Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQKRJ4T7FQRHPR91MTPAH9

The footfalls of the three hikers faded into a rhythmic crunch of dry autumn leaves long ago, dissolving into the rustle of the broadleaved trees overhead. Rory didn't look back. She kept her eyes locked on the ethereal luminescence that bled through the canopy ahead of them, a soft violet-pink glow that had nothing to do with the setting sun. Her messenger bag bumped against her hip with every step, heavy with her phone, a credit card reader, and a tangle of wires she’d forgotten to charge—mundane burdens in a world suddenly feeling too heavy with possibility. They were three deep in Richmond Park, and yet, the GPS on Rory’s phone had been insisting for the last five minutes that their destination was several miles south, near the river. “Are you sure we’re not hallucinating?” Nyx asked. The Shade had been trailing them, solidifying enough to walk beside Isolde but keeping a comfortable distance, their form shifting between a dark silhouette and a vague suggestion of a human shape. “Lore dictates a Veil,” Rory replied, her voice low, calculated. She touched the Heartstone pendant at her throat. It was warm, a gentle heat radiating against her collarbone, pulsing in time with her own heartbeat. “A metaphysical barrier. It causes spatial disorientation, visual distortion. Usually, in places where dimensional instability is high.” “Or,” Nyx interjected, their voice sounding like a wind chime struck by a gale, “where the Fae like to play hide-and-seek with the rest of the world.” Rory glanced at Isolde. The Half-Fae Seer walked with a quiet confidence, her silver hair catching the unnatural light like spun mercury. She moved effortlessly, the ferns parting before her as if the forest bowed. There was no crumble of twigs underfoot, no dislodged moss. Isolde left no footprints, not even in the dust. Isolde stopped abruptly near a cluster of ancient oaks with bark the color of wet slate. She raised a hand, palm open, and drifted closer to the trees until her face was inches from the rough bark. “Time has a memory here,” Isolde said. Her voice was melodic, laced with a singsong cadence that made the hair on Rory’s arms stand up. “A visitor may stay an hour and find a world turned to winter, or walk a week and find the moment unchanged.” “Step across?” Rory asked, checking her footing. The ground beneath her boots felt spongy, less like soil and more like compressed moss. Nyx drifted forward, silent as smoke. They reached out a hand, fingers elongating into shadow-tentacles that brushed the air near the trees before withdrawing. “It smells wrong,” Nyx whispered. “Old. Hungry.” Rory took a breath, steeling herself for the transition. As she crossed the invisible threshold defined by the ancient oak standing stones on either side of the path, the air thickened. The scent of damp earth and pine was replaced by something sweeter—perfume, copper, and the acrid tang of ozone. She blinked, and the familiar Richmond skyline vanished, replaced by a canopy so dense it blotted out the sky. It wasn’t night, yet the light was dim, diffused through leaves that shimmered with iridescent veins. “Welcome,” Isolde whispered. Rory moved forward, her senses overload. It wasn’t just the visual shift; it was the acoustics. The birdsong she expected was absent. In its place was a low, thrumming resonance, like the vibration of a cello string being played infinitely low. The wind changed, carrying a scent of hawthorn and something else—like burning sugar. She stepped onto a patch of grass that looked vibrant, emerald green, and instantly reached down to touch it. It was cool, soft. Above her, a blossom on a tree that looked unnervingly like a twisted apple branch unfurled, glowing with a pale, bioluminescent blue that made the surrounding gloom look like twilight. The flowers bloomed and withered in a heartbeat, a perpetual, endless cycle of growth. “How?” Rory breathed. “Creatures of instinct, Aurora,” Nyx said, re-solidifying into their full, towering height of six foot two. They walked to the edge of a small, circular clearing and peered into the pond reflected there. Their reflection flickered, a piece of paper being blown across a windshield. “We do not ask how the earth turns; we simply walk.” Rory walked to the edge of the pond herself. The water was still, mirroring the unnatural sky above. But in the reflection, she didn’t see the trees and the strange foliage. She saw a grey, swirling mass—the Veil, thinning and fragile. The distortion shimmered, sending ripples through the pond’s surface. She gripped the hem of her jacket. “Do you see that?” She pointed to a spot in the sky where the distortion looked like a tear. “That’s what I do. I deliver things. I fix things. But I can’t fix... whatever this is.” “Destiny is not a package for delivery,” Isolde said, stepping out of the shadows of the trees. She looked at Rory, her pale lavender eyes expressionless. “To find what you seek, you must lose yourself first.” Rory sighed, a short, sharp exhale that let some of the tension in her shoulders bleed away. She was twenty-five, with a scar on her wrist from a childhood slip and a life that was starting over in London. She was good at surviving. And right now, the mossy ground beneath her feet felt like the safest place she’d been in months. “Aurora,” Nyx murmured. They had stepped away from the pond, toward a thicket of roses that grew thick and thorny, their petals a deep, bruised crimson. “Look.” Rory approached. The thorns looked like they were made of obsidian, sharp and black. Nyx reached out, and their hand passed through a thorn as if it were smoke, dissipating the wood into dust. “The Fae-Forged Blade,” Rory whispered, remembering the description. “Is it here?” “Not in a sheath,” Nyx said, looking back at Rory with glowing violet eyes. “But hunting for the blade means hunting for the hunter. Are you ready to dance with wolves, Carter?” “I’m not making a choice,” Rory replied, her voice firm. “I’m following the map Isolde gave me.” The map had been a map of Richmond Park, drawn in charcoal and ash. It had ended at these stones. Now, she adjusted her glasses, the lenses fogging slightly from the humidity in the air. The ground shifted again, a subtle vibration that rattled the vertebrae in Rory’s neck. The trees around them groaned, the sound like wooden bones stretching after a long sleep. One of the ancient oaks seemed to lean down, its branches swaying closer to them, not to harm, but with a curious, arboreal intent. Isolde turned in a slow circle, her silver hair swirling around her like a nova. She spoke no more, simply floating a few inches off the ground, a creature of moonlight and mystery. Rory took a step forward, her boots sinking slightly into the loam. She could feel the weight of the Veil humming against her skin, thin and fragile. Somewhere beyond that shimmer, in the realm of Dymas or the Fae Courts, things were happening. Magic was leaking through, pulling at the edges of reality. She looked at Nyx, who was leaning back into the shadow of a tree, looking indifferent, unreadable. She looked at Isolde, who was turning in slow, hypnotic circles, watching something only she could see. Rory tightened her grip on the strap of her bag. She was a delivery driver for a Chinese restaurant by day, a barmaid’s roommate by night. She was not a hero. But as she stepped deeper into the grove, past the point of no return, she realized she didn't have a choice. The world was shifting, and she was going to have to carry it through. “Keep up,” she said, though she didn't say it to either of them. It was a habit, a command for herself. She walked into the center of the clearing, and the wind picked up, carrying a whisper of a voice that sounded exactly like her own.