Run: 2026-02-19-01KHT01ZSR9T7H68VS9HXDKDR2

The sky above Dymas did not bleed red or crackle with fire as Aurora had expected. Instead, it glowed amber, a slow, honeyed light that poured through a thick canopy of fruit-laden vines, dappling the ground in molten gold. The air hung heavy—warm, perfumed, thick with the musk of fermenting nectar and something richer, more cloying. Vanilla, burnt sugar, cloves. Her stomach twisted. Not hunger. Not quite. “This place tastes like a funeral banquet,” Nyx murmured beside her, their voice a breath caught between syllables, like wind through a crack in stone. Their shadow-form flickered between solidity and smoke, drawn thin where the light touched them. Aurora adjusted the strap of the satchel at her hip, fingers brushing the chill of the Heartstone Pendant beneath her shirt. It pulsed—soft, persistent—not warm, but alive. A second heartbeat under her ribs. “I wouldn’t call it a banquet,” she said, voice low. “More like a kitchen after midnight. Everyone’s passed out with cake smeared on their faces.” Nyx’s faintly glowing violet eyes shifted toward her. “You’ve known people like that?” “You don’t survive Cardiff without seeing a few too-deep into the crisps.” Ahead, the path coiled between towering stone arches, carved with reliefs of feasts—endless tables, figures reaching with skeletal hands, their mouths open not in joy, but supplication. The fruit in the carvings rotted even as it was offered. A pomegranate burst with worms in one panel. In another, a wine goblet overflowed with what looked like blood, but moved too slowly—thicker, syrupy. Isolde stepped forward, bare feet noiseless on the moss-carpeted stone. She didn’t touch the ground so much as hover above it, her silver hair drifting like mist despite the still air. One hand trailed along the side of an arch. Her pale lavender eyes were unfocused, scanning something beyond sight. “They’re not dead,” she whispered. “They’re remembered. Their hunger is eternal because no one forgets. Not here.” Aurora frowned. “Who’s *they*?” “The chefs,” Nyx answered. “The ones who traded their souls for flavor too divine for mortals. They cook now—not for glory, but to feed the hunger. The Prince demands it.” Belphegor. Prince of Gluttony. Name spoken only in warnings, or over too much wine by fools who didn’t know better. Aurora hadn’t believed in him until the Heartstone Pendant began to pulse in her flat, whispering of rifts behind kitchen walls and cellar doors. They moved deeper. The trees grew stranger. Their trunks were knotted like clenched fists, bark peeling in ribbons that smelled of saffron and decay. Fruit hung from them—plump, impossible shapes. A pear with skin like human cheek. A cluster of grapes the color of old bruises, oozing clear, sweet-scented fluid when one dropped and burst on the path. Nyx reached down, let one of the droplets land on their shadow-fingertip. It sizzled, not with heat, but absence. The drop vanished. So did a patch of their form—like smoke unmade. “Don’t touch anything,” Aurora snapped. “No eating. No drinking. No *tasting*.” She shot a look at Isolde, who only smiled faintly, her gaze already elsewhere. “Hunger remembers all,” Isolde said. “Even the taste of regret.” The ground sloped downward. The air grew heavier. Sounds changed. Not silence, but a muffled hush, as if the world were wrapped in velvet. Then—music. Distant, discordant. A string quartet playing out of time, notes stretching and snapping. A single, sustained flute wailed in the high register, then cut off mid-breath. They passed a fountain. Water—no, not water—flowed in looping spirals from the mouth of a stone face buried in the ground. Its eyes were closed, lips parted. The liquid shimmered like oil, but smelled like fresh bread, hot from the oven. It moved *upward*, defying gravity in slow spirals before curling back down into the basin, where it pooled, golden and thick. Aurora’s mouth watered. She clenched her jaw. Beside her, Nyx recoiled, their form pulling backward like ink swept from paper. “That’s not food. That’s *memory*. That’s a person’s last meal, distilled.” Isolde knelt. Without dipping her fingers in, she inhaled deeply. “Rosemary. Garlic. A child’s laughter. A mother’s hands. A betrayal over wine. This is not nourishment. This is grief made digestible.” Aurora touched the pendant again. It pulsed faster. “There’s a rift close,” she said. “We’re near.” They pressed on. The path dissolved into flagstones choked with flowering weeds—blossoms like chalices, filled with a shimmering, violet liquid. Fireflies, or something like them, drifted in clusters, but their light wasn’t yellow—it was *flavor*. One glowed honey-sweet. Another, smoky like bacon. A third pulsed with the sharpness of citrus, making Aurora’s teeth ache. Then—voices. Not words. Whispers. A chorus of them, layered beneath the music. Murmurs of *more*, of *give me*, of *I’m still hungry*. They came from the trees. From the ground. From the air itself. A shape moved between the vines. Tall. Gaunt. Cloaked in tattered finery—once rich, now stained with sauces dark as tar. Its face was hidden beneath a chef’s toque, but the hands were bare. Skin stretched too tight over bones. Fingers twitched, clutching a phantom knife. It didn’t speak. It didn’t turn. But it *knew* them. Nyx stepped in front of Aurora, their form thickening, darkening. “Don’t look at it. Don’t acknowledge.” Isolde tilted her head, as if listening to a distant song. “He was the best in Marseille. Made a sauce that made a king weep for his dead wife. Then ate the recipe. Swallowed it whole. Said flavor should *belong*, not be written.” The figure twitched. One hand rose—not toward them, but to its own mouth. It mimed tearing something from its throat. Then, silently, it stepped backward and vanished into the vine wall. Aurora exhaled. “We’re being watched.” “We’re being *tasted*,” Nyx corrected. They were in a clearing now. At its center stood a table. Carved from black stone, long enough to seat fifty. It was set. Plates of polished obsidian. Cutlery that looked made of bone. Goblets filled with liquid that shifted color—red to green to gold—as Aurora watched. And on the table—food. But not food as the world knew it. A roast boar, eyes open and *alive*, watching them. Its flesh gleamed, basted in something that smelled of desire and shame. A pie whose crust pulsed. A bowl of soup swirling with tiny, screaming faces—gone the moment she blinked. Aurora’s stomach clenched. Her mouth watered in betrayal. Don’t eat. Don’t drink. Don’t *taste*. She reached for the satchel. Her fingers closed around cold metal—the Fae-Forged Blade. Moonsilver. Isolde’s gift. The blade hummed against her palm, low and steady. As if listening. Nyx moved to the edge of the table, hesitant. “This isn’t a meal,” they whispered. “It’s a test.” Isolde stepped forward, bare feet finally touching the ground. The flowers at her feet curled away, roots retracting. “The Prince invites,” she said. “But the table remembers every guest. Every sin. Every secret craving.” Her pale eyes locked on Aurora. “What do *you* hunger for, Laila?” Aurora froze. No one called her that. Only one person ever had. And he was buried under a different name, under different stones. The Heartstone Pendant burned—not hot, but *aware*. From beneath the table, something stirred. A low, wet sound. Like swallowing. Then, from the shadows beneath the stone, a hand emerged. Not human. Too many joints. Skin like cured meat. It gripped the edge of the table. Another joined it. Then a head. It had no face. Only a mouth—wide, lipless, lined with rows of tiny, needle teeth. It opened slowly. And spoke, in a voice made of chewing. “You’re late,” it said. “The first course was served yesterday.” Nyx stepped back, their form flickering wildly. Aurora drew the Fae-Forged Blade. Its cold weight grounded her. The mouth smiled. “Sit,” it said. “You must be famished.”