The storm at Metern transforms a warning in the sky into a supernatural attack with consequences for the whole island. It forces Galahad Stormcrane and his companions to race for shelter, then is identified as Myrkur’s work: she flooded Ruined Mount and may have used the storm to extend her reach and learn about those who oppose her. The weather is both a physical danger and a means of surveillance, leaving Meira vulnerable whichever conditions follow.

Causes and Warning Signs

The danger first appears along the horizon, where thick clouds have dipped low and turned an ugly greenish grey. At Galahad’s urging, King James and Beatrix look out to sea. King James recognizes the threat and insists that the party must return home; Beatrix immediately gathers her skirt and urges everyone to hurry. The cloud’s unnatural coloring makes the storm ominous before its cause is understood.

Distant thunder rolls across the sea, and Galahad feels a chill as he watches the darkening water. Green lightning then darts from the clouds into the ocean. These signs sharpen the urgency: Galahad calls for haste, and the company rushes to its horses, shouting to the servants. After one last look across the group, he turns Thondorfax and gallops down the hill along the wide lane. The others flee with him as the rain begins. Their swift departure places the storm’s first violence just behind them, but does not spare them from it.

The Flight Through the Storm

Mere minutes after the party leaves, the heavens break open. Rain pours across the moors, wind whips over the open land, and fog fills the valleys until the horizon disappears. The roads become black mud, which Thondorfax’s hooves throw over his riders. The landscape that had offered a route home becomes difficult terrain, obscured and slick beneath the storm.

Galahad frees the arm he has been holding around Meira and drags his cape around her as a shield. She takes hold of it and pulls it over her dress, but does not hide her face from the driving rain. Gusts repeatedly blow off Galahad’s hood; his hair becomes soaked, cold water runs down his neck and drenches his shirt, and his trousers grow sodden. Rain darkens Meira’s skirts, while mud splashes their hems. Water streams down her cheeks and hair like silver pearls, but she stares straight ahead, unseeing. The details keep the storm’s danger bodily and immediate even as its larger purpose remains hidden.

They press on through mist and sheets of rain. Thondorfax shakes water from his face with irritated snorts, thunder crackles overhead, and water runs in rivers down the road. At a familiar bend, the riders splash downhill toward Euryor House. Yet the house offers no sign of welcome: its windows are dark, and no smoke rises from the chimney. They cross the flooded yard and take shelter in the dark barn. Thondorfax shakes his mane, splattering Galahad; Galahad removes his cape from Meira, dismounts with a wince, and catches her at the waist as she climbs down. He moves her wet skirt clear of her feet, then strips the saddle, blanket, and bridle from the horse. Meira nods, and the two start toward the door together. The immediate flight ends in shelter, but the storm has carried the party into a landscape made unfamiliar by water, mud, and darkness.

Myrkur’s Attack and Its Reach

The storm’s supernatural significance becomes clearer in a later letter to Galahad. Its writer agrees that Myrkur was behind the weather and says she succeeded in flooding Ruined Mount. The flooding may have sent Myrkur’s tentacles across the entire island, a possibility that makes the storm more than an assault on the travelers or a single place. It may have expanded the reach from which she can act.

The letter also warns that Myrkur may have learned a great deal about King James and Beatrix, as well as Galahad and Meira. The storm is thus presented as a means by which Myrkur gathers knowledge or alters what she has discovered. The letter does not claim certainty about every consequence: the extent of her reach and what she learned remain possibilities, not confirmed details. That uncertainty is itself dangerous, because the party cannot know what the storm has exposed.

Aftermath and Stakes for Meira

The weather’s later pattern becomes a warning. If another storm comes, the letter suggests that Myrkur may be trying to learn more or change something she has discovered. If the weather is fair and bright, she may instead be satisfied with the state of affairs. Either outcome may be fatal to Meira. The storm therefore inaugurates a threat that cannot be measured simply by whether the rain stops: calm may signal danger just as surely as renewed violence.

The letter’s response is desperate rather than reassuring. Its writer considers the possibility that King James, feeling insecure and lonely, might have romantic feelings for Meira, despite his long friendship with Beatrix. A Scríobh potion could briefly enable Meira to write to him; she is urged to express what he means to her, propose marriage, or ask him to postpone his wedding—anything that might make him reconsider. This proposal does not establish that Meira writes the letter or that King James changes his plans. It does show how the storm’s consequences enter the larger crisis: Myrkur’s attack leaves Meira’s safety entangled with the king’s feelings and the possibility of a marriage. The storm’s narrative force lies in that reversal: a flight from immediate physical danger becomes evidence of a much wider peril, with no simple assurance that clear skies mean safety.