I rather fear we have just encountered the Morrigan, my dear.

“Nope. Sorry. Hard ‘no’ on that name. Big M. We’ve already got another Morgan kicking around somewhere in this version of reality. We’re not going to be adding another antagonist with a similar name as me to the mix. There’s far too much potential here for all this to become a Saruman/Sauron situation and I am very much not here for it.

My dear . . .

“Honestly, was every other name in Middle-earth already taken? Did Tolkien have a naming shortage no one told him about? Try being the only girl in your clique who’s actually read these books and having to explain the plot to everyone else. I had one mate convinced the guy with the flaming eye was the one breeding Uruk-hai, and another who thought Saruman was just the posh way of saying Sauron, like he was some kind of Dark Lord Emeritus. ‘Oh, you mean the evil one?’ Yeah, that narrows it down in this series.”

I’m not sure . . .

“And don’t even get me started on Sarumanthiel—yes, that was a thing too, and no, I’m not making it up. At this point, I swear by the Valar, I’m just going to start calling them all Steve. Steve with the tower, Steve with the eye, Steve with the questionable career in villainy. That clear enough for you, Marianne!”

I’m not sure what you want from me in response to this little hysterical monologue, my dear.

“Well, first of all, fuck you for the casual paternalistic misogyny there. And secondly, if you want me to respond at all here, I want a different name for those wankers.”

You want a different name for . . . My dear, you do realise that’s not how these things work, don’t you? I cannot simply call them something else because their correct name gives you the ick . . .

“Before we go any further, Big M. Now!”

There are times when I think we’re making progress, my dear and others . . .

“If you make me ask again, I’m going start calling these bad guys ‘Elphaba’ and singing show tunes.”

Seriously, my dear. Have you forgotten we have just lost a number of colleagues . . .

“Something has changed within me. Something is not the same.”

I suppose that in most British traditions, the Morrigan is considered to have a tripartite aspect. It probably would not be too egregious for me to describe those who have just accosted us as the Nemain.

“The Nemain. Cool. Sold. So, who the fuck are the Nemain?”

It really would be easier for me to talk about the Morrigan as a whole . . . Are you sticking your fingers in your ears, my dear?

Look, I absolutely get that of all the reactions to the slaughter that has just taken place before me, focusing on the name of the insanely OP bad guys is not the most grown-up of responses I could be rocking. However, I’m having a serious freak-out moment here and picking something with nothing really to do with the situation in hand to have a blazing argument about is pretty much my standard go-to defence mechanism.

For example, I was twelve the first time I was caught with a spliff. School called Mother Dearest, but instead of taking me home and kicking hell out of me, when we got back, she was all calm, like some middle-class Buddhist. Started waffling on about ‘trust’ and ‘choices,’ which obviously made me panic. ‘Yeah, well, at least I’m not shagging Dad’s mate Dave like you!’ She wasn’t, by the way – fun fact, give it two years and I would be – But anyway, I got grounded for a month, not for the weed, but for ‘emotional terrorism.’

Now sure why I felt the need to share that. Now, where was I?

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Who the fuck are the Nemain, Big M?”

Something I hoped never to encounter again, my dear. What you need to understand is what you have just witnessed isn’t anything to do with cultivation, or even some rogue manipulation of leyline energy. No. The Nemain are something older. Primeval. They represent the power of a significantly potent Goddess.

“Okay . . .” I wasn’t really sure what I thought about that. Dragons? Sure. Fae? No bother. But this was the first time Merlin had suggested any sort of supernatural Big Boys and Girls floating around in the ether. And I wasn’t sure I liked it.

The Big M obviously recognised I wasn’t picking up what he was putting down. No. Not a goddess in the way you might think of such things—this is not a benevolent matron presiding over hearth and harvest. The Nemain do not nurture. They do not guide. They are frenzy incarnate. They are chaos with claws, the scream in the throat of a man who knows death has come but strikes anyway, because terror leaves no other choice.

“Don’t hold back on the colour commentary, Big M. Feel free to let your inner Stephen King shine . . .”

I apologise, my dear, but please do consider what happened to Sir Ector’s warband. They weren’t just killed. They were undone. Spirit, mind, body—they are all gone. Torn apart in a way that makes a blade’s work look downright civilised. That was annihilation in its most pure form. And – and this is crucial. Please mark this, my dear – such an action is the antithesis of everything cultivation should be about. And yet…

“Nah, we’re not doing significant silences right now, mate.”

I stood up, broken bones snapping back into place as my Qi started to reassert itself. I was covered in blood, mud and enough leaves to be my very own shrubbery and feeling very, very sorry for myself. It’d been a while since I’d been schooled like that. And I didn’t like it.

My apologies, my dear. What I meant to say is that I don’t think what the Nemain have just committed was meant to happen.

“Not meant to happen? You think those lunatics didn’t intend to wipe out an entire warband and kick my arse back to the Stone Age?”

No, my dear. What I sensed from them there wasn’t outright aggression. At least not in the deliberate sense. The Nemain, after all, are aggression in its most pure form.

I’d hate to fucking see what those wankers could pull off if they meant it then!

For once, I pretty much agreed with Drynwyn on that one.

The power of Nemain doesn’t work that way. It isn’t able to be targeted in specific ways; it’s a storm. Those druids didn’t summon it in order to launch an attack. This—well, I believe that this was a defence. A reaction. I’d wager that whatever magic those fur-wrapped figures used, it was meant to shield them, not strike outwards. However, when you draw on Nemain, you absolutely don’t get to choose the outcome. It’s like lighting a bonfire in a library and hoping only the damp books burn.

“So you’re saying they accidentally ripped twenty-odd warriors apart, down to their bloody atoms, because they got a bit spooked?”

Unfortunately so. Which would also explain why you are still alive. Nemain isn’t a force you control. It’s fury, chaos, and destruction. It doesn’t serve those druids. They did not channel it in the way in which you move your Qi. They simply unleashed it—wittingly or not—and it did what it does. You don’t summon a hurricane and expect it to respect your property lines.

“Fuck a duck, mate!”

I don’t know how to respond to that statement.

“Neither do I, Big M. Neither do I.” I took a breath, looking back up the hill. I couldn’t see any of those guys anymore. Presumably, they’d returned to their position amongst the Meridian Stones. “I’m assuming none of this is a coincidence?”

That we encounter the Nemain in the middle of a stone formation we require for our own quest? No. I am afraid not, my dear. I assume they’re tied together into it, somehow. Why else would they be here at the precise moment we need those stones? The Nemain are not conquerors. If they were, they’d have come after us already. No, their behaviour suggests something else. They’re standing vigil, not advancing. Watching. Perhaps even waiting.”

“Waiting for what?” As if I didn’t know.

To talk, perhaps. Or to warn. Nemain’s fury has been spent, and they haven’t moved on us yet. That matters, my dear. If they’d wanted you dead, we’d already be scattered like ash on the wind. But approach them unwisely, and we may yet see what happens when they decide you’re a threat.

“So, what’s the play here, Big M? We still need those stones, right?”

We do, indeed. However, you cannot just charge them in what I am going to politely suggest is your signature style. Consider this carefully, my dear. These druids are more than they seem, and I fear their purpose here – at this moment in time - is tied to something significant. And, beyond everything else, please remember: you are not Nemain’s equal. On my best day, I would have thought twice about engaging with them. If you tread the wrong path here, this goddess will make certain you know it.

Awesome. Looks like I’m going to go and try not to piss off a deity then.