Cardiff, Wales —15 years ago
I'd heard the stories, of course. Everyone said cocaine was terrifying… but was it really?
Samantha giggled as she handed me the plate, a rolled-up bill already poised between her fingers. I didn't usually hang around with them—not really. I was always with Carys.
Yet, somehow, I ended up in Clwb Ifor Bach with the popular girls in my class. They were surprisingly easy to get along with...
"Lean back a bit, and breathe in through your nose. Pull the powder straight into your brain," she instructed.
So I did. My right nostril tore through the two neat lines left on the plate. I dragged them deep until the sting hit the back of my skull. For a split second the world thinned out—dissolving into something distant—and I couldn't move at all.
The numbness lasted maybe ten seconds before everything snapped back into place. Then my pulse kicked, my gums tingled, and a bright, pulsing energy rushed through me.
Samantha chuckled beside me as the girls filmed my reaction.
"Ladies, this is Alwenna's first time," she announced to the camera.
Then she turned fully to me. "Well? How does it feel?"
I blinked. The rush was too intense to shape into words.
"Aye, it's bonkers!" I blurted before I even thought.
The girls burst out laughing.
Edinburgh, Scotland — Present Time
The SNP headquarters thrummed with a kind of restless purpose, banners of every Celtic nation draped across the walls as if the islands themselves had gathered to conspire. The saltire, the red dragon, the Cornish cross, the Manx triskelion — all arranged behind the podium like a declaration no one had spoken aloud yet.
And me? I kept to the back row, hood up, posture small. After the fiasco at the Plaid victory rally, I wasn't giving the press another easy headline. Not when the country was already convinced I was choosing sides.
Except I was. I was steering the only side still holding its shape while the English state splintered under its own weight. Call it rebellion, call it survival — either way, I was the one guiding the pieces as they fell.
Fiona stepped up to the podium with the kind of assurance only a Scottish First Minister could summon — velvet over steel, fire wrapped in discipline. Everything about her radiated that unmistakable Celtic defiance Westminster never quite knew how to handle.
"Friends, countrymen," she began, her voice cutting cleanly through the room. "For generations, the Celtic nations — Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Mann, Ireland — were kept apart. And apart, we were folded into the English imperial project."
A murmur of agreement rippled through the hall.
"No more," she said, the words landing like a hammer. "Scotland offers a choice. A future where we stand together, because unity is the only path where any of us can truly thrive."
Beside her stood Carys, Penrose, Moira, Áine — all of them straight-backed and unflinching, the familiar circle that had somehow become the spine of this movement. They looked as if they'd stepped out of a future history book, already bracing themselves for the moment they were about to create.
Even Prime Minister Ó hAodha had crossed the sea for this, slipping into the hall as our "special guest." The sight of him among the Celtic banners pulled a quiet laugh out of me. England truly had no idea what was assembling in the shadows of its own empire.
Two Prime Ministers of the Isles and the leaders of all five separatist parties, gathered under one roof, preparing to unveil a union designed to pull Westminster's foundations out from under it. Not with gunfire. Not with riots. With signatures, alliances, and timing sharp enough to cut a kingdom in half.
Carys stepped up to the podium, and for a moment the room seemed to rearrange itself around her. That steady, grounded confidence of hers — the kind that had held me together since we were teenagers — wrapped itself around every word before she even spoke.
She looked out over the crowd, but her eyes found me anyway. I gave her the brightest smile I could muster from the shadows of the back row.
Her shoulders eased. The faintest softening touched her expression, the kind she never let the cameras catch. As if seeing me there — even half-hidden in the back row — steadied her more than any briefing or speech ever could.
"Wales has bled more than any of us under English rule," she began, her voice warm and fierce all at once. "Our Brythonic lands were carved apart until we were pushed into the margins and called foreigners in our own home. The Scots, the Irish, the Cornish — we all share that wound. And if we don't stand together now, our cultures will be the next to vanish."
Penrose stepped forward next, shoulders squared, the kind of posture that came from generations who'd had to fight simply to be acknowledged. His voice, when it rose, carried that unmistakable Cornish timbre — soft edges, iron core.
"Cornwall has spent centuries being told we are too small to matter," he began, letting the words settle. "Our language dismissed. Our history footnoted. Our autonomy treated as an inconvenience rather than a right."
A murmur of agreement rippled through the hall — quieter than for Scotland or Wales, but no less sincere.
"We know what it is to be overlooked," he continued. "To have our mines stripped, our culture mocked, our identity folded into someone else's narrative. But we also know who we are. Kernow has never forgotten itself — not truly."
He glanced toward the banners behind him, the saltire, the dragon, the triskelion, the cross. "But Cornwall cannot reclaim its voice alone. None of us can. The English state has always relied on our isolation — divide the Celts, and you weaken them. Unite them, and you terrify Westminster."
A ripple of laughter — dark, knowing.
"That is why this moment matters," Penrose said, his voice gaining strength. "Cornish autonomy is not a dream. It is a destination. But the road to it runs through unity — through standing with our Celtic kin, shoulder to shoulder, refusing to be diminished any longer."
He lifted his chin, eyes bright with something between hope and defiance.
"Kernow will rise — not as a footnote, not as a relic, but as a nation. And we will rise together."
Moira stepped forward with the calm poise of someone who had weathered more storms than she ever spoke about. The hall quieted — not out of fear, but out of respect. The Lady of Mann didn't waste words, and when she chose to speak, people listened.
"Elen Ross's government granted Mann the autonomy we had been denied for generations," she began, her voice steady, carrying the soft island lilt that made every sentence feel deliberate. "For the first time in living memory, our laws, our language, and our way of life are not treated as curiosities, but as the rights of a nation."
A ripple of approval moved through the crowd.
"But autonomy is only as strong as the hands that hold it," she continued, her tone sharpening. "And I do not trust the English nationalist parties to keep those hands open. We have seen what happens when Westminster changes direction — promises evaporate, rights shrink, and small nations are told to be grateful for whatever scraps remain."
She let that hang, the truth of it settling like a weight.
"Mann will not gamble its future on the goodwill of parties who see us as an inconvenience," Moira said, lifting her chin. "We will not stand alone on a rock in the Irish Sea, waiting for the tide to turn against us again."
Her gaze swept across the banners — the saltire, the dragon, the cross, the triskelion — and her voice warmed with conviction.
"We are Celtic. We are islanders. We know what it means to endure. And we know what it means to stand together. So hear me clearly: Mann stands with Scotland, with Wales, with Cornwall, with Ireland. Our autonomy will not survive in isolation — but it will thrive in unity."
A murmur of agreement rose, stronger this time, threaded with pride.
"For the first time in centuries," Moira finished, "the Celts are choosing each other. And Mann chooses you."
After Moira finished her speech, Fiona stepped back to the podium, the room already buzzing from the speeches before hers. "Tonight makes one thing clear," she said, voice steady and sharp. "The Celtic nations are done fighting alone. So in the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections, we will stand as a single force — Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Mann, and Ireland — united under one banner."
She let the pause hang just long enough. "The Gaelic National Alliance." The hall erupted, a roar that felt like history cracking open.
Prime Minister Ó hAodha stepped up to the podium last, the room settling into a hush that felt almost reverent. "Ireland stands with you," he said simply, his voice warm but edged with certainty. "We know what it means to fight for our identity, our language, our right to exist as ourselves. And we know what it means to reclaim what was taken."
He let his gaze sweep the hall, the Celtic banners glowing behind him. "So hear this clearly: Ireland supports this alliance — and we support the reunification of our island as part of a future shaped by Celtic nations, not constrained by old borders."
The applause rose like a tide, sealing the moment.
And I let myself smirk, hidden well beyond the reach of any camera lens. At last, the pieces were moving exactly where they needed to. And Britain — poor, unsuspecting Britain — was about to feel the shift.
United Reform Party HQ, London
The leaders of the United Reform Party watched the broadcast from Edinburg with concern. Fairfax, de facto the party's leader, slammed a fist on the table in anger.
The room flinched, though no one dared comment. The broadcast still played on the wall screen — Fiona MacLeod's declaration, the roar of the crowd, the Celtic banners blazing like a warning flare.
"Unbelievable," Fairfax hissed, pacing in front of the screen. "They've stitched together a bloc big enough to gut us at the polls, and we're supposed to just sit here and smile?"
A few MPs exchanged uneasy glances. No one volunteered an answer.
He jabbed a finger toward the frozen image of the Gaelic National Alliance leaders standing shoulder to shoulder. "This is a coordinated takeover. Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Mann, Ireland — all marching in lockstep. And if they run as a single coalition, we're finished. Do you understand that? Finished."
One of the younger MPs cleared his throat. "We still have strong numbers in England—"
"Not strong enough," Fairfax snapped. "Not against a unified Celtic front. They'll sweep every seat outside England, and with the presidential vote split the way it is, they could take the whole damn government."
Silence settled over the room, heavy and suffocating.
Fairfax dragged a hand through his hair, breathing hard. "We warned them this separatist nonsense would spiral. We warned them. And now look — they're building a parallel power structure right under our noses."
He turned back to the table, voice low and furious. "If we don't counter this — fast — the next election won't just be a loss. It'll be the end of Britain as we know it."
No one disagreed. They didn't need to. The fear in the room said enough.
"If that's what it comes to… then we English have to unite as well," Fairfax growled. "The Celts are out for blood. They want revenge."
Within the hour, invitations went out — to Labour, to the Tories, to every legacy party clinging to the old order. The message between the lines was unmistakable: set aside your differences, close ranks, and stop the Celts before they take the country out from under us.
However, unbeknownst to them, the pieces on Elen's chessboard were already shifting into place. By the time the English parties agreed on a strategy, the board would be set — and the next move wouldn't be theirs to make.