Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMR2V0KZ5BSBG1RFMY0YK65

The air grew still as they passed the last gnarled oak of Richmond Park, the familiar chatter of picnics and distant traffic dissolving into an unnerving silence. Before them stood a circle of ancient standing stones, their surfaces covered in a moss so green it seemed to hum with life. They weren’t arranged in a perfect circle, but in a lazy, winding spiral that pulled the eye inward. Rory Carter felt a prickle of unease crawl up her spine, the hair on her arms standing on end. Beside her, Nyx, a solid silhouette of living shadow against the afternoon gloom, paused. Their faintly glowing violet eyes fixed on the space between two of the largest stones. “The threshold,” Nyx whispered, their voice like the rustle of dry leaves skittering across pavement. Isolde Varga glided forward, her silver hair a stark waterfall against the muted greens and browns of the woods. She didn’t seem to walk on the forest floor so much as float just above it, leaving no imprint in the damp earth. Her pale lavender eyes held a serene, ageless calm. “The Grove waits for no one, but it will suffer an entrance.” Rory’s hand went to the slender, leaf-shaped dagger tucked into her belt. The Fae-forged blade was always cold to the touch, a steady, reassuring chill against her skin. Now, it felt colder still, a sliver of absolute zero in the mild air. The other hand instinctively touched the Heartstone pendant hanging beneath her shirt. The deep crimson gem, usually a source of faint warmth, was utterly still. Its purpose, she’d learned, was to pulse near rifts to Hel. This place was something else entirely. Taking a breath that felt too thin, too sweet, Rory followed Isolde through the gap in the stones. The world didn’t so much change as it *unmade* itself. For a dizzying second, there was a sensation of passing through a cool, shimmering curtain, like a waterfall made of liquid air. Then, she was standing on the other side, and the world she knew was gone. The first thing she noticed was the light. It wasn’t sunlight. It wasn’t moonlight. It was a soft, pearlescent luminescence that seemed to emanate from everything at once—from the impossibly green grass, from the bark of the trees, from the very air she breathed. It cast no shadows, yet it defined every shape with a gentle, ethereal clarity. The ground under her feet was springy, thick with a carpet of wildflowers that Rory knew, with absolute certainty, should not be blooming in late autumn. Luminous bluebells pulsed with a gentle sapphire light, and clusters of what looked like poppies with petals of spun silk shimmered with the iridescent colours of an oil slick. “Wow,” she breathed, the word sounding loud and clumsy in the profound quiet. Nyx flowed into the space behind her, their form seeming to drink in the ambient light, becoming a deeper, more solid black. “The air is older here,” they murmured, their voice barely disturbing the tranquility. “It remembers.” Rory knelt, her fingers hovering over a flame-red flower whose petals felt like warm velvet. The air was thick and sweet with the scent of honey and something else, something metallic and clean, like after a thunderstorm. She stood up, turning slowly. The grove was a perfect, shallow bowl, enclosed by a ring of trees with bark like polished silver and leaves that were a deep, twilight purple. There was no wind, yet a soft, melodic chiming echoed through the clearing, as if an invisible breeze was stirring a thousand tiny glass bells. Isolde stood in the center of the grove, a serene figure in her simple grey dress. “Time does not flow here, little mortal,” she said, her voice a melody that matched the chimes. “It pools.” She looked at Rory, a faint, knowing smile on her lips. “Be careful you do not drown in it.” Rory’s gaze fell to the ground where Isolde stood. Nothing. No indent, no displaced blades of grass, no scuff mark. The Half-Fae left no trace of her passing, as if she were a ghost or a thought made manifest. The sight sent a fresh wave of wonder and unease through Rory. This place operated on rules she couldn’t even begin to comprehend. She started walking, her steps muffled by the springy turf. The Fae blade at her hip felt like an anchor, its cold a sharp, real sensation in a place of soft, dreamlike edges. As she moved deeper toward the center, the blade began to react. A faint, silvery light started to emanate from the moonsilver metal, a soft glow that was almost imperceptible against the ambient luminescence of the grove, but there. It pulsed in time with the distant chiming. “What is that sound?” Rory asked, her voice hushed. She felt like an intruder, a loud, clumsy creature of flesh and bone in a place made of light and memory. Nyx was beside her in an instant, their movement so fluid they seemed to simply appear. “The leaves of the Great Tree,” they whispered, pointing a shadowy finger toward the largest tree in the grove’s center. It was indeed larger than the others, its silver bark swirling in patterns that resembled a human face in profile. Its deep purple leaves were shaped like tiny daggers, and as Rory watched, they trembled, though no wind touched them, producing the delicate, haunting music. She reached the base of the Great Tree and placed a hand on its trunk. The bark was smooth as glass and cool as stone, but beneath it, she could feel a slow, powerful thrumming, like a colossal heartbeat. The air here was even sweeter, and the light seemed to concentrate, pooling around the tree’s roots in soft, glowing rivulets. The Fae blade in her belt was now glowing brightly, its cold light a stark contrast to the warm, living energy of the Grove. A sense of vertigo washed over her. The world seemed to tilt, the colours swimming for a moment. She stumbled back, pulling out her phone instinctively, a modern-day talisman against the impossible. The screen was black. Dead. She thumbed the power button, but nothing happened. A knot of cold dread formed in her stomach, colder even than the Fae blade. “How long have we been here?” she asked, her voice tighter now. The wonder was still there, but it was edged with a sharp-toothed fear. Isolde turned from the tree, her pale lavender eyes holding a hint of pity. “An hour,” she said, then added with a cryptic tilt of her head, “or a day. Or a moment. The sun you left behind has not moved. The sun you will return to may be setting.” Rory looked from Isolde’s inscrutable face to Nyx’s unreadable shadow-form, then back to the impossible, beautiful grove that held them captive. The chiming of the leaves no longer sounded merely beautiful; it sounded like the ticking of a clock she couldn’t see, counting away a time she no longer owned. The cold from the blade seeped into her bones, a stark reminder of the world she came from, a world of sharp edges and hard realities, a world she might not see again for a very long time.