AI "Step exactly where I step, Rory, or the Grove will decide you belong to the soil."
Isolde Varga didn't look back as she issued the warning. Her silver hair, long enough to brush the backs of her knees, remained perfectly still despite the sudden, rhythmic thrumming of the air. She moved with a terrifying grace, her feet pressing into the loam without leaving a single indentation. Behind her, Aurora Carter gripped the hilt of the moonsilver dagger tucked into her belt. The Fae-forged blade felt like a sliver of ice against her hip, a constant, biting reminder that they were no longer in a public park in South West London.
"I’m sticking to you like glue," Rory muttered.
She turned her head slightly , squinting through the shimmering distortion of the Veil. Behind them, the ancient oak standing stones of Richmond Park were already blurring into a greyish haze. The sound of distant traffic and the chatter of dog walkers had vanished, replaced by a silence so profound it made her ears ring.
"The silence is heavy." Nyx drifted to her left, their violet eyes glowing with a faint, pulsing light. In the shifting gloom of the Grove, the Shade looked more solid than usual, a humanoid silhouette carved from the darkest soot. "It tastes of old lightning."
"It tastes like ozone and copper," Rory corrected, her voice sounding unnaturally loud in the stillness.
As they moved deeper, the flora began to change. The familiar English oaks didn't just grow taller; they twisted into impossible, spiralling geometries, their bark shimmering with a metallic, iridescent sheen. Flowers the size of dinner plates bloomed in the shadows of the roots, their petals translucent like stained glass. Some breathed, expanding and contracting with a slow, vegetable pulse , exhaling clouds of spores that glowed with a soft, bioluminescent gold.
Rory reached out a hand toward a vine that looked like braided copper wire, but Isolde’s voice snapped like a whip.
"Touching the Glimmer-veins results in a sleep that lasts a century. Are you tired, Aurora?"
Rory pulled her hand back as if burned. "Not that tired. How much further?"
"Time is a flat circle here," Isolde replied. She stopped at the edge of a clearing where the very grass seemed to be made of fine, emerald silk . "We are here because the Heartstone demanded it. It felt the shift before I did."
Rory looked down at her chest. Beneath her leather jacket, the Heartstone pendant was thrumming against her collarbone. The deep crimson gem glowed with a frantic, internal light, radiating a heat that was beginning to feel less like a warning and more like a fever. It wasn't just warm; it was hot.
"It’s reacting to something," Rory said, pulling the silver chain out to look at the stone. "The pulse is faster. Is there a portal nearby?"
"The Grove is a portal, child. It is a knot in the fabric of the realms." Isolde turned, her pale lavender eyes scanning the canopy. "But the rhythm is wrong. The Prince of Gluttony has a long reach, and his hunger is rarely satisfied by fruit alone."
A low, wet sound echoed from the thicket ahead—a squelch followed by a heavy, dragging noise. It sounded like something massive being pulled through thick mud. The air, previously crisp and floral, suddenly curdled. A cloying, sickly-sweet scent wafted over them, smelling of overripe peaches and rotting meat.
"Dymas," Nyx whispered, their form flickering like a candle in a gale . "The stench of the pits. Someone has torn the Veil from the other side."
Rory drew the Fae-forged blade. The moonsilver hissed as it left the sheath, its faint luminescence cutting through the golden twilight of the Grove. "I thought you said the Wardens monitored the rifts."
"Wardens are mortal," Isolde said, her voice dropping to a cold, melodic register . "Mortals are easily bribed with the promise of a feast that never ends."
They rounded a massive, crystalline rock formation to find the source of the heat. The air here shimmered with a warm, amber light, identical to the sky of the Dymasian realm. A rift hung in mid-air, looking like a jagged, cauterised wound in reality. It didn't lead to a forest; it looked out onto a sprawling, opulent terrace paved in gold-veined marble . Beyond the terrace, vineyards of blood-red grapes stretched toward a horizon of burnt orange.
But the rift wasn't empty.
A creature was crawling through. It was a mass of pale, translucent flesh, several limbs ending in delicate, manicured hands that clawed at the edges of the Grove’s grass. It had no face, only a wide, vertical maw lined with rows of ivory teeth. It was a Dymasian Scavenger, a creature born from the excess of Belphegor’s realm.
"It's eating the Grove," Rory said, her stomach churning .
The scavenger’s many hands were grabbing the bioluminescent flowers, stuffing them into its central maw with a frantic, wet slurping sound. As it consumed the Fae-touched plants, the creature grew, its skin stretching until it threatened to translucent-thinness.
"The balance is tipping," Isolde said, standing perfectly still as the creature’s blind head turned toward them. "If it consumes the anchor-root of this clearing, the Veil here will collapse entirely. Richmond Park will become an annex of Hel by morning."
"Not on my watch," Rory said. She stepped forward, her boots sinking into the silken grass.
The scavenger lunged. It was surprisingly fast for something so bloated. It moved with a twitching, spider-like gait, its many hands thudding against the earth. Rory dived to the left, the heat of the Heartstone now a searing brand against her skin.
"Nyx! Distract it!"
The Shade didn't need a second command. They vanished into a patch of shadow beneath a giant fern and reappeared directly above the beast. Nyx’s form lengthened, becoming a flurry of razor-sharp shadow-tendrils that lashed out at the creature’s pale hide. The scavenger roared—a sound like a thousand wet rags being torn —and swiped at the air, its fingers catching only smoke.
Rory saw her opening. She scrambled to her feet and charged , the silver dagger held in a reverse grip. The coldness of the blade was a relief against the sweltering heat radiating from the rift.
She drove the blade into the creature’s flank.
The moonsilver didn't just cut; it burned. Where the metal touched the Dymasian flesh, a bright, white light erupted, hissing as it met the demonic energy. The scavenger bucked, throwing Rory backward. She hit the ground hard, the breath leaving her lungs in a sharp puff.
"Rory! Get up!" Nyx’s voice was a frantic whisper in her ear.
The creature was no longer interested in the flowers. It turned its vertical maw toward her, its teeth chittering in a rhythmic , terrifying sequence. It reared up, revealing a belly distended with the stolen light of the Grove.
"It cannot be killed by steel alone," Isolde called out, her voice calm despite the carnage. "It is a creature of hunger. Give it something it cannot digest."
Rory’s hand flew to the Heartstone. The pendant was vibrating so hard it felt like it might shatter . She looked at the rift, then at the beast, then back at the crimson stone. The scavenger lunged, its central maw opening wide enough to swallow her head.
Rory didn't use the knife. She ripped the silver chain from her neck and thrust the Heartstone pendant directly into the creature’s open mouth.
"Eat this, you bloated freak!"
The scavenger’s teeth snapped shut on the gem.
For a heartbeat, there was silence . The creature froze, its many hands splayed out in the grass. Then, the crimson glow of the Heartstone began to shine through the creature’s translucent skin. It wasn't a soft glow anymore. It was a violent, pulsing red that raced through the scavenger’s veins like liquid fire.
The beast began to swell. Its flesh bubbled and hissed as the pure demonic energy of the Heartstone—an artifact of Gluttony itself—overloaded its system. It was too much excess, even for a denizen of Dymas.
"Get back!" Isolde commanded, finally moving. She raised a hand, and a shimmering barrier of pale light blossomed between them and the monster.
The scavenger didn't explode. It imploded.
The creature was sucked into its own maw , collapsing into a dense point of crimson light before vanishing with a sound like a vacuum seal being broken. The shockwave knocked Rory flat again, her hair whipped into her face by a sudden, violent wind.
When the dust settled, the clearing was silent. The rift had shrunk to a tiny, flickering spark in the air, no larger than a firefly. The cloying scent of rot was gone , replaced by the smell of ozone and wet stone.
Rory sat up, rubbing her sore ribs. The Heartstone pendant lay in the grass a few feet away, its glow faded to a dull, dormant hum. The silver chain was snapped .
"That was..." Rory started, but she stopped when she saw Isolde’s face.
The Seer wasn't looking at the rift. She was looking at the ground where the scavenger had first emerged. The grass there hadn't returned to its silken, emerald state. Instead, a circle of black, oily liquid was spreading outward, sizzling as it touched the roots of the ancient trees.
"The beast was a distraction," Isolde whispered, her lavender eyes wide with a rare, genuine fear.
"A distraction from what?" Nyx asked, their form shivering .
From the dying spark of the rift, a hand reached out. It wasn't the pale, frantic hand of a scavenger. It was a long, elegant hand with fingers tipped in gold-lacquered nails. It gripped the very edge of the air, and with a casual, sickening strength, began to peel the Veil back again.
"The Prince doesn't like his snacks being interrupted," Isolde said, her voice trembling .
A tall figure stepped through the gap, dressed in robes of shimmering amber silk that smelled of woodsmoke and expensive wine. He looked at the dead patch of grass, then at Rory, his eyes glowing with a predatory, golden light.
"My stone," the man said, his voice a smooth, terrifying baritone . "I believe you've been playing with my property."