Run: 2026-02-19-01KHT0C0NRBBJF90J3M2V7BPR5

The taxi had dropped them at the Peterborough Gate entrance to Richmond Park just as the sun began its descent, painting the sky in shades of burnt orange. Aurora checked her phone — six seventeen — and glanced at Nyx, who stood motionless beside her, their shadow-form rippling faintly in the cooling air. "You're sure this is the place?" Aurora asked. Nyx's violet eyes, barely visible in the dimming light, turned toward the tree line. "The Grove calls to those with the sight. I've felt it for miles." Aurora touched the Heartstone Pendant at her throat, feeling its familiar warmth pulse against her skin. The crimson gem had been quiet for weeks now, but ever since she'd received the cryptic message scratched into her doorstep — three words, nothing more — it had begun to hum with that faint, insistent heat. *Find the Grove. Ask the Seer.* She still didn't know who had left the message, or why. But Isolde Varga was supposed to be able to see paths forward when all others were shrouded in fog. And right now, with the Veil growing thin and something dark stirring in Hel, Aurora needed answers more than she needed sleep. They walked in silence through the ancient woodland, the autumn evening settling around them like a familiar coat. The path wound between coppiced hornbeam and oak, their branches intertwining overhead to form a natural tunnel of copper and gold. Somewhere behind them, a woodpecker drummed its lazy rhythm into the fading light. It was nearly twenty minutes later when Nyx stopped. "Here," they said, their whisper-voice carrying an unusual edge of something Aurora had never heard from them before. Uncertainty. "The boundary." Aurora looked around. She saw nothing but more trees, more undergrowth, the same endless green-brown tapestry of the park. "I don't—" "Trust your eyes less than your other senses." Nyx extended a hand, their shadow-fingers brushing against the air itself. Where they touched, something rippled. Like heat haze rising from summer tarmac. Like the shimmer of oil on water. "The Grove doesn't announce itself. It waits." Aurora squinted, forcing herself to look past the ordinary visual noise of the park. And there — just at the edge of her perception — she saw it. A distortion. A place where the world seemed to fold in on itself, boundaries blurring between what was real and what was something else entirely. The pendant flared warm against her chest. "Lead the way," she said. Nyx stepped forward, and the air swallowed them whole. Aurora followed, and the world inverted. The first thing she noticed was the light. It wasn't the amber-gold of an autumn evening anymore, but something softer, silvery, as if the moon itself had decided to live in this place. The trees were still there — ancient oaks, their trunks wider than houses — but they were different now. Their bark gleamed faintly, etched with patterns that seemed to move when she looked at them directly. Runes, perhaps. Or simply the dreams of something old made visible. The second thing she noticed was the silence. Not an absence of sound, but a presence of it — a thick, living quiet that pressed against her ears like velvet. No traffic from the distant city. No aircraft humming overhead. Just the softest whisper of wind through leaves that glowed with their own internal luminescence. "By the saints," Aurora breathed. They stood at the edge of a clearing. Wildflowers carpeted the ground in impossible abundance — roses that shone like pearls, bluebells that chimed faintly in a wind she couldn't feel, flowers she had no names for in colors that didn't exist in the mortal world. They grew in spiraling patterns that suggested intention, design, purpose. This was no natural meadow. "This way." Nyx moved forward, their solid form flickering between shadow and substance as they walked. Aurora realized with a start that the flowers didn't bend beneath their feet. They didn't leave footprints at all. She, on the other hand, left clear impressions in the soft earth. The Fae-Forged Blade hung at her hip, its cold weight a constant reassurance. Aurora touched it unconsciously as they walked deeper into the grove, feeling the faint pulse of its moonglow even through the sheath. The weapon had been a gift from Isolde herself, though Aurora had only met the Seer once, briefly, in a dream that felt more real than waking. That had been weeks ago. Before the message. Before the pendant started burning. The standing stones appeared between one step and the next, as if they had simply always been there and Aurora's eyes had only just decided to notice them. Twelve oaks, massive and ancient, arranged in a perfect circle around a central clearing. Their branches reached inward, intertwining to form a natural ceiling that filtered the silver light into dappled patterns on the ground. And at the center of the circle, half-hidden by flowering vines, sat a figure. She was ethereal in a way that made Aurora's chest tight. Silver hair cascaded past her waist, pooling around her crossed legs like liquid mercury. Her eyes — pale lavender, almost white — were fixed on them with an intensity that felt less like looking and more like being read. She wore no shoes. Her feet, like Nyx's, left no impression on the earth. "Aurora Carter." The Seer's voice was layered, multiple tones speaking simultaneously in a harmony that danced at the edge of understanding. "You came." "You asked me to." Aurora stopped at the edge of the stone circle, suddenly aware of how mortal she was. How heavy. How *much* — too much substance in a place that seemed built on less. "I think." Isolde smiled, and it was the saddest smile Aurora had ever seen. "I asked nothing. But I knew you would come." She rose in a single fluid motion, her gown — gossamer, silver, impossible — floating around her like mist. "The pendant told you where to find me. The pendant has been telling you many things, has it not?" Aurora's hand flew to the crimson gemstone. It burned now, truly burned, hot enough that she should have been crying out in pain. But the heat wasn't unpleasant. It felt like a heartbeat. Like being noticed. "What's happening to me?" The question came out smaller than she intended. Isolde stepped forward, and the flowers parted for her like a greeting. "You carry a piece of Hel in your pocket, child. A gift from a prince who trades in souls and servitude." Her pale eyes flicked to Nyx, assessing. "And you walk with a Shade, whose kind were once the most powerful sorcerers of the old world. The Veil is thinning, Aurora Carter. It has been thinning for twenty years. And you — you stand at the crossroads of everything that will come next." The air seemed to thicken around them. Aurora felt the weight of words not yet spoken, truths hovering just beyond reach. She opened her mouth to ask — what? Everything. Nothing. Where did she even begin? The trees creaked overhead. The flowers chimed their strange, windless song. And somewhere in the distance, so faint she might have imagined it, a voice called her name.