It drove Carredura to spend more time in her quiet office—which drove more people to the cathedral, until finally Carredura restricted entrance to the building, just as she had said she would. Still no sancta appeared that might harm her.
However, a certain nuisance, an eyesore, came knocking on her office door instead. It was Riviere, saying, “Limiting access to the cathedral goes against Cururunelvia’s wishes!”
Riviere, the woman who had usurped Carredura’s place at Cururunelvia’s side. She’d grown—a little—since Carredura had seen her last. She comported herself with a dignity befitting her appearance, which was now that of a woman in her early twenties, and she tried to reason with Carredura.
“She created sancta as a way to eliminate inequality among the people of this land. If you place limits on them, then the gaps between groups of people here will never go away!”
“Sancta are far too potent for the townsfolk to handle. The restrictions will remain until the citizens become people worthy of such power.”
“If the restrictions are never lifted, then the inequality will continue forever!”
“And if they are lifted, it will only result in overweening power being wielded by all and sundry.”
“Gee, feeling a bit pessimistic?”
“I’m simply looking squarely at reality—unlike our overconfident populace.”
Neither of them was willing to give an inch.
“Cururunelvia trusted the people of this land—that’s why she gave them sancta!” Riviere said.
“That may be so, but I’m still not about to lift those restrictions,” Carredura replied.
Riviere sighed. They were talking past each other. Her shoulders slumped, and she knitted her brow. “I’m disappointed. She had faith that you would carry on her will and guide the people in the right direction.”
“I am guiding them. The people are simply stupider than my mistress thought.”
That was the end of their conversation. Riviere spared one final glance at Carredura and then left the office behind. The room fell silent but for the scratching of Carredura’s pen. She would do her duty. See through the mission with which her mistress had entrusted her.
She had despised sancta since the day this country had been founded. And she had begun to despise the people of this land since the day of her accession.
In spite of it all, Carredura endeavored not to betray her late mentor’s hopes. Outside the window, cherry blossoms were falling. Summer had come at last.
A handful of extremists began demonstrations in an attempt to unseat Carredura from the throne. They watched her every move, and if she took so much as a step into town, she would be ridiculed and vilified. So she kept herself more and more isolated.
Fall arrived. Riviere sometimes knocked on Carredura’s door, but the queen refused to open it. She refused to see anyone, in fact.
Carredura no longer went about town, but her reputation did—and it was getting worse and worse. One day, there was a report that she was secretly using sancta herself. Another day, rumors swirled that she’d harmed some of the demonstrating citizens. Throughout it all, Carredura merely gazed out her office window.
Autumn went by, and she began to feel the chill of winter. She no longer knew what she was living for. Why she was the queen of this nation.
As she performed her tasks in her office, however, she found something: a journal she’d found by pure coincidence while she was working.
“Mistress,” she whispered, placing it on her desk. She had some qualms about what felt like peering into her beloved mentor’s very heart, but in the end, Carredura’s curiosity won out, and she opened the book.
The pages described a truth that Cururunelvia had never uttered to anyone. The journal spoke of the time when she was traveling in an effort to find some way to counter the illness that consumed her. It spoke of meeting everyone she could meet, trying everything she could try, and failing again and again.
Cururunelvia had met many people in her travels who were tormented by discrimination, and the diary told how she started to feel she had to help those people. The things she saw on her travels gave rise to her desire to found her own country.
Eventually, she took a student, a young woman bursting with talent for magic. Her name was Carredura. She was an orphan, and she quickly attached herself to Cururunelvia when the witch visited her hometown. She did anything Cururunelvia asked. Alongside her amazement at her new disciple’s magical proficiency, Cururunelvia described their daily life together, and Carredura found herself smiling, memories bubbling up as she turned the pages. And still Cururunelvia’s illness wasn’t cured.
She took magical drafts to prolong her life and kept traveling.
Not long after that, she began preparations for founding her country. Carredura could fend for herself now, so Cururunelvia left the island in her care and resumed her journey. At last, Cururunelvia caught wind of someone who was said to be immortal. She rushed straight to them and discovered a red-haired girl about fourteen years old. Her name was Riviere—and she was Cururunelvia’s last hope at curing the illness that afflicted her.
After that, the diary entries began to bristle with Riviere’s name. The journal reveled in recounting their various failures in the most amusing terms possible—but no matter how many pages Carredura turned, it was all Riviere, Riviere, Riviere.
Only at great length did the diary return to the island where Carredura waited, but even then, Cururunelvia spent all her time with Riviere. Soon, Cururunelvia had finished her research into Riviere’s physiology and arrived at a way to cure herself.
If I used Riviere’s heart, I might be able to make myself better, she wrote. But she chose not to. Even Riviere, for all her healing abilities, would almost certainly die if her heart were torn out.
Cururunelvia relinquished the possibility of recovering and instead devoted herself to creating the device that would be for the benefit of her island—she perfected the sancta.
The last words in her diary were like a prayer: Please let this country have a bright future.
There the journal ended. Having completed her sancta system, Cururunelvia could no longer use her magical medicines, after which she quickly declined and died.
To the bitter end, Carredura’s beloved mentor had been thinking of the land she’d founded.
“Mistress,” Carredura murmured again, and then she stood and went to the window. She looked down over the city blanketed in falling snow, and she could see citizens holding signs. Demonstrators opposing the restriction on sancta. The moment they saw her, they started hurling abuse.
This was the lot for whom Cururunelvia had held such high hopes? Why should Carredura continue to sacrifice for the likes of them? Why should she spend herself in their service?
There was a mountain of paperwork in her office, among which were letters from Riviere, addressed to her.
If it weren’t for her…, Carredura thought.
If it weren’t for her, Carredura’s mistress would still be alive.
“Foolishness,” she growled, and she threw away all the letters.
Idiocy, all of it!
When her hatred of sancta crested higher than her sense of duty, Carredura left her office—and in it she left her blue ribbon, the one her teacher had given her.