AI Roots stretched above and below in impossible patterns, woven like a madman’s tapestry . They arched overhead, clutching at the sky, their bark shot through with veins of luminous green. Rory ducked beneath a twisted bough and her backpack snagged. She hissed, twisted free. Her boots squelched as she landed on a mossy stone, the earth beneath humming like a plucked violin string.
Nyx shimmered at the edge of her sight, half-solid, half-shadow, slipping through a stand of blossoming yew. The petals shivered as they passed, drinking in the gloom . Rory watched their silhouette grow crisp, then blur, edges softening to nothing before reforming in a deeper shade, violet eyes glowing with a cat’s indifference.
“Fresh footprints,” she said. Voice low. Dampness curled around the syllables, pulled half away by some trick of this place’s acoustics.
“None of mine.” Nyx’s murmur brushed against her ear, everywhere and nowhere. “The Seer strolls pondwater, leaves none for you to follow.”
Rory crouched, brushing aside a spray of wild foxglove. The ground there pressed strange coolness into her palm, as if the soil itself pulsed with secrets. Glimmers of gold pollen drifted on the air, swirling lazily . Above, the oaks twisted into arches, forming what might have been the ribs of a giant slumbering just beneath the surface. She’d stepped through an ancient stone ring not two minutes ago, but time already hung differently here, thick as syrup . Day or night, it made no promise.
“Showy, even for the Fae,” Rory muttered. She rose, fished inside her jacket, thumb finding the cool edge of the pendant at her throat. It glowed faintly, the crimson gem a bloody spark underneath moss and bone.
Nyx drifted ahead, silvery light dripping off their limbs in threads. The groves parted with their passing, wildflowers nodding as if in deference. The stillness gnawed at Rory. She pressed on, every second deeper into the hush.
A hush interrupted by a sudden snatch of laughter. Not childlike. Age-old and brittle as dried leaves. A figure materialised between the trunks, pale and tall, hair silver as a fox’s pelt.
Isolde glided to a halt, feet bare and unsullied by mud. Even in this alien clearing, she felt like the most foreign thing . Rory stopped, heart thumping to a rhythm not her own.
“You look lost,” Isolde said, voice crystalline , the cadence sing-song and mocking by turns, “or is it only hope you’ve misplaced?” Her lavender eyes flashed, unreadable .
“Directions are overrated in here,” Rory said, eyeing Nyx’s shadow, “unless you’re running from someone.”
Isolde’s smile twitched, sly and private. “You walk unprepared, yet certainty hangs round your neck.” Her gaze darted to the Heartstone, resting against Rory’s collarbone. “A Hel-born favour, unless my nose betrays me. What do you bargain with, mortal?”
Nyx’s shadow bled into the oaks, violet eyes widening. “Careful, Seer,” they crooned, “her debts are already tangled.”
Rory drew a breath. The air here shimmered with an edge of summer, wild honey and cut grass mingling with something far older—a sour tinge that stung her tongue, lime and burnt copper.
“Let’s stick to introductions. Not debts,” she managed. “Rory Carter. She, not meant to trespass, but… circumstances .” She checked her watch, remembered it wouldn’t help, and dropped her hand.
Isolde tilted her head, hair spilling in a wave, fine as mist. She looked past Rory, as if at a thread in the ether. “You have brought consequences with you, not circumstances.”
Nyx’s laughter flickered , a crackle in the gloom . “Everyone brings consequences to the Grove. Some carry them home after.”
The standing stones behind them pulsed , silver lines racing up their weathered sides. Rory squinted. The moss glistened. She stepped nearer, letting her hand trail the rough-hewn surface. Heat coiled up her palm. The air vibrated . Sound warped, as if someone had plucked a giant violin string somewhere in the roots.
Movement in the periphery. Flowers unfurled as she passed, all vivid fuchsia and pale blue, their petals trembling as though exposed to a fretful wind she could not feel. Insects trilled an uneasy song, slow then dizzyingly fast, a blurred cadence rising and falling on either side.
From the press of trunks, a trickle of clear water ran downslope, redolent of metal and cool earth. She knelt, cupped some, cold burning her skin.
“Careful, mortal,” Isolde called. “Not every drop is meant for your mouth.”
Rory let the water spill through her fingers. “You could label things,” she said, flicking droplets into the grass. “Would save awkward recoveries.”
Isolde laughed, a sound sharp and deep. Petals shivered from their stems beneath her feet, forming a carpet as she approached. “Those wise enough to wonder, wander farthest. Those bold enough to drink, dream longest.”
A shadow moved at the water’s edge. Something slick and eyeless, all black skin pulled tight across an impossibly long back, rose from the shallows. Rory froze. The creature’s jaw unfurled, more eel than mammal—a maw lined with teeth fine as fishbones.
Nyx’s hand became solid, very nearly human. They drew close, flaring larger, arms spreading protectively.
Rory fumbled under her jacket for the Fae-forged blade. She drew it, the moonsilver swallowing light, cold burning against her palm.
Isolde knelt, unruffled, hair falling round her like spun glass. She whispered to the thing in a language that spat sharp consonants and round vowels. The creature’s jaw snapped shut. It submerged once more, leaving only ripples.
Rory let the blade drop to her side. “Friend of yours, Seer?”
Isolde traced a spiral in the air with two fingers. “All things in the Grove have appetite, Aurora Carter.”
Rory pocketed the dagger, suspicion coiling in her gut. “Does that include you?”
Isolde rose, eyes shimmering like a pond at dusk. “I take only questions. Seldom answers.”
Time unraveled in odd ways as they pushed deeper. Trees leaned impossibly close, their boughs bending low enough to touch her hair. Once, petals rained softly, alighting on Rory’s shoulders and melting away, leaving faint tingles across her skin.
Nyx ran shadowy fingers along the edge of a standing stone, tracing glyphs worn near smooth. “Old magic, this. Strong enough to bend the Veil. That wound in your world — ugly. Festering.”
Rory frowned. “You’re saying something’s leaking through?”
Isolde’s eyes shone. “All wounds seep. The Grove does not heal your realm’s failures. Only contains them, delayed.”
Petals gathered in whorls at their feet. The ground grew springy, soaked with some silent vitality. The sky above the oaks flickered from blue to saffron in a blink, impossible. Light bled sideways from unseen cracks.
An ancient scent drifted by, honey over rot, as if time swept the seasons here in gusts. Rory shuddered, forced herself to press on. Beyond the next ring of trees, the path dipped. A hollow yawned before them, ringed by even taller stones, each burned black at the base. Fungi sparkled on the bark, luminescent green, the colours veering dangerously close to the edge of her vision.
Isolde paused, gaze fixed on a patch of pale grass.
“The gate lies waking,” she said quietly . “Threads pulled tighter than flesh. You bring keys, Aurora Carter—every visitor does.”
Nyx circled. Shadow spilled off their limbs in cold drifts. “Bad gate,” they whispered. “Sighs in the rootwork. Hungry. Not sleeping but waiting .”
Rory pressed the pendant flat against her breastbone. It thrummed, answering a distant pulse in the grove. The sensation burrowed into her bones, warm as blood, wrong as memory.
A howl split the hush. Not far. Not human.
Petals scattered. The hollow answered with a rumble.
Isolde’s sleeve shimmered as she reached into the void between stones, her hand disappearing up to the wrist. She did not blink, lips parting in a quiet song — the words tumbled, bitter-sweet, clinging to Rory’s mind in ways she’d regret remembering.
A claw, slender and white as bone, emerged just beyond the nearest stone.
It gripped the air, flexed once, then pulled. A body unfolded, jointless and slow, like a spider made from all the wrong angles. It smiled. Too many teeth.
Nyx’s shadow lunged forward.
The stones screamed, bright as the break of dawn.
Rory raised the blade. The grove erupted, green and silver and night.