AI The air tasted of cloying sweetness, like rot masked by too much perfume, as the shimmering Veil snapped shut behind us. I stumbled, my boot finding purchase on turf that felt uncomfortably soft, like moss stretched over human skin.
"Don't breathe too deep, Rory," Nyx whispered, their voice a silk ribbon winding around my neck. They were a jagged silhouette against the amber sky, their violet eyes burning with a light that didn't belong to this sun. "The gluttony here sours the senses."
I took a shallow breath and adjusted the strap of my messenger bag. My fingers brushed the crescent scar on my wrist, a faint, phantom itch echoing from a childhood I’d spent trying to forget. We stood at the edge of a vineyard where the grapes were the size of human hearts, their skins translucent and pulsing with a deep, ruby ichor. Above, the amber clouds churned in slow, rhythmic pulses, reflecting the endless hunger of the realm.
"Where is the Seer?" I asked, my voice thin in the heavy, stagnant air.
"Patience," Nyx stood unnaturally still, the shadows around their feet lengthening as if probing the soil . "Isolde prefers to be found only when the hunt has sufficiently exhausted the guest."
We moved forward, pushing through rows of vines that seemed to lean toward us, their tendrils curling like desperate, grasping fingers . The silence here was heavy, underscored by the distant, rhythmic thrumming of a great heartbeat underneath the earth. My Heartstone Pendant grew warm against my chest, a prickling heat that made the fabric of my shirt stick to my skin. It pulsed in sync with the ground beneath my feet.
We emerged into a clearing dominated by six ancient, gnarled oak stones, their surfaces etched with runes that bled light. This was the boundary. The air shifted here, losing its saccharine bite and turning crisp, smelling of pine and old parchment. Isolde waited in the centre, her silver hair spilling over her shoulders like liquid moonlight. She stood perfectly still, and the grass beneath her feet did not so much as bend.
"The delivery arrives, though the parcel is already fraying at the edges."
Her pale lavender eyes locked onto mine. There was no warmth in them, only the detached perspective of one who had watched centuries wither and bloom.
"I didn't come to talk about my state of mind, Isolde. I came for answers." I reached into my bag, pulling out the moonsilver blade she had pushed into my hands weeks ago. It felt biting-cold, a sharp contrast to the humid, oppressive heat of Dymas.
"You hold a Fae-forged secret, yet you treat it like a kitchen tool." She reached out, her hand stopping inches from the blade. "The Veil grows thin, Aurora. Can you not feel the stitches coming undone?"
"I feel like I'm wasting time," I said, stepping closer . The ground hummed, a low vibration that rattled my bones. "Tell me why the pendant burns. Tell me what's waiting on the other side."
"The pendant is a key, and keys are rarely satisfied with merely opening locks." She turned, her movements fluid and devoid of effort. She walked toward the edge of the grove, where the amber sky of the gluttony realm met the shimmering distortion of the Veil. "The Prince has an appetite that does not end at the dinner table. He eats reality, child. He eats the moments between the heartbeat and the breath."
I followed her, Nyx trailing behind me like a shroud of smoke. As we approached the boundary, the image shifted. Through the distortion of the Veil, I could see glimpses of Cardiff, but it was wrong. The streets were choked with a grey, suffocating mist, and the people moved like clockwork dolls, their faces slack and hollow.
"Is that... home?"
"It is a vision of the menu, should you fail," she murmured, pointing at a jagged rift in the air.
The rift was expanding , a dark, gnashing tear that threatened to swallow the space between us. A smell hit me then—not of rot, but of ozone and sharp, metallic blood. Something was pushing from the other side, a pressure that squeezed my lungs until every intake of air was a labor. I drew the blade, the moonsilver humming, a high, piercing note that made the shadows at my feet recoil.
"You were meant to be a courier," Nyx noted, their violet eyes widening as the rift pulsed , revealing a glimpse of scaled, elongated limbs. "It seems you’ve become the main course instead."
"Move," I commanded, my hand tightening around the hilt of the blade . The cold seeped up my arm, numbing my skin, yet the heat from the pendant flared, a defiant flame against the encroaching dark.
"The seer stays." Isolde gestured toward the oak stones. "The play requires a witness."
"I am not a performer." I took a step toward the rift. The air around it felt like raw static, the reality of the gluttony realm warping and liquefying to accommodate the intruder.
A hand—large, pale, and tipped with obsidian claws—pierced the Veil. It didn't belong to a chef, nor the helbound souls I’d heard whispered about. It was something older, something hungry. The clawed fingers gripped the edges of the tear, pulling, widening the gap.
I didn't think logic. I didn't think law. My training as a delivery courier usually focused on getting the package through the door on time, but as the ground beneath me cracked and the amber sky bruised into an angry, swirling violet, I realised the package wasn't the pendant at all.
It was the blade.
I lunged, my legs burning as I closed the distance. The creature pulled itself further into the grove, its movements erratic and predatory. It was lean, draped in a tattered, oily shroud that seemed to absorb the light, its face obscured by a shifting mass of shadows . As it fully emerged, the weight of its presence dropped the temperature in the clearing to a bitter, biting frost.
I swung the blade in an arc, a silver flash against the gloom . The steel bit into the creature’s arm, not with the resistance of flesh, but with a screech of shearing, unnatural metal . It let out a sound like breaking glass, a vibration that shattered the stillness of the grove. The creature recoiled, its eyes—if they could be called that, two voids of absolute nothingness—searing into mine.
"Rory!" Nyx shouted, vanishing into a blur of ink and shadow.
They reappeared behind the creature, a swirling vortex of darkness that tethered themselves to the monstrosity, dragging it toward the ground. The creature thrashed, the earth beneath us erupting as its power bled into the soil. Vines from the surrounding orchards began to writhe, their heart-shaped fruit exploding into dark, bubbling sludge as they were caught in the crossfire.
"Too slow!" Isolde’s voice echoed , devoid of urgency but layered with a cold, terrifying amusement. "If you do not strike the centre, the Veil will consume you both!"
I glanced at the creature’s chest. The shroud had shifted, revealing a jagged crystal embedded where a heart should be—a mirror of my own pendant, but shattered and leaking a sickly, rhythmic pulse . The creature backhanded me, sending me tumbling into the dirt. The impact knocked the wind from me, my vision swimming, but I held the hilt. The cold of the silver was so intense it burned my palm.
"Strike!" Nyx screamed, their form losing cohesion as they struggled to hold the creature down. "Strike the heart!"
I scrambled to my feet, my lungs screaming for air. The creature let out a guttural, wet snarl, its claws raised high. I didn't wait for a clean shot. I didn't wait for a better strategy. I tackled, driving the blade forward with every ounce of my weight . The moonsilver pierced the centre point, sinking deep into the cold, vibrating crystal with a sickening, wet crunch.
The immediate silence that followed was louder than the roar. The creature shuddered, a spasm that rippled through its entire, jagged form. The rift began to collapse, the edges knitting together with a violent, electric snap. But instead of retracting, the energy from the ruptured crystal surged, catching me in a wave of blinding, ice-cold light. The world blurred, turning into a kaleidoscope of amber and violet, and everything—the grove, Nyx, the Seer—vanished in a roar of tearing space.