Axiel stopped filling the pipe and straightened, though the swaying red curtain blurred his expression. He brought the pipe to his lips, and Lael saw his shadow cast upon the thin fabric.
Taking a slow draw, he exhaled the smoke into the space between them.
"Such delicate lips speak such grand words," he said, then placed the pipe back between his lips.
"How pleasant to hear them from someone who carries, on her cheeks, the glimmers that the heavens only let sparkle for a brief time."
Lael remembered the compliment he had given her when they first met. She raised a hand to her freckles, touching them softly.
"Why…" she whispered, her voice nearly silent. Lifting her eyes to him, she went on.
"Why would someone like you feel the need to praise my flaws?"
At those words, the prince lowered the pipe from his mouth without setting it down and stepped toward her. Now Lael could clearly see his expression, the seriousness and certainty in his eyes holding her attention entirely.
"Your name?"
"Lael, Your Highness. Lael Sylavera."
"Lael, my art has always been to capture the beauty of every being in this world, just like yours. Yet I have never met another so unaware of her own beauty."
Axiel reached for the hand she had on her cheek, brushing the knuckle with his thumb.
They were so close now that when Axiel leaned toward her, his long fringe nearly grazed her lashes. But it wasn't that which unsettled her mind— it was the jewel-like irises she was locked on. Without blinking, Axiel went on:
"The only thing that would never waste the ink I spill onto the parchment in the corner of my mind are the look in your eyes and the stars you carry on your cheeks."
—
While her long hair swayed as she ran through the palace garden, shimmering under the sunlight, everyone who saw her could not take their eyes off her for at least a few seconds. On her face was a smile that shone just like her light brown hair and emerald earrings.
Even though they had only seen her once, people who were quite eager to talk behind her back had given her a nickname not much different from what those outside the palace called her.
Now known as the tailor from Freedom Garden, Lael, unlike those who looked at her, never met the gaze of anyone she passed. It wasn't that she didn't want to —it was that she couldn't— because the only thing she had done all day was follow the prince's schedule.
About two weeks later, there would be the Envoys Ceremony, held three months before the prince's birthday. It was a requirement for the prince to pay his respects to the gods before his birthday.
At the same time, he was obliged to meet with the Envoys and host them in the palace.
As in every year, this year too, Envoys of different Gods would personally come to the palace. Each God's Envoy wore the symbolic colors and patterns of their deity on their attire.
These details were highly intricate and completely different from one another: while the Envoys of the God of Time wore garments with circular, spiral patterns, the Envoys of the God of Life adorned their clothes with lotus flowers.
The queen and the prince had made many preparations to properly receive the Envoys. Among these preparations was a particularly important duty concerning Lael.
At the prince's request, Lael had been assigned the task of sewing garments that represented each Envoy's God.
For this, palace tailors had been placed under her command— something that made her feel more stressed and tense than usual.
Lael was uncomfortable with the palace tailors, who neither respected her nor believed in her, having to obey her orders.
When she heard that the prince had assigned the palace tailors in this way, she had wanted to object to the situation, but the prince had explained that this ceremony was very important and that the dresses to be prepared needed to be of high quality.
Besides, Lael could not possibly make so many dresses on her own in such a short time.
Still, she thought that somehow she could get along with the palace tailors. After all, wasn't their goal the same? She also believed that people who worked with art would eventually understand one another. It was art that nourished all their hearts.
Unfortunately, she would realize soon enough that she was the only one who thought like this.
After a few minutes of rushing around, Lael arrived at the workshop. The workshop stood out with its immaculate order; the fabrics were arranged in a flawless order according to their colors, and there was not a single loose thread to disrupt the neatness on the sewing tables.
The first thing Lael noticed upon entering the workshop was the deep silence that had settled over the place. After looking at the tailors inside one by one, she forced herself to smile.
"Hello. I hope I haven't kept you waiting for too long."
The looks directed at Lael were filled with many different emotions. Anger, jealousy, mockery, and disdain… All the tailors in the workshop shared similar feelings.
A few days earlier, Lael had handed the dress sketches she had quickly designed and drawn to the tailor considered the most senior among the palace tailors.
The senior tailor's task was to memorize these designs prepared by Lael and explain to the other tailors what to do and how to do it. In accordance with his instructions, the dresses Lael had designed would be sewn, and Lael would oversee these processes.
The palace tailors were displeased to be under the command of a lowborn tailor from the Freedom Garden. Many of them were waiting for Lael to make a mistake. The moment she did, they would have a reason not to work with her.
Lael had barely spoken to the palace tailors she had been working with for the past two days. But from the looks directed at her, she could more or less guess what they thought of her.
One of the palace tailors looked at Lael with an expression that made it all too clear she was not pleased with the situation, then replied.
"We've been waiting for a long time."
As if taking courage from her, the other tailors suddenly broke the silence in the room.
"What right do you have to keep us waiting this long? If there's something we don't understand in the sketch you drew, how are we supposed to reach you?" said, the woman with long black hair braided on both sides.
The man behind her, who had stopped sewing the sky-blue dress on his table, nodded in agreement.
"As if you have more important things to do, you're keeping us waiting," he said.
The others continued to speak one after another. Almost everyone had something to say. Lael listened to them all, searching for a response, but after a while she realized that what she was hearing was nothing but exaggerated statements.
She smiled slightly and stepped toward the empty table in front of her, slamming her hand down on it to silence the noise in the room.