Nova's POV
The door in the Enchanted Woods was a threshold.
Seraphine had explained it standing at the tree line while the shadow creatures arranged themselves in their protective perimeter not threatening, she had said, not sent by an enemy. Ancient guardians, placed by the Moonstone Kingdom's first queen three centuries ago to keep the threshold sealed until the right bloodline returned to open it.
They had felt Nova singing.
They had waited, in the dark under the woods, for her to be ready.
The door opened into a chamber cut from the bedrock, lit by its own cold blue-white light Winterhart light, her bloodline's signature in the stone itself containing what three centuries of Winter Queens had stored there for safekeeping. Not objects. Not treasure.
Memories.
