Run: 2026-07-25-01KYD5XVKB3B51S36Z2SZ7NKHS

The portal opened like a wound in the air behind the Golden Empress's walk-in freezer, and Rory's first thought was that she'd never be able to explain this to Yu-Fei. The Heartstone Pendant at her throat had been thrumming for an hour — a faint, insistent warmth, like holding a coal wrapped in silk. Now it burned. She pressed her palm flat against it, felt the deep crimson glow pulse against her fingers in time with something like a heartbeat, and stepped through. The cold of the freezer vanished. Heat swallowed her whole. Not oppressive heat — rich heat. The kind that came off a kitchen at full service, layered with smells so dense they were almost physical: roasting stone fruit, caramelized sugar, wine reducing in copper pans, spices she had no names for. She staggered a step and caught herself against a trellis heavy with purple fruit the size of her fist. Behind her, the air folded, and Nyx poured through like smoke finding a new shape. They solidified slowly — six feet and then some of living shadow, violet eyes kindling to life in the silhouette of a face. Even here, they made no sound when they moved. "Amber," Nyx whispered, and their voice came to Rory like wind through a cracked window. "The sky. It has been a long time since I have seen an amber sky." Rory tilted her head back. Nyx was right. The whole vault of the sky was the color of honey held up to candlelight, sunless and yet somehow glowing from everywhere at once, so that nothing cast a proper shadow. Nothing except Nyx, who trailed darkness behind them like spilled ink. "Welcome to Dymas," Nyx said. "Realm of Prince Belphegor. Try not to eat anything you haven't seen prepared." "I was planning to lick the first tree I found, actually." Nyx's laugh was a rustle of dead leaves. "That is why I like you, Carter." They stood at the edge of a vineyard that sprawled further than she could make sense of. The rows of vines curved away in geometries that hurt to follow, and beyond them rose orchards, and beyond the orchards, structures — towers that might have been kitchens, might have been palaces, strung with bridges and belching fragrant steam from a hundred chimneys. Somewhere in the distance, something enormous turned slowly on a spit, silhouetted against the amber light. Rory's stomach growled. She hated that it did. "Move," Nyx murmured, suddenly close. "We are visible here. I am not welcome in most realms." They slipped between the vine rows, Rory following, her trainers sinking into soil so dark and rich it looked edible too. Everything here was too much. The grapes — if they were grapes — wept juice where they split their skins, and the juice ran down the leaves in rivulets that gleamed like liquid garnet. Insects moved through the rows in slow, drunken spirals, fat as her thumb, wings chiming faintly like tiny bells. She reached out to touch one of the leaves and Nyx's hand — suddenly solid, suddenly cold — closed around her wrist. Right over the crescent scar. "Don't," they said. "Everything in Dymas wants to be consumed, and everything in Dymas consumes. That is the bargain of this place. Touch nothing until you know which side of the bargain you're on." Rory pulled her hand back. "Right. No touching. Got it." They moved deeper. The vineyard gave way to an orchard where the trees grew in pairs, trunks twisted around each other like lovers, and the fruit hanging from their branches glowed faintly from within — lanterns of gold and rose and pale green. Under one tree, a table had been laid. Just there, in the middle of nowhere: a long oak table set for twelve, silver gleaming, wine already poured, steam rising from covered dishes. No one sat at it. Rory stopped walking. "Nyx." "I see it." "Is that — was that there when we — " "It does not matter whether it was there. It matters that we do not sit down." But Nyx's voice had changed, gone thin and careful, the whisper stretched taut. They circled the table at a wide berth, and Rory saw how their edges blurred and shivered, like the table was pulling at them. "A table laid in Dymas is an invitation. Invitations here are binding." "What happens if you sit?" "You stay for dinner." A pause. "You stay for dinner forever." Rory hurried past it. She did not look at the wine glasses. She definitely did not notice that one of them, she could have sworn, was beaded with fresh condensation, as though poured moments ago for someone who'd only just stepped away. The orchard ended at a wall of hedges twenty feet high, and the hedges had a door — a real door, arched, banded with iron, standing open. Through it came music. Strings and drums and something underneath, a rhythmic chanting that might have been a kitchen brigade calling orders, might have been a prayer. The smells intensified tenfold, and with them came sound: sizzling, chopping, the ring of knives on steel, applause. Rory's pendant was hot enough now that she held it away from her skin. "The portal we came through — it stays open?" "Portals to Dymas rarely close on their own," Nyx said. "The realm likes visitors. That's rather the problem." Their violet eyes fixed on the open door. "What we seek is through there, in Belphegor's city. But Aurora — listen to me. The sights will be wondrous. You will want to taste, to sample, to accept small gifts. A grape from a vendor's hand. A sip offered in friendship. Every morsel accepted is a thread tied around you. Isolde told you why we came. Hold that reason in your teeth and do not let go." Rory thought of the moonsilver blade hidden against her spine, cold as a promise even in this heat. She thought of Isolde's riddle, delivered among the standing stones with wildflowers blooming impossibly around them: What was taken in hunger can only be reclaimed by the one who refuses the feast. Typical seer nonsense, except Rory was beginning to understand it might have been terrifyingly literal. She rolled her shoulders back. Tucked the pendant beneath her collar where its glow wouldn't advertise her. "Right then," she said. "Let's go see what a demon prince's dinner party looks like." Nyx regarded her for a long moment, and something in those violet eyes might have been fondness, might have been grief — the look of someone who had once, long ago, in 1643, walked eagerly through a door he shouldn't have. "Stay in my shadow," they said. "Literally. It is the safest place in Hel." Together they passed through the door, and the city of Gluttony opened before them like a mouth.