Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTQZY9B9F9GY7YBDMNJTZZ2

Aurora Carter shifted her grip on the Fae-Forged Blade, its moonsilver chill leaking into her palm. The blade’s surface caught odd shimmers as she stepped, hesitant, between ancient oak pillars roots twisted like grasping fingers in the moss. Her trainers pressed soft earth—a crescent moon stamped in shadow, swallowed at once by burgeoning wildflowers that shouldn’t have bloomed. No birds sang above, only a hush thick as velvet. Eva’s voice hovered at her back, hollowed by nerves. “Alright, Rory, you’re sure this is it? Doesn’t look like any park I’ve jogged through.” Aurora peered back, catching her friend’s frown and the nerves boiling in her shoulders. “It’s different from the outside.” She tried for dry, but her voice betrayed awe. The Heartstone Pendant full against her chest gave off barely perceptible warmth, nothing more—no Hel portal here, only the subtle, wrong-side-of-the-looking-glass shimmer where sunlight bent strangely around the trees. Everything quivered at the edge of reality, as if shadows themselves disagreed with the sun. Nyx surged from a patch of darkness, rising beside a bent yew. The living shadow stretched tall—elongated, limbs whispering like smoke—and their eyes glowed violet beneath a drifting cowl of nothingness. “You stand in the threshold.” Their mouth formed silhouettes more than words; Aurora heard them more than she listened. Eva tried to mask flinching. “Threshold to what, exactly?” She squinted between the trunks, uncertain. Nyx’s laughter fluttered like moths. “Not Hel, nor your home. The Fae Grove admits wanderers… for a price yet unnamed.” “Keep your hands in your pockets,” Aurora muttered, quick, a private joke clattering against heavy silence, “and don’t step off the path.” She didn’t say which path—no trail marked through the sea of clover and tiny bluebells, only faint impressions where sun slid along bark in deliberate, spiralling patterns. She moved forward, toes brushing clusters of violets. Her heart ticked double-time. The grove shifted around her, air buzzing with a static that threatened to rearrange memories if she lingered. Every step erased the mechanical world behind. Distant traffic faded, replaced by something deeper: a ringing hum bleeding through the roots, running under ground. Aurora caught a flicker of movement—translucent moths, wings like thin parchment, whirled above. When one landed on her wrist it felt cool, feather-light, then vanished. Her pulse snagged; Eva’s breath stuttered near her shoulder. Isolde Varga waited amid a scattering of white stones at the grove’s heart, her hair tumbling silver as starlight. No dust marked her slippers. Lavender eyes locked and unreadable, she lifted an elegant finger. “Tread softly, for secrets coil where mortals walk bold.” Eva stumbled, brushing against a drooping willow. A shudder passed through her, then she straightened and squared her stance, lips tense. “Does she always talk like that?” Nyx traced lazy spirals in the air. “Truth is no straight road in this place.” Aurora pressed further in, focus sharp as hunger, letting herself take in fragments: sunlight falling sharp as knives through leaves that shimmered green, then gold, then bone-white. Petals fell upwards to join the mist-woven boughs. One of the standing stones rippled, shifting its carvings with no sense of time. Aurora’s gaze snagged on a sigil—a circle within a spiral—before it flowed into another. Isolde’s voice returned, more riddle than greeting. “Three come where one was sought. Answers rest beneath growing things, if you dig with care.” “I’m not here for riddles.” Aurora worked her jaw, fixing her eyes on the space between Isolde’s feet. “You said I’d get clarity. On the Veil, on—on the tremors. I’m not leaving without it.” The Seer’s lips curved, not quite a smile, not quite pity. “So the lamb demands storm’s reason from a cloud.” Eva took a nervous step, hands fisted. “Isolde. Things are getting weird outside the city. Rory’s not—she’s not exaggerating.” Nyx’s shadow split—one stretch of darkness leaked along Isolde’s skirt, twisting between roots. The shade hummed, forming a lattice pattern across the clearing. “Time is thin here. The Veil thickens where your world unravels.” A shiver crawled up Aurora’s spine. A breeze sighed across the grove, bringing scents that defied sense—autumn spice, fresh rain, hot sugar, new-cut grass all at once. She startled at something brushing her ankle. She glanced down to see the grass moving, parting for her feet as if ushering her onward. She checked her wrist; the crescent-scar there glowed faint under the eerie light. The stones pulsed white, then dull pewter. A small toad, stripes of turquoise and rose, hopped through damp moss and croaked once, an echo that reverberated through Aurora’s bones. Every living thing shimmered around the edge—tree trunks seemed older than memory, but the flowers at their base looked new-hatched, burning too bright. Eva crouched, picking a fallen blossom, only for it to melt into mist in her palm. “Did you see—?” Nyx crouched low beside her, voice a drift of smoke. “What you hold in the Grove stays in the Grove. Take nothing, lest it takes you.” Aurora touched the Heartstone again, its warmth unchanged, and tried not to think about the last time she’d trusted a gift. She scanned tree after tree, hunting for a hint—a way into concrete knowledge. “Isolde. The tremors—Portals are sparking in the city. Demons have started using them. I need facts.” Isolde’s eyes shuttered for a heartbeat, then flicked open icy-bright. She angled her head, silver hair pooling like quicksilver over her shoulder. “Threads snap when the Weave grows thin. What stalks the earth is not hunger alone.” A far-off bell tolled—one, two, three soft chimes. The entire grove mirrored the vibration, leaves shuddering, stones resonating with a note so pure Aurora’s teeth ached. A band of blue light traced itself along the trunks, pooling into floating motes that buzzed past Aurora’s face. “Don’t let them touch you,” Nyx whispered, their shadow drawing close, protective. A stray spark clipped Eva’s ear. She leapt back, shooting Aurora a look. “Feels like pins and needles—no thanks.” She swatted another from her shoulder, breath flickering, panic close. Aurora’s attention darted to a burrow beneath a root. Something glinted—strange, unnatural, like broken glass pressed into loam. She crouched, blade ready, only to watch it squirm: a silver caterpillar, dripping tiny droplets of liquid moon. Aurora blinked. “The hell—?” Nyx’s face lost coherence, rippling with silent laughter. “Alive, and not. The things that grow here belong to neither sun nor shadow.” Isolde extended her hand, palm hollow. A cloud of blue butterflies fluttered out, spiralling in streams that illuminated twisting patterns along the ground. “Paths forward, or backward, change with every glance. Seek, but know you may not welcome what you find.” Aurora pushed to her feet, jaw locked with effort. “No more games. I need a clear way through. I need to stop the next breach—before London ends up swallowed by Hel’s kitchen.” Isolde flicked her gaze to the standing stones. “Within the heart, the oldest root runs deepest. Dig where shadows gather longest; what is oldest endures, what endures, remembers.” Eva stood, shaking her hands as if flinging water. “That’s… actually, I think that’s as straight an answer as you’ll get.” Nyx’s violet eyes burned. “She means the stones, Carter. The memory knots.” Aurora closed her eyes, breath sliding slow and careful, letting the Grove’s wrongness settle in her chest. The world swayed, colours unpeeling like scales across her vision; sun and moon flickered on leaves. She stepped toward a crooked stone marked by runnels, and the ground yawned under her. For a dizzy second, she tasted copper and thunder; then something clicked—an invitation and a warning, folded together. A tangle of root wound up, gesturing at her ankle. She braced herself, fingers tightening on the blade. “You won’t fall,” Isolde’s tone softened, “unless you mean to.” Eva pressed in close. “Don’t like this, Rory. Just… let me know you’re alright, yeah?” Aurora offered a sideways glance, half a grin stitched with worry. “You’ll hear me if I scream.” The stone split along a hair-thin seam; inside, an impossible hollow shone with dim light. The scent of earth after rain rolled out. Something ancient moved within—breath or sigh or memory. Aurora hesitated at the threshold, steel in her shoulders. The Grove paused—petals, butterflies, even air suspending—waiting for her next move.