Chapter 115

HAZEL

Nora took me to a corner of the hallway where a lamp shone, the only lamp above a portrait as far as I could tell. A regal woman sat on top of a throne, it was a humongous throne, the back reached up a good meter above her head, yet she sat there as though she and it were the same size with her arms resting on the sides and in one hand she held a spear with a round golden ball the top and red emeralds that surrounded it like a crown in itself.

On her back hung a cape, thick and large and it fell down the throne and around her feet.

Sitting heavily on her head was the biggest crown I ever saw, as regal as the woman it sat on.

And what was that on her face? Was she smiling?

Nora scanned the portrait, every corner, and brushstroke. I had to run back down the hallway and I looked at every portrait on the walls, scanning them and seeing if it could be right and what do you know; I made it back to Nora and gazed in awe at the woman’s beauty.

“She’