Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQE6P8E0669SSCKPY8M5SD

Aurora stood at the boundary of the Fae Grove just after midnight, her trainers sinking slightly into the damp grass. The ancient oak standing stones loomed before her like sentries, their gnarled trunks black against the starless sky. She'd told herself coming here alone was necessary. Rational. A solo reconnaissance mission to understand what the Heartstone pendant was responding to. That reasoning felt increasingly stupid with each passing second. The pendant hung beneath her shirt, a warm weight against her sternum. It had been pulsing all evening—a steady, insistent warmth that had driven her from her flat above Silas' bar, through the midnight streets toward Richmond Park, and now to this precise spot where the world felt thin and negotiable. The wildflowers that should bloom year-round in this place were absent tonight. Instead, the clearing beyond the oak stones was dark and overgrown, as though winter had somehow seized this pocket realm by the throat. She pulled out her phone. No signal, naturally. She hadn't expected one, but the loss of it felt like severing a rope. She switched on her torch—a small LED lantern from the delivery job—and stepped between the standing stones. The air changed immediately. It was colder, yes, but it was more than that. The quality of the atmosphere itself seemed different, thicker somehow, pressing against her skin like warm oil. Aurora's breath came visible in small clouds. Her instinct was to turn back, to respect the wrongness her body was registering. But something in her—that same out-of-the-box thinking that had gotten her through a law degree she didn't want and a relationship she should have ended sooner—pushed her forward. The grove proper opened before her. The wildflowers were there after all, she realized, but they were wrong. Their petals were too dark, the whites tinged with grey, the colors muted as though seen through dirty glass. They didn't move in the breeze. There was no breeze. The air was perfectly, unnaturally still. Aurora moved deeper in, her torch beam cutting a narrow path through the darkness. The pendant's warmth had increased, a steady pulse like a second heartbeat. It wasn't unpleasant exactly, but it was insistent in a way that made her jaw clench. This place had always felt alive to her on her previous visits—vibrant, strange, but alive. Tonight it felt hollowed out, like a photograph of itself. A sound stopped her. A branch breaking, somewhere to her left. She turned, scanning the torch across the underbrush. Nothing. Just tangled growth and more of those pallid flowers. Her heart rate had ticked up. Stupid. Wind could have broken the branch. Or an animal. Richmond Park had deer, didn't it? She'd never actually checked if deer could exist in a place where time moved differently, where reality bent around the edges. The breaking sound came again, but this time from her right. And again, from behind. Aurora spun, her torch beam wheeling. The clearing seemed to shift around the light, pulling darker where the beam didn't reach, as though something was actively hiding from illumination. "Right then," she said aloud, hearing the tremor in her own voice. "Not actually trying the chatty approach. Got it." The silence that followed her words was absolute. Even the distant sounds of Richmond Park—the ambient hum of the city beyond, the occasional car on distant roads—had vanished. It was as though she'd stepped into a vacuum. She kept moving, deeper into the grove, because turning back felt like the wrong choice somehow. The pendant was burning now, not painfully, but with an urgency that overrode her growing dread. This was why she'd come. To understand what it wanted, what it was warning her about. The Heartstone was attuned to Hel portals according to what little she'd managed to piece together. And if it was reacting this strongly, that meant— The ground beneath her foot gave way. It was barely a dip, just enough to break her stride, but it was enough to send ice down her spine. She caught herself with her hands, went to one knee. The earth here was wrong too—too soft, almost damp though there was no moisture on it, and warm in a way that had nothing to do with weather. Her hand had pressed down on something that felt almost like hide. Aurora yanked her hand back and stood, torch shaking slightly in her grip. When she pointed it down, there was nothing—just the same pale flowers and dark earth. But the impression remained. She'd touched something. She was no longer alone in this clearing. That certainty came not from any evidence but from the primal part of her brain that had kept her ancestors alive. She could feel attention like weight, pressing down from multiple directions. Her heart was hammering against her ribs now. "If you're here," she called out, her voice stronger than she felt, "state your business. I'm not here to hurt anyone. I'm just—" The sound came again, but this time it wasn't a branch. It was a breath. Long and slow and absolutely deliberate. It came from above. Aurora looked up. The canopy of the grove was so thick she couldn't see sky, but something moved through it—a displacement of air that sent the twisted branches creaking. Whatever it was, it was massive. It moved with the fluid grace of something that had learned how to navigate the spaces between worlds. The pendant was screaming now, burning against her chest with an intensity that made her gasp. Not warning, she realized. Not anymore. Summoning. It was calling to whatever circled above her. She made a choice in that moment that she would later question repeatedly. She pulled the pendant from beneath her shirt, letting it swing freely, its silver chain catching the torchlight. The deep crimson stone pulsed like a living heart. The circling above stopped. The attention that had been pressing down on her from all directions snapped toward the pendant like iron to magnet. The clearing seemed to hold its breath. When the voice came, it didn't come from above. It came from everywhere at once—from the flowers at her feet and the twisted branches above her head and the very ground beneath her trainers. It was not a human voice. It was something like wind through a canyon, like the sound of stone being dragged across stone, like a frequency that shouldn't have been audible but was, resonating in her bones. "Malphora," it said, and the name wasn't hers but was hers, echoing with a recognition that made her vision swim. "You've brought us an invitation." The torch fell from her trembling fingers and extinguished on the soft earth. In the dark, Aurora heard movement. Felt it. Whatever had been circling descended. And the Fae Grove, where time moved differently, seemed to hold its breath and wait to see what would happen next.