AI The ancient oaks stood like sentinels around the clearing, their bark blackened by a night that refused to settle. Aurora Carter stepped past the boundary stones, her boots sinking into moss that felt too soft, too yielding, as if the ground breathed beneath her soles. The air inside The Fae Grove tasted of copper and wet earth, thick enough to coat the back of her throat. She pulled her jacket tighter, though the chill had nothing to do with the temperature.
She came for the silence . Or so she told herself. The city noise of London usually followed her into her dreams, a constant hum of traffic and distant sirens that kept sleep at bay. Eva had spoken of this place in hushed tones, a pocket of stillness hidden within Richmond Park where time forgot to tick. Rory needed that forgetfulness . She needed an hour where Evan's voice didn't echo in her skull, where the memory of his hands didn't ghost across her skin.
The wildflowers bloomed around her ankles, vibrant splashes of violet and gold that defied the season. They should have wilted in the frost that glazed the world outside the grove. Instead, they trembled, though no wind touched them.
Rory stopped. Her bright blue eyes scanned the tree line. The shadows between the trunks seemed deeper than natural darkness allowed, pooling like spilled ink that refused to dry . She reached for the Heartstone pendant resting against her collarbone. The silver chain felt cold, but the crimson gemstone pulsed with a faint, rhythmic warmth . It beat against her sternum, a second heart syncing with her own panic.
Something crunched behind her.
She spun around, fists clenched at her sides. The clearing remained empty. The standing stones loomed, silent and unmoving. Yet the sound lingered in her ears, the distinct snap of a twig under a heavy boot. Not an animal. Animals moved with fluid grace; this sounded deliberate, clumsy, human.
"Who's there?"
Her voice cracked, swallowed instantly by the dense air. No echo returned. The silence rushed back in, heavier than before, pressing against her eardrums until they popped.
She forced her feet to move toward the center of the grove. The plan was simple: sit on the central stone, breathe, wait for the calm to wash over her. Then leave. But the path she had taken moments ago seemed longer now . The distance between the boundary oaks and the center stretched, the perspective warping as if viewed through distorted glass.
A whisper drifted from her left.
It wasn't words. It was the sound of fabric rustling, like a dress dragging through dry leaves. Rory froze. She knew every sound the city made, every creak of her flat above Silas' bar, every groan of the delivery scooter. This sound belonged nowhere. It came from the direction of the solid oak trunk, a place where nothing could pass without breaking branches.
She took a step back. Her heel caught on a root that hadn't been there a second ago. She stumbled, catching herself on a low-hanging branch. The bark felt warm, pulsing with the same rhythm as the pendant. She yanked her hand away, wiping her palm on her jeans. A smear of dark sap clung to her skin, smelling of old blood.
The flowers stopped trembling.
Absolute stillness claimed the grove. Even the air ceased to circulate. Rory's breath hitched in her chest, each inhale a laborious struggle against the stagnant atmosphere. She stared at the wildflowers. They were not just still; they were fixed. Petals halted mid-sway, stems rigid as iron. The world had paused, but she remained in motion.
A shadow detached itself from the tree line.
It didn't walk. It flowed, a distortion in the darkness that mimicked the shape of a person but lacked any defining features. No face, no limbs, just a suggestion of height and width that shifted when she blinked. Rory backed away, her heel clicking against the central stone. The thing glided closer, ignoring the uneven ground, hovering inches above the moss.
The Heartstone burned hot against her skin. The crimson glow intensified, casting jagged red light across the clearing. In that bloody illumination, the shadow stopped. It tilted, as if studying her .
Rory's mind raced . She thought of Evan, of the way he would stand in doorways, blocking exits, watching her with that same hollow intensity . But this was different. Evan wanted control. This thing wanted something else entirely. It wanted presence. It wanted to be acknowledged.
She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out. Her throat locked, muscles seizing as if an invisible hand gripped her windpipe. The realization hit her with the force of a physical blow: she was not alone. She had never been alone. The sensation of eyes on her back since she crossed the boundary stones hadn't been paranoia. It had been anticipation .
The shadow extended a tendril of darkness. It reached for her wrist, aiming for the small crescent-shaped scar on her left arm. The air around the appendage grew frigid, frosting the hairs on her skin. Rory slapped her hand away, stumbling backward until her spine hit the rough surface of a standing stone. Pain flared between her shoulder blades, sharp and grounding.
The shadow recoiled, not in fear, but in curiosity . It rippled, changing shape. For a heartbeat, it looked like a man in a suit, then a woman in a tattered dress, then nothing but a swirling void. The forms flickered faster, a strobe light of stolen identities.
Rory fumbled for the pendant, gripping the crimson stone until her knuckles turned white . The heat seared her palm, blistering the skin, but she held on. The light flared, pushing back the immediate darkness. The shadow hissed, a sound like steam escaping a pressurized valve.
It didn't retreat. It split.
Two shapes now. Then four. They emerged from the bases of the oaks, sliding up the trunks like oil spills running uphill. They circled her, closing the gap between the trees and the center stone. The wildflowers beneath their passing turned grey, crumbling into ash that drifted upward instead of falling down.
Time behaved strangely here. An hour inside could be minutes outside. Or days. Or years. How long had she been standing there? Had she just arrived, or had she been trapped for centuries while the world outside rotted away? The thought clawed at her sanity, a jagged edge of terror she couldn't smooth over with logic or quick thinking.
One of the shadows lunged.
Rory ducked, the cold appendage grazing her hair. Strands of black hair froze and snapped off, falling to the ground like brittle twigs. She scrambled around the central stone, her boots slipping on the ash-covered moss. The shadows moved in unison now, a coordinated hunt. They didn't rush; they knew she couldn't escape. The boundary stones seemed to have moved closer, shrinking the clearing, boxing her in.
She pressed her back against the stone, chest heaving. The pendant throbbed violently, the light flickering as if struggling against a dying battery . The shadows sensed the weakness. They surged forward, a wall of encroaching night.
Rory stared into the faceless void of the nearest entity. In the depths of that darkness, she saw reflections. Not her own face, but glimpses of other moments . Evan shouting. Her father turning away. Her mother crying. Every fear, every regret, pulled from her mind and displayed in the swirling blackness. The creature fed on it. She felt the drain, a sapping of energy that left her knees weak and her vision blurring.
It wasn't going to kill her. It was going to unmake her.
She forced her legs to straighten. Cool-headed. Intelligent. Out-of-the-box thinking. Those were the traits friends praised her for. They meant nothing here. There was no box to think outside of. There was only the grove, the shadows, and the crushing weight of the wrongness that permeated every particle of air.
The shadows converged. The cold radiated from them, freezing the sweat on her brow. The Heartstone gave one final, desperate pulse of crimson light, then dimmed to a dull ember.
The lead shadow raised a hand, or what passed for a hand, and reached for her face. Rory closed her eyes, bracing for the touch that would turn her to ash or steal her name.
The whisper returned, louder this time, forming words that slithered into her ear canals.
"Stay."
The command vibrated in her bones. It wasn't a request. It was the law of the grove. The wildflowers were gone , replaced by grey dust. The oaks leaned inward, their branches knitting together to block out the sky. The night had become absolute.
Rory opened her eyes. The shadow's hand hovered inches from her cheek. She could see the texture of the darkness now, a million tiny voids swirling within the mass. It waited. It wanted her to accept it. To stop fighting the stillness. To become part of the grove's eternal, frozen bloom.
Her breath fogged in the air, the only movement left in the world. She looked at her left wrist, at the crescent scar. It looked pale, almost translucent in the failing light. The pendant hung limp against her chest, its warmth extinguished.
The shadow touched her cheek.
The cold didn't burn. It numbness spread instantly, racing through her nerves, silencing the frantic hammering of her heart. Her muscles locked. Her lungs refused to draw the next breath. She stood transfixed , a statue in a garden of ash, her bright blue eyes wide and unblinking, staring into the heart of the darkness that had been waiting for her all along.