AI "Don't look behind you."
The command echoed in Aurora's mind, though no one had spoken it. She kept her eyes fixed on the rusted iron gate of the Fae Grove, her fingers white-knuckled around the strap of her delivery bag. The metal felt unnaturally cold, a biting chill that seeped through her gloves and settled in her marrow.
Richmond Park usually felt expansive, a sprawling lung of green amidst the suffocating grey of London. Tonight, it felt predatory. The shadows between the ancient oaks didn't just lack light; they seemed to possess weight , pressing against the edges of the path like rising black water.
She checked the Heartstone pendant resting against her collarbone. The deep crimson gem remained dark, a dead weight of silver and stone. Usually, the warmth of it served as a compass, a gentle hum that guided her through the city's more peculiar corners. Now, it was silent.
"Just a quick walk, Rory. Clear your head. Get away from the smell of grease and old fryer oil."
The thought was a lie. She hadn't come here for clarity. She had come because the silence in her flat above Silas's bar had become too loud, a ringing emptiness that made her feel like she was disappearing .
The ancient oak standing stones marked the boundary. They loomed out of the gloom , jagged teeth biting into the low sky. As she stepped past the first monolith, the air changed. It didn't get colder, exactly, but it grew thicker, tasting of crushed wildflowers and something metallic, like a copper coin held under the tongue.
A twig snapped.
Aurora froze. The sound didn't carry the hollow crack of dry wood under a boot. It sounded wet. A heavy, rhythmic crunch, as if something soft and substantial was being pressed into the loam.
She turned her head just enough to see the treeline. Nothing moved. The wildflowers, which should have been still in the stagnant air, swayed in a coordinated wave, despite the lack of a breeze.
"Hello?"
Her voice felt thin. It lacked the steel she usually employed when dealing with unruly customers at the Golden Empress. Out here, in the pocket between worlds, her logic felt like a flimsy shield .
She forced herself to move, her boots scuffing against the earth. She needed to reach the clearing. The legends said the grove held a stillness that could mend a fractured mind. They hadn't mentioned the feeling of being watched by a thousand unblinking eyes.
A movement flickered in her peripheral vision. A shape, taller than a man and far too thin, darted behind a thicket of ferns.
She stopped. The silence rushed back in, suffocating and absolute. Even the distant hum of London traffic had vanished, severed by the boundary stones.
"Is someone there?"
No answer. Only the rhythmic, heavy breathing that she realised, with a jolt of nausea, was not her own.
She pressed a hand to her chest, her thumb brushing the Heartstone. The pendant remained cold. The lack of warmth was a warning. The portal wasn't near, or worse, the thing following her wasn't something the stone recognised as a threat.
She quickened her pace. The path narrowed, winding between trees that looked less like plants and more like petrified limbs reaching for the moon. The bark felt oily under her touch as she brushed past.
*Thump.*
Something heavy hit the ground somewhere to her left. Not a fall, but a deliberate placement . A weight settling.
Aurora spun around, her breath hitching in her throat. A small, pale object sat in the middle of the path. It looked like a bone, but too smooth, too white. It was shaped like a human finger, severed cleanly at the knuckle.
She stared at it. The moonlight, or whatever passed for it in the grove, cast a sickly sheen over the bone. It hadn't been there seconds ago.
"Get out. Just get out."
She didn't head for the exit. Panic is a poor navigator, and the thought of turning her back on whatever had dropped that finger made her stomach churn . Instead, she lunged toward the center of the grove, toward the densest cluster of wildflowers.
The smell hit her first. It wasn't the sweet scent of blossoms anymore. It was the cloying, heavy aroma of lilies at a funeral, mixed with the sharp, acidic tang of rot.
A low whistle drifted through the trees. It wasn't a bird. It was a human sound, melodic and mocking, rising and falling in a pattern that defied any known scale. It sounded like a lullaby sung by someone who had forgotten the words.
The whistling stopped abruptly.
"Who's there? I have... I have a heavy bag. I'll use it."
The lie tasted like ash. She was a delivery driver, not a fighter. Her only weapons were her wits and a quick temper, neither of which sufficed against a shadow in a haunted forest.
She reached the clearing. The wildflowers were everywhere, a riot of impossible colours—violets that glowed with a bruised light, blues that seemed to swallow the darkness . They danced around her ankles, their petals brushing her skin with the sensation of tiny, frantic hands.
Then, the Heartstone pulsed .
It wasn't a warm glow. It was a violent, rhythmic throb of crimson light that threw jagged shadows against the trees. The heat was sudden and blistering, searing her skin through her shirt.
The whistling started again. This time, it came from directly above her.
Aurora looked up.
The canopy of the trees had woven itself together, forming a ceiling of interlocking branches. Hanging from the limbs were dozens of small, translucent sacs. They pulsed in time with the Heartstone, a sickly, rhythmic expansion and contraction.
One of the sacs tore.
A dark, viscous liquid dripped from the rupture, landing on the back of Aurora's hand. It wasn't water. It was thick, smelling of old copper and salt.
She wiped it off, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs. As she pulled her hand away, she saw the movement in the trees again. Not one shadow, but many . They were descending , uncoiling from the branches like spilled ink.
They didn't have faces. They only had suggestions of features—slits where eyes might be, hollows where a mouth should reside. They moved with a terrifying, fluid grace, sliding down the trunks of the oaks without making a sound.
"Stay back!"
She reached for her phone in her pocket, her fingers trembling so violently she nearly dropped it. The screen flickered to life, but the signal bar showed nothing. Not even an SOS. The digital world had died the moment she crossed the stones.
The shadows reached the edge of the clearing. They drifted over the wildflowers, and where they touched the blossoms, the colours bled away, leaving only grey, withered husks.
The whistling grew louder, transforming into a wet, gurgling chant.
Aurora backed away, her eyes darting between the encroaching darkness and the path she had come from. The stones. She had to reach the stones.
A shape stepped out from behind a massive oak. It was tall, draped in what looked like tattered grey silk , but the fabric moved as if it were part of the creature's skin. It held no weapon, yet the sheer presence of it felt like a blade pressed against her throat.
It didn't speak. It simply tilted its head, a slow, inquisitive movement that mimicked a predator studying a trapped insect.
"What do you want?"
The creature raised a hand. The fingers were too long, possessing too many joints, ending in points that scraped against the bark of the tree. It pointed toward the Heartstone.
The pendant began to glow with a blinding, frantic intensity . The crimson light wasn't a guide anymore; it was a beacon .
The shadows in the clearing lunged.
They didn't run; they flowed, a tide of darkness sweeping across the wildflowers. Aurora turned and bolted, her lungs burning, her vision blurring as she sprinted toward the boundary.
Behind her, the whistling turned into a scream. It wasn't a human scream, but a cacophony of a thousand voices all shrieking in unison, a sound that tore through the silence of the grove like a physical blow.
She saw the standing stones ahead, the grey monoliths standing like sentinels against the dark.
She was ten yards away. Five.
A hand, cold as glacial ice and smelling of the grave , clamped around her ankle.
Aurora hit the dirt hard, the breath driven from her lungs. She scrambled, clawing at the earth, her nails tearing against the roots.
The grip tightened, pulling her backward toward the center of the grove.
"No!"
She kicked wildly, her boot connecting with something that felt like wet leather . The grip loosened for a fraction of a second. She lunged forward, her fingers grasping at the edge of the stone boundary.
The Heartstone against her chest suddenly went ice cold.
The darkness surged, a wall of blackness that swallowed the light, the trees, and the stars.
A heavy, crushing weight slammed into her back, pinning her to the ground.
Then, the whistling started right in her ear.