Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTX8BSCH8V95Q1TJNXX5AER

The ancient oaks loomed against the starless sky like gnarled fingers, their branches weaving together to form a canopy so thick that Rory could barely make out the moon's pale glow filtering through the gaps. She stepped between the standing stones marking the Grove's boundary, her breath misting in the unnaturally cold air despite the mild October evening she'd left behind in Richmond Park proper. The Heartstone pendant lay warm against her chest, its crimson surface pulsing with that familiar inner light. Three nights running, the same dream had plagued her—Isolde's voice calling from within the Grove, speaking words in a language that made Rory's teeth ache. Three nights of waking with dirt under her fingernails and the taste of copper in her mouth. "Right then," she whispered to the watching darkness. "Let's get this over with." Wildflowers carpeted the ground beneath her feet, their petals luminescent in the pendant's glow. Primroses and bluebells that should have withered weeks ago swayed without any breeze to stir them. The wrongness of it made her skin crawl, but she pressed deeper into the clearing. Time moved strangely here—Isolde had warned her about that. What felt like minutes could stretch into hours in the world beyond the stones, or compress into mere seconds. Rory checked her phone, but the screen remained black despite her certainty that the battery had been full when she'd entered the park. A twig snapped somewhere behind her. She spun around, pulse hammering against her throat. Nothing moved among the flower beds. The standing stones stood silent as sentinels, their weathered surfaces seeming to absorb what little light reached them. But the sound had been deliberate, purposeful—the crack of weight settling on dead wood. "Hello?" The word left her lips before she could stop it, hanging in the air like an invitation. Silence answered her, thick and expectant. Rory forced herself to continue forward, following a path that hadn't existed moments before. Smooth river stones appeared beneath her feet, leading toward the Grove's heart where a circle of younger oaks formed a natural amphitheatre. This was where she'd first met Isolde, where the Fae woman had pressed cryptic warnings into her palm along with promises of answers. The pendant's pulse quickened. Something rustled in the undergrowth to her left—a sound like silk dragging across bark. Rory's head snapped toward it, but again she saw nothing. Just endless shadows between the trees, shadows that seemed to shift and breathe independently of their sources. She quickened her pace. The sooner she reached the centre, the sooner she could figure out what the dreams meant and leave this place behind. But with each step, the Grove seemed to stretch longer, the path winding in directions that defied the clearing's modest size. A whisper drifted from somewhere ahead, words too soft to understand but carrying the cadence of her name. Rory stopped walking. "Isolde?" she called. "Is that you?" The whisper came again, closer now. Not ahead of her—beside her. As if someone walked just beyond the edge of her vision, keeping pace with her every movement. Rory's hand went to the pendant, its warmth now burning against her palm. The crimson light pulsed faster, casting dancing shadows that made the flowers seem to writhe. In that stuttering illumination, she caught a glimpse of something pale moving between the trees—there and gone so quickly she couldn't be sure she'd seen anything at all. Her breath came shorter now. Every instinct screamed at her to turn back, to flee for the standing stones and the familiar world beyond. But the dreams had been getting stronger. Each night brought visions of herself standing in this very spot while something terrible unfolded around her—something she needed to prevent or understand or remember. The path curved sharply to the right, bringing her to the edge of the inner circle. Twelve young oaks formed perfect points around a clearing carpeted in white flowers that glowed like captured moonlight. At the circle's heart stood a stone altar, its surface carved with symbols that hurt to look at directly. This wasn't how she remembered it. When she'd met Isolde here weeks ago, it had been just another clearing. No altar. No glowing flowers. No sense of ancient power pressing against her skull like a migraine. Movement flickered at the edge of her vision again. This time she turned slowly, keeping her breathing steady. A figure stood between two of the oaks—tall, draped in shadows that clung like fabric. Features that shifted when she tried to focus on them, as if her eyes refused to hold the image steady. "You came." The voice emerged from everywhere and nowhere, seeming to rise from the ground itself rather than the shadowed figure. It carried Isolde's musical accent but underneath lay something else—something hungry. "The dreams," Rory said, surprised by how level her own voice sounded. "You've been calling me here." "Not calling. Warning." The figure stepped forward, and for a moment Isolde's familiar features solidified—sharp cheekbones, eyes like winter stars, hair that moved with its own wind. But then the shadows reasserted themselves, making her face a blur of possibilities. "Warning me about what?" "About this night. About what you carry." Isolde's gaze dropped to the pendant. "About what it truly opens." The Heartstone's pulse had become a steady throb now, so bright that crimson light painted the surrounding trees. The white flowers at Rory's feet began to wither, their glow fading as the pendant's radiance intensified. "I don't understand." "Understanding comes too late." Isolde—or the thing wearing her shape—glided closer. "The door is already ajar. Your presence here... completes the opening." A sound built in the distance, low and thrumming like a massive heartbeat. The ground beneath Rory's feet trembled with each pulse, and cracks appeared in the stone altar. Dark liquid seeped from the fissures, spreading across the white flowers and turning them black. "What door?" Rory backed toward the circle's edge, but the oak trees seemed to lean inward, their branches forming a cage of bark and leaves. "What are you talking about?" The figure that might have been Isolde smiled, and for just an instant her face became perfectly clear—except for the eyes. Where winter stars should have been, empty sockets gaped like wounds. "The door you've been carrying all along."