It was under no circumstances permitted for the young women wearing the queen's dress to be artists.
The reason was that such women were believed to be at high risk of being demons. The royal family in particular didn't allow artists into their palace, unless it was by their own will.
Calling garmentmakers to the palace to make the queen's dress had been one of the rare exceptions.
Even though the young women who wore the garmentmakers' dresses were allowed to appear before the queen, the garmentmakers themselves were never permitted to meet the gaze of any member of the royal family.
They were to wait at the palace gates while the dresses they had sewn were presented to the queen by the young women.
After taking the umbrella from his hand, Lael stood up and repeated, "I'll wear the dress, and then we'll have no problem left."
Noa, startled, stood as well, reaching out to take the umbrella back from her, but Lael continued speaking excitedly.
"You'll be the garmentmaker who made the dress, and I'll be the young woman wearing it."
This time Noa looked at her with parted lips, then turned back the way they had come.
"Have you lost your mind? Let me go and find it…" he said as he straightened up.
Lael also rose to her feet, gave his shoulder a light tap, and said, "We have to hurry. Hold the umbrella so your clothes and the bag on your back won't get wet," as she offered the umbrella back to him.
As Noa took back the umbrella Lael had handed him, he asked, "You haven't forgotten that artists are forbidden from entering the palace, have you?"
In truth, he knew it was impossible for Lael to forget. She had always considered it a grave injustice that the royal family—and much of the common people—failed to value artists and instead saw them as demons.
To her, people only truly existed when they created; Lael felt most alive when she practiced her art, and she knew that every artist she had met shared the same feeling.
It was the same for Noa. A few years ago, when he was still a young boy, he had spoken of wanting to train in a clan under the protection of the God of Time, a clan governed by His power.
In Solvaris, many clans existed under the names of various gods, where warriors were given a chance to gain a fragment of divine power.
Those who joined—sometimes children, often young men and women—trained within these clans to obtain the power of a god. Though it was rare for anyone to truly access a god's power solely through training, the clans were the closest a mortal could ever come to the divine.
The clans of the gods were places where one could communicate with the divine. The gods didn't speak to every person, nor did they usually answer questions, but there were rare instances when humans had managed to converse with them.
The reason Noa wished to join the clan of the God of Time was not to gain His power, but to speak with Him. Noa had never told Lael why he wanted to speak with the God of Time.
He himself tried not to dwell too much on the reason.
After hearing of Noa's wish, Lael's father gave him permission to go. Though Lael was deeply saddened that the one she now considered a brother would be leaving her side, she didn't stop him. She felt she had no right to.
Even though her father had taken Noa in—a child without family—and raised him in their home, he believed Noa had the right to decide his own life. He was not a servant they had taken into their household.
Though they shared no blood, no mother or father, they were siblings. There was no reason not to see him as part of the family. For this reason, she had never thought she had any claim over him.
After all, Noa was not an object Lael possessed.
A few months after Noa had joined the clan of the God of Time, something happened that neither of them had ever expected. Noa had not yet had the chance to speak with the god, nor had he gained His power.
On his last day in the clan, it was once again a rainy day. Before everyone retreated to their rooms that evening, Noa received a letter. Thinking it was from Lael, he felt a surge of joy and went straight to his room without even eating.
When he opened the letter, the first thing he noticed were the tiny damp spots on the paper. It must have gotten wet from the rain, he thought. Then his eyes moved to Lael's handwriting, which grew increasingly distorted across the page.
Before he could even finish reading the letter, just a few words froze his entire body. It was the most intense fear he had ever felt in his life—a feeling he had never forgotten to this day.
When he reached the very end of Lael's letter, he left the clan without packing his belongings and returned to her side.
"I hope you are in good health as you read this letter. Our parents' funeral will take place on the seventh of this month.
Please, don't burden yourself with guilt. We are not gods; neither of us can stand in the way of death. So if you have duties you must fulfill, if there is a situation that prevents you from coming to me, then don't come. I will make sure they don't feel your absence. You don't need to come to their graves, either. Just because their bodies are beneath the earth doesn't mean their souls remain there. I am certain that now our parents are enjoying their freedom.
Take care of yourself."
After seeing Noa's worried expression with a faint smile, Lael spoke. "Of course, I haven't forgotten, Noa. Even if we hadn't ended up in this situation, you already know that I've always wanted to enter the palace.. somehow. I want to show the people there— the nobles, the royal family, and perhaps even the gods—the true face of art. I believe that even through a single garment they wear, I can change their views."
Placing her hand on Noa's shoulder, she turned her eyes toward the road leading to the capital, the palace.
"Perhaps you think this effort of mine is foolish. But it isn't to feel more valued in their eyes, nor to gain a high-ranked position. The truth that so many artists have been slaughtered simply for practicing their art sets my heart ablaze, and I can not stop it."
She paused, her thoughts drifting towards her parents. Whenever she remembered them with deep emotions, the night they died came back to her.
She doesn't know why her parents had been killed. The only thing she remembered was the golden eyes of the woman who had murdered them.
Powerful gods and demons had golden eyes... Perhaps that woman was a demon. But she wasn't even sure about that.
Whenever she thought of the slain artists, whenever she heard the cries of families torn by grief, the image of that woman—and that night—returned to her mind.
To clear her thoughts, she turned her gaze back to Noa and widened her smile.
"All I want is for people to remember their humanity."