Elara gaped at the royal dressmaker in awe, her heart thundering away in her chest. With this, Caspian's message was crystal clear. With this, he was sending a message to all of those within his castle's walls--and surely, this would spread to Lyanna's ears, as well--that Elara wasn't simply just a lover; she was someone he was presenting with extravagance. He'd even called Madame Faylan for her despite the fact he didn't use his status as the son of the former king to call on the dressmaker ever.
Elara snapped her mouth closed, regaining her composure. "It's a great honor to have someone as talented as you make dresses for me, Madame Faylan."
Madame Faylan seemed pleased. "His Grace has requested we give you only the best," she said, grinning. "So we shall do just that. Something befitting your good looks and your charming figure. Hmm..."
Madame Faylan went over to a table that had been set up at the far end of the room and waved Elara over. Standing side by side, Madame Faylan picked up silks and velvets and placed different colors next to her face, frowning at some and nodding to herself at others.
"His Grace has requested the colors of his house be prominently displayed in your wardrobe, which makes sense, I suppose. You are to be the Grand Duchess, after all."
Elara's cheeks heated, but Madame Faylan seemed not to have noticed. She was gently guiding Elara to a corner of the room which was partitioned off from the rest of the drawing room. She had Elara strip and then she set about taking her measurements.
When she had finished, she helped Elara lace up the back of her dress and then went back to the pile of fabrics she'd placed in a basket after she'd nodded to herself.
"You look your best in plums, wines, and yellows. But, you won't look terribly washed out in a nice deep blue with nice silver detailing." She tapped her finger against her chin, her eyes far away. "Nice thick houppelande sleeves for the winter ahead, I hear it'll be particularly cold this year." She frowned. "The Frostmaiden will approach early this year."
Even though she already knew, she figured it would be best to play up the role of an Otherworlder who knew nothing of this world, its kingdom, and its culture. "The Frostmaiden?"
Madame Faylan's gaze returned to her. "Ah. So the rumors are true, then." Her eyes were filled with questions. "The Frostmaiden is in reference to one of the four gods who turn the seasons. There is Zephyris, the god who brings the bloom of flowers and the heavy rains of the capital. Then there is his twin sister Eldra, who brings the burning of the suns, the sweltering heat even on the days when we're lucky enough to be graced with rain. Then, Valtren who shakes the leaves from the trees, and when he passes, there is Freinta, the Frostmaiden, who brings Freitguard."
Madame Faylan watched her, her head tilted to one side. "I suppose things must be different where you came from. Here, we refer to the turn of each season by the names of our gods. There is Zyphergreen, Eldra's Crest, Valtren's Bounty, and Freitveil."
"I read that in one of the books in Caspian's library." It wasn't a lie. She had seen something regarding the seasons in one of the books she'd skimmed through yesterday.
The dressmaker's eyebrows quirked up when Elara called Caspian by name, but she said nothing of it, she simply nodded and said, "I think I'd do the same as you if I suddenly fell into a different world. Especially if you intend to stand at the Grand Duke's side." She shook her head. "Those women in the capital will be ready to tear you apart."
"Caspian is very popular." It wasn't a question because she knew the answer. Even if she hadn't read the books, she would've known the answer.
"Of course he is," Madame Faylan exclaimed, throwing her hands up. "Despite his mother's humble origins, he's the only Grand Duke of Isyndor. He ended a ten-year war in four years, he turned around the southern province, which was overrun by the monsters, and made it a place even those stuck-up nobles in the capital flock to. He's capable, he's strong, he's handsome." She shrugged. "There is many a young lady in the capital with her heart set on the Grand Duke despite his clear disinterest."
The tone of the dressmaker's voice seemed to drive home to Elara just how difficult her upcoming time in the capital would be. She hadn't recalled at all--even in the time when she was writing all that she remembered from the novels--that the women of Isyndor had been captivated by Caspian since his return from the battlefield after the years long war had ended. In the first installment of the book, when Caspian arrived atop his warhorse clad in his shining armor with the soldiers whose respect he'd gained and who went on to become knights in Chirondale, it was said that there was no woman's heart that was unmoved by the sheer beauty of him.
Mistaking the frown on her face, Madame Faylan hastily said, "But you have nothing to worry about, Miss. Elara. If it's clear to me that the Grand Duke holds you in high regard, such a fact will be clear to everyone else soon enough." She smiled.
Elara matched her smile. It was better to let her believe her frown had been because of jealousy. Instead, she murmured a thank you and the dressmaker nodded, returning to the topic at hand.
"The Grand Duke has already told me the two of you will set out to the capital at the beginning of the week to attend Valten's Bounty Hunt. I'll have enough pieces done to last you some time in the capital."
Elara's eyes widened. "Even though we leave in three days?"
Madame Faylan grinned. "Well, it won't be easy but the Grand Duke spared no expense. With the amount of gold he gave me, hiring a few extra Clothweavers will barely make a dent in it."
"Clothweavers?" This time she wasn't pretending, she truly had never heard that term before. It wasn't in any of the books in the series.
"Forgive me. I keep forgetting you're an Otherworlder, you carry yourself so naturally." She shook her head. "A Clothweaver is one whose magical prowess lies in creating clothing rather than attack or healing or shielding. I, myself, am the most powerful Clothweaver in the kingdom of Isyndor and those who work for me are talented in their own right."
"So, you don't make clothes by sewing them?"
Her eyes widened. "Gods, no. Sewing is quite...archaic. No one's sewn since the time of the first king of Isyndor some four hundred years back."
Elara blinked. Wasn't something like this a pretty big deal? Why was nothing like this mentioned in any of the novels? They'd mentioned Madame Faylan and the seamstresses in her charge often in the novels, but they never mentioned anything about Clothweavers, which was obviously a huge part of her character if she was the most powerful Clothweaver in Isyndor.
Was it something that was omitted from the novels?
"So...how does that work?" She tried picturing how Clothweaving would work and came up empty. "You use magic to shape it?"
Madame Faylan looked thoughtful. "Mmm...something like that. Clothweavers are able to capture the...essence, I suppose is the right word, of the person we're weaving for, and with that essence, every stitch, every embroidered pattern presents itself. Each piece crafted is unique, even when it's for the same person."
It really was fascinating and Elara felt as if she could've sat there listening to Madame Faylan discuss Clothweaving forever. The dressmaker struggled to put it into words, Elara guessed there was no need for explaining such things in a world where everyone already understood it, but she was patient and answered all of Elara's questions until it was time for her to go.
She curtsied and said, "You will have your dressed for the capital before the start of next week," before she left.
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In the library, Elara found a book entitled Magic: Its Classes, Uses, and Magic Theory and decided it would be best for her to read it front to back because clearly, she didn't understand the magic in this world as well as she had assumed she did. When she'd read The Day of Eternal Night, she had assumed the magic in this world worked the way it did in most fantasy worlds. Water, fire, earth, air, healing, and attack magic, that kind of thing. And yet today, she'd learned of Clothweaver, a class of magic that hadn't been mentioned in the book.
Magic, like all forces of nature, flows through our world with purpose and precision. While anyone with potential may access magic and make use of it, the depth of one's command over magic is determined by both innate ability and relentless dedication. Over centuries of study, scholars have categorized magic into six classes--Basic, Intermediate, Advanced, Sage, Holy, and Divine.
The bit about the classes of magic users was discussed in the novels, so that bit she understood. But it was the bit further in the fat book in her lap that was never touched on in the novels. Apparently, there were eight different types of magic: Elementalists, Healers, Conjurers, Seers, Wardens, Necromancers, Clothweavers, and Glamoursmiths. The first three were the most common magical abilities. According to this tome, five in every fifteen magic users manifests as an Elementalist. From those different types of magic, they broke things down considering what gifts manifested. For instance, Elementalists could either manifest as Sylphar, Emberlings, Terrakyn, Aquarii, Skylumen, and Umbraweaver which were wind, fire, earth, water, light, and shadow respectively.
The more she read about magic, the more she realized almost none of it was written in the books. Glamoursmiths and Seers, Clothweavers and Wardens, these things were never touched on, not even once unless you count the small excerpts which mentioned in passing that one of the royal consorts had the ability to see into the future.
It made no sense. The more she contemplated on it, the less sense it made. Lyanna Orinthal was a Mage who came from a family of Mages. Wouldn't it have made more sense that she should the novels should go in depth where magic was concerned? And yet, now that she thought about it, the book rarely touched on the magic system of the world. The magic had mainly existed in the background, only coming up now and then when they mentioned the magic tower and sending Mages to suppress monsters. The vast majority of the book focused on the female lead's wit and her skill when it came to bringing down her enemy. Hell, it had even focused on the female lead's ability with the sword.
Come to think of it, the female lead only used magic a few times in the books. She usually just pulled out her sword when things went left.
Elara's gaze slipped from the book in her lap and slid over to the window next to her. The lush padding of the velvet window seat was stunningly soft. There was something about all of this that was getting on her nerves, and she couldn't figure out what it was. It was weird enough that, even after scrolling through the author's forum where she described side elements of the book in perfect detail, she still hadn't known about running water and Clothweavers, but it was a completely separate thing to leave out such extensive information in regards to Mages.
Did I skip over it by accident? Did I just blow past that and head straight to reading about Caspian?
Even though she thought that it didn't make sense. Even if she decided to skip to Caspian's profile when it was first released, she'd go back and read the rest of them after she was done. She'd liked the world for more than just Caspian's presence in it.
Her foot jiggled in agitation, her fingers tapped against the heavy fabric of her dress.