Run: 2026-02-17-01KHNFA65SQM6HNSMJ05CFF8VB

Aurora's breath misted in the December air as she followed the narrow deer path through Richmond Park. The Heartstone pendant burned against her chest, its warmth intensifying with each step. Beside her, Nyx flowed between the shadows cast by bare oak branches, their form rippling like smoke on water. "The standing stones should be just ahead," Nyx whispered, their voice carrying the chill of empty spaces. "Can you feel it?" She could. The air itself seemed to thicken, pressing against her skin like silk. The pendant's pulse quickened, matching her heartbeat. Through the trees, she glimpsed them — ancient oaks arranged in a perfect circle, their trunks twisted into shapes that hurt to look at directly. "Stop." Nyx solidified beside her, violet eyes narrowing. "Someone else is here." A figure emerged from between the stones, silver hair catching moonlight that shouldn't exist at three in the afternoon. Isolde moved without disturbing the frost-brittle grass, her lavender eyes finding Aurora's with unsettling precision. "The one who carries the Heartstone arrives at last," Isolde said, her words dancing around meaning like moths around flame. "Though whether too late or perfectly timed remains unwritten." Aurora's hand went instinctively to the pendant. "You know about this?" "Knowledge flows in many directions, child of two bloods." Isolde's smile revealed nothing. "The question you should ask is not what I know, but what you seek." "We need to reach Dymas," Aurora said. "The winter solstice is tomorrow, and if what Silas told me is true—" "Truths wear many faces when the Veil grows thin." Isolde beckoned them forward. "Come. The grove awaits, and time is both friend and foe today." They stepped between the standing stones, and the world shifted. The transition hit Aurora like diving into deep water. Her ears popped, her vision blurred, and for a moment she couldn't tell up from down. Then reality reasserted itself, and she gasped. The Grove defied winter. Wildflowers carpeted the ground in impossible colors — blues that shimmered into purple, reds that bled into gold. The air tasted of honey and old magic. Above them, the sky rippled like disturbed water, showing glimpses of other skies — the amber warmth of Dymas, the pearl-gray of dawn, the star-drunk black of deep night. "Bloody hell," Aurora breathed. Nyx's form wavered, as if the Grove's magic disagreed with their nature. "This place exists between," they murmured. "I can feel the boundaries. Earth, Fae, even touches of Hel." Isolde moved ahead, her bare feet leaving no impression on the flower-thick ground. "The Grove remembers when such divisions meant less. Before the Veil, before the exile, before mortals forgot how to see." Aurora followed, trying not to stare at the impossible flora. A butterfly landed on her shoulder, its wings like stained glass, before dissolving into motes of light. The Heartstone's warmth spread through her chest, almost comforting now. "How long have you lived here?" she asked. "Time is a river that flows differently for each swimmer," Isolde replied. "I arrived yesterday. I have been here always. Both truths coexist." They reached the Grove's heart, where a spring bubbled up from nowhere, its water so clear it seemed like liquid air. Isolde knelt beside it, silver hair pooling around her. "The Heartstone seeks its origin," she said, not looking at Aurora. "Dymas calls to what was stolen from its vaults. But paths between realms require... consideration." "Consideration?" Aurora echoed. Isolde's reflection in the spring smiled, though Isolde herself did not. "The Veil weakens tomorrow, but tonight it still holds firm. To pierce it requires either great power or great sacrifice. You possess neither." "Then why—" "But you possess something else." Isolde stood in one fluid motion, turning to face them fully. "The Heartstone chose you. Not Brendan Carter's daughter, not Jennifer Ellis's child, but you. Aurora who thinks sideways, who fled rather than fought, who serves noodles by day and questions the nature of reality by night." The use of her parents' names sent ice through Aurora's veins. "How do you—" "I see many things, child." Isolde reached into the air and plucked something from nothing — a blade that caught light like moonbeams. "This may help where strength alone fails." Aurora took the offered dagger carefully. The Fae blade was cold enough to burn, its leaf-shaped edge humming with contained power. The moment her fingers closed around the hilt, she felt its hunger — a weapon that wanted to cut, to pierce, to divide. "Moonsilver," Nyx observed, keeping their distance. "Old magic. Dangerous magic." "All gifts from the Fae carry weight," Isolde agreed. "But tonight you will need dangerous things. The path to Dymas runs through shadow and appetite. Prince Belphegor's realm welcomes all hungers, but some guests never leave his table." Aurora secured the blade at her belt, its cold presence a counterpoint to the Heartstone's warmth. "We're not going there to feast." "No?" Isolde's laugh sounded like wind chimes made of glass. "Everyone who enters Dymas hungers for something. Power, knowledge, sensation, escape. The Prince sees all appetites and offers to fill them. What hunger drives Aurora Carter to seek the realm of Gluttony?" The question hung in the Grove's honeyed air. Aurora thought of Evan's messages still filling her phone, of the life she'd fled in Cardiff, of the strange new world opening before her. What did she hunger for? "Answers," she said finally. "And maybe the power to protect myself from things I'm only beginning to understand." "Honest appetite." Isolde nodded approvingly. "Better than false abstinence. The Grove will remember you said this." The seer moved to a cluster of standing stones arranged like a doorway. She pressed her palm against one twisted oak, and the air between them shivered. "This threshold will open when the moon rises," she said. "It will take you to the borderlands, where Earth's shadow meets Hel's light. From there, you must find your own way to Dymas. The Heartstone will guide, but beware — others hunt what you carry. The pendant's theft has not gone unnoticed." "Theft?" Aurora's hand went to her chest. "But it was given to me—" "Gifts and thefts often wear the same face, depending on where one stands." Isolde's lavender eyes grew distant. "The benefactor who placed it in your path had their own hungers. Whether they served your interests or their own remains to be seen." The Grove suddenly felt less welcoming. The impossible flowers seemed to lean closer, their colors too bright, their perfume too sweet. Aurora became aware of how the sky above them moved, showing glimpses of realms that shouldn't exist. "We should go," Nyx said quietly. "This place... it's beautiful, but beauty here has teeth." Isolde smiled at that. "The shadow-walker understands. Yes, the Grove is no sanctuary for mortals, even those the Heartstone has chosen. But sunset approaches, and you have preparations to make. The path to Dymas requires more than courage." She led them back toward the standing stones that marked the Grove's entrance. As they walked, Aurora noticed things she'd missed before — flowers with faces in their centers, trees that bled golden sap, mushroom circles that whispered in languages she almost understood. The Fae blade at her hip grew colder with each step, as if warning her away from looking too closely. "One last gift," Isolde said as they reached the threshold. She breathed on her palm, and when she opened it, three silver coins lay there. "Ferryman's toll. Even the paths between realms require payment." Aurora took the coins, their weight surprising for their size. "Thank you. But why help us?" "The Veil weakens, child. What comes through tomorrow's thinning may reshape both realms. I prefer the world shaped by choice rather than appetite alone." Isolde's expression grew serious, the first time Aurora had seen her drop her riddling manner. "And perhaps I grow tired of exile. Perhaps I hope that grateful mortals might speak kindly of me to those who matter." Before Aurora could respond, Isolde gestured to the standing stones. The world tilted again, that same sensation of falling upward, and then they stood in Richmond Park proper. The December cold bit immediately through Aurora's jacket. The Grove had vanished, leaving only a circle of ancient oaks that looked perfectly ordinary in the gray afternoon light. "Did that just happen?" Aurora asked, though the Fae blade's cold weight and the three coins in her pocket answered her question. "The shadow realms leave strange footprints in memory," Nyx replied, their form looking more solid and defined now that they'd returned to mortal earth. "But yes. It happened." Aurora checked her phone and swore. According to the timestamp, they'd been gone for three hours, though it had felt like thirty minutes at most. She had a dozen missed calls from Silas and twice that many texts. "Time moves differently there," she muttered, already heading back toward the path. "He's going to kill me." "If we're lucky," Nyx observed, flowing alongside her through the lengthening shadows, "Silas's anger will be the worst thing we face tonight." The Heartstone pulsed against Aurora's chest, warm and insistent. Whatever they'd started by entering the Grove, there was no turning back now. Tomorrow the Veil would thin, and they would walk the paths between worlds to reach Dymas. Aurora touched the Fae blade's hilt and wondered what hungers would drive them forward when they did.