An Heir of Wood and Glass by Wendy Nikel
Carenza’s mind is a looking glass.
When Orla peers into it, she sees herself. She sees her years of neurological study and cognitive research and days and nights of sleepless toil. She sees her hopes and dreams for a better society, polished and perfected, dancing across the cranial folds in sparkling electrical charges.
Orla has spent decades creating precisely what the people have demanded of her: an heir to the kingdom’s throne. An heir who will rule with perfect logic, will judge with perfect equity, and will discourse with perfect politeness. The heir will accomplish more than Orla ever could, for the queen spent her prime years under her husband’s dominion, lying-in and mourning lost babes, and now was swiftly approaching the age where women slipped from revered mothers to easily dismissable hags.
The skull closes with a snap and ebony-dark hair cascades across the seams so that no one will see the mechanisms beneath balsa-wood skin. Sapphire eyes blink. Perfect hands smooth out her gown.
Everything is ready.
“She’s beautiful.” Orla hears it in the whispers as they descend to the ballroom, arm in arm, and she tries to match her creation’s perfect smile. The careful features were her late husband’s machination, for he had conspired with the master woodcutter, taking Orla’s plans for a simple, modest figure and turning them into something resplendent. By the time Orla saw the final form, it was too late to make alterations. If anything were to expose their secret, it would be that Carenza was simply too beautiful to be real.
“Gorgeous.”
“Exquisite.”
“The fairest in the land.”
Throughout the evening, Carenza flutters from one guest to another, discussing politics and policies and all Orla’s deepest passions for her people. They listen with attention they’d never shown the queen, but when she asks about their conversation, they’re each dumbstruck.
“She’s beautiful,” the Savonian prince enthuses.
“And clever,” Orla presses. “Is she not?”
“It was clever of you, keeping her hidden as such. There’s not a bachelor in this room who wouldn’t give you anything you wish in exchange for your radiant daughter’s hand.”
The failure falls heavy on Orla’s heart.
When the festivities fade, she retreats to her darkened throne room. Carenza kneels before her, waiting for her to snap her skull forward and examine the workings inside. But even those constellations of glittering neurons cannot satisfy Orla now. What good are they — all those fine thoughts — if no one will hear them?
A dozen proposals, yet not one was based on Carenza’s mind, her opinion, or her wisdom. Orla blames the king’s obsession with aesthetic beauty.
With a pull of a bell, Orla summons the woodcarver, and when he enters, she gestures to the kneeling figure: “Get rid of it. Destroy it all.”
The kingdom mourns the princess, who presumably succumbed to illness. Such a fragile thing; too beautiful for this life.
Orla no longer studies. She no longer entertains. She no longer smiles and barely eats and dares not to dream of the future. The once-shining castle no longer dances with movement and music and light. Outside, her rivals await her death, when they will divide up the heirless realm.
The stories that first pique Orla’s interest sound impossible: A shadow in the forest. A hooded figure in the dark, commanding a contingent of stout-statured warriors.
Yet there are no brawls, no thefts, no murders, no uptick in crime. Only unexpected gestures of generosity. A merchant refunds a payment he overcharged. A nobleman divides up his property. An entire wing of the debtors’ prison is emptied when the lienholders drop their fees.
Then, one by one come the letters, sealed shut and delivered under cover of night. Noblemen from throughout the realm, whom Orla had often suspected of various unprovable wrongdoings, write to her for advice, pleading with her to protect them.
“There is a vigilante on the loose,” they claim. “A ghost, who sees our every deed and threatens to reveal our secrets if we do not act as they require. You must help us, or you, too, will lose it all.”
“I cannot protect you from your own ill deeds,” it gives her unexpected pleasure to respond. “Perhaps, though, if you right your wrongs, this phantom crusader will show mercy.”
One by one, corrupt noblemen and landowners, merchants and villains fall to skillful stratagems: losing fortune, property, and — at times — even life. Confessionals and courtrooms overflow. Judgments are handed down. Wills are rewritten, property divided, and coffers overturned in the streets. Those who’d long thought themselves above the law are finally held to account.
Townsfolk take to wearing heart-shaped brooches of balsa wood to show their support, and that is when Orla knows for certain.
The crowds gather like a coming storm, their hooded hero leading the charge.
Orla stands on the drawbridge, watching their approach and smiling wryly at what she wrought. This was her dream, was it not? Those sparks of lightning dancing across blown glass, imagining a society ruled by justice and wisdom and skill and ability, rather than fortuity of blood. Wrongdoings punished. Kindnesses honored. This was the crescendo of her own orchestration.
The face beneath the hero’s hood is still stark, snowy white, but now it is marked with ash and grime, turning the rose-red lips as dark as old blood. Along the neckline of the woman’s tunic lies a deep, splintered gash, straight down to her still-throbbing heart.
“The woodcarver left me like this to die upon your orders,” she says, “but he underestimated how well you made me — how much of your own resilience lived in me.”
Orla touches the ends of Carenza’s unkempt hair, and despite the scars thinks her more beautiful than ever. “I see now that you were wiser than I even imagined. Rule with honor, my child.”
Orla knows what will come next for her — jailor, judge, and executioner — but after seeing Carenza, she knows she will face fate with her head held high.
