full of something else hesitation.

Taranis fought his way toward him, cutting through the enemy like a force of nature. When he reached Drax, there was a moment of stillness the battlefield paused, the winds held their breath.

“You fight as a man, Taranis,” Drax said, his voice rough with emotion, his sword slick with blood. “But you’ve never known the price of victory.”

Taranis’s eyes flashed with a fire of their own. “Victory isn’t about what you take. It’s about what you give.”

Drax, understanding in that moment what Taranis meant, raised his sword. “Then let us give,” he said, and together they turned. Fighting back to back, cutting through the enemy ranks with a power born of blood, storm, and flame.

The End of the Storm

The battle raged on for what felt like eternity, but slowly, the enemy forces began to break. The storm that had followed Taranis, fierce and untamed, began to recede as the last of the rival warriors fell.

The sky cleared, the clouds parted, and the first rays of sunlight broke through. casting a strange glow over the blood-soaked earth.

Taranis stood midst the chaos, bloodied but unbroken, his sword raised to the heavens. Pendragon and Tairneanach circled above, their forms still haunting the skies as their presence faded with the storm.

Lore and Drax stood beside him, their faces full of silent grief and reluctant pride. The cost had been great, and the blood of their brothers stained the earth beneath them.

But the Stormborne bloodline had endured. Taranis had returned and with him, the legacy of the Stormborne would live on. No longer a whispered legend, but a truth written in blood, storm, and flame.

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.

If you would like to read more Taranis stories please see: The Prophecies and Tales of Taranis Unfolded

If you would like to read more about Drax : The Chronicles of Drax

If you would like to read more about Rayne: The tales of Rayne

If you would like to read more about Lore: The Keeper of Cairnstones: Myths and Mysteries Revealed

July 2, 2025