AI "That shouldn't be possible," Rory said, hand pressed to the surface of an oaken standing stone. Her words came muffled, more exhale than protest, as rough bark pricked her palm but yielded no splinters.
On the other side of the ancient monolith, Isolde watched without blinking, pale lavender eyes clouded with private delight.
"Should is for those who obey," she replied, her lips curling . "Step through, Aurora. Tarrying at the horizon pleases no one except the horizon."
A fox darted between the roots, its eyes like molten copper before it vanished, tail trailing smoke.
Rory hesitated, braced herself, then leaned in. Cold air needled her skin. One heartbeat, two, then the world shuddered. The space beyond the stones widened, folding outward like an origami secret. She staggered, pressed forward, and the boundary dissolved. Her lungs filled with a wild, peppery scent—crushed herbs and something ozone-sharp.
Grass, impossibly green and dusted with blue wildflowers, cushioned each step. Flowers unfamiliar and dangerous-looking, some pale as bone, others blooming in brief bursts of indigo or honey-gold, uncoiled with every breeze.
"Well," she said, voice steadier now , "either I'm hallucinating or you've drugged me again."
Nyx seeped through before Isolde followed, shadows unwinding from the crook of one stone to another. In the Grove, their shape seemed sharper, the silhouette swelling and thinning, like ink in water.
Isolde graced forward, feet silent on moss. "Welcome," she said, arms spread, as if to conduct a symphony . "The Grove hungers to be seen."
Rory's eyes flicked , alert. The trees—oaks gnarled and broad, etched with age, their branches spiraling in ways no wind should have shaped—arched above, canopy so dense it should have cast them into darkness. Instead, something shimmered overhead, a refracted silver glow. Sun, starlight, moonlight, all crammed together. It tingled on her skin and caught in her hair.
To her left, an ancient willow moaned and shifted its roots, revealing a half-buried ring of stones so smooth they reflected her face in impossible angles.
"Was that—" she began.
"Alive? Everything is, in its manner," Isolde said. "Some things simply forget to stop pretending."
Movement flickered at the edge of the clearing. Tiny motes, like spores or luminous insects, drifted aside as Nyx glided through them. Where their form passed, petals bent inward, leaning as if toward a chill moon.
"Dizzy in here," Nyx murmured—each syllable echoed, the voice barely more than syllabic music. "The angles are wrong. Time is... folding."
Rory crouched near a patch of white star-shaped blossoms, examining the ground. A fresh print, sharp as if pressed only moments before, but no sound. She brushed her fingers over it. Warm earth—a pulse beneath skin. Her blood thrummed in rhythm.
"How deep does this go?" she straightened, squinting at thickening shadows between tree trunks. "Do you map the place, or just hope the trees don't rearrange out from under you?"
Isolde's head tilted. "A map is only a promise trees refuse to keep."
A burst of laughter, high and glassy, rang out from the underbrush. Rory pivoted, hand darting for the Fae-forged dagger at her hip. The blade's moonsilver chill bled through her skin, reassuring.
"Show yourself," she called. "None of your Seelie games."
No reply—just that echoing , chime-bright laughter, threading through branches.
A cloud of ochre moths spun upward, wings casting odd runes on Isolde's pale face. Rory tasted iron. Old blood, or the memory of it.
Next moment, they reached the Grove’s heart—a glade marked by seven ancient standing stones circled around a pool so still it mirrored nothing but the swirling, indistinct sky above. Around its lip, violets and snakeweed tangled with iridescent fungi, the colours faintly sick with beauty.
Nyx paused at the pond’s edge, gaze fixed. Their form warped, stretching lean, then snapping short. Shadows here had more depth, more appetite.
"That water isn’t water," Nyx whispered. "Not in any tongue I remember."
Rory held the Heartstone pendant in her fist. It pulsed, a faint warm beat, the glow hidden but present.
"Hel portal?" she forced herself to ask .
Isolde’s knees bent in a shallow curtsy. "A lens, sometimes. Not a door. Drink only twice—once for vision, once for grief."
She dipped her fingers in. Ripples lapped at her wrist, then froze, ice forming words in no language Rory could read. Isolde withdrew her hand, droplets beading and refusing to fall.
They circled the pool. Rory’s boots churned softer places into muck; the ground beneath her seemed to hum, itch, prod for secrets.
"Do you keep prisoners here?" Rory asked, eyes cutting between ancient trees and Isolde’s unreadable face .
The Seer bent to pluck a flower. Its petals curled, nipped her thumb, then turned transparent.
"We are all prisoners, here and elsewhere," Isolde said, voice slow, measured, each word a polished stone . "Some chains taste of wine and honey, some of ash. The Grove tastes of memory."
From above, a branch broke free—no wind, no warning—crashing inches from Rory’s boot. Sap oozed out, thick and blue, spreading patterns across bark and root. She stepped back.
"Sentient trees. That's new," Rory said, not bothering to veil her unease .
Nyx reached out and a stray shadow slid under the wounded bark, soothing it, knitting tree-flesh so the bleeding stopped. The effort made them flicker —part smoke, part solid, one shoulder fracturing into nothing for a blink.
"Careful," Nyx said. "Curiosity kills more than cats, here."
A distant ringing—part birdsong, part pure glass—swelled and faded. The air grew richer, cloying, full of things unsaid. Behind Rory, flowers closed and opened in rhythmic patterns, petals cycling through bruise-violet to fever-yellow.
Isolde wandered to the tallest stone, reading the grooves traced by a language older than speech. "These are warding marks," she said, glancing back at Rory. "Do not touch with open cuts. They remember pain."
"Noted," Rory replied, tucking her wounded wrist behind her back.
Deeper in, fae-lights orbited fallen trunks, casting shifting shadows. A fox with butterfly wings padded along one path, fur shimmering green and rose, then winked out. Every step further, logic unravelled. Ferns grew from moss that pulsed in time with invisible heartbeats. Silver-spotted mushrooms formed faces, all leering with silent accusation, teeth like grains of salt.
Rory’s stomach growled. Yet the fruit hanging from twisted branches repelled—a glimmering orange like polished bone, a plum that exuded peals of laughter if she stared too long.
"Why do you live here, Isolde?" she asked as she ducked beneath a low-hanging branch heavy with black flowers.
The Fae smiled, enigmatic . "Exile is sweeter than court. Here, the Grove and I dream together. Guests arrive, stories bloom, bargains sow."
Nyx’s form pooled at Rory’s shoulder. Their voice breezed across her ear: "Don’t bargain. Not for fruit, not for names."
Rory’s gaze landed on a cluster of standing stones—impossibly close now, though she hadn’t moved. Between them shimmered a thread—thin silver, pulsing, barely anchored in reality.
"Is that—?" she began.
A hissing noise. Not quite wind, not quite snake . The thread thickened, wound itself around thin air, coiling towards the group.
Isolde’s expression twisted. "Do not answer it," she intoned, voice ringing with chorded power . "No matter what it offers, keep your tongue behind your teeth."
The thread pulsed red, then green, then a colour with no name.
Nyx withdrew, pressed close to the boundary of the stones, body seething with indecision.
Rory’s pendant blazed in her grasp. She drew the Fae-forged blade—the icy weight kissed her skin, promising violence or escape.
The thread sang, in a tongue that stabbed her eardrums and filled her mouth with ash.
Rory took a step back. The ground shifted underfoot, moss unrolling and rolling up again. Roots snatched at her ankles.
The song rose and the world convulsed, reality bending—
Behind her, Isolde hissed a word in the old tongue. The stones lit with sullen silver fire. The Grove recoiled, flower-heads ducking, trees twisting their branches away.
The thread lunged, barbed and bright as hunger.
It struck.