AI "Spit it out."
Aurora retched, her knees hitting the spongy, moss-covered ground hard. She coughed, forcing the acrid taste of ozone and burning hair from her throat. It clung to her tongue, a souvenir from tearing through the Veil.
"I said, spit, Aurora." Nyx floated a few feet away, their silhouette flickering like a candle in a draught. "The air here is thick with spores. You swallow enough of it, you’ll never want to leave."
"I’m trying," she gasped, wiping bile from her lip. She spat a glob of saliva onto the earth. The moss hissed, turning a vibrant, bruised purple where the spit landed. "Jesus. Where the hell are we?"
"Not Hell. Not exactly." Nyx drifted closer, their form condensing into something resembling a tall man in a tattered coat, though the edges remained indistinct smoke. Violet eyes, faint and glowing, narrowed at the horizon. "Dymas. The Vineyard of Gluttony."
Aurora pushed herself upright, her boots sinking slightly into the soil. She instinctively reached for the moonsilver hilt of the leaf-shaped dagger at her hip. The Fae-forged blade was cold, a grounding chill against the humid, cloying heat of the place.
"It smells like a bakery built in a slaughterhouse," Aurora muttered, wrinkling her nose .
The scent was overwhelming. Roasted meats, caramel, and the heavy, metallic tang of blood filled the air. Above them, there was no sun, only a sky of churning , warm amber clouds that cast everything in a sepia malaise. It didn't look like night, but it certainly wasn't day. It was a perpetual, golden twilight.
"Keep close to the shadows," Nyx whispered, their voice taking on that peculiar , wind-carried quality. "Though in this blasted light, they are hard to find."
They moved forward, pushing through a dense thicket of fern-like plants that reached Aurora’s shoulders. The leaves were wide and fleshy, sweating a sticky, clear resin that smelled faintly of vanilla. Aurora slapped a branch away, and it recoiled with a wet *thwack *, shuddering as if in pain.
"Don't antagonise the flora," Nyx warned without looking back. "Everything here eats. Even the grass."
"You could have mentioned that before we jumped through a tear in reality."
"And miss the look on your face? Unlikely."
Aurora rolled her eyes, stepping over a twisted root that looked suspiciously like a femur wrapped in bark. Her chest hummed with a dull heat. She pulled the silver chain from beneath her collar. The heartstone pendant, usually a dormant crimson gem, pulsed with a steady, rhythmic warmth against her skin.
"It’s reacting," she said, holding the stone up. The faint inner glow beat in time with her own pulse . "Like a Geiger counter for bad decisions."
"It detects the portal's proximity to the Helbound," Nyx corrected. "Or perhaps just the overwhelming density of sin. Put it away. You shine like a beacon ."
Ignoring the shade’s tone, she tucked the pendant back inside her shirt. "So, Isolde said the rift was widening from inside out. Does this look wide to you?"
"This," Nyx gestured to the sprawling landscape before them, "is a garden. Someone tends it."
They broke through the tree line and stopped dead.
Before them lay a valley unlike anything in the brochures for a Welsh countryside holiday. Rows upon rows of gnarled vines stretched into the amber distance, climbing trellises made of blackened iron. But it wasn't grapes that hung from the twisting wood.
Bulbous, translucent sacs, the size of watermelons, weighed down the vines. Inside each one, curled in foetal positions, were shapes. Indistinct, shadowy, but unmistakably humanoid. Fluids pumped through the translucent green veins of the plants, feeding the sacs with a rhythmic , slushy sound that echoed through the silent valley. *Squelch. Pump. Squelch.*
"Are those..." Aurora’s voice died in her throat.
"Souls," Nyx supplied, their violet eyes burning brighter . "Aging. Fermenting. The vintage here is... exquisite, if you have the stomach for it."
"They're people."
"They were people. Now they are ingredients."
Aurora stepped closer to the nearest vine. The sac hung heavy, the membrane slick and wet. Inside, she saw a face—eyes closed, mouth open in a silent scream of ecstasy or agony; it was impossible to tell. The vine pulsed , a surge of crimson liquid rushing down the stem and into the sac. The face inside twitched.
"We need to cut them down," Aurora said, her hand tightening on the Fae blade .
"Don't be a fool." Nyx materialized a solid hand and gripped her shoulder. The touch was icy, sending a shock through her system. "You are mortal. You touch that vine, and the connection will shatter your mind. Besides, look at the soil."
Aurora looked down. The earth between the rows wasn't dirt. It was composed of millions of tiny, crushed fragments. White chips. Teeth. Bone.
"Foundations matter," Nyx murmured. "Prince Belphegor prides himself on sustainability."
A sound truncated her reply—a low, reverberating bell tolling from somewhere deep within the valley. It wasn't metal striking metal; it sounded wet, like a heavy stone dropped into deep mud.
The vines around them began to tremble. The sacs writhed.
"Dinner bell?" Aurora asked, stepping back.
"Harvest," Nyx hissed. They dissolved into a puddle of shadow on the ground, sliding rapidly toward a cluster of rocks. "Move. Now."
Aurora didn't argue. She sprinted after the shadow, diving behind a jagged outcrop of rock just as the ground began to rumble.
From the amber haze at the far end of the valley, figures emerged. They were massive, lumbering shapes, easily ten feet tall. Their skin was pale and doughy, stretching endlessly over bloated frames. They wore aprons of stitched leather—human skin, Aurora realized with a jolt of nausea—and carried shears the size of scythes.
"The Wardens of Gluttony," Nyx’s voice whispered directly into her ear, though they weren't visible. "Stay low. If they smell the mortal blood in your veins, they won't wait for you to ferment."
One of the giants stopped at the vine Aurora had just been inspecting. It raised a massive, fleshy hand and caressed the sac. The creature’s face was a ruin of excess—multiple chins melting into a thick neck, eyes buried in folds of fat, a mouth that was a vertical slit with too many teeth.
It sniffed the air.
The giant turned its head slowly , the rolls of flesh shifting with a wet slap. It looked directly at the rock hiding Aurora.
"It smells me," Aurora whispered, her grip on the moonsilver dagger slippery with sweat.
"It smells the Fae magic on your blade," Nyx countered. "Or the hope. They love the taste of hope. It’s like coriander to them."
The giant took a step toward them. The ground shook. Another step. It raised the massive shears, the blades caked in dried red rust.
Aurora shifted her stance, preparing to run or fight, though the physics of fighting a ten-foot mound of blubber seemed poor . She glanced at the vines behind the creature. The fluid pumping through them was accelerating , the heartbeat of the valley hammering faster, harder.
"Nyx," she said. "Can you shift?"
"Into what? A bigger monster? I’m a shadow, Aurora, not a dragon."
"Distract it."
"I despise you."
The shadow beside her elongated, stretching out across the bone-dust soil. Nyx erupted from the ground ten yards to the left, forming a silhouette of a man waving his arms.
"Oi! Lard-arse!" Nyx shouted. The voice wasn't a whisper now; it cracked like thunder.
The giant roared—a sound of wet gurgling rage—and swung the shears toward the shade. The blade passed harmlessly through Nyx’s midsection, dissipating the smoke form, but the creature’s momentum carried it forward, stumbling.
"Run!" Nyx’s voice echoed from everywhere at once.
Aurora bolted. She didn't run away from the giant; she ran *under * it. As the creature tried to right itself, she slid across the slick, bony soil, sliding between its massive, tree-trunk legs. She slashed upward with the Fae-forged blade.
Moonsilver met supernatural flesh.
The blade didn't just cut; it unmade. The giant shrieked, a high-pitched squeal like a boiling kettle, as the dagger sliced through its inner thigh. Black ichor sprayed out, smelling of sour milk and rot.
Aurora scrambled to her feet on the other side, her chest heaving. The giant collapsed to one knee, the earth shuddering under the impact.
But the shriek had done its job.
Across the valley, a dozen other heads turned. Twelve pairs of eyes buried in fat locked onto her. The tolling bell sped up, becoming a frantic, wet heartbeat.
"Well," Aurora said, wiping the black slime from her cheek as Nyx materialized beside her, solid and looking grim. "We found the locals."
"And now," Nyx said, their hands dissolving into smoky claws, "we are the main course."