As Noa followed his friend, who was now striding quickly toward the palace, he told her over and over that he knew nothing about tailoring, that he had no idea how this could possibly work. Yet Lael continued forward without listening.
When they came near the palace, they slipped into the empty alleys behind a few houses. With Noa's help, Lael changed out of her clothes and into the dress she had sewn. She let down her ponytail, curling her hair lightly with her fingers so it would fall forward.
When presenting the dress, she was thinking to gather her hair with her hand and slowly let it fall, to give off a graceful and alluring impression. These were the very instructions she had given the young woman she had originally paid to wear the dress.
After tying the jade-ornamented ribbon she had used as a hairpiece around her left wrist, she left her earrings on without removing them.
"All right, I'm ready," she said, glancing at Noa, who had turned his back with an unnecessary sense of respect.
When Noa slowly turned back to her, his eyes widened in astonishment at the sight before him. His lips opened and closed, unsure of what to say, but Lael ignored his surprise, raising her hand as a thought came to mind.
"Ah," she uttered. "It might be better if I put a little color on my eyelids and lips."
She let her light brown hair sway under the sunlight as she looked around, until her gaze landed on the garden of the house behind them. The flowers there were clearly well-tended and healthy.
As she reached out to pick one, whispering, "I'm so sorry," she noticed one that had already fallen to the ground at the last moment and plucked its petals instead.
She asked Noa to hold up a small mirror for her, then spread the flower's essence carelessly across her lips and eyelids.
"There, done."
"This must be some kind of magic…" Noa murmured. "It's unbelievable how much you've changed."
Lael was not someone who wore much makeup. At times, she would add a hint of pink with flower extracts over the freckles on her cheeks and color her lips with the same.
She rarely wore much jewelry, since she rarely left her house. And she almost always tied her hair back in a ponytail. For this reason, she wasn't surprised at how shocked Noa was.
Hearing the words that told her she had earned his approval, Lael smiled proudly. "Hehe, of course."
Tilting her head back toward the sun, the jade earrings at her ears chimed softly. "Come on, let's go before it gets too late."
In the capital and on the road to the palace, they encountered many other artists. With the prince's birthday soon to be celebrated throughout the entire nation, they overheard several people speaking about the celebrations.
Though he was a member of the royal family, the prince was well-liked among artists because of the rumors surrounding him. He was said to be a lover of the arts.
He often invited musicians and dancers to the palace, hosting parties within his own residence. He commissioned painters to depict the images he imagined and asked writers to craft stories about those paintings. It was even said that he took an interest in calligraphy and poetry.
Thanks to the prince, many artists were able to enter the palace and left with kind thoughts of him. Yet it was also rumored that the queen did not look favorably upon this.
After all, the prince opposed the rules the royal family had set against artists. An artist was never supposed to set foot in the palace—yet through the prince, they did.
This has led many among the high-ranking members of society to call the prince a demon.
A demon, they said, taught his followers what he knew best, Art.
Until a few years ago, Lael had felt no particular interest in the prince. But it was precisely because of these rumors that she had begun to grow curious about him.
What kind of person was he? Were the rumors truly real?
If they were, then she wished to sew a garment for him as well. The prince could very well be the greatest bridge for art to finally be valued.
After a long walk, they finally reached the palace and joined the line where a few others were waiting. Noa quietly repeated to himself the lines Lael would need to recite, since he was to take her place as the garmentmaker.
Even if he was not able to appear before the queen, there could still be royal tailors waiting at the palace entrance to question them.
Lael, meanwhile, was struck by how enchanting the palace was—even just from its entrance.
The palace was like an independent country, housing many mansions within its walls. Its stone walls stretched meters high into the sky. Lael's neck began to ache as she tried to measure their height with her eyes.
Even the entrance gates were so massive that she was certain their opening and closing would echo loudly from meters away.
Seeing this magnificent palace before her now, Lael was a little stunned. Though Freedom Garden lay quite far from the palace, the artists living there could still see it from the windows of their homes.
The palace Lael had so often gazed at while sitting on the chair in front of her house was far larger than she had ever imagined.
Her admiring gaze drifted not only across the palace walls but also over the garments of the palace attendants. Her hands itched, eager to touch the fine fabrics and study the precision with which the stitches had been made.
When their turn finally came, Lael straightened her posture and closed her eyes, granting herself a brief moment to calm down.
After enduring the judgmental gazes of the palace guards for a while and being searched, they stepped through the entrance gates of the palace.
When they finally saw the other side of the palace walls they had just looked up at, now appearing meters —perhaps even kilometers— away, both of their lips parted in astonishment.
It felt as though they had entered another realm.
They could see many grand residences within the palace grounds, each adorned with statues at their entrances. These statues represented different gods— something Lael had learned from the books her father had written.
Then, directly ahead of them, past a wide bridge that stretched across a vast lake and up a long flight of stairs, they saw an even greater residence.
Each of the buildings already looked like palaces in their own right, but the magnificent main palace before them could not possibly be overlooked. Its roof was entirely crimson, and stretched across it lay a golden dragon. Its tail coiled upward toward the sky, while its wings— an unusual detail that had been added— extended outward, casting shadows over all the land below.
Most of the patterns carved into the palace walls were made of gold as well, just like the crimson, magnificent dragon.
While Lael stood enchanted by the sight, Noa muttered, "Never in my life had I seen gold on such a scale. I wonder how much we could sell this dragon for…"
Lael turned toward him with furrowed brows, just as someone from behind stepped between them, separating the two.