They called him traitor, but Rayne no longer heard the living. As he listened to the stones instead. Each night he carved runes along the riverbanks shapes of storm and warding, the language of his dreams.
The air thickened with whispers when he worked, low voices that hummed like thunder beneath the earth.Sometimes he saw faces in the mist, men long dead still bearing the mark of the ring.
He never ran from them. They were his only kin now. When the first Saxon ships came gliding through the dawn fog, he was already waiting, knife in hand, carving one last rune a warning, or a welcome.
This scene is part of “The Hollow Years – When the Eagles Fled.
Draven had left the fight behind or so he told himself.
He walked the Roman road south, its stones cracked, grass grown thick between them. Every milestone he passed bore scratches the Storm-ring carved into the stone by unseen hands.He carried grain, not a sword, now.
Yet the silence unnerved him.No birds sang. Only the hiss of wind through abandoned villas. When he reached the crossroads, he saw a figure ahead cloaked, unmoving. He called out.
The figure didn’t answer, and when he drew closer, there was nothing there. Only a carved mask nailed to a post, grinning red beneath the twilight.This scene is part of “The Hollow Years – When the Eagles Fled.”⚡
The wind on the Chase carried voices again not of men, but the echoes of those buried beneath the hills.
Taranis sat by the fire, sharpening his blade as the Black Shields slept around him.
He no longer knew if they were fighting for Britain, or for ghosts. The Picts came by night, howling through the fog.
When the first fell, Taranis felt nothing only the land moving beneath his feet, as if the soil itself had taken breath. He whispered a vow into the dark: We guard what Rome forgot. We guard the living and the dead.
Somewhere in the mist, the old gods listened.
This scene is part of “The Hollow Years – When the Eagles Fled.”
The banners of Rome had fallen long ago, but Drax still rode as if the legions would return. The road through Pennocrucium was broken now, weeds spilling through the cracks where once the eagles marched. His armour no longer shone, the crimson cloak dulled by weather and war. Yet he wore it still not for pride, but remembrance.
He had buried too many men to abandon the law.
To the north, word spread of ships black-prowed, heavy with warriors from across the sea. To the west, the Picts pressed down through mist and mountain. Between them, the land lay hollow, ruled by whoever still raise a blade.
From the shadows of the trees, smoke curled not of hearths, but of hidden fires. The Black Shields were at work again.
Drax halted his horse beside the stream. In the rippling reflection he saw a face harder than he remembered. The boy who had once followed Rome’s banners now hunted ghosts of his own blood.
“Brother,” came a voice from the treeline.
Taranis stepped out, cloak blackened, a scar like thunder down his cheek. His men lingered behind him, masked in soot and ash. Outlaws. Rebels. To the poor, heroes.
“The Picts strike from the north,” Drax said, hand on his sword. “You have joined me in holding the border.”
“I hold what matters,” Taranis answered. “The people. The fields Rome left to burn. You guard ruins, Drax I guard the living.”
For a heartbeat, silence two worlds staring across a stream. Then the sound of hooves echoed through the trees.
Draven rode between them, shaking his head. “Enough. We’ve bled too long for banners that mean nothing.” He threw down a pouch of grain. “There’s famine in the villages. We fight each other while children starve.”
From deeper in the wood, Lore watched through drifting smoke. In the caves beneath Cannock Chase he had tended the cairns of their ancestors. Lore kept the fire burning through the endless grey. He whispered to the flame: keep them, all of them, even when they forget the old names.
And Rayne, ever the exile, carved symbols into the stones near the water’s edge runes of storm and warning. Ships will come. The sea brings change.
That night, as the brothers parted beneath a blood-red sky, the wind carried the faintest sound not thunder, but the creak of oars. Far beyond the estuary, lights moved upon the water.
The first of the Saxons had come.
And in the hollow of Britain’s heart, the Stormborne name still burned
Read more from the Stormborne Brothers: [Lore – The Flame Beneath the Chase] [Draven – The Quiet Road] [Rayne – The Carver of Ghosts] [Taranis – The Black Shield’s Oath]
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Pennocrucium was dying.The fort that once rang with steel and Latin orders now lay quiet under a bruised evening sky. The last of the Roman banners hung in the wet like torn skin. The gold stitching dull and heavy with rain.
Fires in the watchtowers had burned down to ash. Barracks stood open. Doors unbarred.No sentries.No horn.No empire.Drax stood in the centre of the courtyard, gloved hands behind his back, cloak dark with rain.
He could still see where the eagle standard had stood, planted in the earth like a promise. He had bled beneath that symbol. Killed beneath it. Buried men beneath it.
Defended it long after others began to whisper that Rome no longer had the strength to defend itself.Now the standard lay in the mud.He let out a slow breath.
“This is how it ends,” he said quietly. “Not with fire. With retreat.”A few of his men were still with him. Not many. Veterans. The ones too loyal or too stubborn to walk away until ordered.
“Praefect,” Maren said, stepping to his side. Rain had plastered the boy’s hair to his face, and his jaw worked the way it always did . When he was circling fear and pretending not to feel it. “The last wagons are packed. They’re taking the southern road to Viroconium before dark.”
“Good,” Drax said. His voice stayed even. He didn’t look at his son. “They’ll be safer south.”Maren hesitated.
“What about us? Us.Not the cohort. Not the banner. Us.” Drax let the word settle in his chest.
“We’re not going south,” he said.Maren swallowed.
“Are we going after them?”
“No,” Drax said. “We’re going home.”The boy didn’t answer, but he understood. Drax saw it in the way the tension left his shoulders and something else took its place.
Not ease. Something older. Something like hunger.Thunder rolled low over the Chase.Beyond the walls, the land lay open and dark. The tree line a ragged edge against a sky. That hadn’t decided yet if it meant to rain or break clear. Mist gathered low over the fields in pale bands.
The air smelled of smoke from scattered farmsteads and peat fires. The smoke that drifted up on this night, every year, since before Rome ever named this place.
Spirit night.Nos Galan Gaeaf.The first night of winter. Drax looked north, toward the low hills and the mist and the deep-breathing dark of the land that raised him.
“Home,” he said.Then he walked into the new winter.
The rain had eased by morning, though the ground still steamed where the storm had passed.
The Mist clung to the Chase like breath, thick and cold, rolling through the hollows where the Romans once marched proud. Taranis stood by the broken road, cloak heavy with water, hair plastered to his brow.
He could still see the ruts of cart wheels half-buried in mud Rome’s mark, carved deep into the land.
“Won’t last,” he muttered, toeing one of the stones. “Nowt they build ever does.”Byrin came up behind, shoulders hunched against the chill.
“They’ve gone, lord. Last cohort took the south road yestere’en. Fort’s empty now.”Taranis grinned, the kind of grin that didn’t reach his eyes.
“Aye, I know. Felt it in the wind. Empire’s breath cut short.”He knelt, pulling a scrap of bread from his pouch, laying it on the old stone. Where once the eagle banners stood. Then he poured a splash of mead beside it.
“For them as fought, an’ them as fell,” he said quiet-like.
“An’ for the land, what outlives us all.”Byrin shifted his weight.
“Spirit night, innit? Galan Gaeaf, like th’owd folk say. When t’dead walk an’ th’winds carry their names.”Taranis nodded, eyes on the fire they’d lit a low orange glow crackling through damp wood.
“Aye. Let ’em walk. Let ’em see what’s come o’ Rome. Maybe they’ll find peace in the storm’s breath.”One by one, the men came forward, tossing bits of bread, small charms, even blades into the flames.
Their offerings for their kin, for luck, for the year turning.
“Break the road,” Taranis said after a time. “Let the dead cross free. Rome’s way ends here.”The sound of stone splitting echoed through the trees like thunder.
Byrin wiped sweat from his brow. “Yow reckon we’ll be free now, lord?”
Taranis looked north, where the sky lightened just enough to show the edge of winter coming.
Free?” he said, voice low. “No mon’s ever free o’ summat storm, king, or ghost. But th’land’ll be ours again, leastways till next lot fancies it.” He turned toward the fire once more.
The wind caught it, scattering sparks into the mist like stars. Somewhere, a raven called deep and hollow. Taranis lifted his blade, resting it against his shoulder.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s feed the fire one last time, then go. Night’s drawin’ in, an’ spirits’ll be walkin’ soon.”Behind ’em, the last stretch of Roman stone cracked under hammer blows.
As steam was rising from the breaks like breath from a wounded beast.Taranis didn’t look back. He just walked, slow and steady, into the mist where thunder rolled soft and low, like the old gods stirrin’ in their sleep.
A vibrant abstract illustration featuring layered colors and an arrow design, symbolizing direction and change.
The children were asleep when Drax arrived.
The house was small, only one room wide, built of timber and stone Draven had carried with his own hands. Smoke curled from the hearth. His wife sat beside the fire, mending a tear in their daughter’s cloak. The scent of broth lingered in the air, soft and warm.
Draven opened the door before Drax could knock. He had felt him coming, the way a wolf senses winter.
They did not greet one another at first.
Drax stepped inside, shoulders heavy with travel and silence. His eyes went to the sleeping children. To the carved wooden animals on the shelf. To the woven basket of herbs drying near the window.
A life earned. A life held carefully. A life that could be broken by a single word.
Draven’s wife looked up, needle paused above the cloth. As she looked to Drax a heavy silence stilled in the room. She had always known this peace was borrowed.
Drax removed his gloves. He spoke quietly as he looked to his brother a man who stood 5foot 9 inches, slim build with dark hair..
“War is coming.”
There was no answer right away.
Draven sat beside the fire. His wife rested her hand over his — steady, steady, steady — and he closed his eyes.
Not in anger. Not in dread. But in that deep, wordless grief of a man who knew peace was never his to keep.
Vibrant abstract artwork featuring layers of colorful concentric patterns and a bold arrow design.
Not all protectors stand in front of you. Some stand behind, in the treeline, unseen.
Draven Stormborne is the quiet brother the watcher in the woods, the one who listens before he speaks, the one who guards what others never notice is in danger.
He does not seek glory, or power, or command.
He simply protects.
Because someone must.
Identity & Role
Archetype: The Wolf / The Ranger / The Guardian
What he represents
Survival, compassion, natural balance
His purpose: To keep the living world safe
His burden: He does so alone
Where Taranis is fire, Draven is root and soil. Where Drax builds walls, Draven keeps the forest whole. Where Lore remembers the dead, Draven protects the living.
He speaks little. But when he does, it is always truth.
Strengths
Silent hunter
Patient, observant, precise
Deep empathy for the vulnerable (even when it hurts him)
Unshakable calm until someone threatens what he loves
Draven does not fight for honor. He fights when children are cold. When villages are cornered. When forests are taken. When no one else knows danger is coming.
He is the last line. Always.
Wound
Draven lives his life on the edges of others’ lives.
He watches families grow old. He watches friends die. He walks away so they never have to see him remain the same.
He carries the loneliness of the immortal who chooses love anyway.
He is not forgotten he is simply unseen.
Whispers Across History
Draven does not appear in chronicles. He appears in folk tales.
Stories of:
A silent hunter who returns missing children
A man who drives wolves away with nothing but a look
Footprints in snow where no village scouts had been
A stranger who buried the dead when plague took a town
A figure seen at the treeline during winter famine watching, ensuring no one froze unseen
He is myth, rumor, guardian, ghost.
But he was always real.
How Others Speak of Him
“He does not ask for thanks. He does not wait for it.”
“When the forest goes quiet he is there.”
“Some gods protect nations. Draven protects one life at a time.”
This Is Only the Edge of His Story
Draven’s life does not unfold on battlefields or in king’s halls.
It unfolds:
in the hush of snow,
in the shade of old trees,
in the quiet moments between tragedy and survival.
If you follow him, you follow the wild, the ache, the truth of what it means to care without being seen.
A vibrant, artistic depiction of a tree with colorful leaves set against a dark background, symbolizing the mystical elements of nature.
By E.L. Hewitt — StormborneLore
Dawn came slow over Cannock Chase, the sky still holding tight to the colours of night.
Mist clung to the ground, pale as breath on cold glass. The trees stood quiet as watchers in old cloaks.
Lore walked barefoot through the wet grass, collecting what the earth offered.
Yarrow first pale and feathery, growing in shy clusters where the sunlight would later reach. Good for blood and fever, and for protection against spirits that lingered too close.
He cut it gently, whispering, “For the ones who yet breathe.”
Rowan bark next, peeling in thin curls beneath his knife. The tree shivered, though no wind touched it.
Rowan remembers, the old women used to say and Lore believed them.
Last came the resin pine tears hardened in the bark of a fallen giant, still sweet, still golden.
He held it to his nose, breathing in the scent of memory. Smoke. Rain. Home.
Above him, the crows gathered.
Three at first. Then five. Then a dozen, their wings murmuring like pages turning.
They did not caw. They simply watched.
Lore did not fear them. The crows of the Chase were older than any Druid’s words. Older than Rome’s roads. Older even than the songs of the first tribes.
They followed him as he walked between the birches. Their trunks ghost-white, rising from the mist like bones of giants sleeping beneath the soil.
The air felt listening.
The trees breathed slow.
The old gods waited.
Lore spoke softly, almost too low to hear: “Stormfather. Bound-Brother. Wild King. I hear you.”
The leaves stirred, though the air was still.
And then
A whisper. Not with sound, but with bone and blood.
He rises.
Lore’s heart tightened. No fear only certainty.
The crows took flight at once, black wings cutting the dawn sky. They flew south, toward the marsh track near Landywood, toward the low birches where the Black Shields rested.
StormborneLore 