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It didn’t feel like the others.

It felt… private.

Too private.

I pulled away.

Kept on moving.

The faint scent of his cologne grew stronger the deeper I moved into the east wing. Not fresh. Lingering. Like the walls themselves had absorbed him over the years and refused to let him go.

The floorboards beneath my feet creaked differently here. Not neglected. Worn. Paths repeated often enough to leave quiet impressions in the old timber.

My breathing slowed. I drew in the scent deeper and closed my eyes for one single dangerous second.

The weight of him lingered here.

Not the cold, statue version he showed the rest of the world. No. Something older. Sharper.

The part hidden beneath the silence.

A tremor moved through me. An ache followed.

Desperate.

Haunting.

Far too real.

I opened my eyes. The hallway stretched ahead in dustless silence. No abandoned clutter. No forgotten sheets draped over furniture like there was in the hallways I’d been in before. Everything remained exactly where it belonged. Exact. Controlled.

The door nearest to me stood slightly ajar. I pushed it open carefully. Cold air breathed across my skin. The room beyond looked untouched by time. Dark shelves lined one wall filled with perfectly ordered filed and leather-bound files. Maps rested beneath glass along the table in the center of the room. Pins had been removed carefully, leaving tiny punctures behind.

Operational remnants.

Not memories.

Records.

Wars preserved in paper and ink.

Locked drawers sat beneath the shelves. Heavy steel handles polished from use. A safe hidden seamlessly behind one of the paintings. I ran my fingers along the crease in the wall and looked up at the muted blacks and greys of a thunderous storm.

Nothing gathered dust here.

Nothing.

My pulse stumbled uneven and strange.

He still came here.

Often.

A second doorway stood open deeper inside the room.

Smaller.

Quieter.