London, Present Day
The desk lamp hummed, throwing a cone of yellow across the desk. My office at Westminster had become a pyramid of paper. Drafts stacked like gravestones, folders stamped with acronyms that pretended to mean something. The slow grind of a machine that thought it was eternal. I chuckled darkly at the thought of empires, they always think that. Like Rome, rotting from overstretch, fracturing until it split in two. Like Byzantium, bleeding from Bulgars before the Turks finished the job. Like Istanbul, checked at the Balkans, then torn apart piece by piece by nations it thought too small to matter.
And before them all—Vercingetorix throwing his sword at Caesar's feet, the end of the Celtic freedom. The end of the Celtic dream. Or so they believed. I used to believe it, too. Yet, here I am, carrying a dream of the past, not back into the present—but marching into the future. I chuckled in the silence, the sound dry as dust. Westminster loves to put itself on a pedestal, blind to its own decay.
Earlier that day, in the chamber, I had risen to speak against a Reform amendment designed to slash cultural funding. The Essex MP—bloated, pink-faced, a man who mistook cruelty for wit—leaned back in his green-leather bench and said, loudly enough to carry:
"Shouldn't we get a translator in?"
Polite chuckles rippled across the chamber. A chorus of tight laughter, too quick, too eager, like children whistling in the dark.
I stood, smiling thin as a razor, and waited. When the Speaker gave me the floor, I did not look at him. I looked at them all.
"My honourable colleague raises a good point," I began, voice steady. "Perhaps we do need a translator—not for me, but for him. Because when he says efficiency, he means cuts. When he says British values, he means English dominance. And when he says fairness—well, we all know who he really thinks counts as fair game."
The chamber's air shifted, restless.
Essex tried to laugh again, to salvage it. "Oh come on, Prime Minister, don't get so sensitive—"
I cut him off. "Sensitive? No. Strategic? Yes. Because every time one of you sneers, you remind millions in this country that their culture, their voices, their histories are just punchlines to you. And you know what happens when people get tired of being punchlines?"
Silence. The Speaker barked for order. Essex flushed crimson, suddenly busy with his notes.
I sat down, lips curved. The insult didn't matter. Not anymore.
That night, in my flat, the kettle clicked and hissed. I poured boiling water over a teabag, carried the mug to my desk, and opened the folder marked: DEFENCE (UNDER REVIEW).
Inside, twenty pages. A draft order to declare a state of emergency across the United Kingdom.
* Deployment of the Armed Forces in "support" of civilian policing.
* Nationwide curfews in "sensitive areas."
* Emergency broadcast powers placed directly under the Prime Minister's office.
* Temporary suspension of regional assemblies "for the duration of the crisis."
* Expanded detention powers for "suspected subversives."
Each clause was written in the bloodless legalese of Whitehall, but together they spelled something brutal: total control.
I traced a finger under the title, then closed the folder. Not yet. But soon.
The fuse was already burning.
After Lisbon, two years into the past
Heathrow smelled of disinfectant, fried food, and exhaustion. Families embraced in tearful knots. Businessmen barked into phones. Luggage wheels clattered across the tiles in a constant echo.
I walked through with one suitcase, my thrifted blazer a shield of borrowed respectability. At passport control, the officer glanced down, then up at me. His eyes skimmed my face, lingered for a second.
"Name?"
"Ross," I said, steady. "Elen Ross."
He flipped the page, scanned the Lisbon stamp, and nodded. Thud. The rubber stamp landed.
That was it. Alwenna Rhys ceased to exist in that small gesture.
Outside, cold March wind bit through my blazer as planes roared overhead. I pulled it tighter, smiling into the gust. Bureaucracy had given me new skin.
The Birmingham Reform office was a graveyard for enthusiasm. Beige walls yellowed with age, humming lights that never dimmed, a photocopier coughing like a sick dog.
The receptionist didn't look up from her phone. "Just sign in here," she muttered, sliding me a clipboard with chipped red nails.
I scrawled Elen Ross and slipped into the background. That was my job: stapling, fetching, typing. A ghost in the corridors. People forgot I was in the room, and I wanted it that way.
But at night, I wrote.
One evening, when the office was dark but for the green glow of the exit sign, I slid a draft of a speech under Councillor Whitmore's door. Written in one sitting—sharp, patriotic enough to please, laced with enough bite to be remembered.
A week later, I sat in the back of a packed town hall as Whitmore straightened his tie and began:
"Britain must protect its shores, its workers, its dignity!"
The crowd roared. Cameras flashed. I clapped politely, invisible in a sea of Reform blue. But inside, I felt it—the first click of the lock turning.
Months later, Reform was rocked by scandal: an MP caught on tape sneering at unemployed voters. Papers screamed. Donors threatened to walk.
I drafted a statement before anyone asked. "Our MP's words were careless," it read, "but his frustration came from loyalty to the very people he was accused of mocking. His passion overflowed."
Whitmore read it aloud at a press conference. Somehow, the fury turned into sympathy. Polling barely moved.
That night, he poured me a whiskey in his office. "You saved us. You've got a knack for turning poison into medicine."
I accepted the glass, silent. But I knew it wasn't medicine. It was venom, injected slow.
Another staffer, Mark, had been sniffing around. He knew I'd been ghostwriting Whitmore's speeches. One evening he confronted me in the break room, voice low.
"You think you're clever, don't you? Sooner or later, they'll realise you're just a girl playing dress-up."
I smiled, poured my tea, and left. Two weeks later, an anonymous dossier about Mark's "creative use of expenses" reached the Deputy Chair. He was gone within a month.
No one asked how the documents surfaced. They didn't need to.
A year later, Whitmore leaned over during a strategy meeting.
"Ross. You take the floor."
My pulse quickened. It was a regional conference, not Parliament, but still—hundreds in the hall, cameras blinking red.
I walked to the podium, notes trembling in my hand. But when I spoke, the tremor vanished.
"Britain doesn't need excuses. It needs courage. It needs leaders who will stand against decline, not apologise for it."
The applause was thunderous. Later, a journalist described me as "the sharp young voice of Reform's next generation."
I smiled at the clipping. They had no idea whose voice it really was.
Cardiff, one year ago
Rain streaked the café windows in Cardiff, smearing the neon of a kebab shop across the glass. Inside, the air smelled of burnt espresso and damp coats. I sat by the window, hands wrapped tight around a chipped mug, tracing rivulets.
Carys Morgan arrived late, as always, curls damp, coat too thin for the weather. President of Plaid Cymru now, but once the girl who corrected my Welsh grammar in debate club. Yes, I went to an all-Welsh middle school. Coron Gwlad Ei Mamiaith. I scanned in her appearance—every curl, every hesitant gesture—and felt the nostalgia hit me like a wave. She always knew Welsh better than me—she was a native speaker, I had to learn it. Faint memories of Cardiff nightclubs resurfaced—two high school girls sneaking lines, taking shots, selfies on our phones. Youthful chaos, reckless and oblivious, a world away from this quiet café.
She spotted me, froze, then laughed.
"Alwenna? Christ, I thought you were dead."
"Not dead," I said, smiling faintly. "Just reinvented."
We settled into the small corner booth.
"So… do you still trip over ll?" she teased, sipping her coffee.
"Only when I'm tired. And don't forget who once used 'cwestiwn' wrong in front of Mr. Davies."
She snorted. "Oh, that was glorious. You should've seen his face."
"Better than falling into the fountain during sports day," I shot back.
Her laugh rang out, soft but sharp. "I fell into the fountain once. You've exaggerated it into a tragedy for years!"
"Exaggerated? You were drenched head to toe. Liam Pritchard nearly fainted."
She groaned, covering her face with her hands. "I hated him, by the way."
I smirked. "And yet he liked both of us."
The conversation drifted, gossip spilling easily now. Teachers who had married, ones who were divorced, classmates who dropped out, one who'd become a local politician (we rolled our eyes). Each story was punctuated with laughter, groans, playful jabs, tiny pauses for reflection, a glance or smirk. For a moment, we stopped being the Prime Minister of the UK and the President of Plaid Cymru. For a moment, we were just two girls who have been besties since middle school—passing notes in Welsh class, stealing fries behind the schoolyard fence, laughing at the world like it couldn't touch us.
But this was our present, and the world we once ignored was no longer ours to avoid. I leaned forward, keeping my voice low.
"Carys… what if independence isn't just a dream anymore? What if it's—" I hesitated— "inevitable?"
Her spoon clinked against the cup. "That's dangerous talk."
"So is breathing," I said. "But we do it anyway."
She didn't leave. That was enough.
Anglesey: the pact
Anglesey, winter's edge. Winds tore through the broken monastery arches. Moss and sea spray clung to the stone, the ocean thrashing just beyond.
The Scots arrived first:
Fiona MacLeod, President of the SNP, severe in a black coat, eyes like sharpened slate.
At her side, Ewan Fraser, strategist, distrust etched into his jaw.
The Cornish came next, carrying a hand-stitched flag:
Thomas Penrose, leader of Mebyon Kernow, florid and theatrical, his voice carrying like a preacher's.
Behind him, a younger aide clutching folders as if they were relics.
The Manx delegation followed:
Moira Callow, head of Mec Vannin, compact and stern, silver hair whipped by the wind.
Her deputy, Colin Quirk, pinning his triskelion badge tighter against the gale.
Finally, Carys arrived, pulling me forward. "This is Elen Ross," she announced. "You'll want to hear her."
I laid a folder on the cold stone altar.
"This isn't poetry," I said. "This is math. Numbers. Strategy. Timing."
Fiona MacLeod crossed her arms. "And you think Reform will let you walk us out of the Union?"
"I don't need Reform to let me," I said. "I am Reform. They invited the wolf inside their house."
Thomas Penrose raised a hand, dramatic. "You speak of fire while holding a match. But fire consumes."
"Only if you don't control where it spreads."
Moira Callow leaned in, voice cold. "You're talking about overthrowing the monarchy."
"Yes," I said. "Not talking. Planning. A Celtic Republic. No crown. No London rule. Britain remade."
The wind howled through the broken arches.
Fiona glanced at Ewan. He gave the smallest nod. Penrose gripped his flagstaff tighter, then planted it in the ground. Moira unclipped her badge and set it on the altar beside my folder.
Finally, Carys spoke, steady as stone.
"She's right."
No one left.
London – Present
Big Ben blinked its golden eye across the Thames. The city slept, but my desk lamp burned on.
I opened Defence 2 again, scanning the lines. The legal text blurred into one image: a nation shackled, waiting for me to decide whether to lock the chain.
On the first page of my notebook, in neat black ink, I wrote one word:
Cymru.
Underlined twice. The rest of Britain waits—
unaware that the fuse was lit.