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):
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.
The fire had long gone out, and the cold crept in like a snake through the underbrush. Taranis sat with his back to a stone outcrop, shivering in silence. His breath came in misted gasps, though he dared not build another fire. Fire drew eyes. And eyes mean death.
He was only nine winters old skin and bones beneath a damp wolf-pelt, alone since exile. Alone… or so he believed.
Until that night.
A low growl rolled from the darkness.
Taranis reached for his stick-spear crude, splintered, tipped with flint and rose to a crouch. The growl came again, closer. Deep. Measured. Not hunger. Not rage. Warning.
The trees parted.
A shadow, massive and black, emerged from the mist.
The wolf.
Not just any wolf this one had eyes like embered blood. A scar down his left side that caught the moonlight. He have snapped Taranis in two.
But he didn’t.
Instead, the wolf circled once, then lay down, his tail wrapping around his legs. He did not blink. He just watched.
Taranis lowered his spear.
“You’re not here to eat me,” he said, voice hoarse from days without speech.
The wolf said nothing, but his ears twitched.
Taranis crept closer, sat back down beside the dying fire pit. He wrapped the pelt tighter and leaned ahead.
“I don’t know why they hate me,” he whispered.
The wolf’s eyes did not move.
“I saved my brother. I didn’t ask for the fire, or the storm. I just… did what I was told.”
Still the wolf said nothing, but his breathing was calm, deliberate like he was listening.
Taranis closed his eyes.
In the morning, he woke to warmth. Not from a fire, but from the wolf curled around him, sheltering him from the frost.
From that day onward, Boldolph never left his side.
He didn’t need to speak. His presence was enough. His strength, a shield. His silence, a vow.
Taranis never asked him why.
But deep down, he knew.
Boldolph had seen something in him not just a boy, not just a fire-starter. Something ancient. Something kin.
And Taranis, though still just a child, reached out and rested a hand on the wolf’s thick fur.
The moon hung low over the marshlands of Cymru, a pale and silent witness to all that stirred beneath. Mist curled along the ground like ghost-breath. Threading through reeds and thorns, cloaking the land in a hush that even time dared not break.
Morrigan stood at the water’s edge, her white fur shimmering with silver dew. The red pentagram upon her brow pulsed faintly with memory not magic, not prophecy, but something older still loss.
She remembered the laughter of her children, once. Their small feet dancing on stone, their breath warm against her skin when she had a face and a name.
That was long before the curse had sealed her fate. A punishment for defying death, for choosing the path of protector instead of prey.
She had not been seen in her human form by another soul in centuries.
The wind carried the scent of heather, salt, and far off fire. It shifted, and she turned her head sharply. From the west, a presence stirred. Not prey. Not predator. Something… remembered.
Her mate, Boldolph, emerged from the shadows. A black wolf with eyes like fire and a gold sigil carved into the fur of his brow. The mark of the king of wolves. He towered beside her, but even he did not speak.
Boldolph, the king of wolves, with glowing red eyes and a mystical sigil on his brow.
They not speak.
They had not touched in human form since the binding.
And still, their silence said more than words ever.
A sudden cry pierced the stillness not a howl, but the breathless whimper of cubs. Morrigan turned. Nestled in the hollow of a fallen tree, her children stirred, sensing the shift in the wind. She padded over, nose to fur, and breathed them back into slumber.
Her heart, once burned hollow by grief, beat now for them.
But the forest would not rest.
Tonight, something ancient woke.
Chapter 1
The Scent of a Storm.
The first rain came softly a warning more than a downpour. Tapping gently against the heather and bracken as dusk bled into the marshes. Morrigan crouched low on a rise of dry stone, her pale red eyes scanning the windswept valley below.
Somewhere to the north, a herd of deer was shifting. Their hooves left trembles in the ground. Their scent curled up through the fog.
But Morrigan wasn’t hunting tonight.
She was waiting.
Beneath her, in the hollowed belly of a mossy yew, three wolf cubs whimpered and stirred. Her children not the kind born of curse or storm, but of blood and memory. The youngest one, all white save for a copper ear, squeaked for her warmth. Morrigan tucked her body closer, curling like a shield around them.
Above her, the clouds began to crackle with unnatural colour. A shade of light not seen since…
Not since the last time the veil split.
The Shape of the Wind A sudden gust brought a foreign scent.
Not prey.
Not predator.
Something old.
Something… broken.
Her hackles rose.
Across the ridge. Boldolph stood, silhouetted against the sky like a god of the old wilds. His black fur glistening with rain, red eyes aflame with alertness. He hadn’t seen her in human form for hundreds of years. Neither had she seen him. The curse did not allow it.
But she felt him now that familiar gravity, that fierce ache of loyalty and loss.
“Do you feel it?” her voice stirred the wind, though no one else hear it.
He gave no answer, only turned his head westward toward the forests. Vasts woodlands of what would one day be called Cannock Chase.
Chapter 2
The boy in the trees
They saw him before he saw them.
A shadow moving through the trees. Too small to be a warrior. Too slow to be a deer.
He was staggering. Starving. But the flame in his eyes refused to die.
Morrigan stepped ahead, paws silent on the stone. The cubs whimpered behind her. Boldolph moved to block her path, lips curled, teeth bared but not at her.
At fate.
At what it meant.
At what it would cost.
Another child. Another risk. Another ache that never leave.
She looked again.
Not a warrior. Not yet.
Just a boy.
But storms followed him.
She turned back to her cubs. Nestled, safe for now. She licked each one gently, then closed the hollow with fallen bark. The marsh would protect them. She whispered an old name into the soil to guard them a name she hadn’t used in centuries.
Then, she stepped into the mist.
Boldolph growled low, a warning.
She brushed against him as she passed her head beneath her head beneath his muzzle, a gesture older than language. Boldolph did not move, but the tension in his shoulders eased. Just for a moment. Enough.
The storm scent was growing stronger.
Morrigan slipped into the trees, her paws silent against the mulch of leaf and root. Branches clawed at her fur like hands from a forgotten dream, but she did not flinch. She knew these woods. She had bled in them. Breathed in them. Hidden in them.
The boy was not far.
She found him collapsed beside a fallen trunk. his arms wrapped around his ribs as though trying to hold himself together. Dirt and blood streaked his face. His feet were bare, blistered, and blue with cold. He had a stick in one hand sharpened crudely, but not recently used.
Even in sleep, his jaw was clenched. Even in pain, his spirit did not bend.
Morrigan circled him in the shadows, one silent loop, then two. She tilted her head. A vision stirred fleeting and broken of a campfire once lit in the hollows of men’s hearts. A voice crying in a tongue lost to fire and flood.
A name.
Taranis.
It did not belong to this boy yet.
But it would.
She drew closer.
The Unseen Form had she still worn her human face, she have wept. But wolves did not weep. They watched. They endured.
Still, some griefs slipped through the fur.
She lowered herself beside the boy, her body a wall against the wind. Carefully, she placed her muzzle against his shoulder. His skin was fever-hot, but beneath it pulsed a stubborn rhythm.
He lived.
From the trees behind, Boldolph appeared, silent as the dusk. He said nothing, but his stare asked everything.
“What are you doing?”
She answered without words.
What we once promised what the old ways demand.
Another life. Another orphan. Another soul cast out by fear and ignorance.
The forest whispered around them voices of old gods and buried secrets. Morrigan raised her head and howled, low and haunting, a call only the wild would understand. It wasn’t a summoning.
It was a vow.
For three days, they watched over the boy.
She hunted while Boldolph guarded. He fetched water from the shallows, carried in his great jaws. She chewed softened bark and nettle, placing it near the boy’s lips. He drank in his fever-dreams, whispering names not yet earned, warnings not yet understood.
On the second night, he opened his eyes.
Just a sliver.
And saw her.
Not as a wolf. Not as a monster.
But as something else.
He reached a hand out. Weak. Trembling.
She did not pull away.
On the third morning, he stood.
Not steady. Not tall. But standing, nonetheless.
And behind him, the sky split with light.
Stormborne
He walked between them then between Boldolph and Morrigan as though he had always belonged.
The name passed once more through Morrigan’s mind like a wind returning home:
Taranis.
Storm-born. Marked. A child of prophecy and exile.
She didn’t yet know the shape of his story. Only that it would be vast. Only that it had begun.
And that somewhere in its ending, her curse would find its purpose.
The bond between Taranis and Morrigan, symbolizing the awakening of ancient legacies in ‘StormborneLore’.
Diolch am ddarllen. Os gwnaeth y stori hon eich cyffwrdd, eich ysbrydoli, neu aros fel sibrwd yn y coed ystyriwch hoffi, rhannu, neu danysgrifio i ddilyn y daith.
💬 Got thoughts, theories, or echoes of your own? Drop a comment and join the legend.
🌩️ The storm remembers every soul who listens.
A moment of connection between Tanaris and two mystical wolves under a full moon, symbolizing a bond forged by destiny.
Authors note: Unfortunately I needed to use Google Translate for the Welsh so appologise if I got any of it wrong.
StormborneLore 