AI The ancient oak standing stones were larger than Rory had imagined, their surfaces worn smooth by centuries of wind and rain, or perhaps by something else. Moss grew in thick, emerald-green patterns across their faces, and she could have sworn the carvings shifted when she wasn’t looking directly at them. The air here in Richmond Park smelled different—thicker, sweeter, like crushed clover and something metallic she couldn’t place.
Isolde stood before the largest stone, her silver hair a stark contrast to the dark bark. She didn’t touch it. She didn’t need to. A faint luminescence, like moonlight trapped in mist, shimmered across the stone’s surface.
“We go through now,” Isolde said, her voice a soft chord that seemed to hang in the air . “The path is open. It will not wait.”
Nyx’s form rippled beside Rory, the shadows that comprised their body thinning at the edges, becoming more transparent. “The barrier feels… itchy here,” they whispered, the sound like dry leaves skittering across pavement. “Like static before a storm, but made of velvet .”
Rory touched the Heartstone pendant at her throat. It was warm, its faint crimson pulse synchronizing with her own heartbeat. She’d had it for months, a gift from a benefactor whose name she didn’t know, and its purpose remained a mystery. All she knew was that it pulsed near Hel portals, and right now, it was a steady, reassuring thump against her collarbone.
She looked at the gap between the stones. It wasn’t a physical doorway. It was a distortion, a place where the light bent wrong, and the gentle breeze coming from the park was replaced by a stillness so profound it made her ears pop.
“I’m not waiting,” Rory said, and stepped through .
The sensation was like walking through a waterfall of warm honey for a split second, then sudden, shocking cold. The noise of London—distant traffic, a plane overhead, the rustle of leaves in a normal park—vanished. It wasn’t silence . It was a new kind of sound, a layered hum that vibrated in her bones.
She stood in a field of wildflowers. But no garden on Earth had flowers like these. One cluster pulsed with a soft, blue bioluminescence. Another had petals that looked like spun glass, tinkling with a faint, crystalline sound in a breeze that didn’t touch Rory’s face. The air was cool, damp, and rich with the scent of wet earth and a sweet, almost intoxicating perfume she couldn’t identify.
Above, the sky wasn’t blue. It was a deep, twilight purple, yet there was no sun or moon to account for the ample, sourceless light that bathed everything in a silvery glow. Two moons, one the size of a dinner plate and pale green, the other a smaller, angry red, hung motionless in the wrong part of the sky.
Nyx glided through the distortion after her, their form immediately solidifying as they took in the view. Their violet eyes glowed brighter. “Oh,” was all they said, but the word carried a weight of awe Rory had never heard from them before .
Isolde followed last, her passage through the barrier making no sound. She walked as if she’d stepped from one room into another. Her bare feet, Rory noticed, left no impression in the soft earth.
“The Grove welcomes,” Isolde said, a smile touching her lips . “Time is a river here. We may drink from it, or we may be carried by its current.”
Rory tore her eyes from a flower that seemed to be slowly eating a butterfly, its petals closing around the insect with a gentle, deliberate motion . “What does that mean?”
“It means look at the sun, Rory. Or the moons. Look at that fern.” Isolde pointed to a large, fern-like plant nearby. Its fronds were uncurling, then retracting, in a slow, hypnotic dance . “An hour here could be a minute in your world. Or a day. The path ahead will determine it.”
They began to walk. The ground was spongy, springy underfoot, like walking on a living thing. Rory kept her hand on the hilt of the Fae blade Isolde had given her. The moonsilver was always cold to the touch, a stark contrast to the warm pulse of the pendant at her throat. She’d pulled it out once as they entered, and it had given off a faint, pearlescent luminescence in the eternal twilight, making Isolde nod in approval.
They moved deeper, the field giving way to a grove of trees with bark like polished obsidian. Their leaves were a deep burgundy, and they dripped a clear, viscous sap that formed perfect , jewel-like droplets on the grass below. The hum was stronger here, coming from the trees themselves.
“Do you hear that?” Rory whispered.
“They’re singing,” Nyx murmured, their head tilted . “A very old song. Older than the stones.”
Rory stopped. Between two of the black trees, something glittered. She approached cautiously , the Fae blade now in her hand. The cold of it grounded her. The glittering object was a fruit, hanging low on a branch. It looked like an apple, but its skin was a mosaic of shifting colors—silver, gold, deep violet—and it seemed to absorb the light rather than reflect it. When she reached out, her fingers hovering an inch from its surface, she felt a faint warmth , like the heat from a candle flame.
“Don’t,” Isolde warned, her voice calm but firm . “A taste would bind you here for a season.”
Rory pulled her hand back as if burned. The unease was a cold knot in her stomach , a counterpoint to the wonder. This place was beautiful, but every beauty had a teeth.
They continued, the path winding. They passed a stream where the water flowed upward in a gentle, spiraling column before dispersing into mist. Fireflies—or things that looked like them—drifted by, their lights not blinking but slowly rotating, casting tiny, kaleidoscopic patterns on the ground. Rory saw one land on Nyx’s shadowy shoulder. It didn’t sink in; it rested on the surface, its rotating light making Nyx’s form glitter for a moment before it moved on.
Nyx stopped, their form shrinking slightly . “The shadows here… they’re not empty.”
Rory followed their gaze. Under the burgundy trees, the shadows were deep, absolute pools of black. In one, she saw a brief, silent image flicker and vanish: a knight in armor, raising a sword. In another, a woman laughed, her face obscured.
“Memories,” Isolde explained, walking past them without a glance. “Or dreams. The Grove remembers all who have passed through. It shows them sometimes. Pay them no mind. They cannot harm you.”
An hour passed. Or maybe five minutes. Rory’s sense of time had completely dissolved. They came to a clearing dominated by a pool of water that was perfectly still, its surface like black glass. It reflected the purple sky, but the two moons were missing from its reflection. Instead, stars Rory had never seen in the London sky glittered there.
“The Heartseeker’s Pool,” Isolde said, standing at its edge. “It shows what is hidden.”
Rory looked down into the dark water. At first, she saw only her own reflection: her straight black hair, her bright blue eyes looking weary, the crescent scar on her wrist where the Fae blade’s cold touch seemed to linger. Then the image shifted. She saw the Heartstone pendant glowing, not at her throat, but buried deep in what looked like dark, wet soil . She saw a door made of rusted iron, and heard a low, guttural chanting that made the hair on her arms stand up.
She gasped, stepping back. “What was that?”
“A glimpse,” Isolde said. Her lavender eyes were unreadable . “The path of the Heartstone is tied to what lies beneath. That is its purpose. To find what is buried.”
“Buried where?” Rory’s voice was tight.
“In Hel,” Nyx supplied, their voice a dry whisper . They were staring at the pool, their own reflection not showing a face at all, just a deeper, more profound darkness. “In the realm of Gluttony, Dymas. Where the earth is rich with what has been consumed and discarded.”
The warmth of the pendant at Rory’s throat now felt like a brand . She touched it. “This came from there?”
“It calls you there,” Isolde corrected gently . “As it called me to give it to you. The path is not a choice. It is a current in the river.”
Before Rory could respond, a sound cut through the Grove’s hum—a clear, high note, like a crystal glass being struck . It came from deeper in the woods. From the direction they were heading .
Nyx’s form coiled, becoming dense and dark. “That was not a memory.”
Isolde’s head tilted, her silver hair falling over her shoulder. Her footprints, which had been absent since they entered, suddenly appeared for a single step before vanishing again. “No,” she said, the word soft and final. “That was the Grove itself. A warning. Or an invitation.”
The Heartstone pulsed , a rapid, insistent beat against Rory’s skin. The Fae blade in her hand felt colder than ever, its faint glow intensifying in the twilight.
“Which one?” Rory asked, her knuckles white on the hilt .
Isolde smiled, and for the first time, it didn’t reach her eyes. “That is the question, Rory. That is always the question.”
She turned and walked toward the sound, her feet leaving no trace on the strange, living earth. Nyx dissolved into the deep shadow of an obsidian tree, flowing alongside her unseen. Rory took one last look at the star-filled pool, at the impossible moons hanging in the purple sky, and followed them into the singing darkness of the ancient Grove. The cold blade, the warm stone, the humming air—it was a contradiction that felt like home, and like the deepest kind of danger, all at once.