Run: 2026-02-19-01KHT0NZX7N0DGKFX26C58B0Y3

Tree roots curled from the earth like living sculptures, their bark dappled with silver whorls that shimmered whenever the air shifted. Rory squinted, scrubbing a gloved hand over her eyes. A path wound ahead—a suggestion more than a track—threaded by pearls of dew, though the sky above shimmered between dusk and dawn with no clear source of light. Her foot crunched a wild violet. The sound echoed, muffled, like she’d dropped into a dream. She glanced over her shoulder. Nyx’s form pooled at her left, an elongated silhouette drawn up tall, violet eyes aglow in the gentle twilight. Near Nyx, Isolde moved daintily, silver hair and purple gaze gliding untouched by brambles or leaf-matter. Her bare feet sank into nothing; grass parted and healed behind every step, as if erasing her existence. Rory’s pulse thumped in her ears. She reached unconsciously for the Fae-forged blade at her hip, fingers brushing the bone-cold hilt. Warmth pulsed against her sternum. The Heartstone Pendant was alive with a faint heartbeat, soothing and disquieting at once. Nobody spoke. Not at first. Birds called in tongues outside the range of ordinary hearing—high, spiral trills, like laughter slowed and reversed. The canopy swam with colours wrong for any park: leaves burnished gold, blue, and blush, blossoms crystalline and heavy-scented on branches bent double. Between the trees, ancient stones stood watch, bark-grown and monumental. They whispered to themselves, nothing Rory’s mind could parse, just sense. She risked a word. “Is it safe here?” Isolde tipped her head, lips twitching in the half-shadow. Cool moonlight glinted along her jaw. “All havens have teeth, Aurora Carter. The Grove hungers kindly, but it does hunger.” Rory picked her way forward, shadowing Isolde’s steps. Under her boots, grass quickened green as emeralds and then faded to blue under shade. Her throat caught. She glanced at Nyx, half expecting reassurance. Nyx rippled into full solidity. Shoulders squared, the shadow-being’s form brushed a low bough. Petals pooled at their feet without disturbance, as though they’d slipped around them by choice. “Hel felt colder than this,” Nyx’s voice wafted, soundless at first, then a whisper in her left ear. Rory’s knuckles whitened on her courier bag. She smirked, brittle. “Means this is a treat?” A shadow-flicker of a grin passed across Nyx’s face—if that tear in the gloom could be called a face—and they drifted forward, violet eyes catching the diffused glow. Strange things blossomed from the path: a fox, luminous silver-blue, darted between two ancient oaks and stilled when Isolde approached, pressing its snout to her palm. The seer paused only a moment, stroking the creature’s velvet ears. Its pelt rippled like water and then, with a yawn, it dissolved into a drift of wildflowers, petals scattering into the windless air. Rory’s mouth fell open. “That’s not normal fox behaviour.” Isolde’s laughter, golden and low, rippled the stillness. “Fox and Grove are kin, here. Everything is both guest and host—often in the same breath.” They pushed further, the trees compressing. Space bent: one heartbeat, the stones crowded at their periphery; another, the clearing yawed open. Rory lost her sense of direction. She fumbled for her phone, then thought better. No signal belonged here. She focused on the tumbling riot of flowers crowding her ankles, each bloom fierce and perfect, scent spiced like citrus and honey. “Do you feel that?” she asked, voice wired with nerves. “Like there’s humming—through your teeth?” Nyx slowed, drifting. “The Veil’s thinnest breath touches us here.” A breeze snapped, bringing the sound of running water. The group rounded another root-lattice to reveal a slender stream, its water silver and oily with unnatural sheen. Heavy fruits bobbed along its current—apples, plums, things for which Rory found no name, all glowing faintly. “It’s… beautiful,” she muttered, awed, bending closer. A ripple shivered just beneath the surface. Rory jerked back as something blinked up: the face of a deer, antlers tangled with flowers, eyes ancient and unreadable. It submerged without sound, fading into the mirrored blue-black of the stream. “Nothing drinks here unless invited, Aurora,” Isolde warned from behind, voice soft as moss. Rory’s hand crept away from the water, pulse skipping. “Duly noted.” She nudged a stone with her toe, watching currents warp around it. The ripples mimicked no pattern she recognised—an image flickered in every swell: hands reaching, lips speaking riddles, a wolf-woman laughing. Scenes nested within scenes, like postcards flung from a dream someone else had lived. The path veered uphill, stones sharp underfoot. Nyx’s form drew taller, their feet gliding inches from the ground. “Your world leans heavy here. Each moment could collapse.” A shudder rolled Rory’s shoulders. She checked Isolde, who strode ahead without lifting her skirt from burrs or bramble, untroubled by thorns grazing Rory’s legs. The air tasted of copper and honey now, sweet and sharp. Time folded: dusk became bright morning for a blink, then returned to the indigo half-light. Rory watched a patch of violets close and reopen like tiny lungs with every step. Roots drew themselves away from her tread, then crept back with a slow, greedy patience. Nyx paused, touching a low branch. The bark peeled away beneath their shadowed fingers, exposing humming veins of gold. Energy pulsed bright and brief along the wood, as if a heartbeat intent on escape. “The Grove remembers,” Nyx mused, “but not what we’d wish.” A peal of laughter echoed to their right—a child’s, or someone imitating one. Rory’s fists balled. A mask-like face peeped from within a hollow tree: narrow-eyed, green-skinned, features elongated impossibly. It blinked, offered a blossom, and then folded itself backwards into the heartwood, the bark healing over as if it had always been whole. Rory let out a breath she’d not known she’d held. A hush blanketed them. Insects buzzed beneath the silence, a thousand miniature voices weaving threads that tugged at her chest, heartstep by heartstep. Every inhale felt thick with memory, old as bones. The trees spread out, delivering them to a centre ringed in massive oaks. There, a crystalline obelisk rested—grown, not carved. Light rippled through its core, fracturing rainbows onto Isolde, Nyx, and Rory herself. Ultraviolet shadows danced at their feet. Symbols glimmered along the columns—script Rory couldn’t puzzle out, wriggling in and out of focus. Isolde’s smile grew sad and knowing. “This place does not forget,” her riddle wove through the hush. “It only ripens until you pluck what you truly seek.” Rory stepped closer to the obelisk. The pendant pressed warm against her skin. Symbols coalesced. She recognised a sliver of her own name, blooming and then gone. She reached out as if to touch, but the crystal’s surface was impossibly chill. The Fae-forged blade at her hip burned cold in reply, as if in silent warning. Beyond, shadows danced among the oaks. Some belonged to trees; some belonged to other things. Nyx’s silhouette flickered, violet gaze steady, unreadable. Beside Rory, Isolde moved—unearthly and kind, or perhaps neither—leaving dew but not a trace. The Grove’s heart beat on, heavy with promise, heavier still with hunger.