Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMR6QG1JJNRRKPQSXCC2YHX

The air shifted the moment Aurora Carter passed between the standing stones. It was a change she knew well, like stepping from a stuffy room into the clean shock of a winter night. The chemical tang of London’s exhaust and damp pavement fell away, replaced by the scent of rich, wet earth and a sweet perfume of night-blooming flowers that had no business blossoming in October. This was the Grove, a secret nestled in the heart of Richmond Park, a place out of time. But tonight, the familiar magic felt alloyed with something else. Something sour. Moonlight, thick as cream, flooded the clearing, bleaching the colour from the riot of wildflowers that carpeted the ground. Foxgloves and bluebells, impossible companions in an impossible season, stood in silvered ranks, their heads bowed as if in prayer or mourning. The silence was the first sign. The Grove was never truly quiet; it hummed with a life that vibrated just beneath the surface of hearing. Tonight, that hum was gone. The clearing was a vacuum, a hollowed-out space that swallowed sound. Rory’s boots made no noise on the mossy ground. She pulled her jacket tighter, the worn fabric a flimsy shield against the sudden chill. She’d come for answers, for the peace the Grove usually offered her, a respite from the relentless city. Now her shoulders were tight, her breath a ghost in the frigid air. She walked toward the centre of the clearing, her gaze sweeping the ring of ancient oaks that formed the Grove’s perimeter. Their massive branches clawed at the starless sky, their bark like the wrinkled hide of sleeping leviathans. It wasn’t just the silence. It was the stillness. Not a single leaf trembled. The air was a held breath. She reached the heart of the Grove and stopped, turning in a slow circle. Her bright blue eyes, accustomed to the gloom, searched the deep pools of shadow between the trees. Every nerve ending felt scoured raw, alert. This was a hunter’s stillness. The feeling of being in a place just after a predator has passed through, the prey all frozen or fled. A twig snapped. The sound was offensively loud in the profound quiet, a crack like a breaking bone. It came from the west, near the edge of the stone circle. Rory froze, her head cocked. The deer in the park, maybe? But no animal ever breached the Grove’s boundary. It was one of the rules of the place. She waited, listening, her heart a frantic drum against her ribs. Nothing. Just the crushing silence rushing back in. She blew out a slow breath, trying to unclench her jaw. It’s nothing. An old branch, finally giving way. Her rational mind, the part her barrister father had so carefully honed, offered up explanations like small, smooth stones. But her instincts, the ones that had screamed at her to flee a smiling, handsome man named Evan, were screaming now. She took another step, and a flicker of movement snagged the corner of her eye. She whipped her head around. A shadow, darker than the others, seemed to pull back into the space between two oaks. She stared, her eyes straining, until the shapes resolved into nothing more than bark and void. A trick of the moonlight. It had to be. Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that the shadows themselves were watching her, that they had grown deeper, more solid, than they were moments before. Rory’s hand went unconsciously to her throat, her thumb finding the cool silver of the chain around her neck. Beneath her shirt, the Heartstone Pendant lay against her skin. She glanced down at her wrist, at the faint, crescent-shaped scar there, a silver memory from a childhood fall. She’d had stitches. She’d been scared then, too, but it was a simple, clean fear. This was different. This was a fear that coiled in her gut, ancient and complex. Something rustled in the undergrowth to her right. Not a snap, but a drag. The sound of heavy fabric, or something heavier, being pulled slowly across the leafy ground. Shh-shh-shh. The noise was furtive, deliberate. It stopped as soon as it started. “Who’s there?” Her voice came out a reedy whisper, instantly devoured by the waiting quiet. She hadn’t meant to speak. It was a stupid, foolish thing to do. Announce your position. Let it know you know. The cold intensified, sinking through her jacket, through her skin, settling deep in her bones. A profound, unnatural cold that had nothing to do with the autumn night. And then, she felt it. A faint warmth against her collarbone. Rory’s eyes widened. She fumbled with the collar of her shirt, pulling out the silver chain. The Heartstone, a crimson gem the size of her thumbnail, was glowing. Not its usual faint, inner light, but a pulsing, rhythmic beat of deep red, like a drop of blood illuminated from within. The stone grew warmer, the heat spreading from the silver setting across her skin. It pulsed in time with her own terrified heartbeat. Warm when near a Hel portal. The words, spoken to her by a woman with eyes like old twilight, echoed in her mind. Not here. Not in a Fae place. The two magics were anathema to each other. Oil and water. Life and… and whatever this was. The warmth of the pendant was a desperate alarm bell ringing in a world gone silent. Her cool-headed analysis shattered against the undeniable, pulsing heat on her skin. This wasn’t in her head. This was real. The dragging sound started again, closer this time. Shh-shh-shh. It was circling her, keeping to the deep shadows just beyond the moonlit grass. She backed away slowly, her eyes darting from one dark gap between the trees to the next. The wildflowers at her feet seemed to recoil, their silvered petals curling inward. Don’t run, her mind screamed. Whatever it is, don’t run. Running was for prey. She kept backing up, her feet shuffling silently on the moss. The centre of the clearing felt exposed, a stage lit by a single, cold spotlight. The edges, the darkness under the oaks, was where it lived. She felt its attention on her, a physical pressure against her skin. It was curious. It was hungry. And then it made a mistake. For a fraction of a second, as it passed behind a more slender oak, its form eclipsed the trunk. She saw it. No details, not in the disorienting moonlight, just a silhouette. It was tall, impossibly so, and thin, a splinter of night torn from the greater darkness. Its limbs were too long, jointed at angles that felt fundamentally wrong. It didn’t stand so much as it hunched, its shape a perversion of the human form. It was there for a heartbeat, a single, frozen moment, and then it was gone, subsumed back into the shadows. But she had seen it. The confirmation was a shard of ice in her blood. She wasn’t alone. The pendant on her chest burned now, a small, hot coal against her frantic pulse. The thing in the woods had stopped moving. The dragging sound was gone. The Grove was utterly still once more, but the silence had changed. It was no longer empty. It was the patient, watchful silence of the spider in its web. It knew she was here. It knew she had seen it. The game had changed. Rory’s back hit something hard and rough. An oak. She didn’t yelp, the sound catching in her throat. She flattened herself against the ancient bark, the pendant a searing brand against her skin. She had reached the edge of the clearing. Behind her, the path back to the standing stones, back to the sane, smoggy world of London. In front of her, the moonlit stage and the patient, silent watcher in the wings. Her mind raced, sifting through options with a desperate, frantic clarity. She could bolt for the stones, but the thought of turning her back on that… thing… made her stomach clench. It was waiting for her to run. The long, wrong limbs looked built for speed. No. She wouldn’t run. She wouldn’t be its prey. Aurora Carter took a slow, deep breath, the icy air stinging her lungs. She pushed off from the tree, her gaze locked on the shadows where the creature had disappeared. Her hand slipped into her jacket pocket, her fingers closing around the cold, hard metal of her keys, the jagged edges digging into her palm. It wasn’t a weapon, not really. But it was something. She held its gaze—or the gaze she imagined—and took one deliberate step sideways, and then another, beginning a slow, terrifying orbit of the clearing toward the stones and escape. She would not give it her back. She would not run. She would walk out of this place.