Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMR11PM43ECDPB51MG3FYW2

The standing stones rose from the earth like broken teeth, their surfaces worn smooth by centuries of wind and rain. Aurora traced her fingers along the nearest one, half-expecting the rough bark texture of oak, but finding instead something that felt almost like skin—warm and faintly yielding beneath her touch. "Don't linger," Nyx whispered, their voice carrying that strange quality of distance, as if the words traveled from somewhere far away before reaching her ears. The Shade's form rippled at the edges, violet eyes burning brighter than usual. "The boundary remembers those who hesitate." Aurora pulled her hand back. The Heartstone pendant against her chest had gone cold—not the warning pulse she'd learned to recognize near Hel portals, but something different. A stillness, as if the artifact was holding its breath. "Through here." Isolde moved ahead of them, her bare feet making no impression in the damp grass. The Seer's silver hair caught what remained of the afternoon light, though the sun seemed to hang at an angle that didn't quite match the position it had held moments ago in Richmond Park proper. "The Grove opens for seekers. Whether it closes behind them—" She paused, tilting her head as if listening to something neither Aurora nor Nyx could hear. "—depends on what is sought." "That's not ominous at all," Aurora muttered, but she followed anyway. She'd come too far to turn back now, driven by questions that had plagued her since the pendant had appeared on her doorstep three weeks ago, wrapped in paper that smelled of wine and strange spices. The space between the standing stones shimmered. Aurora had seen the Veil before—or rather, had learned to recognize its presence, that faint distortion like heat rising from summer pavement. But this was different. The air itself seemed to fold, and when she stepped through the gap between two stones, the world shifted. Color hit her first. The wildflowers carpeting the grove blazed in shades she had no names for—something between violet and gold, a blue that seemed to sing, reds so deep they appeared almost black until she looked directly at them and they burst into brilliant crimson. They shouldn't have been blooming together, shouldn't have been blooming at all in late November, but here they spread in impossible profusion, their petals trembling despite the absence of any wind. "Bloody hell," she breathed. The grove stretched before them, far larger than any clearing in Richmond Park could possibly contain. Ancient trees ringed the space, their branches intertwining overhead to form a living cathedral. But the canopy wasn't blocking light—it was creating it, each leaf glowing with soft phosphorescence that shifted from silver to pale green to the soft pink of dawn. Nyx materialized fully beside her, their shadow-form gaining unexpected solidity in this place. Aurora had never seen them so clearly defined—the suggestion of features in that dark face, something that might have been cheekbones, the ghost of a mouth. Their violet eyes widened. "I remember this," they said, and their voice had lost its whisper-quality, ringing clear and almost human. "Aldric came here once. Before." "Before you became what you are?" Aurora asked. Nyx didn't answer, but their form flickered, and she caught a glimpse of something else beneath the shadow—a young man's face, hollow-cheeked and desperate, reaching toward light that slipped through his fingers. Then it was gone, and Nyx was simply Nyx again, though their edges seemed somehow sharper, more present. Isolde had drifted ahead, moving through the impossible flowers without disturbing a single petal. She stopped at the center of the grove, where a pool of water lay still as glass, reflecting not the glowing canopy above but a sky full of unfamiliar stars. "The Grove shows what is, what was, and what may be," the Seer said. "But it shows these things according to its own understanding. Do not mistake its truths for your own." Aurora approached the pool carefully. The grass beneath her feet felt wrong—too soft, too yielding, as if she were walking on something living. The crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist itched, an old nervous habit she'd never quite shaken. She rubbed at it absently, her bright blue eyes fixed on the strange reflection in the water. "I came here for answers," she said. "About the pendant. About who sent it and why." "Questions are easy to carry." Isolde crouched beside the pool, her lavender eyes reflecting those impossible stars. "Answers are heavier. Some crush those who lift them." "I didn't come all this way for riddles." "No one comes to the Grove for riddles. Yet riddles are what the Grove provides." Isolde's lips curved in something that wasn't quite a smile. "I cannot lie to you, Aurora Carter. But the truth has many faces, and not all of them look in directions mortals can follow." A sound rippled through the grove—not quite music, not quite voice, but something that resonated in Aurora's chest like the deep note of a bell. The flowers turned their faces toward the pool in unison, and the water began to stir. Images formed beneath the surface. Aurora saw Dymas first—the amber sky she'd only read about in texts she probably shouldn't have accessed, the sprawling vineyards that seemed to stretch into forever. Figures moved through the vision, indistinct but somehow familiar. A feast spread across tables that groaned under the weight of impossible dishes. And at the head of the longest table, a figure shrouded in golden light, holding something small and red that pulsed with its own heartbeat. The Heartstone pendant grew warm against her skin. "That's where it came from," she whispered. "Someone in Dymas sent this to me. But why? What does Belphegor's realm want with a part-time delivery girl from Cardiff?" The pool's surface rippled again, and new images emerged. She saw herself—or a version of herself—standing at a threshold she didn't recognize. The Fae-forged blade Isolde had given her gleamed in her hand, its moonsilver edge bright against gathering darkness. Behind her, shapes moved through shadow, some hostile, some simply watching. And ahead— "Enough." Isolde's hand broke the water's surface, and the images shattered into a thousand rippling fragments. "You have seen what the Grove chooses to show. To see more would bind you to paths not yet chosen." Aurora's heart was racing. "I saw myself. I saw—what was that place? Where was I going?" "A crossroads." The Seer rose, water dripping from her fingers but leaving no trace on her skin. "Many roads meet in your future, Aurora. The pendant you carry was not given lightly. Someone believes you will stand at that crossroads when the Veil is at its weakest, and they wish to influence which path you take." "Someone in Dymas." "Perhaps. Or someone who wishes you to believe so." Isolde began walking toward the edge of the grove, her silver hair trailing behind her like mist. "The Grove has shown you a gift and a warning wrapped in the same vision. Now you must decide what to do with both." Nyx had been silent throughout, but now they moved to Aurora's side, their shadow-form casting no reflection in the pool. "The winter solstice," they said quietly. "Three weeks away. The Veil will weaken." Aurora touched the pendant through her shirt, feeling its warmth, its faint pulse. Someone had sent this to her—someone powerful enough to have access to artifacts from Hel's realm of Gluttony, someone who had chosen her specifically for reasons she still didn't understand. The pendant was meant to lead her somewhere. Or to someone. "I'm being used," she said. "All pieces on a board are used," Isolde replied, not turning back. "The wise piece learns to move itself." The grove was changing around them, the light shifting from silver-green to something deeper, more amber. Time moved differently here—Isolde had warned her of that before they entered. An hour inside could be minutes or days outside. They needed to leave soon, before the world outside moved on without them. But Aurora found herself lingering, staring at the now-still pool, trying to catch one more glimpse of the future it had shown her. The crossroads. The blade in her hand. The threshold to somewhere unknown. "Rory." Nyx's voice was gentle, almost human. "We should go." She nodded, but she didn't move immediately. Instead, she memorized the grove—the impossible flowers, the glowing canopy, the pool that showed truths too heavy to carry. She had a feeling she would need to come back here before the solstice arrived. Before whatever was coming found her first. "Thank you," she said to Isolde, to the grove, to whatever force had allowed her entry. "For showing me." "Thanks are not currency here," the Seer replied. "But they are noted." Aurora turned and walked toward the standing stones, toward the boundary between this pocket of impossible wonder and the mundane world of Richmond Park. Behind her, the wildflowers swayed in an unfelt wind, and the pool's surface rippled once more—showing reflections of paths not yet taken, futures not yet born, and a young woman with bright blue eyes who carried a piece of Hel's realm against her heart without knowing why. The grove watched her go. It would remember.