AI The Heartstone pulsed against Rory’s sternum, a warm, insistent beat that felt like a second heart . It wasn't painful, but it was inescapable, thrumming in time with her own quickening pulse as they stood before the shimmering distortion in the air. To anyone else, it might have been a heat haze over the cracked London pavement behind the Golden Empress. But to her, and to them, it was a tear. A rift.
Nyx stood beside her, a humanoid pillar of solid shadow that drank the weak afternoon light. Their faintly glowing violet eyes fixed on the distortion. “It feels… rich,” they whispered, the sound like dry leaves skittering over stone. “Heavy. Like the air before a feast.”
“A feast in Hel,” Rory murmured, her fingers tightening around the cool, smooth hilt of the Fae-forged dagger at her belt. Isolde’s parting gift. The Seer’s pale lavender eyes had been serious when she’d pressed it into Rory’s hands in the timeless grove, the wildflowers nodding around their feet. “*The path you walk is lined with thorns, little mortal. Even shadows need a blade to cut them free.*” The dagger hummed, a low, silent vibration against her palm, reacting to the rift’s energy.
She took a breath, the London air tasting of diesel and damp, and stepped through.
The change was immediate and total. The chill , grimy alleyway vanished, replaced by a warmth that wrapped around her like a blanket. The light shifted from grey to a deep, honeyed amber, as if the world were perpetually bathed in the golden hour before sunset. She stumbled, not from disorientation, but from sheer sensory overload .
They were in an orchard, but like no orchard on Earth. The trees were massive, gnarled things with bark the color of burnt umber. Instead of apples or pears, they bore heavy, pulsating fruits that looked like clusters of garnets and topaz , glistening with a dew that smelled of wine and spice. The ground beneath her boots was soft, a mossy carpet of deep emerald that released a sweet, herbal scent with every step.
“Wow,” she breathed, the word inadequate .
Nyx flowed through the rift behind her, their shadowy form seeming to drink the amber light, becoming more solid, more defined. They tilted their head, listening. “Can you hear it?”
Rory strained. Beneath the gentle rustle of the strange leaves, there was a low, constant hum, like a beehive the size of a cathedral. And beneath that, distant, melodic laughter, and the clink of glass.
“This is Dymas,” Nyx said, their whisper carrying a note of grim recognition . “The Realm of Gluttony. The stories… they did not do the smell justice.”
The air was thick with fragrance. The perfume of overripe fruit, of baking bread, of roasting meats and exotic herbs layered over one another in a dizzying, almost oppressive bouquet. It made her mouth water even as a thread of unease coiled in her stomach . This wasn’t hunger. It was compulsion.
They moved forward, leaving the rift-point—a matching shimmer in the air between two particularly large trees—behind. The mossy path wound between the trunks, leading gently downhill. As they walked, Rory noticed vines strung between the branches, heavy with plump, violet grapes that seemed to glow from within . She reached out, curious, but Nyx’s shadow-hand, cool and insubstantial as mist, brushed her wrist.
“Do not,” they warned. “Everything here is meant to be consumed. The desire is the trap.”
She pulled her hand back, the crescent scar on her left wrist tingling. She focused on the Heartstone’s pulse , a grounding counter-rhythm to the realm’s seductive symphony .
The orchard gave way to terraced vineyards, the slopes manicured to geometric perfection. Figures moved among the vines. At first, Rory thought they were workers, but as one turned, she saw its eyes were hollow pits of amber light, and its hands were stained dark purple up to the elbows. A helbound soul, eternally tending the harvest. It did not look at them, its entire being focused on the task of inspecting a single, perfect grape.
The path turned to cobblestone, warm and smooth underfoot. The landscape opened, and they saw their first settlement. It was less a town and more a sprawling, open-air pavilion. Long tables, hewn from dark, polished wood, ran for hundreds of feet, laden with platters and steaming bowls and overflowing drinking horns. The architecture was all curves and arches, the buildings looking like they had been sculpted from caramel and nougat. Figures—some humanoid, others less so, with extra limbs or mouths or eyes—moved between the tables, laughing, arguing, eating with a frantic, joyous abandon.
A creature with the lower body of a goat and the torso of a heavily-muscled man bellowed, tearing a haunch of meat from a spitted carcass with his teeth. Juice ran down his chin. At another table, a woman with skin like polished mahogany and six slender arms expertly shelled glowing prawns with four hands while drinking from two different chalices with the others.
“Excess,” Rory whispered, the word tasting bitter .
A wave of scent rolled over them—sugar and fat and caramelized perfection. From a nearby stall, a chef with a face like a kindly badger was pouring molten gold over a tower of pastries. The gold hardened instantly into a delicate, edible lace. The chef caught her eye and winked, holding out a small, perfect tart. The offer was silent, but she felt the pull in her gut, a deep, primal *want *.
The Heartstone flared hot against her skin. She shook her head sharply , breaking eye contact. Nyx had shifted, their form now subtly broader, more protective, a living wall of shadow between her and the pavilion.
“We should not linger,” they murmured. “The longer we stay, the more it asks of you. The desire becomes a weight .”
They skirted the edge of the feast, sticking to the darker lanes between the confectionery buildings. Here, the wonder began to curdle into unease. They passed an alley where the scents turned sour, where wasted food piled high, rotting with a strange, accelerated decay. Small, scuttling things with too many teeth feasted on the refuse, hissing at their shadows. The laughter from the main square sounded more manic, edged with desperation.
The cobblestones led to a bridge arching over a slow, viscous river that smelled of chocolate and port wine. From the center of the bridge, they could see the heart of Dymas. In the distance, atop a hill shaped like a rising loaf of bread, stood a palace that seemed to be made of layered cakes, glazed fruits, and spun sugar, its towers spiraling like soft-serve ice cream . Prince Belphegor’s seat. The source of the constant, hungry hum.
But Rory’s eyes were drawn downward, to the riverbanks. Nestled in the chocolate mud were smooth, oval stones. As she watched, one cracked open. A faint, sighing whisper escaped it, and a wisp of something—memory, perhaps, or soul-stuff—drifted up towards the palace to be woven into the next dish, the next vintage.
“It consumes everything,” Nyx said, their voice quieter than ever . “Even the echoes of what was.”
A shiver ran through Rory that had nothing to do with temperature. The amber sky, for all its warmth , felt like a lid . The beauty was a garnish on a plate of something profoundly bleak. This was not sustenance; it was an engine of endless, repetitive craving.
She touched the Fae blade. Its cold seeped through the sheath, a clean, sharp contrast to the cloying heat. Isolde had known. This was a place where you needed a weapon that could cut through more than flesh.
“We’ve seen it,” she said, her own voice firm, cutting through the hypnotic drone . “We know where the rift opens. We should go back.”
Nyx nodded, their violet gaze sweeping once more over the terrible, wondrous panorama. “The Veil is thin here. It is a place that bleeds through easily. Remember the taste of it, Aurora Carter. Remember the cost of the feast.”
They turned back the way they came, the indulgent lights of the pavilion at their backs. The walk through the orchard felt longer, the perfumed air harder to breathe. Every glittering fruit now seemed like a watchful eye. The Heartstone’s pulse was a lifeline, a beacon pulling her toward the thinner, cleaner air of home.
When they finally saw the shimmer between the trees again, it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. Without a word, she stepped through, Nyx flowing after her.
The cold hit her first, a slap of damp, sooty chill . Then the smells: wet pavement, stale rubbish, distant traffic. She stood in the alley, breathing hard, the normal sounds of London a jarring symphony . The Heartstone cooled on her chest, its job done.
She looked at Nyx, who had resumed their more nebulous form, a shadow among shadows.
“No one would believe it,” she said finally.
“No,” Nyx agreed, the wind carrying their whisper away . “But you and I, we must. The table is set, Rory. The question is, who is coming to dine?”