Between each column, white marble statues stood on plinths of black, their blank eyes staring towards the grey and white granite floor. Each statue wore a crown of laurel leaves around their heads, decorated with copious amounts of gold. The walls behind the columns were still more white marble, intricately carved with a diamond pattern edged with gold. At the far end of the room, furthest from the door we'd come through, seven high-backed thrones stood on a dais. There was a canopy of dark blue velvet over the dais, decorated with elaborate quantities of gold trim and thick braid, gathered and held across the dais by two slender columns.
I blinked rapidly, trying to equate the opulence of this room after the starkness of the hallway we'd just left. The room was beautifully gaudy. Ostenta
