Run: 2026-02-19-01KHT0QQYYQFM5P4RCKY0S4SF5

The air in the grove was still, thick with the scent of damp earth and something sweet like crushed berries. Rory’s black hair clung to the nape of her neck. She glanced at her left wrist, tracing the familiar crescent scar with her thumb, a grounding habit. Before her, ancient oaks formed a rough circle, their bark silvered by time or magic. Nyx stood beside her, a humanoid silhouette of living shadow. In the dappled light filtering through the canopy, their form seemed to drink the illumination, a patch of moving night. Their faintly glowing violet eyes scanned the stones. “The boundary is here,” their voice whispered, a sound like wind through dry leaves. “Step through and you step between.” “Isolde said to wait for her signal,” Rory said, her own voice too loud in the quiet. “The Seer plays by rules that twist. Waiting is a game she wins by default.” A chime, crystalline and pure, resonated from the center of the circle. The air between two of the tallest oaks shimmered, a heat-haze distortion that solidified into a doorway of woven light and trailing ivy. Through it, Rory saw a sunlit clearing that was not the grey afternoon of Richmond Park. Isolde Varga stood just inside, her silver hair a waterfall down her back. Her lavender eyes held a knowing glint. “The path is open. Time, however, is not a patient traveler here.” She gestured with a slender hand, and the invitation was clear. Rory took a breath and stepped through. The change was immediate. The air lost its chill, becoming warm and perfumed. The light was softer, golden, as if the sun were perpetually at the hour before dusk. She stood on a carpet of moss so deep and vibrant it felt like walking on a sponge. Wildflowers in impossible colors—indigo, fiery orange, pearlescent white—bloomed in chaotic profusion, their petals flawless. No footprints marked the moss where Isolde had been standing. Nyx flowed through the portal behind her, their shadowy form seeming more substantial here, the violet glow of their eyes brighter against the perpetual twilight. “The Fae-touched air is dense. It resists dissolution.” Rory moved forward, her trainers sinking silently into the moss. The clearing was larger than it had seemed from the outside, bounded by those same ancient oaks, but their branches here were hung with what looked like softly glowing fruit or perhaps encapsulated lanterns. A gentle, melodic humming filled the air, with no discernible source. It was the sound of the place itself. “An hour here can be a minute outside,” Isolde said, appearing beside a tree Rory could have sworn was empty a moment before. The Half-Fae’s feet left no impression. “Or a day. The grove decides. It likes you, I think. The light is kind.” “How can a place *decide*?” Rory asked, her hand going to the silver chain at her neck. The Heartstone pendant rested against her collarbone, its deep crimson gem inert and cool. “The same way a river decides to bend. It is its nature.” Isolde’s smile was a cryptic curve. “Explore. The answers you seek are often found before the questions are fully formed.” Rory exchanged a look with Nyx, whose shadowy shoulders gave the faintest suggestion of a shrug. They moved deeper into the clearing, away from the shimmering portal-door. The flora defied logic. A bush nearby had leaves of beaten copper that chimed softly against each other in a non-existent breeze. A pool of perfectly still water reflected not the golden sky, but a field of stars, as if looking through a hole in the world. Rory crouched by its edge, reaching out a hand. “I wouldn’t,” Isolde’s voice came from behind a flowering vine several yards away. “The reflection has its own depth. You might lose your hand to a different sky.” Rory pulled her hand back. Unease prickled the back of her neck, cutting through the wonder. The beauty was absolute, but it was a beauty with teeth, with rules she didn’t understand. She was a trespasser in a living gallery. Nyx drifted to the base of the largest oak. Up close, the glowing orbs weren’t fruit. They were spheres of captured light, swirling with faint, smoky patterns. As Rory watched, Nyx extended a hand of condensed shadow. The moment their fingers neared the orb, the light within flared, and the smoky pattern resolved for a second into a screaming face before dissolving back into abstract swirls. Nyx recoiled, their form flickering. “Memories,” they whispered, the wind-like voice edged with something raw. “Trapped moments. This place is a prison for lost time.” “A library,” Isolde corrected, appearing now by the starlit pool. “Not all memories are pleasant to recall. But they are all valuable. The trees are the shelves.” Rory stood, her cool-headed logic wrestling with the sheer alienness of it all. “You brought us here for a reason. You said you had a gift.” “I said many things.” Isolde’s pale lavender eyes held Rory’s. “A path was needed. You walk it. A gift was promised.” She moved, a glide more than a step, to a patch of bare earth between twisting roots. With a toe she didn’t set down, she indicated the spot. “Dig here.” Rory hesitated. Nyx solidified fully beside her, their tall, shadowy form casting a long, dark stripe across the glowing moss. “Compulsion is not in her nature, but misdirection is. Ask the right question.” Rory kept her gaze on Isolde. “What will I find if I dig there?” Isolde’s smile returned. “A better question. You will find what you need for the path ahead. What you *want*… that is a different root system altogether.” Gritting her teeth, Rory knelt. The earth was soft, loamy. She dug with her hands, the cool soil yielding easily. Her fingers brushed something hard and smooth, colder than the earth around it. She cleared the soil, pulling it free. It was a dagger. The blade was slender and leaf-shaped, crafted from a metal that looked like liquid moonlight made solid. Moonsilver. It lay in her palm, utterly cold, a shock against her skin. In the golden light of the grove, it held a faint, internal luminescence, a cool blue-white gleam. “A Fae-forged blade,” Isolde said. Her voice had lost some of its playful lilt. “It can cut what other steel cannot. Wards. Bindings. The essence of certain… entities from darker realms.” Rory’s fingers closed around the hilt, perfectly fitted to her grip. The cold was a constant, a steady presence. The Heartstone pendant at her neck remained quiet. She looked from the blade to Isolde. “Why give this to me?” “The Veil weakens with the turning of the year. Rift points strain. Not all who cross mean to browse the library. Some come to burn it.” Isolde’s ethereal face was serious. “You have a foot in both worlds, Aurora Carter. More than you know. The blade is a tool. A key, perhaps. What you unlock is your choice.” Nyx’s glowing eyes were fixed on the dagger. “Moonsilver. It is… painful to those of my nature. A wise gift. It tells me the Seer anticipates conflict with more than mortal foes.” The melodic humming of the grove shifted, taking on a slightly discordant note, a minor key that hadn’t been there before. The golden light seemed to dim a fraction. Isolde’s head tilted, as if listening to a distant voice. “Your hour shrinks. The grove feels a disturbance. A ripple from a nearby tear.” Rory stood, the Fae blade feeling both alien and right in her hand. The wonder of the place was now underscored by a sharp, pressing unease. The alien beauty had context now—it was a borderland, a fragile place between. And she was holding a weapon designed for its defense. “Where?” she asked, her voice low. Isolde pointed not toward the portal they’d entered, but deeper into the grove, where the trees grew denser and the hanging memory-lights pulsed with a more agitated rhythm. “The Veil is thin there. Something pushes against it from the other side. It tastes of smoke and endless hunger.”