The doors sealed shut with a whispering crack.
The chamber beyond was no throne room or dueling hall. It had once been a library—but no more.
Shelves stood warped and twisted, slanted into unnatural angles, their wood swollen with rot. Some had splintered entirely, half-eaten by glowing blue fungi and coiled root clusters. Tattered scrolls and ruined books hung from the ceiling like vines, strung between chandeliers that sagged with the weight of wax and decay.
A faint purple mist hovered low over the ground, denser near the corners where four great cursed blooms glowed, each one pulsing slowly in rhythm with the Deathsong.
And there, seated with her back to the room on a throne of roots, was the Briar Warden.
She turned as the last of the vines sealed the doors behind the team.
Not with her hands. With the vines beneath her feet.
