As Ivi cannot sing well, she offers to reward Aza with land, wealth, and riches for her family, as well as elevation to the rank of lady-in-waiting in exchange for Aza illusing a marvelous singing voice for her when she needs to sing when Aza tries to refuse, Ivi threatens to imprison her and close her family's inn.

The new queen, the beautiful Ivi, discovers Aza's unusual musical gift and manipulates her. When Aza's sister, Areida, goes to finishing school, the Duchess of Olixo, an irritable guest at the Featherbed Inn, requests that Aza accompany her to the royal wedding because her companion has fallen ill.

Zhamm foresees that they will meet again at some point in the future. While her hair looks black to humans, it is the lovely color htun, a dark purplish color, to gnomes. Still, Aza is flattered when a frequent visitor to the inn, a gnome named Zhamm, tells Aza that her hair is the most beautiful he has ever seen. Besides being skilled at singing, Aza can also flawlessly mimic people and throw her voice without moving her mouth, a form of ventriloquism she calls 'illusing'. However, Aza's voice garners as much attention as her looks, for Ayortha is a land of song, and Aza is an amazing singer. Her prodigious size and her odd coloring – milk-white skin, dragon tongue lips, and hair that seems to be frying-pan black – are greatly at variance with the land's standards of beauty and often make her the target of stares and rude comments. The kingdom of Ayortha, the setting of the story, is the neighboring kingdom of Kyrria, where Ella Enchanted was set and the story makes several allusions to the previous work.Īza, the adopted daughter of innkeepers in Ayortha, has always hated her appearance. It uses some plot elements of the classic Snow White and is set in the same world as Ella Enchanted. Fairest is a 2006 novel by Gail Carson Levine.

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