AI The air inside the treeline tasted different. Thicker, somehow. Aurora Carter breathed it in, a subtle, metallic tang that had nothing to do with the damp London earth or the fading scent of exhaust fumes from the distant A3. This was the Fae Grove, or what passed for it. She’d found the entrance tucked between overgrown rhododendrons in Richmond Park, marked by three ancient oak standing stones, their bark gnarled like the knuckles of a forgotten giant. Even in the fading twilight, they felt imposingly still, like teeth set in a silent roar.
She’d told herself this was research. A discreet visit, a chance to understand the artifact Silas had found tucked away in the back of his pub. The Heartstone Pendant, nestled against her sternum beneath her worn t-shirt, gave a faint, almost imperceptible pulse of warmth against her skin. It had been given to her by an ‘unknown benefactor’ – a phrase that still tasted like ash in her mouth. But the pendant, meant to betray the proximity of Hel portals, had done nothing but glow with a faint, internal crimson light for weeks. Until tonight. A sudden, urgent warmth, then a quiescent hum that had sent Rory pulling on her sturdiest boots. It had felt like a summons, or a warning.
She stepped past the outer stones, and the world stitched itself shut behind her. The city’s murmur, the drone of traffic, the distant cry of a siren – all vanished. It was a silencing so absolute it felt like a physical pressure against her eardrums. The twilight deepened instantly, plunging the clearing into a gloom that felt premature, as if the sun had been yanked from the sky mid-descent. Wildflowers, the codex had said. Year-round. And they were there, a riot of impossible color even in this light: deep violets, emerald greens, startling scarlets, all clustered under the limbs of impossibly ancient trees. But tonight, their vibrancy seemed less like life and more like fever. Their petals looked too smooth, too waxy, almost as if they were catching and holding the scant light rather than reflecting it.
Rory pulled her jacket tighter. The air had turned cold. Not a breath of wind, just a pervasive, bone-deep chill that had no business existing on a mild autumn evening. She hugged her arms to herself, her fingers brushing the scar on her left wrist, the faint crescent shape a familiar anchor. Her childhood accident, her father’s worry, her mother’s fussing – simple hurts, unlike the deeper wounds she’d learned to carry. This place, though… this felt like a wound opening in the world itself.
She listened. The silence remained, broken only by the rustle of her own movements. A twig snapped underfoot – too loud – and she froze. Nothing. Just her own shadow, lengthening unnaturally, stretching towards the centre of the clearing where the trees grew denser, their branches weaving a canopy so thick it was black.
Her eyes scanned the periphery. There. A flicker of movement, just beyond the impossible flowers. She squinted, her heart giving a nervous little leap. A rabbit? A fox? Richmond Park was still a park, after all. But the movement hadn't been the scurrying dash of a small mammal. It was slower, more deliberate, a fluid shifting of shadow amongst shadows. It was gone before she could focus, leaving only the unsettling certainty that something had been there, watching her, just at the edge of seeing.
She took a slow breath. "Hello?" Her voice sounded small, a thin thread in the vast, suffocating quiet. It frayed and dissolved, swallowed by the dense, watchful air. No echo . No response. Her training, or what passed for it, urged her to be methodical . What was she looking for? The codex mentioned Hel portals. Was Silas hoping the pendant would lead her to one? Why? The question hung, unanswered, in the oppressive stillness.
She moved deeper into the Grove. The standing stones were now far behind her, barely visible through the gloom . The trees here were older, impossibly so, their trunks thicker than any she’d seen, their branches draped with trailing moss that looked like spectral beards . The wildflowers continued their unsettling display, their colours somehow more intense the further she went, their forms oddly distinct against the encroaching dark. She could have sworn one of the taller, bell-shaped blooms turned its cluster of petals towards her as she passed. She blinked, shaking her head. Suggestion. Imagination. The dark playing tricks.
But the feeling of being watched intensified. It was a prickling awareness on the back of her neck, a profound sense of intrusion. She wasn't alone. Not just by herself in the woods, but truly , fundamentally, *not alone *. And whatever else was here, it wasn't welcoming .
The Heartstone Pendant pulsed again, a slow, deliberate warmth this time, like a heartbeat against her ribs. It was distinct, undeniable. It felt like an answer to her unspoken question. Something *was * here. And it was connected to the Fae realm, to wherever the pendant’s ‘Hel portals’ led.
Then came the sound. Or rather, the lack of it, followed by something that was even worse. The absolute silence persisted, but within it, a faint, high-pitched keening began to thread its way into her hearing. It wasn't wind. It wasn't an animal. It sounded like a lament, stretched impossibly thin, born from the very earth beneath her feet. It rose and fell, a mournful, alien song that seemed to seep into her bones .
Rory stopped, listening intently. Her breath hitched. The keening wasn't coming from any direction. It was *everywhere *. It was the sound of the Grove itself sighing in sorrow, or perhaps in warning. She touched the pendant again. It was warm, almost hot now, pulsing with a regularity that felt like a steady, insistent shove . *Portal. Near.*
Her gaze snapped around. What did it mean? A portal *to * here? Or a portal *from * here? And where was it? The dense wall of trees offered no clue. The shadows between them seemed deeper, more liquid, concealing whatever might lurk within. Was that what the earlier movement had been? Something slipping between those shadows?
She heard it again, clearer this time. A soft, dragging sound, like something heavy being pulled across damp earth. It was close. Too close. It was behind her.
Her blood ran cold . She didn’t want to turn. Every instinct screamed at her to keep her eyes fixed on the impenetrable darkness ahead, to walk, not run, away from the sound. But the sound was moving with her, a slow, implacable pursuit. She wanted to call out for Silas, even though she knew he was miles away, couldn’t hear her. She wanted to call Eva, her friend who had pulled her to London, to safety, to a life that felt increasingly distant and unreal compared to this. But she was alone. Utterly, terrifyingly alone.
Her boot scuffed against something smooth. She looked down. It was a stone, but not like any she’d seen in the park. This one was polished, river-smooth, and etched with swirling, meaningless patterns. It hadn't been there a moment ago. She was sure of it. The Grove was shifting. Rearranging itself.
The keening intensified, a thin, reedy shriek now, laced with something that sounded like cruel laughter . The wildflowers, illuminated by the pendant's faint inner glow, seemed to writhe. Their colours bled into each other, forming patterns that spoke of things best left unseen.
She whirled around.
Nothing.
But the air where she’d heard the dragging sound was now impossibly cold. Colder than the rest of the Grove, a pocket of absolute frigidity that made her teeth ache and her breath plume white. And the shadows here were darker, more absolute, congealing into shapes that held no terrestrial logic. They weren't just the absence of light; they felt like a positive presence, a void bent on consuming everything.
Then, a whisper . Not a human whisper, but something dry and rustling, like dead leaves skittering across stone. It was right beside her ear.
*“Lost?”*
Rory gasped, stumbling back. She struck a tree, the rough bark a welcome, solid reality against her palm. Her hand flew to her mouth, stifling a cry. The whisper hadn't been spoken words, exactly. It was more like a thought that had been forced into her head, laced with the same alien sorrow and cruel amusement as the keening.
She scrambled backward, her movements clumsy, panic clawing at her carefully constructed composure. She needed to get out. Now. She turned, desperate to find the path back to the standing stones, to the entrance, to anywhere but here.
But the trees were different. The clearing had subtly altered. The density of the woods seemed to have closed in. The standing stones were nowhere to be seen. The path she thought she'd followed had vanished, replaced by a dense, thorny undergrowth she hadn't noticed before. The wildflowers, in their impossible luminescence, seemed to mock her.
The pendant pulsed violently, a frantic thrumming against her skin. *Hotter. Near. Hel.*
She was trapped. The Fae Grove wasn't just a place where time moved differently or where the veil between worlds was thin. It was a place that exerted its own will. It was actively keeping her. And whatever had been watching, whatever had been whispering, whatever had been dragging itself through the dirt, was no longer content to stay in the shadows.
A form began to coalesce in the darkness ahead, at the edge of the clearing. It wasn’t solid, not entirely. It was a shifting darkness, taller than any man, impossibly jointed, like ink spilled into water and given a horrifying, deliberate shape. It moved with a languid grace that was utterly alien, its 'limbs' extending and retracting at unnatural angles. There were no discernible features, yet she felt it looking at her, its gaze a palpable weight that pressed down on her very soul.
The high-pitched keening intensified, now clearly a sound of perverse delight. The wildflowers pulsed with light, their colours swirling into predatory patterns. The air was a suffocating miasma of cold and the sickly-sweet perfume of corrupted bloom. The whisper returned, closer now, a dry rasp against her awareness.
*“Stay. We have so much time.”*
Rory stood frozen, her bright blue eyes wide with a terror she had never known. Her breath came in ragged gasps, her hand instinctively going to the Heartstone Pendant, its fiery warmth the only thing grounding her against the encroaching, endless dark. The grove had claimed her.