AI Aurora Carter kept her pace steady as if London had ever taught anyone how to walk into a hole in the world.
Behind her, Nyx moved with the quiet confidence of a thing that belonged to darkness. Their outline came and went with the angle of the standing stones—oak trunks older than any family story, their bark carved with grooves that looked like roots when Aurora looked straight at them and like writing when she glanced sideways.
On her left wrist, the crescent scar caught at the cold, though the air hadn’t turned cold yet. It pulsed with a dull ache that matched the rhythm she felt in the small pendant under her jacket.
The Heartstone Pendant.
Aurora had started wearing it since the day someone had placed it into her palm without a name or an explanation. Tonight it felt warmer than it had any right to feel , like a coal wrapped in cloth. When she drew it closer to her throat, the deep crimson gemstone glowed through her fingers with a faint inner light that refused to brighten the way normal things did.
Ahead, Isolde Varga stood with her silver hair unbound and shining as if moonlight had chosen her as an anchor. She moved without sound. Her bare feet touched the packed earth in the Grove and left no mark, not even a scuff.
Time sat wrong around the group. Aurora had stepped into the boundary an hour ago—she remembered checking her phone, the screen still lit with the battered percentage that never lasted long in the delivery job’s night shifts. Now the phone lay in her bag, dead from some lost decision, while her stomach insisted it had been minutes.
Isolde didn’t bother with greetings. Her lips shaped riddles the moment Aurora’s group reached the inner circle of the standing stones.
“Two realms breathe through one throat,” Isolde said, voice clear as river stones. “Follow the one that answers.”
Aurora tightened her grip on the Fae-Forged Blade at her side. The slender leaf-shaped dagger rested in her palm whenever she needed it, its moonsilver always cold in a way that didn’t feel like temperature. It felt like absence—like it had pulled cold from a deeper place and carried it.
Nyx’s violet eyes watched the oak trunks as if the carvings hid a face.
“You look like you’ve seen worse,” Nyx whispered. The sound threaded through the leaves that hadn’t grown here, wildflowers that bloomed year-round as if the seasons forgot this spot existed.
Aurora angled her head.
“Have you?” she asked.
Nyx’s silhouette stretched toward the nearest stone, then thinned, slipping partly incorporeal. The air around them darkened by a shade.
“I was made of worse,” Nyx replied. “Not by choice.”
Isolde’s gaze flicked between them, lavender eyes catching on the Heartstone’s glow. She didn’t react, not in a way Aurora could name. Still, the seer’s attention weighed on Aurora’s shoulders.
“Don’t hold your questions too tight,” Isolde said. “They’ll rip.”
Aurora’s mouth went dry. She didn’t ask what that meant. She didn’t need to. She’d carried too many tight questions in her life, the kind that snapped when you tried to tug.
A gust passed through the standing stones. It didn’t sound like wind. It sounded like pages turning, fast and dry, as if a library had shaken itself awake.
Aurora felt it in her teeth.
“Keep close,” she said. The words came out flat, the way they always did when she tried to keep panic from steering. She didn’t sound brave. She sounded responsible.
Nyx drifted at her shoulder, their form shifting with the moving light. The faint glow in their eyes painted Aurora’s cheekbone when they leaned close enough to share her shadow.
The grove opened as they crossed the last line of carved roots. It wasn’t a path. The ground simply decided to become one, narrowing into a trail of pale grass that looked like it had been combed .
Then the world deepened.
The standing stones behind them shimmered like heat haze and then—without any warning—became ordinary again. The carvings no longer begged to be read. They stood as trees, oak and oak again. But Aurora could feel the boundary still humming at her back like a held note.
She stepped forward and the air tasted different. Not just sweeter or cleaner. It tasted like something that had never existed in Cardiff or London. Like crushed herbs mixed with salt and a faint metallic tang, the kind you got when lightning hit stone.
The wildflowers flanked the trail—thin stemmed blooms in colours Aurora couldn’t name. Some of them glimmered when she looked away, like they hid their brightness from direct view. When she leaned closer, the petals had patterns that resembled small maps.
She didn’t touch them. A part of her had survived enough accidents to know some wonders cut you if you grabbed.
The first sound came from above. Not birdsong. Chimes.
They rang once, twice, with a delay that made Aurora feel the sound lagging behind itself. The notes repeated at irregular intervals, as if something invisible kept tapping a language into the air.
Nyx looked up.
“That’s a door singing,” Nyx said, voice softening into something like reverence and dread stacked together . Their silhouette trembled with shadow.
Isolde didn’t slow. She led without looking back, as if she already knew exactly where Aurora’s gaze went.
The chimes answered Aurora’s footsteps with a faint vibration through the soles of her shoes. The trail bent left. The trees grew taller until their trunks braided together overhead, a canopy of branches so dense the sky looked like it had been painted on .
Aurora lifted her face. The sky wasn’t night. It wasn’t day. It held an in-between shade—grey touched with lilac—so subtle it made her eyes feel clumsy.
“Why does it feel like we’re late?” Aurora asked. She heard her own voice and felt it bounce wrong, not quite returning to her .
Isolde’s answer came like a riddle tossed into a bowl.
“Time swims when no one stares at it,” the seer said. “It hates being counted.”
Nyx’s head turned sharply . Their glowing violet eyes caught on something in the undergrowth. Aurora followed the line of their attention and saw a cluster of mushrooms the size of teacups, their caps dark and glossy. Thin silver threads ran between them like veins.
They shouldn’t have been there. Not in a park. Not in any season.
Aurora crouched. The Heartstone in her jacket pulsed once, a warm thump against her ribs.
She didn’t touch the mushrooms. She held the pendant up with one hand and angled it toward the cluster.
The crimson glow sharpened, projecting a dim red tint onto the ground. The silver threads brightened. They weren’t just threads. They were lines. Maps. A diagram of something underground.
Nyx leaned in until Aurora felt their cold not on her skin but in the space between her breaths .
“Hel doesn’t plant gardens,” Nyx whispered. “It spreads contracts.”
Isolde stopped at the end of the trail. She looked up at the standing roots that curved into the earth like ribs. Her silver hair drifted in a breeze that didn’t move anything else.
“This is the pocket,” Isolde said. “This is where the Veil listens.”
Aurora straightened, heart thudding. The words didn’t frighten her on their own. Her fear came from what she could feel in her bones: a pressure behind the eyes, a sense that the world around her held its breath and waited for someone to make the wrong choice.
The air shimmered . The distortion Aurora had expected wasn’t visible to her eyes. Not directly. But when she focused, it resolved into a faint seam in the world—an almost-invisible line where reality thickened and thinned.
The Heartstone Pendant pulsed again, warmer now, drawing her attention like a hook.
Aurora pulled her jacket open and held the pendant out.
The gem’s glow pushed outward. Light didn’t spread across the ground; it seeped into the seam. The shimmering line thickened, forming a shallow oval distortion like water held in place by invisible hands.
Nyx’s shadow lengthened across the pale grass and reached into the oval without being cut off by distance. Their form softened, edges blurring into darkness as if the seam invited them personally.
“You’re calling,” Nyx said, eyes shining brighter . “It answers.”
Isolde stepped nearer. She didn’t touch the seam. She didn’t need to. Her lavender eyes fixed on Aurora as if Aurora’s face held the key.
“The Heartstone carries a hunger,” Isolde said. “Not yours. Not mine.”
Aurora’s throat tightened. “Then whose?”
Isolde smiled with no teeth, a look that belonged to riddles. “Someone who paid with more than coin.”
The seam in the world shivered. The chimes overhead rose into a slow, mournful rhythm. Aurora felt the sound in her wrists, in the crescent scar that had always ached when trouble approached.
The ground under her shoes turned subtly warmer, shifting from the cool neutrality of the grove into something like summer dust in a kiln . Heat gathered in the oval distortion, not bright, just thick. The smell of roasted fruit drifted through it, rich and wrong for nighttime air.
Aurora stood still. She forced herself to watch rather than panic. She had learned from her own survival that panic made you sloppy.
A voice came next. Not spoken, not through air. It arrived in the mind with the taste of spices and the scrape of laughter too close to the ear.
Welcome.
Aurora swallowed hard. Her tongue felt too large.
Nyx recoiled, then leaned forward again as if curiosity wrestled fear.
“Dymas,” Nyx whispered. “Gluttony sings when the Veil weakens.”
Isolde’s gaze narrowed. “The Blade will cut wards,” she said, “but it won’t cut appetite.”
Aurora’s hands tightened around the handle of the Fae blade. She hated how her muscles wanted to run while her feet stayed planted. The pendant warmed again, as if impatient.
She stepped toward the seam.
The moment her breath crossed the distortion, her skin prickled. The air shifted density. Sounds changed pitch. Somewhere behind her, a wildflower’s petals clicked together like teeth.
She forced her next step.
Warm amber light spilled into the pocket before she could even see where it would come from. The oval distortion expanded. Aurora’s eyes watered from the brightness, but it wasn’t blinding ; it felt intimate, like someone had opened a cupboard full of food and let the scent crawl into her thoughts.
Nyx slid forward first, dissolving into shadow and then reforming on the other side with a soft thud. Their silhouette held for a moment like a cut-out before the details of solid form steadied again—shoulders, spine, posture.
Isolde followed, and Aurora saw for the first time how her lack of footprints worked on ground that wasn’t part of Earth. She stepped on Hel’s soil and didn’t leave a mark. No dust rose. No scuff tracked behind.
Aurora crossed last.
The air hit her like a wave of spice-laden heat. It wrapped around her lungs and made her stomach clench. Not from hunger. From the intensity of it. The place smelled like cooked sugar, charred citrus , and meat seared until the fat turned sweet.
The ground underfoot wasn’t earth. It held a faint give like packed clay, slick with something that might have been oil or nectar. When Aurora looked down, amber streaks shimmered in the surface.
Warm light filled a wide valley. Vines climbed trellises that spiralled like ornate ironwork. Rows of grape clusters hung heavy, their skins dark and glossy as if lacquered. Orchards stood in orderly abundance—trees bent with fruit so ripe their colours looked too saturated for any natural light.
Above, the sky glowed warm amber like the inside of a lantern.
Aurora’s mind searched for a sky map, a rule set, anything familiar enough to anchor her. It found nothing. Even the clouds behaved like sauce clouds in a pot—slowly thickening, curling, folding into shapes that hinted at faces.
“They feed you with your senses,” Nyx murmured. Their voice sounded strained here, like the air resisted it.
Aurora stared at the nearest trellis. The grapes weren’t just grapes. Each cluster contained faint internal shimmer, little crimson glints moving as if the fruit held embers.
Farther off, a sound rose—cheering or maybe applause—rolled across the valley like a tide. It came from many directions. Aurora couldn’t find a single crowd.
Isolde lifted her chin, silver hair catching the amber light and turning brighter at the edges.
“This is Dymas,” Isolde said, voice carrying over the valley without echo . “Gluttony made into a kingdom.”
Aurora pulled her jacket closed around the pendant. The Heartstone warmed until it felt like it was trying to melt through her ribs. It pulsed again and the glow intensified.
As it brightened, the air around her shifted—subtle distortion like the seam back in the grove, but smaller. It formed near the pendant, not an oval now, but a thin ripple in space that suggested a portal behind a wall of warmth .
Nyx’s eyes fixed on it. “It’s a tether,” they said.
Aurora took a cautious step forward. The scent thickened. Her mouth filled with saliva despite her no hunger. The smell drove it into her body like an insult.
She reached for her canteen and found it empty, though she remembered filling it before leaving her flat. That small fact landed like a slap: her memory didn’t protect her here.
Isolde didn’t touch anything. She walked toward the nearest orchard path, moving with the assurance of someone who knew where trouble hid.
Aurora followed because stopping felt worse than moving.
In the distance, chefs’ silhouettes moved between stone tables set with plates that reflected amber light. Some tables held entire roasted birds—wings spread like flags. Others held sliced fruit arranged into spirals, each piece trembling with syrupy sheen.
And still, no one shouted instructions. The only voices Aurora caught were laughter that didn’t belong to mouths. It came from the air itself, from the space between the trees, like every leaf had a throat.
Nyx drifted closer to Aurora’s side, shadow pooling at their feet.
“Those aren’t all souls contracting from Earth,” Nyx whispered. “Some are built here. Some learned the taste.”
Aurora’s grip on the Fae blade tightened. The dagger’s cold steadied her, a solid contrast to the heat pressing at her senses.
A low rumble shook the valley. The amber sky flickered , and for a heartbeat Aurora saw something behind the light—wider darkness, like a second sky stacked under the first.
Then it snapped back.
From a hill above the tables, a structure rose—grand and grotesque, carved like an enormous pastry case. Arches formed around it like ribs. Inside those arches, flames burned in slow curls, not hungry enough to devour, just hungry enough to entertain.
Aurora’s pendant pulsed once more. The thin ripple in space tightened around her, as if inviting her closer to a door that had already decided on her fate .
She forced herself to look away from it.
Isolde reached the base of the carved structure and stopped. The seer angled her head toward the arches.
“They’re watching,” Isolde said.
Aurora looked where Isolde looked. She saw figures. Not standing in the open like sentries. They sat in shadows cast by the arches themselves—people-shaped blurs with too-smooth edges, faces half-made of darkness. Some wore aprons that looked stitched from parchment. Some held knives that dripped something darker than sauce.
Their eyes glinted faintly, reflecting the amber light with violet and crimson.
Nyx stiffened. Their silhouette darkened at the edges, as if the realm tried to pull them apart.
One figure lifted a hand and pressed it against the air. The space around their palm wrinkled like steam.
A voice rolled out, thick as honey poured into a bowl.
“Heartstone.”
Aurora’s stomach turned. Her pendant warmed hard enough to hurt.
Isolde didn’t flinch. Her face stayed composed, lavender eyes sharp. “It belongs in riddles,” she said.
The shadow-figure tilted its head. “Riddles make mouths eager.”
Aurora drew the Fae-Forged Blade. The moonsilver leaf caught amber light and threw it back in pale, cold shimmer. The air around the blade tightened, like wards had started to recognise a tool that cut through them.
A few of the watchers shifted closer, drawn by the contrast. The taste in the air sharpened toward iron.
Nyx slid behind Aurora and let their shadow cling to her boots. It felt like a shield made of absence .
The watchers’ laughter rose again, and Aurora realised it carried words inside it—short phrases, cravings, names of foods that weren’t on any table in the valley.
A memory flickered in Aurora’s mind—flashes of her delivery shifts, the Golden Empress restaurant, the comfort she found in the smell of fresh dough and browned onions. The laughter tried to press that memory into something else, something edible and exploitable.
Aurora clenched her jaw until it hurt.
She spoke, voice steady enough to keep fear from spilling. “Where’s the portal point?”
The shadow-figure didn’t answer in words. It moved its hand again, and the air in front of it rippled.
This time, Aurora saw a narrow corridor of distortion opening between two arches. Warm amber light leaked through, but the corridor didn’t look like a tunnel. It looked like a throat—curving inward, lined with faint crimson patterns like veins.
Her Heartstone Pendant pulsed in a full heartbeat.
Nyx’s violet eyes widened . “That’s a Hel contract gate,” they said, whisper sliding under the valley’s laughter. “It wasn’t meant for you.”
Isolde stepped forward until her voice carried over the watching mouths. “Nothing meant for someone stays meant,” the seer said, then paused as if tasting the next line . “What comes through will cost.”
The corridor shivered. The laughter cut off for a single breath, like someone had closed a lid.
Aurora raised her pendant toward the distortion.
The seam in the air thickened, and warmth rushed over her skin. Not heat like a furnace—heat like a hand pressing to a bruise. The scar on her wrist tingled, the crescent mark lighting with remembered pain.
Nyx’s whisper came fast and close. “Don’t let it drink your thoughts.”
Aurora didn’t drop the pendant. She didn’t look away from the corridor. She watched the crimson vein-like patterns ripple, waited for the next motion that would tell her what kind of trap Dymas wanted her to step into.
Behind the corridor, somewhere deeper in the amber valley, a bell chimed. It sounded like the chimes in the Grove, but warped—less language, more command.
Isolde’s lavender eyes sharpened further, and for the first time Aurora saw something brittle in her expression.
“Now,” Isolde said, and the word carried the weight of a riddle finally snapping into meaning .