“I drew this?” The queen's eyes were on the drawing, she didn’t blink as more tears streamed down. Her fingers graced the delicate surface of a well-kept child’s painting. Her beautiful blonde hair which had been in a fancy updo had fallen in front of her face and she made no attempt to fix it.

After another few seconds of dreadful silence, she nodded her head in the smallest of movements, as though her head was too tired to bounce up and down and her voice had run dry. ...