Isabella's Letter
Isabella's Letter
Canaria stepped into the café alongside Mikel.
The place was old, steeped in a quiet harmony of subtle coffee aroma and the scent of aged wood. It felt like the kind of establishment only those in the know ever visited.
"It's been a while, Sir Mikel. I'll prepare your usual."
It seemed to be a regular haunt for him.
While handing a menu to Canaria—the unfamiliar guest at his side—he moved as if on instinct, beginning to brew coffee while waiting for her to order.
"...I'll have the same as Sir Mikel, please. And wrap up your best-selling bread and a drink for me to take when we leave. I'll pay."
With that, Canaria finished her order. What he soon produced was a thick espresso. The potent scent of the freshly pulled shot struck her nose.
Mikel took a sip as though well accustomed to it, added the sugar the employee had provided, and spoke.
"...Has a barrier been cast?"
Canaria nodded at the question. In response, Mikel offered a light salute in the Holy Kingdom's ceremonial style before addressing her again.
"...By the way, are you truly the Saint?"
Mikel, in a sense, was a king himself.
By his own definition, a king was someone whose self-fashioned world stood firm and who lived by its principles. Mikel—with his unshakable artistic vision, his distinct convictions, his heaven-touching talent—fit that description. He was a person upon whom Canaria's memory manipulation had no effect.
I knew it. Just as I suspected.
Feeling that reality sink in, Canaria furrowed her brow. This was her first time meeting someone of this type, and the mere thought that there might be others whose memories hadn't changed was enough to give her a headache.
But she set that aside.
The priority was her promise with Isabella.
"...What makes you suspect so?"
"Because I may be old, but I am not senile. You did not match the image of the Saint as defined in the scripture I read. So I merely dared to ask once more, rudeness notwithstanding. If you had altered your appearance to test me... I can only apologize for failing to recognize Your Eminence."
Mikel remembered the contents of the unrevised scripture. Moreover, having met the previous Saint, Erika, he knew well the traits and aura of a being called a Saint.
He could not help but harbor considerable doubt toward the Canaria before him, who radiated an aura entirely different from theirs.
And as a man who had honed and awakened his sixth sense, he likewise could not help but be suspicious of this Canaria before him, cloaked in a shade and light distinct from the established Saint.
"Then you may rest easy. I am indeed the Saintess. I may appear somewhat different from the Saint you know because I attained the position through a slightly different path."
Canaria answered thus and drank her coffee.
The flavor and aroma were quite pleasant.
Of course, it was a touch too bitter for Rosaria, who favored sweet things, so as she thought about buying another drink to give her when she took this to go, she produced a wooden box and handed it to Mikel.
"...This is why I came."
With those words, Canaria withdrew the letter inside and passed it to Mikel.
"...Whose letter is this?"
But Mikel could not guess the sender. After all, if it were someone from the Holy Kingdom of high enough standing for the Saintess to deliver it personally, it would have to be a Cardinal, the Pope, or perhaps someone even greater.
Yet there was no authority above the Saint in the Holy Kingdom, and even if there were, he doubted such a figure would have any connection to him. As he puzzled over who on earth it could possibly be...
"It is Isabella's letter."
Mikel flinched the moment he heard that name. How did the Saintess know that child's name, and why was she giving him that child's letter?
"...Well, I did suspect you might not know the Saintess's name."
Wasn't that true for most people? No matter how famous a person, most only remember their title.
A Saintess is simply the Saintess, a Pope is simply the Pope.
There was no need to memorize the personal names of such figures one by one, and in Mikel's case—having deliberately kept his distance from the Holy Kingdom—he would be even less likely to know the Saintess's name.
But if it was his disciple's friend, that changed things.
"...Allow me to formally introduce myself. My name is Canaria. I was Isabella's friend, and I am the current Saintess of the Holy Kingdom."
His expression shifted the moment he heard the name Canaria.
After all, Isabella had spoken of her so often it was ear-blistering, and she had frequently drawn portraits of Canaria and Rosaria or sketches connected to them.
It was a name he could not possibly be ignorant of, yet he found himself profoundly flustered—he had never imagined she would become such a being.
"...Isabella."
And then, he asked.
"...What has become of that child?"
It was worry for the disciple with whom all contact had been severed. Letter after letter he had sent, yet not a single reply ever came. And now, suddenly, the Saintess herself had arrived, carefully safeguarding that child's letter.
Before this, Mikel had only caught a faint glimpse.
Isabella's face at the tournament venue.
Had he not seen that, Mikel would have believed his disciple was dead.
But Isabella was alive.
And yet, Mikel felt something was wrong.
"...If she were the Isabella I know, she would have come to my studio first."
He had raised her for a long time. Beyond the master-disciple bond, Isabella looked upon him like a father. There was no way, he thought, that she wouldn't come to him.
"...That is a story far too long to tell."
Canaria said this and encouraged him to read the letter. She had already removed the divine seal, so Mikel only needed to break the wax and examine the contents within.
But his hand would not easily move to open it.
He wanted to know what was written inside, yet he sensed it wouldn't be anything purely bright.
All manner of thoughts raced through his head.
The day Isabella departed for the Holy Kingdom.
The world's common sense, which had abruptly changed.
And even speculation about why that child had never returned—countless thoughts swept through his mind.
Mikel agonized and suffered.
Canaria said nothing to him. She merely drank her coffee in silence and waited for Mikel to act.
This was not a matter she ought to interfere in.
Thinking so, she watched from a distance.
The deliberation stretched long. Only once Canaria had finished her espresso did Mikel, having finally steeled his resolve, open the letter.
What met his eyes the moment he unfolded it was a wretched scrawl. The rough writing had left ink stains smeared, water marks that had fallen in unnatural patterns, and letters that had been written and scratched out multiple times.
It was devastatingly messy.
Mikel clenched his jaw.
The handwriting was familiar. It couldn't be a lie that this letter was Isabella's. Besides, the Saintess was not someone who would lie about such a thing.
But he didn't want to believe it.
From handwriting alone, a person's state of mind became visible. He could see as clearly as staring at a flame how broken someone must be to produce writing this ruined.
Yet if that broken person was his beloved disciple, even knowing it, he wanted to deny it.
Still, this letter was the only clue that might resolve the questions he had been harboring. Mikel put coffee in his mouth to steady himself. Strangely, though it tasted of nothing, the sensation of something hot touching his tongue helped bring him back to his senses.
And with his now-steadied mind, he read the letter.
— To Master Mikel. This is your unworthy disciple, Isabella. First, I must apologize in advance for being unable to see you in person and for having no choice but to write a letter like this.
The handwriting up to the opening was relatively intact. Yet from the moment she began to apologize, the letters started to compress, and everything written thereafter began collapsing into disorder.
As if speaking on behalf of the Isabella of that time.
*
What triggered the feeling that something was wrong was a trivial incident.
"...What is it, Isabella?"
When the friends she was playing with asked about a drawing, she realized something had changed from usual.
"Are you actually an idiot? How can you be from the Holy Kingdom and not know what the Saintess looks like?"
Because when Leo saw the various portraits Isabella had drawn after hearing that Rosaria had become the Saintess, he looked them over and mercilessly teased her, calling her ignorant.
"The Saintess has white hair and silver eyes, right? You're not colorblind, so do you see this as white?"
Leo had always teased Isabella often, so she was about to tell him off, grab him by the collar, and beat him up like usual.
But Leo had been genuinely aggrieved.
And because she recognized his sincerity, Isabella—determined to stamp her correct knowledge onto stupid Leo's face—borrowed a scripture for the first time in a while and began reading.
That was where the problem began.
"...The contents are different, aren't they?"
How could a child raised in the Holy Kingdom not know about the scripture, especially the Saint's appearance? Countless paintings and writings had always described the Saint as having blonde hair and silver eyes. What's more, the Rosaria she remembered was exactly that...
But why was this scripture different now? Furthermore, this scripture bore the emblem of being directly issued by the Holy Kingdom—an officially authorized scripture. It was the kind of scripture that shouldn't contain falsehoods.