Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTX9SQ0Q1GWR6SS58CB4GGW

The air changed before the ground did. It wasn’t wind — nothing so ordinary. It was a shift in pressure, like stepping into a cathedral after the storm breaks outside. Aurora felt it first in her ears, a soft pop, then in the pulse beneath her scar. The crescent on her left wrist warmed, subtle at first, then insistent, as though replying to something deep below the soil. "Something’s wrong with the light," Eva muttered, stopping mid-step. Rory turned. Behind them, the muddy path through Richmond Park still existed — oaks thick with ivy, the distant call of a pheasant — but ahead, the trees arched inward unnaturally, forming a tunnel of gnarled trunks and silver bark. The standing stones flanking the entrance stood not where they had been five minutes ago. Or perhaps they had always been there, waiting. "Nothing’s wrong," Nyx whispered, their voice skimming the back of Rory’s neck like mist. "It’s just listening." The stones were massive, carved with spirals that didn’t sit still when stared at. Their edges blurred, as though seen through ripples in water. Eva backed up, one hand flying to the pepper spray clipped to her belt. "This wasn’t here last time. I’ve jogged this trail every Sunday for three years." "You weren’t meant to see it," said a third voice. Isolde stood between the stones. No one had seen her approach. No sound, no displacement of leaves. She wore a gown of woven moss and twilight, silver hair unbound, flowing like smoke caught in slow motion. Her lavender eyes held no reflection. Rory tightened her grip on the Heartstone pendant beneath her coat. It pulsed once, warm and slow, like a drowsy heartbeat. “You said we could pass,” Rory said. “I said you could seek,” Isolde corrected. "Passing is earned." Eva glanced at Nyx. “You knew this was going to be weird, didn’t you?” Nyx stepped forward, their shadow-form flickering between solidity and haze. One moment tall and defined, the next a smudge across the dimming air. “You don’t walk into a Fae grove expecting normal. You walk in knowing you might not walk out the same.” Rory exhaled. "Then we go in knowing that." She crossed the threshold. The sound of the park vanished. Not silence — never silence — but a hush so complete it rang. Birdsong didn’t stop. It changed. Notes stretched into melodies older than language. Flowers bloomed beneath their boots — scarlet poppies with black centres, violets that chimed when brushed. The path ahead coiled like a resting serpent, lined with trees whose bark shimmered like polished bone. "Time bends here," Isolde said, already several paces ahead. "Speak only what you mean. The grove remembers." Eva’s breath stuttered. "Did the trees just—" "Watch," Nyx murmured. One of the silver-barked oaks shifted. Not grew. *Turned*. A slow swivel of roots and limbs, its hollow where a face might have been tilting toward them. A low creak, like joints of ancient wood protesting. "Don’t look directly," Isolde said without turning. "They see intent. Not eyes." Rory forced her gaze forward, but her neck prickled like she was being studied, catalogued. The pendant beneath her coat flared again — stronger this time. A warning? The deeper they went, the thicker the air became. Sweet and metallic at once, like crushed petals and iron rain. The temperature stayed constant, but the air felt heavier, as if layered with something unseen. Rory’s skin tingled. Her hair, usually so obedient, lifted slightly at the ends, repelled by some subtle charge. Then the grove opened. Before them lay a clearing untouched by decay. Grass so green it looked painted. A pool of still water, mirror-flat, reflecting not the amber-tinged sky above, but stars — constellations none of them recognised. And in the centre, a single hawthorn tree, thorns black as coal, blossoms glowing faintly blue. Eva took a step back. "That’s not a tree. That’s… watching." It was. The trunk bore a pattern — a spiral of knots forming something too symmetrical to be accidental. A face. Not carved. *Grown*. And its branches didn’t sway. They waited. Nyx drifted toward the pool. Their shadow-form darkened, edges sharpening as they neared the water. When they looked down, their reflection didn’t appear. “The pool shows truth,” Isolde said. “But not yours.” Rory approached slowly. She knelt at the water’s edge. Her reflection stared back — but not as she was now. Older. Hair longer, streaked with silver. Eyes sharper. A thin white scar across her collarbone — one she didn’t have. And behind her, smoke. Fire. Something vast and winged in shadow. She blinked. The image fractured into ripples. "What did you see?" Eva asked, voice tight. "Nothing. Or too much." Nyx crouched beside her. "The grove shows paths. Not futures. Possibilities." Isolde moved to the hawthorn. "Three centuries I have tended this place. Three centuries of whispers through the roots. The Veil thins. Rifts grow. And you," she said, turning to Aurora, "carry a stone from a realm where hunger rules." Rory’s hand flew to the pendant. "How do you—" "The Heartstone calls to the edges. It knows its origin. Dymas does not release lightly." "Dymas? Like… *Hell*?" "Not as you know it," Nyx said. "No fire. No chains. But worse, in some ways. A place where desire becomes prison." Rory stood. "I didn’t ask for this. It was left on my doorstep with no note." “And yet you wear it,” Isolde said. “Choice, even unspoken, is still choice.” A breeze stirred — though no wind had touched the grove before. The hawthorn’s blossoms released a shower of blue light, falling like embers. They didn’t burn when they landed. They sunk into the grass and vanished. Then, from beneath the roots of the tree, something emerged. Not alive. Not dead. A shape of woven bark and thorn, no taller than a child, with eyes like slivers of moonlight. It didn’t walk. It *unfurled*, stepping sideways as if moving between frames of a film. Eva gasped. "What in God’s name—" The creature raised a twig-finger toward Rory. Isolde bowed her head. "The Grove remembers your bloodline." "My… what?" "Your father’s mother. She danced under Fae moons. Broke vows. Crossed rivers not meant for mortals. You carry the taste of old pacts." Rory’s breath came shallow. "That can’t be true. My grandmother died before I was born. Cancer." “Not all cancers are from cells,” Isolde said quietly. “Some grow from broken promises.” The thorn-being extended both hands. Nestled in its palms was a small object — a shard, jagged and glass-thin, glowing a faint, sickly amber. Nyx recoiled. “That’s Hel matter. Corrupted.” The creature offered it to Rory. She hesitated. "Don't take it," Eva said. "It’s a trap. It’s always a trap with these things." But the pendant burned now — a sharp heat against her skin. The shard pulsed in reply. Rory reached out. The moment her fingers brushed the amber fragment, the ground trembled. Not violently. A deep, slow shudder, like the grove inhaling. Above, the false sky cracked. Not with thunder. With *sound* — a dissonant chord that wasn’t music, wasn’t speech, but felt like both. The standing stones at the edge of the clearing began to glow, their carvings writhing. And the Veil, somewhere far, frayed.