The Royal Palace, Ujjayini
The study was quieter than Eshaan had expected. There were no servants waiting inside and no guards standing near the shelves, only the faint sound of movement from somewhere beyond the closed windows and the occasional flickering of an oil lamp that had been left burning before the King departed. The room itself was not particularly large for a royal chamber, but almost every wall had been occupied by shelves filled with palm-leaf manuscripts, rolled maps and wooden boxes of documents. A large table stood in the centre, with several papers still lying upon it as if Vindhyavarman had been working there shortly before leaving Ujjayini. Eshaan entered slowly, looking around without touching anything. He had been inside the palace before, but this room felt different from the audience chambers he had seen. Those rooms had been designed to be seen by people. This one had been designed to be used, and that difference was immediately obvious to him.
