The fires in Emberhelm burned low, their glow tracing the hall’s carved beams in dull amber. Outside, wind howled through the moors, carrying the echo of the horn that had once called the clans to war. Now it was only memory.
Lord Drax Stormborne sat alone in the council chamber, a single goblet of wine untouched beside him. The maps and missives lay strewn across the oak table. Roman reports, messages from border scouts, pleas for grain from villages too frightened to send men to market.
He had not slept. Sleep meant dreams, and dreams brought Taranis.
His brother’s face haunted him not in death, but in defiance. Bound, bloodied, yet unbroken. There was strength in that memory, but guilt too.
“You always were the fire,” Drax murmured, voice low. “And I the stone that smothered it.”
A faint shuffle broke the silence. Caelum lingered at the doorway, unsure if he was welcome. “Father,” he said softly. “Marcos sent word. The Romans will move east toward the river forts. He says it’s only a patrol.”
Drax’s lips curved into something that have been a smile. “Marcos says many things to make Rome sound smaller than it is.”
He rose, the movement slow, heavy with sleepless weight. “Tell the men to prepare rations, but not weapons. We will not meet them with steel not yet.”
Caelum hesitated. “Uncle Taranis wouldn’t wait.”
“No,” Drax said, turning toward the window, where mist swirled over the dark moorlands. “He would burn the world to free one man. I must keep the world standing long enough for him to have one to return to.”
The boy nodded but did not understand. Few ever would.
Drax rested his hands on the cold stone sill, the wind tugging at his hair. Somewhere beyond the horizon, his brother still fought, still endured. And Drax the eldest, the anchor bore the burden of every storm that raged beyond his reach.
“Forgive me, brother,” he whispered to the wind. “I keep the hearth burning, not because I’ve forgotten you… but because I know you’ll come back to it.”
The morning mist hung thick over the Roman fort, curling around the walls and the sentries like ghostly serpents.
Taranis Storm’s wrists ached where iron had bitten into bruised flesh, his ankles raw from chains. Yet the fire inside him refused to be tamed. Marcos had warned him that this day would test more than his body. It would probe the limits of fear, endurance, and wit.
The centurion led him across the courtyard. Other prisoners lined the path, eyes wide with terror or jealousy. Weak men, broken men, some shaking in expectation of death. None dared speak.
“Today, you fight for Rome’s amusement,” the centurion barked, voice carrying over the square. “The arena awaits. Survive, or die beneath their eyes.”
Taranis allowed a faint smirk, almost imperceptible. Chains or no chains, sword, axe, or spear he had survived worse. The storm was within him, and storms do not break.
The first trial: Damnatio ad Bestias.
Lions, their muscles rippling beneath tawny manes, were released into the sand. Their growls rolled like thunder, a sound meant to unnerve men and mark the end of hope. Taranis was pushed forward, unarmed, the chains clinking with each step. The crowd leaned forward, eager for carnage.
The first lion lunged. Taranis dropped low, letting its momentum carry it past him. Spinning the chain to trip the beast, a subtle but devastating movement learned in the wilds of Staffordshire. Another lunged, jaws snapping, claws tearing sand.
He moved like the wind low, sharp, unpredictable. He stood baiting, dodging, spinning chains like whips, forcing the predators into missteps against one another.
Blood rose in clouds around him, yet he remained untouched. When the final lion recoiled and the centurion’s mouth twitched a mix of disbelief and begrudging respect. Taranis exhaled slowly, chains clinking, storm-controlled and silent.
The second trial: Gladiatorial combat.
He was given crude weapons a short sword nicked from years of use. A small round shield marred by countless hits, a spear bent at the tip. Combatants approached with mockery, expecting an untrained barbarian to stumble, falter, and bleed.
Taranis did not falter. He did not rush. Each movement was a calculation, using the terrain, his chains, the enemies’ weight and momentum against them. The first pair charged together, one with sword, one with shield.
Taranis pivoted, letting the chains tighten around their legs. As he ducked beneath the sword, delivering a clean strike to the opponent’s flank.
The second soldier hesitated, startled by the unexpected precision. Taranis did not smile he simply waited for the next assault, reading, predicting, exploiting every weakness.
A guard whispered to another, “He’s no ordinary man… he fights like the storm itself.”
By midday, the arena was a battlefield of skill, endurance, and cunning. A third pair entered, wielding axes. Taranis dodged and parried, chains tangling in the sand and catching his enemies off-balance. His movements were fluid, almost artistic — a storm in motion, controlled yet deadly.
Between bouts, he observed fellow prisoners some cowering, some quietly strategizing, watching him with awe. He nodded subtly, acknowledging their respect without breaking focus. Alliances were unnecessary here; survival was enough.
Two massive bears were released simultaneously, roaring, claws digging into the arena floor. Taranis analyzed their pattern one slower, one feinting left before striking right. He baited them, using his chains to trip and distract, pushing one into the other’s path. The crowd gasped as claws met flesh, teeth snapping on fur instead of his own body. His footwork was precise; his breathing measured; his mind sharpened like a blade.
When the bears finally withdrew, exhausted or bested by circumstance, Taranis stood alone in the sand. Sweat streaked with blood and mud clung to his skin. He raised his head, grey eyes surveying the watching centurion. There was no fear in him. Only storm.
The centurion approached cautiously, expression unreadable. “Enough. You will live… for now. But know this: Rome does not forgive defiance. Your survival is theirs, not yours.”
Taranis’s gaze swept over the spectators and fellow prisoners alike. Some bowed in awe, some averted their eyes in fear. Marcos leaned against the wall, one eye glinting with pride. Even in chains, Taranis Storm had not been broken.
That night, in the darkness of the cell barracks, he traced patterns in the dirt beneath his chains. The arena had been a spectacle for Rome, yes, but also a proving ground for him. Every movement, every dodge, every strike had been a lesson in patience and precision. Each enemy, each beast, each whisper of fear from the crowd had been data to be remembered, stored, and used.
The storm waited. It always waited. Taranis knew the chains bind him. swords scratch his skin, lions and bears roar, but they could not break him.
He smiled faintly to himself, letting the chains clink softly. Rome had given him a stage, a spectacle, and a lesson. And when the right moment came, the storm would strike and it would not be for their amusement.
The clouds hung low, casting a strange dark light over the gathering. The council of elders stood in a tight circle around a young boy.
“Stormborne, you are now and forever exiled from this village, this clan, and your family,” the elder leader declared, his eyes fixed on the child. Elder Ysra held the ceremonial staff before her, unmoving.
The little boy turned to his family. “Father, I didnot hurt anyone. Please” he begged, but his words were met with silence.
All thirteen of his brothers turned their backs. Then his mother did the same. Conan, his father, hesitated but looked away, knowing he could not stand against the council.
Taranis ran from the camp, tears blinding him as he fled into the woods. His sprint slowed to a walk. He stumbled across berries and gathered nettles to eat. His first meal as an exile—nettles and nuts.
“Not filling,” he whispered, “but the old ones ate it. Mama used to cook it.” He curled against the base of an ancient tree. Overhead, dragons roared. Wolves howled in the distance.
Time stilled. The ache of loneliness pressed down on him. He missed his brothers, his mothers humming, and even his fathers barked commands. He walked on, aimless, until he saw a white wolf. He froze.
The wolf approached, sniffed him, cautious but curious. Then a large black wolf circled nearby.
“We will not hurt you. Iam Boldolph,’ said the black wolf said not aloud, but directly into his mind.
‘You you wont?” the boy whispered as other wolves approached, dropping meat at his feet.
“No,” said the white wolf, lying down. “We are here to help. Your father sent us. I am Morrigan. Come, lie with me. Warm yourself.”
Taranis walked to her and buried himself in her thick fur. Boldolph stood guard, ever watchful.
He had lost his home, his name, and his kin. He had seen a friend die. Three winters passed, and the boy grew thin and pale, cradled in fur and silence. Then one morning, feverish and weak, he was found.
“Father, hes curled up with the wolves,” a boy said.
“We will take him. He will serve as a slave,” the man replied, lifting Taranis with ease.
They carried him to their camp. Women nursed him back to health, but one day he awoke and reached for his neck. A collar.
“Leave it,” said a teenage boy sitting nearby. ‘They will beat you if you touch it.”
“Who are you?” Taranis rasped.
” I am Solaris of black claw. I am one of your owners sons,” he said, offering him bread. “You are in the Black Claw clans camp. My father found you fevered and curled up with wolves. You are to stay here as a slave.”
From that day, Taranis worked from sunrise to sunset. He obeyed without question, learning to serve in kitchens and at the forge. He heard whispers of a cursed child, exiled and touched by dark forces.
On his eighteenth birthday, he hauled stones beneath the harsh gaze of the masters. One man held a branch, ready to strike.
He was tall now, but thin. His back bore scars from the collar and the lash. All he wanted was to see Boldolph and Morrigan again.
A slap of something warm and wet stung his spine.
“Keep it moving!” barked a voice.
The clan leaders sons played nearby. Solaris laughed with his younger brothers by the grain shed. One of them, a tall boy with a cruel grin, threw a rotten turnip.
It struck Taranis in the chest. The others laughed.
“Stop it,” Solaris snapped. “He is not our enemy.”
“He is a slave,” the older boy sneered. “You and Father found him half-dead. No name, no clan. Just stories of a cursed exile.”
That was me. Eight years old, alone in the snow. They said I was cursed. Touched by darkness.
But I was just a child.
He didnot remember lunging only the feel of dirt flying behind his heels. Rage took over.
The branch came down before he landed a punch.
Crack.
Pain burst across his shoulders. A second strike. A third, slower, deliberate.
Taranis didnot cry out.
The man loomed. “You want to fight the leaders sons? Try again, and we will gut the wolves that raised you. Make you skin them yourself.”
That stopped him.
His vision blurred. He tasted blood his or someone else’s he wasn’t sure but then a shadow blocked the light.
Solaris.
He stepped forward, fists clenched but low.
“You will kill him like this,” Solaris said.
“Hes still breathing,” the overseer growled. “Let the beast learn his place.”
“Hes not a beast.” Solaris growled
Silence.
“I have seen beasts. This ones still human.”
That day, there were no more beatings. But no food either.
Night fell cold. Taranis curled beside the embers, shivering.
Footsteps. He didnot lift his head. If they came to hurt him, so be it.
Something thudded beside him. Bread, wrapped in cloth.
“Its Still warm,” Solaris muttered. “I stole it before dinner. Donot die. Not yet.”
“it’s good I don’t intend to” Taranis took the bread in both hands. The warmth bled into his finger as he stared at the fire. There was a time hed healed a bird, mended his brothers broken arm. Even healed his brother but now He touched his collar.
“I will escape. I will kill them all,’ he whispered.
His family was a fading memory. The names Rayne, Drax, Draven, Lore blurred in his mind.
Then he heard a howl. “Thats Silver,” he whispered.” Thats Boldolph. And Morrigan. They stayed near.”
Men came. They dragged him to a tree marked by rope and tied his hands above his head. Children threw scraps at his face. Laughter. Rotten food.
A man approached. Large, green-eyed, wrapped in furs.
“Slave, you will stay here overnight. No food for two days for daring to touch my son,” he said. “Twenty lashes if you try anything.”
Taranis bowed his head. He knew not to speak. Not to fight.
As they walked away, he remained in silence, bound and bruised.
“Two days,” the man said to a woman. “No food. No water. Do not tend his wounds.”
The coals glowed nearby.
“Make him walk it,” said a boy named Root. They prodded Taranis toward hot stones.
He resisted.
“Please don’t make me’ he pleaded his hands rebound and a tether held by another boy.
“Walk,” another growled.
A younger boy smirked as he stepped across the coals unfazed.
“Hes not normal,” whispered Calor. “Is that the one the enemy fears?”
‘He speaks with wolves. And dragons,” the Seer answered.
“Bring our best fighter,” the leader ordered. “Let them fight.”
They dragged Taranis, barely conscious, to the firelit circle. The crowd formed in a crooked ring.
Barefoot, bruised, he stood in the dirt. His collar scraped with every breath.
Rukar, the clans champion, stepped forward. Twice his size. A necklace of teeth. Leather-wrapped fists.
“Fight,” the elder barked.
No weapons. No mercy.
The first punch knocked him flat. The second split his lip.
Thunder cracked. Lightning danced.
“Come on, exile,” someone jeered. “Show us your curse.”
But Taranis rolled. Rukars foot slammed into a stone instead of ribs.
Taranis launched upward, shoulder-first into Rukars knee. The brute staggered.
Dirt in the eyes. A headbutt. Teeth bared like a wolf.
Rukar swung. Another blow grazed Taranis temple. Blood poured.
This was not about victory.
It was about survival.
He twisted low, locking Rukars arm. A snap echoed. The champion fell, howling.
Silence.
Taranis knelt over him, ready to strike.
He didn’t move. He just stood
Bloodied. Shaking. Alive.
The Seers voice broke the silence. “The wolves taught him well.”
Taranis bowed to the master, kneeling as he had once knelt to his father.
“Take him to the tree,” the leader said. “Hes now a warrior-slave. He will earn his freedom in battle. But punishment for attacking my son still stands.”
They resecured him to the tree, pain burning through every limb.
Later that night, Solaris approached with broth. His father watched.
“You are a warrior-slave now,” Solaris said. “They will send you to war.”
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.
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.”
“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.
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):
Rayne collapsed before the cairnfire, the thick iron collar still tight around his neck. Etched with the jagged insignia of the Black Claw. Solaris had rushed to his side. Morrigan gathered water from the well, whispering healing words she barely remembered. Lore cast protective wards. Boldolph paced, fuming, red eyes narrowed beneath a heavy brow.
“This is madness,” Boldolph snarled, watching the collar pulse faintly with some cursed sigil. “The boy’s half-starved, and that brand it reeks of shadow magic.”
“He’s not a boy anymore,” Drax muttered. “He’s seen things. Same as the rest of us.”
“No child should wear chains,” Solaris said, voice tight. “Not in Emberhelm.”
Lore knelt by Rayne’s side, laying fingers over the rusted iron. “It’s not just a collar. It’s a seal. A blood-binding rune carved into bone. They meant for him to die wearing it.”
“And yet he made it back,” Morrigan added, her hand resting gently on Rayne’s fevered brow. “That means something.”
Taranis hadn’t spoken since Rayne collapsed. He stood just outside the circle of firelight. Eyes locked on the far horizon where Black Claw lands stretched like bruises across the night. Pendragon shifted restlessly behind him, wings tight to his sides.
“They have Draven,” Rayne had rasped before falling unconscious. “They kept him… because of me.”
That had been enough.
Without another word, Taranis had mounted the black dragon and taken to the sky.
The wind screamed around him, colder than it should have been for summer. Taranis kept low over the ridges, scanning the burned-out lands for signs of encampments. Black Claw banners once flew here clawed glyphs torn into hides, marked with bone. Now, they hid in the ruins, like maggots beneath ash.
Pendragon dove suddenly, a cry bursting from his throat.
There a ridge of slate carved into makeshift battlements. A fortress not meant to keep armies out, but prisoners in.
Taranis landed hard, blade drawn before his boots touched the ground. He didn’t speak. He didn’t call out.
He moved.
Two guards fell before they could scream lightning dancing along the edges of his blade. A third tried to flee. Pendragon caught him mid-run and dropped him without effort.
Taranis moved through the ruined keep like a storm incarnate silent, swift, merciless. These were slavers, torturers, the kind who’d once held him in chains. He knew every sound of their cruelty.
He’d been trained in their darkness. Now he wielded it against them.
In the lower chamber, he found Draven.
Naked but for rags, wrists chained above his head, bruises blooming along his ribs. He lifted his face at the sound of boots.
“Taranis?” he croaked.
“I’m here,” his brother said.
“You came back…”
“I always come back.”
Taranis cut the chains in two strokes, catching his brother as he fell.
“Can you walk?”
“No.”
“Then I’ll carry you.”
He slung Draven over his shoulder and stormed out as the keep burned behind him.
Not once did he look back.
By the time Taranis returned to Emberhelm, Rayne was awake.
Solaris had removed the collar with Lore’s help shattering it against a carved cairnstone. It took three days of chanting, and a night of fire that refused to go out. Boldolph had offered to chew the thing apart. Morrigan declined the offer.
Rayne sat in the healing hall, bandaged and trembling. When Taranis entered carrying Draven, the boy’s face crumpled.
“You got him.”
“I said I would.”
Morrigan rushed forward. “Lay him here.”
Taranis set Draven down gently. Lore began his work, murmuring ancient words. Solaris lit the fire with a whispered flame. Rayne crawled forward and took his brother’s hand.
“I’m sorry,” Rayne whispered. “I told them everything. They used me. And I still couldn’t save him.”
“You survived,” Taranis said. “That was enough.”
Drax entered moments later, axe slung over his back.
“You went alone.”
“I didn’t need an army.”
“You’re lucky I like you, brother.”
Boldolph huffed from the doorway. “I told you not to go alone. Next time, I’m riding the dragon.”
Pendragon let out a soft growl as if agreeing.
“Next time,” Taranis said, “there won’t be a need.”
That night, they gathered in the Hall of Storms. The Three Houses stood beneath banners newly hung. The thunder-mark of Tempestras, the flame glyph of Ignis, and the silver eclipse of Umbra.
Rayne, still weak but standing, stepped forward.
“I was taken when I followed a shadow beyond the border. They said my blood would buy silence. But my silence almost cost a life.”
Taranis laid a hand on his brother’s shoulder.
“It is not your shame to carry.”
“No,” Rayne said, looking around, “but I want to stay. I want to fight. I want to belong.”
Lore smiled. “Then choose your house.”
Rayne hesitated.
Then: “House of the Shadow.”
Umbra’s banner unfurled behind him.
Draven, barely upright, spoke next.
“I never stopped believing we’d meet again. Even when they broke my ribs and chained my hands. I clung to the howl of a wolf I couldn’t see. I thought it was memory. Now I know it was Boldolph.”
The great wolf-man stepped forward, placing a fist over his chest.
“You’re one of us.”
Draven smiled through broken teeth. “Then I choose House of the Storm.”
The warriors roared their approval.
Taranis turned to Solaris.
“We’ve brought them back. But we’re not finished, are we?”
“No,” Solaris replied. “Not until all chains are broken.”
Boldolph grunted. “I say we raise a hunt. Take out the last Black Claw den.”
Drax cracked his knuckles. “Been waiting for that.”
Lore added quietly, “We’ll need more than swords. The blood magic they used—it’s older than the cairnstones.”
Taranis nodded.
“Then we rebuild. We teach. We prepare.”
He turned to face the assembled tribes.
“The era of exile is over. The age of the Stormborne rises.”
And above them, Pendragon howled not in anger.
But in unity.
Later, as the fires dimmed, Boldolph stood outside the gates, leaning on his axe like a watchful father. Morrigan brought him stew.
“You stayed.”
“I always stay.”
“Still think about eating Taranis?”
“Not lately.”
They laughed quietly.
“Do you think they’ll ever stop fearing him?” Morrigan asked.
“No,” Boldolph said. “But that’s not what matters.”
Beneath the hollow tree he bled, With wolves for kin and stone for bed. The fire was not in hearth or hand It roared within, a storm unmanned.
He trained where no man dared to tread
On roots of yew and rivers red. His blade was bone, his shield was will, His foes were silence, hunger, chill.
Each sunrise found his form anew, A breath of frost, a bruise of blue. He carved his strength on bark and skin, And learned the rage that sleeps within.
He watched the hawk, he stalked the deer.
He danced with ghosts that others fear. His feet grew swift, his arms like oak, His breath break a hunter’s yoke.
No tribe remained to call him son, No elder crowned what he’d become. Yet mountains bowed, and storms would still .
For he had shaped the world by will.
The wolves ran wide, the skies grew torn.
And from the storm, the blade was born. A boy no more. No child of scorn. By fire and shadow… The warrior was born.
StormborneLore 