AI The air thinned, losing its London grit, its exhaust fumes and damp concrete tang. Aurora pulled her thin jacket tighter, not from cold, but from a sudden, prickling awareness . Beside her, Nyx flowed, a silhouette against the muted afternoon light filtering through the dense Richmond Park canopy. Their violet eyes, faint as dying embers, scanned the trees. Isolde walked ahead, her silver hair a waterfall against the deep green, her bare feet making no sound on the leaf litter, leaving no impression. She paused where a colossal oak, ancient even by the park’s standards, seemed to lean into another, forming a natural archway. Two more, equally immense, stood sentinel on either side, their bark gnarled like the faces of old gods.
‘This is it?’ Aurora whispered. Her voice sounded too loud, too rough. Nyx offered no audible reply, only a subtle shift in their dense shadow, a tilt of their indistinct head. Isolde turned, her pale lavender eyes holding a depth that always made Aurora feel like a child. ‘The boundary is thin here,’ Isolde said, her voice like chimes stirred by a breeze. ‘The Veil thins. This place… it remembers before.’
Before what? Aurora didn’t ask. She felt it in her bones, a resonance that vibrated beneath her skin. Her crescent scar, usually just a faint white line on her left wrist, felt warm, a faint pulse beneath the skin. She glanced down, but saw nothing obvious. The Heartstone Pendant, hidden beneath her shirt, gave a gentle thrum against her sternum, the Fae Grove’s ancient magic a quiet echo against the artifact’s latent power.
Isolde stepped through the archway of leaning oaks. She simply… dissolved into the space beyond, like smoke drawn into a waiting lung. Aurora took a breath, the normal scent of damp earth and autumn leaves already fading. No, not fading. Changing. A sweetness bloomed, impossible to place, like honey mixed with rain and something metallic. She followed, Nyx a silent shadow at her heels.
The world snapped into focus, drastically altered. The light was no longer filtered sunlight. It was diffuse, pearlescent, emanating not from any discernible source, but from the very air itself . The trees remained, vast and ancient, but their leaves were not merely green or gold. Hues of sapphire, emerald, and amethyst swirled in their foliage, shimmering as if dusted with crushed jewels. Flowers, impossessibly vibrant and alien in shape, carpeted the ground – blossoms like unfurled silks, others like tiny, crystalline bells, all blooming with a fierce, year-round tenacity. The air hummed, not with insects, but with a low, resonant frequency that vibrated in Aurora’s teeth.
‘By… what is this place?’ Aurora breathed, her practical mind struggling to categorize, to classify, to make sense of the impossible beauty. It was overwhelming, a sensory deluge. She reached out, her fingers brushing against a petal that felt like cool, smooth glass, yet was undeniably alive. It retracted slightly, a shy blush of colour deepening across its surface.
Nyx moved. Not walking, but *unfolding *. Their shadow form detached from the ground , flowing around a cluster of glowing fungi that pulsed with a soft, azure light. They seemed to absorb the light, their own darkness deepening, shifting. When they spoke, their voice was a whisper that seemed to originate from everywhere and nowhere at once. ‘The hum… an overture. The Grove listens.’
Listens? To what? To them? Aurora felt a shiver trace a path down her spine . It wasn't fear, not exactly. It was the profound unease of standing on the threshold of something ancient, something profoundly *other *. The codex had described this place as a ‘pocket between Earth and the Fae realm,’ a place where ‘time moves differently.’ She felt that difference now, a subtly stretched elasticity in the moments. Each breath felt longer, each observation sharper, as if her mind had been granted a preternatural clarity.
‘Isolde?’ Aurora called, her voice softer this time, trying to match the Grove's hushed grandeur.
The Half-Fae stood near a pool of water that mirrored the jewel-toned canopy above, but the reflection showed stars, not leaves. ‘Seek what you must,’ Isolde replied, her voice a melody without discernible notes. ‘The threads are many, the knots complex . But the pattern… the pattern is woven here.’ She gestured vaguely with a hand that seemed almost translucent. ‘The ancient oaks guard the ways. They remember the songs before words.’
Aurora walked around the pool, her boots sinking slightly into moss that felt like velvet . The standing stones were not just on the boundary; they were scattered throughout the Grove, massive monoliths etched with symbols she couldn’t decipher, symbols that seemed to shift and writhe just at the edge of her vision . They pulsed with a faint, internal light, a deep violet that mirrored Nyx’s eyes. She felt a faint tug, a disorientation like a tugboat’s sudden lurch as she neared one. Time, Isolde had said. The air warped around the stone, shimmering like heat haze, but cold. Aurora pulled back quickly , a sudden wave of nausea washing over her.
‘Careful where you tread,’ Nyx’s whisper seemed to sigh beside her. ‘The currents here are strong. They carry the echoes of centuries. A moment could last an age, or an age could be a blink.’
Aurora nodded, pressing a hand to her stomach . She understood now. It wasn’t just a saying. The Grove itself was a temporal eddy, a place where linearity broke down. She looked at her watch , a practical, digital display on her wrist. It was still ticking , but the numbers felt… arbitrary, like specks of unrelated data in a universe of organic flow.
They moved along a path that was more suggestion than trail, winding between trees that twisted into impossible shapes, their branches laden with fruit that glowed with luminescence. Aurora reached out instinctively, drawn by the alien beauty, but Isolde’s voice, soft but firm, stopped her. ‘Not all that shines is sustenance, child of Earth. Some allurements are traps.’
‘What kind of traps?’ Aurora asked, already pulling her hand back. Every instinct screamed caution, but the sheer, intoxicating wonder of the place made her want to understand, to *know *.
‘Mirrors,’ Isolde said, her pale lavender eyes catching the ambient light, ‘that show what you thirst for, but offer nothing to quench it. Illusions woven from desire .’
Aurora nodded slowly . She’d lived with illusions enough in her life. The memory of Evan, sharp and unwelcome, flickered . Her old life in Cardiff, the suffocating weight of her father’s expectations, the cramped London flat above Silas’s bar… all of it seemed impossibly distant, as if it belonged to another Aurora, in another time. Here, there was only the present, impossibly deep and vibrant.
She noticed Nyx was examining one of the standing stones more closely. They extended a shadowy appendage, not touching, but hovering mere inches from the rough surface . The stone’s faint violet luminescence seemed to brighten, pulsing in rhythm. ‘Ancient script,’ Nyx murmured. ‘Not of mortals. Not of Fae as you know them. A language older than the pacts, older than worlds.’
‘Can you read it?’ Aurora asked, stepping closer, drawn by Nyx’s fascination.
‘Components,’ Nyx replied. ‘Glimpses. It speaks of roots, of anchors, of what holds the fabric tethered. It speaks of watchers.’
Watchers? The unease prickled again. This place felt alive, but alive in a way that suggested intelligence, not just natural processes. The air, the light, the very *ground * seemed to possess an awareness.
‘This Grove,’ Isolde said, as if picking threads from Aurora’s thoughts, ‘is a knot. A place where worlds brush close. The Veil here is thin as a spider’s silk . What exists on the other side… sometimes it finds purchase.’
‘What exists on the other side?’ Aurora repeated, her mind immediately jumping to Hel, to the demons and princes she’d heard whispers of, the realm where her Heartstone Pendant pulsed with latent warmth when near a portal.
Isolde smiled, a slow, knowing curve of her lips. ‘That, Aurora Carter, is a question the Grove prefers to answer itself. Listen to its whispers. Feel its beat. It will tell you.’
Aurora closed her eyes, trying to filter out the dazzling visual input , to focus on sound and sensation. She could hear the hum, deeper now, resonating within her chest. She felt the cool, strange air on her skin, the soft moss beneath her feet. She felt the pulsing warmth in her wrist, the thrum of the pendant against her chest. And then, beneath it all, like the slow, inexorable beat of a colossal heart, she felt the Grove breathing. It was ancient. It was wondrous. And it was vast beyond mortal comprehension. She knew, with a certainty that settled deep in her gut, that she had stepped into a story far larger than she could possibly imagine.
She opened her eyes again, taking in the alien landscape. The sky above was not blue, nor grey, nor amber like Dymas’s imagined skies. It was a swirling canvas of opalescent mist, shot through with veins of pure, liquid twilight. Stars, or things that mimicked stars, winked into existence and winked out again, unhurried and indifferent. The trees, some impossibly tall like spires of living gemstone, others low and gnarled like ancient roots clawing at the earth, bore fruits that pulsed with internal light – deep blues like captured starlight, radiant golds that smelled faintly of cinnamon and ozone, and crimson gems that seemed to hold the warmth of a dying sun .
The ground shifted underfoot. It wasn't just moss. Here, small, crystalline structures grew like luminous moss, crunching faintly under Aurora’s weight , releasing tiny puffs of iridescent dust that shimmered for a moment before vanishing. There, fleshy, bioluminescent fungi clung to rocks, casting pools of eerie light that shifted through cycles of violet, cyan, and emerald. The air itself seemed thick with unseen particles, with motes of pure magic; it clung to her skin, prickled her senses, and tasted faintly sweet on her tongue .
Nyx remained beside a particularly large standing stone, their form a stark contrast to the vibrant, shifting colours of the Grove. They seemed to absorb the light, a void in the midst of brilliance. Aurora felt a growing sense of being watched, not by specific eyes, but by the Grove itself . The ancient oaks, the luminous flora, the very mist that served as a sky – they all seemed to possess a latent sentience, an awareness of her presence. It was not malevolent, not yet, but it was undeniably alien . She felt like an ant crawling across a vast , living tapestry , her every movement catalogued by forces beyond her comprehension.
‘The whispers,’ Nyx’s voice, a faint sigh in Aurora’s ear, broke through her mounting unease. ‘They grow louder. They speak of… ingress.’
‘Ingress?’ Aurora frowned, her mind trying to grasp the concept.
‘Of passage. Of invitation. Or perhaps… of intrusion.’ Nyx turned their indistinct head, their violet glow fixing on Aurora. ‘You carry more than just the mortal coil, Rory. The Fae blade, the stone. They resonate. This place… it calls to the echoes within you.’
Aurora’s hand subconsciously went to her wrist, tracing the faint crescent scar. It pulsed again, a little stronger this time, a faint warmth blooming. The Heartstone Pendant gave a more distinct thrum against her chest, a tiny vibration that seemed to echo the deep hum of the Grove . Isolde, who had drifted away to examine a flower that unfurled petals like iridescent butterfly wings, turned back.
‘The Grove recognizes its own,’ Isolde said, her voice clear, cutting through the ambient whispers. ‘It recognizes the ties that bind. But it also tests.’ She stepped closer, meeting Aurora’s gaze. ‘You are not merely lost, Elena . You are found by this place. Whether that is a blessing or a curse… that is for you to discover.’
Elena ? Aurora blinked. Isolde had never used that name before. It was not one of her aliases from the codex. It was something else entirely. A flicker of unease , cold and sharp, pierced through the wonder. The Fae compulsion, Isolde could mislead. Was this a test? Was this a trap the Seer had warned her about?
‘Who is Elena ?’ Aurora asked, her voice tight.
Isolde’s lips curved into that enigmatic smile again. ‘A question for another whisper ,’ she said. Her pale lavender eyes held Aurora’s, a silent challenge and a veiled promise. ‘For now, feel only this. Feel the age. Feel the wildness. Feel the magic singing in your blood, and the world outside… the world of concrete and worry… simply melts away.’
Aurora forced herself to breathe, to let go of the sharp edge of suspicion. Isolde’s words, cryptic as they were, held a kernel of truth. The weight of her ordinary life, the delivery routes, the cramped flat, the constant low-level anxiety of survival in London – it all seemed to recede, dwarfed by the sheer, breathtaking, terrifying reality of the Fae Grove. She was here. In a place that shimmered with impossible colours, hummed with alien energy, and whispered secrets older than time. Part of her yearned to flee, to scramble back through the archway of ancient oaks and rejoin the mundane world. But a larger, more insistent part, the part that had always felt a little out of step, a little too curious, a little too observant, felt a profound , exhilarating sense of belonging. This was where the stories began. This was where the true adventure lay. The Fae-Forged Blade at her hip, cool and heavy against her thigh, felt like a promise, a shield, a key . She gripped the hilt, its moonsilver cold against her fingers. The Grove waited. And Aurora Carter, for the first time, felt truly ready to explore.