The door opened before she touched it.
Inside was not wood.
Inside was sky.
A violet sky full of slow-moving stars. The air smelled of damp earth and something metallic. The ground beneath her boots was woven from roots thicker than castle towers.
And there were voices.
Whispering.
Not in words — but in memories.
She saw flashes of her childhood. Her mother's smile. Her father teaching her swordplay. The moment the antlered creature stepped into the throne room.
The roots shifted beneath her.
And from them rose something vast.
A body formed of knotted wood and bone. Antlers branching into constellations. A face carved from bark, split by a mouth too wide to belong to any living thing.
Its eyes were hollow.
But inside those hollows moved stars.
"You have come," it said, though its mouth did not move.
Its voice came from the soil.