During the final drawn-out note, no one paid any mind to the bard. He feebly presented an upturned hat to the crowd, but everybody slowly edged towards the Simian. The stranger kept drinking, and this seemed to worry the villagers even more. Eventually, Ciarán from the mill spoke up.

“Excuse me, sir, you should show more respect!”

The Simian slammed his drink on the table, startling those nearby. He turned in his chair, facing the mob for the first time.

“And what have I done to offend you, little man?”

Ciarán cleared his throat and raised his chest, perhaps to not look so little.

“You’ve disrespected your hosts. The least you could do is stand for our Ballad, but all you lot are alike: ignorant of everything the Trinity has done for you.”

Some nodded in agreement, but others looked away in shame, as if they knew it was a poor choice of words.

The Simian stood. He loomed two feet over the speaker; three, perhaps, considering how Ciarán shrank in fear.

“You should read a book, Human,” the Simian barked, “instead of listening to jesters for your history lessons. This one seems to have left out the verse where your people slaughtered mine… how they used their magic to enslave us.”

He motioned towards the bard, but the singer had disappeared. It looked like Ciarán wanted to do the same.

“It was not our choice!” Another voice came from the crowd. “We gave your kind a chance to live alongside us!”

The Simian snorted. “You gave us a choice between giving our lives to your Gods or to your swords.”

“And you chose neither!” called a third voice. “You’ve done nothing but spit in the face of the Trinity ever since we let you rats live!”

Rats? Morrígan stole another glance at the Simian. But he looks nothing like one.

The hairs on the Simian’s arms stood on end, and his hulking body quivered slightly. He seemed as if he could snap at any minute, but his face remained calm and emotionless.

Morrígan leaned away from the Simian as much as she could. Gods, he could probably kill us all if he wished.

Ciarán suddenly grew brave again. He pointed at Morrígan.

“This girl lost her mother today!” he shouted. “You deny our Gods, so tell her what you believe! Tell her the fate of her mother was nothing but bad luck!”

Leave me out of this! Morrígan wanted to say.

But the Simian gave no response. Instead, he looked straight into Morrígan’s eyes. His were dark and unblinking, lined with emotions Morrígan couldn’t quite grasp. In silence he stared for some time, before clearing his throat.

“I have nothing to tell you, little one,” he said. “My words are as empty as the prayers of these fools. Listen to them, and they’ll blind you to the truth: your mother will not live forever in Paradise. Instead, she will live on in your memories.”

The Simian finished his drink and slammed the empty cup on the bar. The crowd started to part as he took a step the door, but the Simian stopped. He glanced back at Morrígan.

“Cherish the moments you had together, instead of praying for those that will never come.”

With that he strode through the tavern door, slamming it as he left.

After a moment, the little man spoke up. “Don’t listen to what that heathen said, Morrígan; your mother is waiting for all of us in Tierna Meall right now, and we know it.”

Others chimed in with similar sentiments, and Morrígan thanked them. Still, the more she thought about what the Simian said, his words seemed to make a strange kind of sense.

The Simians or the druids may be wrong, but in another way, Mother can still live on through me.

Despite how brave and strong she had pretended to be, it all disappeared in a flood of tears.

She’s dead. She really is dead.

“Ah, he had no business coming in here, making her cry like this!” said one of the villagers. “Those rats, I tell you, they don’t care about anyone’s feelin’s but their own!”

“That’s ’cause they were born without souls, they can’t feel nothing!”

“Aye, rats will never understand what they don’t have. That’s why they fought against us, ’cause we’ve got mages and healers when all they’ve got are their smoke and their steam.”

Morrígan tried to hide her tears, but there were too many people around her.

“I… I want to go home!” she cried, jumping from her chair, and hurrying towards the front door of the inn.

As she left, Peadair rang his bell, signalling closing time.

“Have you no homes to go to?” he bellowed, over and over, half in jest as he always did. “Have you no homes to go to?”

Outside, Morrígan started into a run.

Mother. Gone. Really gone.

She reached the northern side of the town square, taking the High Road towards her uncle’s house.

Without Mother, without Father, what’s left for me?

As tears streamed down her cheeks, Morrígan’s feet carried her to the front door of her uncle’s house. She pressed a hand against it.

How could this happen to me? Rage boiled in her stomach as she pushed the door open.

Morrígan barely took two steps into the house when a sudden scream split the silence, a howling from the clinic further down the hall.

Yarlaith’s patient!

The image of the young Pyromancer flashed through her mind; his arm being twisted and pulled from its socket with a sickening crunch.

Part of Morrígan wanted to peek through the clinic’s door and see what was happening… but she recalled her uncle’s words. A delicate procedure. A young man in great pain. A warning that neither should be disturbed.

Morrígan slowly turned away from the cries of pain.

She made her way upstairs towards her uncle’s spare room in the landing. Upon her freshly made bed sat a strange, folded fabric. As she approached, Morrígan saw that this was some sort of cloak made of out black feathers. Next to it lay a letter, which she promptly read:

To my dear Morry,

I know this is a day you will be happy to forget in years to come, but I did not forget that this was supposed to be a special day. This is a cloak made from the feathers of a beadhbh from the Glenn, and quite popular amongst travellers and adventurers these days. Wear it at night, and I promise you will be safe.