Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQJV0G9NP2M508SQD8YYY8

Aurora Carter paused at the threshold where dark oak standing stones ringed a hidden clearing. Twilight filtered through ancient branches, casting long, leaning shadows that flickered like specters. She felt the air shift, as if inhaling a held breath. The hush pressed against her eardrums until the whisper of ferns brushing bark sounded like thunder. She glanced back—no footprints marred the moss, only her own. The grove felt older than time itself. Moss curled over every surface in plush mats that yielded to her boot, and wildflowers bloomed violet and gold in impossible patterns. An almost imperceptible hum vibrated underfoot, a low pulse that quickened her pulse in return. She swallowed, tasting cool dampness, and lifted her hand to brush away a tendril of straight, shoulder-length black hair from bright blue eyes. Nothing in Cardiff had ever felt like this. Nyx drifted from the shadows between two stones, their form pooling like ink on water. Aurora’s breath caught as violet eyes, faintly glowing, curved into a silent invitation. The shade’s presence sucked warmth from the air, and where Nyx walked, light retreated. “Welcome,” they breathed, voice trembling on the wind. They tilted their head, air-whisper drifting around them. “Time here is both guest and host. We must not tarry.” Behind Nyx, Isolde Varga glided into view, silver hair coiling around her waist like liquid moonlight. Her pale lavender eyes scanned the clearing with distant knowing. She left no footprints—Aurora bent to examine the soft earth—and spoke in her soft, riddle-laced cadence. “Through closed circles, the hidden thrice repeats. Seek the weeping star, and step where it bleeds.” The words drifted into Aurora’s mind like pieces of a puzzle. Aurora forced her shoulders to relax. She flicked a glance at Nyx, whose form shimmered. Then she squared her jaw. “What’s our path?” she asked, voice low. Wheat-gold light danced off Isolde’s hair. The seer’s lips curved in an inscrutable smile. “Five breaths beyond the first iron bend,” she murmured. Aurora counted the stones: there were seven. She glanced at her watch—time against time—but the hands seemed sticky, blinking forward in slow motion. Together they walked, the ground rising and dipping as though the grove breathed beneath them. Ferns arched overhead like ribs, their fronds shivering against Aurora’s fingertips. Here, colors bent: gray bark shot through with iridescent veins, and clusters of crystal mushrooms glowed beneath rotting logs. The hush broke only when Nyx scooped a handful of silvery soil, letting it sift through shadowy fingers. The dust vanished before it touched the ground. A low arch of twisted roots stretched before them, entwining like fingers woven in prayer. Beyond, moonlight filtered in slivers, faintly luminescent in the growing dusk. Aurora’s hand slipped to the hilt of the Fae-Forged Blade at her hip. Its metal was always cold, and in this half-light it glimmered like starlight caught in a knife’s edge. She closed her fingers around the slender guard and felt a thrumming warmth pulse up her arm. As they passed under the root-arch, the air changed: honeyed sweetness, sharp with rot. Aurora tasted something metallic on her tongue and brushed at her throat. A silver mist pooled between trees not twenty paces away, swirling into shapes that might have been faces—eyes and light and a mouth gaping wide—before vanishing in a rush of static wind. She blinked. Her pulse slammed in her ears. “Here,” Nyx whispered, voice a breath through reeds, and moved forward in a current of shadow. Aurora followed, heart hammering. She could feel the boundary of the Veil close, a faint billow of distortion at the edges of vision, shimmering like heat. Her scar itched on her left wrist. Instinct jerked her fingers to the crescent-shaped mark. It burned with memory, as if warning her off. She clenched her jaw and pressed on. Isolde paused before a cluster of pale orchids drifting on a silent breeze. The blooms quivered, petal edges phosphorescing. The seer knelt, tracing radial patterns carved into bark with fingertips that did not quite touch. “Give the grove its truth,” she intoned, voice soft. Aurora watched the patterns glow beneath Isolde’s touch, lines nesting like a maze. The bark peeled back to reveal a narrow fissure, and through it a sliver of amber sky that was not the sky. A sudden tremor ran through the ground. Leaves shivered. Aurora nearly lost her grip on the blade. She looked at Nyx, who bent and plucked a shadow-spool from the earth—an orb of darkness that seemed to drink the surrounding light. Nyx offered it to Aurora, voice hushed: “We bind the gap.” Aurora winced at its chill, then wrapped her glove around it. The orb felt alive, pulsing faintly against her palm, as though eager. Isolde stood, hair brushing ground-grown moss. “Place it at the heart,” she said simply. Aurora scanned the clearing and spotted a squat ring of stones around a central pedestal carved with half-faded runes. She crossed to it, the orb burning against her glove. She set it in a shallow bowl carved into the pedestal’s top. Instantaneously, shadow and earth coalesced, vines writhing up the ring, twisting branches overhead into a new circle of darkness. A shaft of amber light flared through the root-arch overhead. Outside the ring, darkness recoiled. From the bowl, mist seethed in muted violet, twisting into the shape of a feast. Grapes larger than fists tumbled over silver platters, and laughter—rich, low, hungry—rolled beneath. Shapes wearing masks of ivory and bone sat at endless tables. They raised tankards, echoed bells in their throats. Aurora staggered backward. Nyx’s form darkened into solidity. They stepped between Aurora and the vision, voice a wind-strained whisper: “Dymas beckons.” The name tasted like bile. The mist-feast ebbed and flowed, a living nightmare forged from gluttony. Aurora’s stomach clenched, though she had not eaten since morning. She swallowed and fought the urge to fill her lungs with dust, to retreat. Something primal recoiled within her. “Close it,” Aurora said, chin trembling. She drew the blade free. Its moonsilver surface glowed faintly, a cold promise in her hand. She approached the pedestal. Each step echoed in the gallery of trees, as though someone else marched beside her. The mist-feast rippled, reaching for her with vaporous arms. She raised the dagger and slashed at the heart of illusion. The blade cut through mist with a sharp zing, scattering grapes and laughter. Vines writhed upward, straining against the canopy. The shadow-spool on the pedestal vibrated, thrumming to Nyx’s chant in an alien tongue that rumbled like distant thunder. Aurora braced herself, knuckles white on the knife’s hilt. With a final, resonant snap, the orb imploded. Earth and darkness exhaled in a single breath. The amber light winked out, and the feast dissolved into motes of dust that settled across the roots. Silence breathed around them. The runes on the pedestal flickered and faded. The vines unwound, falling slack to reveal bare wood as if nothing had stirred. Aurora felt sweat trickle down her back. She scanned the grove—no shadow-spools, no feast, only moonlight pale through branches and the hush of wildflowers. She touched her scar again. The ache was gone. Only the faint memory of hunger lingered. Isolde stepped forward, hands clasped. Her eyes glinted. “That which devours must be appeased,” she murmured. Aurora looked at the broken pedestal. Nothing to feed now. She exhaled a shaky laugh. “Well,” she said, “I’d rather starve than feast on ghost grapes.” Nyx drifted close, half-shadow, half-form, voice soft: “We did well.” Aurora sheathed the Fae-Forged Blade, its glow dimming to near invisibility. They retraced their steps through the arch of knotted roots. Outside, the grove sighed as though waking from a dream. The mushrooms’ luminescence faded. The orchids drooped, closing petals against the dark. Aurora stepped out, the stones closing behind her with a faint click. She shook dew from her hair and bent to examine footprints: only three sets, hers, Nyx’s fading prints, and none for Isolde. She glanced at her watch. The hands had barely moved. Outside the grove, the winter solstice sky was deep indigo, stars pricking the cold. She breathed into the chill, feeling oddly light. The forest at the edge of Richmond Park stood ordinary, familiar. She reached up, brushing her fingers against the scar on her wrist. It no longer itched—only pulsed with a faint glow, like a promise of secrets still hidden beneath the boundary of worlds.