AI The stone passage compressed around them as Aurora squeezed through the final gap, the rough walls pressing against her shoulders. She emerged not into a forest, but into a memory of one. The air tasted of honey and damp moss, but carried a metallic tang underneath, like ozone after a lightning strike.
"Keep close," Isolde whispered, her silver hair catching light that had no visible source. She didn't walk so much as glide across the moss, leaving no trace.
Aurora’s boots sank into ground that felt like springy velvet rather than solid earth. The Heartstone Pendant warmed against her sternum, a faint, living pulse against her skin. She unclenched her fist from around the Fae blade's handle—the moonsilver was perpetually cold, a soothing counterpoint to the pendant's heat.
Nyx flowed beside her, their shadow-form condensing and dissipating with each step, as if the very air here resisted holding a shape. "The silence here," their voice was the whisper of wind through a cracked window, "has teeth."
He was right. The usual London hum—the distant wail of sirens, the thrum of traffic, the city’s endless mechanical breath—was utterly gone. In its place was a profound , expectant quiet. Aurora heard her own heartbeat, the rustle of her nylon jacket, the soft scuff of her trainers on the strange moss.
Ahead, Isolde paused where the path widened into a clearing. She didn't turn. "Breathe through your mouth. The pollen of these flowers has a tendency to… rearrange the thoughts of the unprepared."
Aurora followed her gaze. The wildflowers were a riot of impossible colour, blooming in defiant profusion. Petals of deep violet bled into stripes of electric blue, stems twisted in helical patterns, and some blooms seemed to pulse with a slow, bioluminescent glow. They weren't merely colourful; they were vivid in a way that hurt the eyes, a saturation that felt unnatural.
She took a tentative breath through her mouth, tasting only the sweetness. The unease settled deeper in her gut. They were walking through a postcard from a fever dream.
"The standing stones," Nyx murmured, their form coalescing slightly to point a finger of solid shadow.
To their left, half-swallowed by climbing vines thick as a man’s wrist, stood one of the ancient oaks. It wasn’t merely old; it was a cathedral of wood. Its bark was a mosaic of silver and grey, peeling in long strips that curled like parchment. Carved into its surface were not runes Aurora recognised, but spiralling patterns that seemed to move in her peripheral vision, sinking back into stillness when she looked directly . The tree leaned, not with the weary droop of age, but with the intent of a guardian watching a gate .
"The boundary," Isolde confirmed, finally turning. Her pale lavender eyes scanned the clearing, lingering on every shifting shadow and trembling leaf. "This tree is one of seven. Walk between them, and you remain on Earth. Touch one, and you begin to fall through the cracks."
"What's through the cracks?" Aurora asked, her voice sounding too loud .
Isolde's expression was unreadable . "More questions. Some of them even have answers."
They moved deeper into the grove. The light, sourceless and amber, seemed to thicken as they walked. Time itself felt different here, like wading through syrup. Aurora glanced at her watch —a cheap digital thing—and the seconds ticked by with stubborn normality, but her internal clock screamed that they’d been walking for an hour. Outside this place, minutes might have passed. Or days. The dissonance was nauseating .
A sound reached her, a soft, rhythmic *shush *. Water. She pushed through a curtain of broad, silvery leaves that felt like cool silk against her face, and stopped.
A stream cut through the grove. It wasn’t water. It was liquid starlight, flowing with a faint, internal radiance, eddying around smooth, dark stones. The air above it shimmered with motes of golden dust that danced in lazy spirals before dissolving.
"Hel-bound souls from Dymas would weep for this," Nyx stated, their voice tinged with something akin to fascination . "In the realms of Gluttony, they hunt for ingredients of such purity. A single drop would command a fortune in Belphegor's courts."
Aurora knelt, careful not to touch the luminescent flow. The reflection staring back was not quite her own . Her blue eyes seemed too bright, her black hair held strands of midnight blue, and the small crescent scar on her left wrist glowed with a faint, pearlescent light. She recoiled, her hand going to the Heartstone. Its warmth pulsed in agreement.
"A mirror of potential ," Isolde said, appearing silently beside her. "The Fae realms show you what you might become. Or what you might lose."
"Charming." Aurora stood, brushing imaginary dust from her knees. "So, we're looking for a rift point. A tear in the Veil. How do we find it? Follow the stream?"
"Rift points are not lost things to be found," Isolde chided, though without malice. "They are wounds to be recognised. They bleed light, or shadow, or sound. They make the air hum wrong." She tilted her head, a bird-like gesture. "This grove is a patch over a thousand old wounds. The one we seek is fresh."
They followed the stream's course. The grove grew denser, the trees closer together, their canopy forming a living roof that blocked any hypothetical sky. The silence deepened, now punctuated by the stream's soft glow and the occasional, melodic *ping * of a droplet striking a stone, each sound hanging in the air like a bell note.
It was Aurora who felt it first. A vibration, not in the ground, but in her bones . The Heartstone’s pulse quickened , matching a dissonant hum that seemed to resonate from the very air . The Fae blade in her hand grew colder, its faint luminescence brightening.
"There," she breathed, pointing.
Ahead, between two twisted roots that arched like the legs of some colossal beast, the air was wrong. It rippled, not with heat, but with a slow, sickly distortion . Colours bled at the edges of her vision. The melodic *pings * of the stream warped, stretched into low, guttural moans. A smell seeped through—the acrid scent of burnt sugar and coppery, old blood.
"A weeping," Nyx said, their form now a tight, condensed knot of shadow. "And it stinks of Hel."
Isolde’s face was a mask of grim focus. "Prince Belphegor’s fingerprints. A crude tear. Opened from the other side, then patched clumsily from this one."
Aurora took a step forward, the pendant now burning hot against her chest. "How do we close it?"
"We don't," Isolde said, her voice sharp . "We look through it. The information is behind the wound."
"A dangerous game, Seer," Nyx warned.
"All worthwhile games are." Isolde began to move towards the distortion, her form becoming less solid, as if she were preparing to step sideways out of reality itself. "Aurora, with me. Nyx, guard the seam. If anything tries to come through, you delay it."
"Delightful," Nyx hissed, their shadow-form spreading thin, merging with the darkness beneath the roots, becoming one with the grove's shadows.
Aurora drew the Fae blade. The moonsilver glowed with a soft, determined light, pushing back the sickly amber of the grove. She fell in behind Isolde, the Seer’s lack of footprints a constant, eerie reminder of the strangeness of their guide.
The distortion grew. The humming became a physical pressure against her temples. The air grew thick, soupy. She could see shapes moving within the rippling—a suggestion of vast, banquet-hall ceilings, the glint of silver platters, a hint of amber sky beyond stained glass. The world of Dymas, of endless feasts and damnation by excess, pressed against the thin barrier.
Isolde stopped, her hand outstretched, fingers hovering inches from the tear. The light from the Fae blade fell upon her face, etching deep shadows into her ageless features. She turned her head just slightly , her voice barely a whisper , yet clear as a chime over the dissonance.
"Prepare yourself, Rory. What we see may not wish to be seen."
Aurora braced her feet on the velvet moss, the cold blade in her hand and the hot stone on her chest her only anchors. She nodded, her throat tight.
Isolde’s fingers dipped into the distortion.
The world screamed.