Soon after Aza reluctantly accepts Ivi's offer, the castle is thrown into turmoil when King Oscaro is terribly wounded during a sporting event with centaurs because the king threw himself in front of Ivi to save her. Aza is caught in the midst of Ivi's power-hungry plotting, the affection of the king's nephew, Crown Prince Ijori, the suspicions of the choirmaster Sir Uellu (a senior official in this land of song), and her own increasing desperation to become beautiful, a desire which grows so strong that she tries a beauty spell, but instead the spell turns her to stone. Although she recovers, she's left with a marble pinky toe. The incident does not deter her desire to be beautiful, which leads Aza to drink a beauty potion created by Skulni, the mysterious, evil creature living in a magic mirror given to Ivi as a wedding gift from the fairy Lucinda. Aza becomes beautiful, but still remains self-conscious about herself. When the country seems to be on the verge of revolt, Aza and Ivi's deception is publicly discovered by accident. Aza is branded as the dangerous relative of an ogre because of her figure and strong powerful voice and imprisoned, but she escapes with Ivi's guard Uju, who later tells her that he was ordered by Ivi to kill her, but could not now that she is beautiful. Uju takes Aza to the Gnome Caverns to keep her safe, fulfilling Zhamm's prophecy.