Maximilian noticed how quickly Catherine followed him, her earlier fatigue dissolving into sothing far lighter, far more alive. There was a quiet eagerness in the way she moved, in the way her fingers curled and uncurled as if she could barely contain herself, and it did sothing to him—sothing warm, sothing deeply fond.
The door creaked softly as it opened.
And Catherine stepped inside... only to stop.
Her breath caught, her entire body going still as her eyes widened, slowly taking in the space before her. It wasn’t just a room, it was intention, mory, and quiet devotion.
A long wooden desk stretched along one side, its surface ticulously arranged with all kinds of stationery—ink bottles, fountain pens, aged parchnt—each placed with care, as though they belonged to another era entirely. There wasn’t a trace of modern technology anywhere. Even the lighting felt deliberate, the soft glow of old bulbs and the chandelier above casting a warm, golden hue that wrapped the entire room in a sense of quiet intimacy.
The wood-paneled walls only deepened that feeling, grounding the space in sothing tiless. The room felt untouched by the turn of the century around it.
Catherine stepped forward slowly, almost reverently.
And then her gaze shifted...An entire wall was filled with weapons. Real weapons and not replicas.
Her breath stilled again as recognition flickered through her. Swords, daggers, bows...so ornate, so brutal in their simplicity. Pieces she had seen before... in another life.
For a mont, her heart stumbled.
She moved closer to the glass display, her fingers hovering just above it, not quite touching. A thought rose unbidden...
Did any of ours survive?
Her bracelet had.
So...
Her gaze sharpened, searching, her chest tightening with sothing she couldn’t quite na. mory? Hope? Fear?
But before she could look closer... sothing from her peripheral vision pulled her attention away.
The next wall.
Catherine turned... and stilled completely.
Paintings.
At first, it was just a glance—one or two landscapes, soft and distant. But then she truly looked. And the world seed to quiet around her.
They were all of her.
Not as she was now, but as she had been.
A younger Katerina, laughing under sunlight. A quieter version of her, lost in thought. A girl on the edge of becoming sothing more, her expressions caught in monts that felt too real, too intimate to have been imagined.
Her steps slowed.
Each painting held a piece of her he had seen... and kept.
And then... her breath hitched.
A monochro painting.
The bathtub.
That night.
The water, the curve of her shoulders, the vulnerability of it... it wasn’t painted to expose her, but to hold sothing far more fragile. The mont before everything changed. The mont he had offered her the bracelet.
Catherine didn’t move.
Didn’t speak.
Her fingers curled slightly at her sides as her gaze lingered, her chest rising and falling a little too slowly.
Was I... this beautiful?
The thought ca quietly, almost fragile in the way it ford.
But even as it lingered, she knew.
It had never been about beauty.
Catherine’s gaze softened, sothing unguarded surfacing in her eyes as she looked at the paintings again, not as images, not as art, but as mories soone had refused to let fade.
This... was how he had seen her.
Every version of her. Every mont he had chosen to keep.
She turned slowly, her eyes moving across the room, noticing more now—details she hadn’t seen at first. The paintings didn’t stop at the girl she had once been. They followed her forward, through ti, through change.
And with each one, sothing shifted.
As she grew older, the brightness in her eyes had dimd.
The smiles beca rarer, more restrained. Her posture more composed, her expression more guarded. There was strength in it, yes, but also sothing heavier, sothing that hadn’t been there before.
Her steps slowed.
Was that what he saw?
That quiet fading?
And more and more the paintings started to turn monochro, unlike the childhood images that were full of colors.
Her fingers brushed lightly against one fra as she moved.
There—her on a horse, wind tearing through her hair, a wild, defiant mont captured just as she had nearly "escaped" him. There was life in that painting, a fire she barely rembered feeling.
Another—by the river.
She stilled.
The grief in that one was unmistakable. Her body curled in on itself, her face hidden, but the anguish... it bled through every stroke. The loss of her stillborn daughter...sothing she had buried so deeply, grieved so privately and lonely, that she had to convince herself it hadn’t broken her.
But he had seen it... When she thougth she was alone... he was there. Silently. Staying away only because he knew she was scared of him, and because she hated him.
He had rembered it... And the helplessness he had felt that mont, showed in the strokes of the painting.
Another... her sitting with the bard, a faint smile on her lips, sothing softer there, sothing fleeting. A mont of peace he had chosen not to forget... The one where she nad him "Leon Aureus."
And then... her breath caught.
The last one.
She stepped closer without realizing it, drawn in by sothing she couldn’t resist.
A pencil sketch.
Rougher than the others. Less polished. More... desperate.
It was her.
Half-lidded eyes. Fading... Dying. In his arms.
Catherine’s hand lifted slowly, almost hesitantly, until her fingers brushed against the surface. The paper felt different—worn, uneven. As if it had been handled too many tis, or perhaps never handled gently at all.
She could see it.
The faint distortions where tears had soaked into the page.
The lines that weren’t steady, the shading that felt heavier in places... as if pressed down with too much force.
There was no color.
Except... the faint suggestion of blood at her nose, at her ears. Subtle... but deliberate.
Her chest tightened.
The other paintings had shown her how he had seen her.
This one...
This one showed her what it had done to him.
The grief. The helplessness. The mont he had lost her, and never truly let go of that loss.
The man who had mastered war... had spent a lifeti rembering her.
Catherine didn’t realize when her breathing had slowed, when the rest of the room had faded into the background.
Her fingers lingered against the sketch, her touch softer now, almost careful.
And suddenly... this room didn’t feel like a collection. Not a hobby. Not even mory.
It felt like a confession. One he had never spoken aloud, maybe because these feelings... would be hard to put into words.
Tears rolled down her eyes. She bowed her head, wiping her tears away. Of course, he hugged her from her back.
This gentleness... his care... His love...
"I love you..."
Breaking all fear and convictions, those three words slipped from her mouth.
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