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.
The night was raw and sharp with frost, the air thick with the scent of pine and woodsmoke drifting from distant hearths. Taranis rode ahead, the black shield strapped to his back catching what little moonlight broke through the bare branches.
Behind him, the Black Shields moved like a shadow given form. Seven riders their shields painted black and marked with the storm-sigil in dull grey ash. Among them, Brianna kept pace, her raven-dark hair bound in a warrior’s braid, eyes fixed on the road ahead.
Their target lay where the old trader’s road bent toward the river. a Roman supply convoy, fat with grain, salted pork, and amphorae of oil. The guards wore the same polished arrogance as all Rome’s men helmets gleaming, spears upright, their march a perfect, disciplined rhythm.
Taranis raised his fist. The forest seemed to hold its breath. Then his hand dropped, and the night erupted.
Arrows hissed from the treeline, felling the lead guard before the others could shout. Brianna’s blade flashed as she rode through the side of the column, cutting down a soldier who tried to raise his horn. Taranis slammed into the rearmost wagon, sending it lurching into the ditch.
The fight was short, brutal. When it ended, the snow was churned with blood and the mules stood trembling, steam curling from their nostrils.
“Take the lot,” Taranis said. “Every last sack.”
The Shields loaded what they could onto their own wagons, but instead of retreating into the forest as usual, Taranis turned his horse toward the lowland villages along the marsh. They moved in silence, the wagons creaking under the weight of Rome’s stolen bounty.
The first door they knocked on belonged to a bent-backed widow with two hungry children. Brianna handed her a sack of grain without a word.
At the next farmstead, a half-crippled shepherd received a barrel of salted pork. By the time they reached the edge of Emberhelm’s border, half the load was gone.
The rest, Taranis delivered at dawn to Lore’s men at the southern watch, and to Drax’s quartermaster in the hills.
When Brianna caught up to him by the river, she frowned.
“You give more than you keep. That’s not how outlaws survive.”
Taranis shrugged, eyes on the water.
“Then I’m not an outlaw. I’m a storm. Storms take, but they leave the earth ready to grow again.”
She studied him for a long moment before nodding once.
“Then let’s see how long the earth lets you live.”
Ash fell like snow across the field, and the cries of dying men echoed over blood-stained earth. Taranis stood at the crest of the hill, his blade soaked, his breath ragged, eyes scanning the fray. His cloak snapped behind him, storm-charged and wild.
Then he saw her.
A blur of red hair and steel. She moved like fire unleashed cutting down two warriors with a rhythm so brutal it bordered on poetry. A deep scar crossed her cheek, fresh blood mingling with the old. Her spear spun once, twice, and buried itself in the chest of a man charging from behind.
She turned. Their eyes locked.
For a second, the war fell silent.
Taranis stepped forward. So did she.
They met in the no-man’s land between sides, blades raised not in anger, but instinct. Neither lowered their guard.
“You’re no foot soldier,” Taranis said, circling. “What are you?”
She didn’t smile, but her voice held a grin.
“I’m the reason you’re bleeding, warlord.”
He looked down. A shallow cut across his ribs. He hadn’t even felt it.
“I’d remember a woman like you,” he muttered, lowering his blade. “Name?”
“Nessa. And I don’t need saving.”
“I wasn’t offering,” he replied, “just watching the storm arrive.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You think this is a storm?” She stepped closer. “You’ve not seen anything yet.”
Then — the horn blew. Her side was retreating. She looked over her shoulder, then back at him.
“I should kill you,” she said.
“You should,” Taranis agreed, “but you won’t.”
She held his gaze another heartbeat… then turned and ran, vanishing into smoke and flame.
He stood alone, the sound of her name still echoing behind his ribs like thunder.
A Week Later Riverbank Clearing The village was in ruins blackened timbers, smoke curling from half-dead hearths. Survivors were few, and even they shrank from him as he passed. They whispered of a warrior woman who had held the bridge alone until the flames took her horse and half her shield arm.
Taranis followed the trail until it ended in a clearing by the river. And there she was.
Kneeling in the shallows, Nessa washed blood from her skin. Her armor was battered. Her shoulder bound with torn linen. But her spine was straight, and her hand never strayed far from the dagger at her hip.
“I should have known,” she said, not looking up. “Storms always return to the wreckage.”
Taranis didn’t smile. “You survived.”
“I always do.” She rose, eyes sharp. “Here to finish what we didn’t start?”
He stepped forward. “I came to offer a truce.”
She scoffed. “Why? Because I didn’t kill you the first time?”
“No,” he said. “Because I want to know why you fight like a warrior, but bleed like someone with nothing left to lose.”
Her jaw clenched. “You think you can read me, warlord? You think I’m one of your stories?”
“No,” Taranis said quietly, “but I know the look of someone trying to die just slowly enough to call it bravery.”
She drew her dagger, fast as lightning. Held it to his throat.
“Careful. You don’t know me.”
“I know enough,” he said, unmoving. “Your people are scattered. Your command is gone. And yet you stood alone at that bridge for strangers.”
“That’s more than you’ve done lately,” she snapped. “You walk the land like a ghost and leave nothing behind but ashes.”
His hand rose not to his weapon, but to gently press her dagger aside.
“I’m tired of ghosts,” he said.
They stood there, breath mingling, battle-scarred and burning. Neither of them moved. Neither of them lowered their guard.
But the space between them began to change.
“Besides I fight for those I deem worthy. That includes the people of Emberhelm.” Taranis smirked. “You’ve shown me you’re a friend of Emberhelm.”
He extended his hand.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Taranis,” he said. “Who are you, my lady?”
“Nessa.”
The Night of Lammas.
That night, the people of Emberhelm feasted beneath the stars.
Lammas the first harvest was a time of bread and song, fire and gratitude. Children danced between torches, and the scent of roasted grain filled the cooling air. Drums echoed off the stones, old and deep, like the heartbeats of the land itself.
Taranis stood at the edge of it all, watching, half in shadow. Nessa leaned against a pillar beside him, arms folded, hair loose from its braid.
“I thought you’d be dancing,” he said.
“I don’t dance for tradition,” she replied. “Only for survival. Or joy.”
“Is this not joy?”
She looked around. The laughter. The flames. The peace however temporary. “Maybe.”
A silence fell between them, not awkward, just heavy with the unspoken.
“Come with me,” she said at last.
No orders. No questions. Just a truth spoken plainly. He followed.
They slipped from the celebration like ghosts, weaving through the orchard paths behind Emberhelm. The air was thick with ripening apples and the hum of distant music. When they reached the old stone lodge near the outer walls, she pushed the door open with one hand and led him in without a word.
There were no declarations. No romance wrapped in flowers or oaths. Only need.
Their bodies met like storm and flame fast, urgent, tangled with the memory of battle and the ache of survival. There was laughter when his armor refused to loosen, curses when her hair caught on his clasp, and a growl low in his throat when she bit his shoulder hard enough to mark.
Neither knew what the next day would bring. That was why it mattered.
That night, they made love like warriors with a fierceness born of loss and the tenderness of those who had bled for strangers.
Later, tangled in furs, the fire crackling low, she lay with her head against his chest.
“If I die tomorrow,” she murmured, “I’ll die warm.”
“You won’t,” he said, but his fingers curled tighter around her waist.
Outside, the stars burned cold and bright, and the first autumn wind began to stir.
He placed his hand gently on her belly.
“You and my son will live.”
Whispers in the Dark.
The next morning, the Ring summoned Taranis.
The gold circle at the council stones shone under a pale sky. Thirteen seats twelve filled. Lore was already speaking when Taranis entered, his voice low but urgent.
As he took his place, Nessa moved through the old halls of Emberhelm alone, her instincts sharp. Her step slowed when she passed the northern storeroom. Voices carried.
Rayne.
“We wait until the snows. When the passes are blocked, and he’s far from Emberhelm, we strike. The Ring will fall without him.”
Another voice, unsure. “He’s your brother.”
“Which is why I know his weakness.”
Nessa froze, the words burning into her mind.
Betrayal was coming.
And she was carrying the only thing that might save him.
This is a rough draft piece of writing pre editing. I was asked earlier what is my writing process? (So bare with me I’m expecting complaints the grammar is poor and spelling mistakes )
My first stage is always research and planning. What was life like? What did they eat? What did they drink? Forgotten history? Mythology and folklore? Haunting?
Second stage is rough draft of story poem or recipe. Yes my family are made to try the recipes what do you think of the recipes? Have you tried them? What do you think of my stories? Poems ?
Third stage after writing the rough ill read it through several times. Then plagurism check through grammarly. I will then take rough copy to chatgpt for a light edit and correction on any spelling and review.
Four stage rewrite adding alterations and back to grammarly for checks to ensure originality of my work no plagurism and I’m happy.
once I’m happy then I post images are through chatgpt mainly, canva or wp via creator given very specific details for the image.
A man of honour a man who cares A man who shared the darkness yet brought the light.
His tables long but round
with a star of five points So his warriors can all hear his point From near and far.
While the dragons fly over head The wolf-man warrior by his side tall, protective like a father figure Our leader raised by cursed wolves but with his grace freed his friends No slaves exist in Caernath he made it so
The high war lord of Caernath rules equal with charm and grace. but fury like the darkest of storms His group of 12 warriors, seers, healer. around the table making laws, deciding wars and peace.
Come one, come all,
to hear the tales of. The High Warlord of Caernath. A giant in spirit, a friend in kin, Whose heart burns brighter than the wrath of wind.
He lets no soul go hungry nor cold. For in his eyes, all people hold The spark of flame, the worth of kin. No exile too lost, no outcast too thin.
The fire burns bright at Emberhelm’s gate, For weary travellers and those burdened by fate. Hungry, tired, or wounded deep, He offers food, a place to sleep.
So if you wander, far or near, Know this truth and hold it dear. The High Warlord of Caernath stands, With open heart and open hands.
A colorful illustration of a bird soaring above a vibrant landscape, surrounded by a decorative border.A striking illustration of a red wolf howling, symbolizing strength and kinship in the narrative of Emberhelm.A howling wolf painted against a vibrant blue background, embodying themes of kinship and wilderness.A striking artwork of a wolf howling at the moon, set against a vibrant purple background, symbolizing strength and spirit in the context of kinship.A vibrant illustration depicting a dragon surrounded by nature, showcasing the essence of storytelling and fantasy.
The great hall of Emberhelm pulsed with firelight. Smoke curled upward from the long hearth, rich with the scent of charred lamb fat, root vegetables, and sweet herbs.
It was a scent that stirred memory of winter hunts. Harvest feasts, and nights when the storm howled but the fire held fast.
Taranis stood at the head of the long stone table. His arms folded behind his back, a rare softness in his eyes. To his right sat Lore, robes still dusted with ash from the spell that broke the curse. To his left, Drax toyed with his carving knife, his appetite as fierce as ever.
But it was the spaces beyond that caught the eye.
Boldolph sat with his broad, wolfish shoulders hunched, a strip of roast meat gripped in one clawed hand. Morrigan.
Once white wolf, now flame-haired woman, laughed as she stirred a pot near the hearth beside Solaris. Who sprinkled crushed nettle and wild garlic into the steaming soup.
And near the fire, two boys sat on a bench Nyx and Rayne. The latter still bore the bruises of captivity, but his shoulders had relaxed, his collar gone. Nyx offered him a chunk of honeyed root and a crude wooden spoon. The boy’s smile was slow, cautious. But it came.
Taranis raised a horn of wild berry wine.
“Tonight, no war. No judgment. No weight of kingship or curse. Tonight, we eat.”
A cheer rang through the hall.
The first course was served hearth-brewed vegetable broth, thick with barley, wild leeks, and stinging nettle. Simple, earthy. Morrigan’s touch. The nettle had been boiled thrice, mellowing its sting but keeping its iron-rich heart.
Then came the main feast braised lamb neck, rubbed with ash salt and roasted on iron spits. It fell from the bone into honeyed mash made of parsnip and turnip, flanked by fire-roasted carrots. leeks, and bruised apples wrapped in dock leaves.
A vegetarian version of roasted nuts, wild mushrooms, and legumes. Bound with barley and wild garlic was passed to those who’d taken vows of gentleness.
The hall grew louder with warmth and full bellies. Solaris poured ladle after ladle of broth. Boldolph, face still savage, offered a growled blessing in the tongue of old wolf-warriors. Even Lore smiled briefly.
And then came dessert.
Forest fruit compote slow-stewed blackberries, crab apples, and hazelnuts served over a rough cake of grain and honey. It wasn’t sweet in the way of sugar, but it hummed with the wild tang of the land.
As the fire cracked lower, Taranis rose once more.
“We have reclaimed brothers,” he said. “Rayne is free. Draven will return soon. Boldolph and Morrigan have chosen forms of their own. Solaris has cast down his chains. And you my kin you have chosen your Houses.”
He turned, gesturing to three newly hung banners behind the head table.
Tempestras storm-grey with blue lightning: the House of the Storm.
Ignis flickering red and gold: the House of the Flame.
Umbra shadowed silver moon eclipsing a burnt-orange sun: the House of the Shadow.
“Caernath lives again,” Taranis said. “Not through conquest but through kinship. Through the storm we were broken. But by fire and shadow, we are reforged.”
Rayne rose, slowly, holding up a crude carving the three brothers etched into a cairnstone, side by side.
“Then let it be known,” he said, “that Stormborne is no longer just a name. It is a vow.”
Lore pressed a hand to the stone, then nodded.
“A vow… and a future.”
And beneath the storm-beaten beams of Emberhelm, the wolves howled once more not from pain or exile, but from joy.
Feast Notes (Modern Budget Version approx. £10 total):
He who feeds the fire, heals the wounded, and watches when others sleep.
“The hearth remembers what the sword forgets.” — Solaris
️
Loyalty Forged in Fire
Once a prisoner of war and former member of the Black Claw clan. Solaris now stands at the heart of Emberhelm. Not as a warrior, though he is one but as its Flame keeper.
Bound by fate and fire to Taranis Stormborne. Solaris is both servant and sage, a man who turned from chains to purpose.
He answers to no tribe but the one that gave him back his name.
Keeper of the Hearth, Bearer of the Flame.
Solaris tends the ancient hearth of Emberhelm. Where fire is not just warmth it is memory, ritual, and shield. He is the first to rise, the last to sleep. The quiet strength behind every campaign, ceremony, and storm-weathered return.
He knows the secret songs that coax flame from damp wood. He prepares meals that bind warriors like kin. He chants the old rites before a journey and the healing incantations after a battle.
They call him Flame keeper. They forget he once fought in the pits.
A Warrior’s Past, A Healer’s Hands
Beneath the linen and ash, Solaris is built like stone. He was trained in combat from childhood both in brutal close quarters and ritual duels. Though now he wields ladles and herbs more than blades. Make no mistake: Solaris can kill as easily as he can cure.
But he chooses mercy. And that, say some, is his greatest strength.
A Father First
Solaris is father to four children, born of hardship and hope. Two serve in the Emberhelm guard. One studies under Lore as a flame-reader. The youngest is said to speak to animals, though Solaris smiles and says nothing when asked.
His love for them is quiet but endless. They are the reason he never leaves Emberhelm’s walls unless the need is dire.
Master of Fire and Flesh
In the temples of the old clans, Solaris learned to read flame patterns. Mix healing salves, and call upon the Ember Breath a rite known to few and respected by all.
His knowledge of ancient remedies is unmatched. Some say he can slow a fever with a whisper. Others, that his fire never burns without reason.
✴️ Known As: The Flame keeper of Emberhelm
He Who Stills the Fire
The Ash-Hearth Watcher
Blood Brother to Taranis
Father of Four Flames
🏠 His Place in the Realm Residence: Emberhelm, Caernath
Allegiance: Taranis Stormborne
Role: Hearth guardian, healer, cook, and flame ritualist
Weapon of Choice (if needed): Iron cooking knife, hooked staff, bare fists
By the time the boy was dragged into the fire-circle, Solaris already knew what the verdict would be.
The child barely ten summers old had stolen from the Emberhelm kitchens three times in as many weeks. This last time, he’d taken smoked venison, enough for three mouths.
It wasn’t a clever theft either; he’d left claw-marks in the ash like some wild cub. They’d found him crouched behind the root cellar with a bone in one hand. His little sister clutched to his side, shaking from fever.
Taranis sat high above, throne of blackened oak behind him, his blade resting point-down in the dirt. His eyes storm Grey and quiet met Solaris’s across the fire.
“Third offence,” the warlord said, not unkindly. “You know the law.”
Solaris bowed his head.
He had known it would come to this.
The fire crackled between them amber light dancing against carved cairnstones. The gathered clan murmured like wind in the pines. Some looked away. Others watched with cold detachment.
From the shadows near the far cairn, Boldolph crouched in wolf-man form, eyes glowing red in the dusk. Morrigan stood beside him, silent and still, her white fur streaked with soot from an earlier hunt. Neither beast moved.
The boy trembled, snot running down his nose. His sister was nowhere in sight.
One of the younger guards bristling with duty dragged the child ahead. “What’s the order, High Warlord?”
Taranis looked not at the boy, but into the flame. “Three thefts. All marked. The hand goes.”
A stillness fell. Not outrage. Not shock. Just a silence.
Solaris stepped ahead.
He didn’t ask permission. He never had.
“My lord,” he said softly, “I speak?”
Taranis’s jaw tightened, but he nodded.
“Come.”
Solaris walked slowly into the circle, his linen tunic soot-streaked, hands calloused from tending both fire and blade. He stopped beside the boy who flinched at his nearness then turned to face Taranis directly.
“You talk of mercy, sir,” Solaris said. “Of giving your people hope. Of forging something better than the clans before us. Yet you would take a child’s hand for hunger?”
“It’s not the first time,” the warlord said.
“No,” Solaris agreed. “It’s the third. Which tells me we failed twice already.”
Murmurs rose again uneasy, uncertain.
Taranis said nothing.
Solaris went on.
“Do you remember when we met, Taranis? You were half-starved. Barefoot. Curled between two wolves like a dying branch in the snow.” His voice cracked, just a little. “You think Morrigan would’ve taken your hand? Or Boldolph watched you bleed?”
Boldolph’s snarl low, thoughtful rumbled through the circle.
“Do not compare me to that child,” Taranis said, but the edge was gone from his voice. “I was cast out by my own blood. He broke a law.”
“So did you,” Solaris said, gently. “You stole from death. You defied exile. You bonded with a dragon.”
The flames snapped high.
Behind them, Lore stepped quietly into the circle’s edge, arms crossed. Drax lingered further back, sharpening his axe with deliberate rhythm.
“The law is clear,” Taranis said, but softer now. “What’s your counsel, Solaris?”
Solaris exhaled.
“The hand stays. Cut his rations. He works the ash pits. But let the sister be seen. She’s burning from within.”
A pause.
Then: “Do we have a healer who treats the children of thieves?”
Solaris gave the barest smile. “We have a Flamekeeper who remembers that fire burns all the same.”
Taranis stood.
He turned to the guards. “The child’s hand stays. Halve his meals for two moons. The sister—tend her.”
“And after that?” the guard asked.
Taranis glanced to Morrigan.
“We watch,” he said.
Later that night, Solaris sat by the embers of the great hearth. The kitchens had long since emptied. The scent of root broth clung to the stones. He stirred a mix of wildfire oil and willow sap in a clay bowl, preparing a balm.
The door creaked. Taranis entered, shoulders still dusted with ash.
“She’ll live,” Solaris said, not looking up. “The girl. The fever broke at dusk.”
“You were right,” Taranis murmured.
“No. I remembered something you forgot.”
He set the bowl down and finally looked up.
“You’re not a tyrant, Taranis. But you are tired. Tired men return to old laws.”
Taranis sat across from him, resting his blade beside the hearth. “They look to me to be strong.”
“Then be strong enough to bend.”
They sat in silence a moment.
Then Taranis said, “What would you have me do? End the slave laws? Free them all?”
Solaris’s eyes softened.
“I’d have you start with one.”
A pause. Fire popped.
“My children,” Solaris said. “You let them stay with me. You feed them better than the others. You trust me with your fire. But still, by law, I am bound. My collar is light, but it is still iron.”
Taranis didn’t speak.
“I do not ask for release,” Solaris said. “I ask for meaning. If I am to be your Flamekeeper, let it not be as your property. Let it be as your kin.”
Taranis rose slowly.
He walked to the wall, lifted a flame braided chain from its hook, and placed it at Solaris’s feet.
“I will ask the cairn council to rewrite the bond,” he said. “You’ll take no collar again.”
Then, softly: “And neither will your children.”
Days passed. The fevered girl recovered. The boy, now under Solaris’s quiet supervision, took to the ash pits with a haunted gaze but steady hands.
At dawn, he brought Solaris firewood without being asked.
At dusk, he left a hand-carved wolf at the hearth.
Taranis watched from the upper cairn, Morrigan seated beside him.
“He’ll never steal again,” Taranis said.
“No,” Solaris replied, stepping beside him. “Because now he belongs.”
Taranis looked at his old friend, the man who had once been enemy. Then servant, then brother in all but blood.
“Thank you, Solaris.”
The Flamekeeper only smiled and added another log to the fire.
That evening, Solaris’s eldest son, Nyx, approached. He carried a plate of meat and grain, handing it to his father before setting his own aside.
“You scorn the meal, boy?” Taranis asked.
“No, sir,” Nyx said. “But it’s not right I get meat and grain while my father gets broth.”
Taranis tilted his head. Then smirked.
“Bring your father a plate from my stores.”
Then added, almost as an afterthought
“And Solaris it was never one dragon, was it? Two stood beside me all along.”
One Week Later Postscript to The Flame That Counsels
“He’s gone mad. The Highlord’s either broken or possessed.”
The guard’s words hit like ash in the lungs. Solaris said nothing, hands deep in the roots he was cleaning for poultice. He’d heard rumors all morning that Taranis had dismissed the old slave branders, torn the punishment scrolls in half, and ordered the cairnstones rewritten.
Another voice joined the first: “They say he talks to the dragons now. Not just rides them talks. Pendragon flew south and turned back. Refused to land in Gaedrix’s old territory.”
Then came softer steps. Young Nyx, barefoot and breathless, ran across the ash-warmed floor of the kitchen hall.
“Uncle Solaris!” he grinned, waving a carved wolf bone. “Father says you can visit him. No chains. No guards. Just you. He said it’d be good to see you without your collar.”
Solaris froze. Slowly, he turned — not to the boy, but to the collar hanging near the forge. Empty. Cold.
“Why now?” he asked, kneeling.
Nyx beamed. “He says the laws are wrong. That you helped him remember who he was. That it’s time to make them right.”
The fire cracked behind him. Solaris closed his eyes.
Later that dusk, in the central hall of Emberhelm, Taranis stood before his people — not in war-gear, but in storm-black robes, his sword sheathed at his back, Morrigan and Boldolph flanking him like ghosts.
A hush fell.
Then he spoke.
“I was cast out as a child chained not by iron, but by fear. I lived. I burned. I changed.
So hear me now.
From this day onward, Stormborne law changes:
First crime: a warning, carved in cairnstone. Second: servitude, no longer than a season’s moon. Third: magical judgment the storm or the shadow will decide. No child shall ever be born in chains. Dragons will not fly over lands where children are enslaved. All who labor shall eat. None shall go hungry. The broken, the maimed, the soul-wounded they will have a place. We are not the Clawclan. We are Stormborne. The fire will not consume us. It will make us whole.”
Lore lit the cairnstones behind him. Solaris stepped forward and cast his collar into the flame. Pendragon circled overhead.
Taranis met his gaze with quiet steel.
“You are no longer mine,” he said. “But you are still my kin.”
Solaris bowed low, not as slave but as Flamekeeper.
And above them, the wolves howled, and the fire did not flicker.
Taranis turned to Morrigan and Boldolph, who stood unmoving beneath the runestone arch. A chant had begun low in their throats a strange, old language from before the cairns were raised.
“That is, if you’ll stay, Solaris?” Taranis asked quietly.
Then to the wolves:
“Boldolph. Morrigan. You’ll be free of this too. The curse ends with fire and brotherhood. You’ll walk again in human form.”
The chant rose.
The fire roared.
And somewhere in the high wind above Emberhelm, the storm broke not in rage, but in light.
but it gave me no answer, Just the echo of paws in the frost-bitten heather. I searched for your scent in the whispering rain, Through bones of the hills and the breath of the plain.
We were fire and fang, you and I, Bound by curse, by claw, by sky. You ran ahead white flash through trees While I remained, dragged down by knees.
I saw you in dreams where no man treads, Where wolves wear crowns and ghosts break bread. Morrigan, my moon-heart, do you still roam The hollowed-out places we once called home?
I would trade my strength, my storm-wrought hand, For one more touch, for one command. To run beside you beneath the stars, Free of these chains, these cursed scars.
But if fate is cruel and time is blind, I’ll wait through seasons undefined. For love like ours does not decay It howls, it hunts, it finds a way.
Spun flax with fire and softened seams. Mothers, warriors, whisperers, seers Their names echo across the years.
In caves they sang to unborn stars, In fields they carved the fate of wars. With calloused hands and iron hearts, They held the world while it fell apart.
They bore the weight of every dawn, Raised walls of stone when men were gone.
Healed with roots, and led with grace Stormborne blood, in every place.
Let no tale forget their worth, The quiet queens of ancient earth. For behind the sword and sky and lore, Were women holding open the door.
StormborneLore 