Hyrule Castle awoke as it usually did: to the sound of swordplay.
It echoed across the turrets and towers of white stone and the sloping roofs of red tile. It was heard from the kitchens and the stables and the armory, and the arching bridges that linked tower to tower. It was heard in secret gardens where green ferns lay dappled with golden sunlight and tree leaves rustled with each breath of cool spring wind.
The yard from which the sounds ushered stood in the very heart of King Balid's centuries-old fortress, sheltered by the massive walls of Death Mountain granite. A veiled Sheikah drove a mailed youth backward with savage thrusts of his blunted rapier, eyes as cold and calm as a glacial lake. The youth was hard-pressed to keep the thrusts from hitting home, his larger longsword barely parrying the lighting-quick strikes of the slender Shiekah blade that was black as midnight.
"Ease!" Diar shouted in exhaustion, ever aware of his half-brother Taril's critical eyes. He would hear no end of this.
"In battle there is no reprieve. Counter-strike!" Lothli demanded, without a break in stride. The blade was a constant black blur. Diar tried to muster a counter-attack but there was no opening in which he could press one. He was under a constant maelstrom of Shiekan steel.
Diar parried a vertical strike that was aimed at the top of his head. The swords met with a high-pitched clang, and before he knew it Lothli's blade left his and came up under, slapping his wrist with a painful blow. Diar's sword escaped his grasp and clattered across the stone of the yard. The point of Lothli's rapier touched his throat. It was cold.
"Dead," Lothli said, pushing a strand of his snow-white hair away from his face. Diar heard Taril chuckling from where he stood by the wall of the armory. Lothli walked over to where Diar's longsword had fallen and picked it up. "How many times must I tell you boy? Never drop your sword. Drop your head before you drop your sword," The Shiekah swordmaster handed him the weapon.
Diar sheathed it forcefully. He took off his plumed halfhelm and held it in the crook of his arm as he walked over to the wall where Taril stood. "Well fought," Taril mocked, with that arrogant half-smile of his. Taril was seven years younger than he at thirteen, and had the golden hair and green eyes of the Queen Medb, who was the King's second wife. Diar's mother, the late Queen Nimya, had had raven-black hair. This Diar had inherited, along with his father's almond eyes.
"Shut your trap, piss-hair," Diar hissed. He could not abide his half brother, but Medb was far worse. She had always been bitter that he was the heir of Balid's throne instead of her own son. She held nothing but disdain for Diar, and the feeling was mutual. He had no idea how a child as sweet and beautiful as eight-year-old Zelda had sprung from that woman's loins.
Medb and her forebears had always been power-hungry, possessing great influence in court. When Diar came into power that would change. The fool woman should make more of an effort to stay on the good side of her future king. She probably still believed she could somehow convince his sire to make Taril the heir, but doubtless his father knew how much his youngest son would be manipulated by his wife's family.
"It's your turn laughing-boy," Lothli told Taril, "you find your brother's mistakes amusing but if my mind serves me correctly you have made the same transgressions before."
Taril placed his halfhelm over his head and drew his longsword, approaching Lothli where he stood in the middle of the yard. "He is my half brother," Taril corrected. Diar marveled at how very much he sounded like his mother when he emphasized the word 'half'.
"Is he now?" Lothli cocked his head to the side. "I nearly forgot. I thank thee, boy-of-laughter, for the reminder."
Taril did not seem happy with Lothli's tone.
"Lessons, boy," Lothli continued. "Lessons you have to learn, of blood and water and the fellowship of Man. Of loyalties and their value, of disloyalties and their pain."
"What are you talking about?" Taril said, his voice sounding bored.
"You will learn, amused one." Lothli said, and then he was as a flooded river, his sword lashing out. Taril thrust his sword up in time but it was no use. He was on his rump in the middle of the yard a moment later, dazed and confused with his sword several feet away. Diar grinned with satisfaction.
"The laughing-boy is a dead-boy, even as his half brother," Lothli said. He sheathed his rapier in its curved leather scabbard. "Do you see what your false pride has earned you?"
"That wasn't fair!" Taril shouted, his boy-voice echoing across the yard. "You attacked before I was ready!"
Lothli sighed. "Have you remembered nothing of what I have taught you? When swords are bared you must always be ready. When you see a potential enemy you must consider every outcome, survey every possibility. You must read his thoughts. Not with some mage magic or wizard spell, but with your eyes. Read his thoughts through his movements, his appearance. Consider how tense his muscles are, how intent his eyes.
"If you were as wary and intent as you should have been you would have noticed that my whole body was tensed in preparation for a lunge, and my knuckles were white where they grasped my sword-hilt. With all the hints I gave I might as well have announced them for the whole world," the swordmaster chastened.
Taril stood and marched out of the courtyard, fuming. Diar approached Lothli.
"Your drills are done for the day," the Shiekah said. "I hope tomorrow will find both of you more focused and ready to face my steel." He left from the opposite side of the yard, heading toward the stables in the bailey, where his horse waited to bear him back to his home in Kakariko.
Diar drew up the bucket from a nearby well and quenched his thirst before stripping off his mail and helm and hanging them in the armory beside the longsword. Today's lesson had ended much earlier than most, and the morning was still young.
He was walking about the castle in contemplation of how he would spend the rest of his day when he heard someone softly singing. He followed the voice to the delicate white tracery of the gate that led into Zelda's garden, nodded at the sentry that stood there, and entered. His sister's garden was just beginning to bloom after the long winter. There were blue and white winter roses, yellow cardinals, purple lilacs, pink forget-me-nots, and crimson desert wildflowers found only in the Gerudo Wastes and the Shifting Sands beyond. His sister was sitting upon a beautifully carved marble bench, singing a song in an elegant language that he had never before heard.
"Ah ninre, eahn lahr es e rey..." She stopped as she saw him approaching, a sad smile coming across her ever-somber face. Zelda was different than most girls her age. She did not laugh, only rarely did she smile. She spent most of her time in the library, pouring over old dusty tomes and withering scrolls, searching for answers to questions she would not reveal. Her azure eyes had a spark in them, a glow that spoke of immense knowledge of things long past and things still to come.
"Where did you hear that song?" Diar asked.
Zelda stood, smoothing out the wrinkles of her pink and white dress that was embroidered with a large triforce symbol. "I dreamt it. I don't know what the words mean; the language is very old." She pulled her golden braid over her shoulder.
Zelda was always having dreams. "Perhaps old Sovren will know the song. He has knowledge of many of the elder languages." Sovren was his father's steward, and had been a scholar since before Diar was born. He was in the library almost as much as Zelda was, and had written many books about Hyrule's history.
"Sovren doesn't know it, " Zelda said simply. Diar did not doubt her.
Zelda looked up at him with those wisdom-filled eyes. "You aren't ever going to leave, are you?" she asked.
"Of course I am not going to leave. Why would I leave?" Diar replied, taken off guard by the sudden question.
"I had a dream that you left...and when you came back, you were different," Zelda said. She hugged him around the waist. "Please don't leave."
"Different how?" He asked, patting her back. Her sudden worry was making him uneasy. She released him.
"Your face looked strange...as if it were burnt by a fervent heat. You never smiled, and your eyes looked angry. They had fire in them, but not the kind of fire in the hearth. It scared me," Zelda said. She cast her eyes downward.
"It was only a dream. Last night I had a dream that my horse was riding me," Diar said, trying to lighten the mood. He was glad to see a tight-lipped smile spread across his sister's face. Diar knelt and looked into her eyes. "Dreams are only dreams. Pay them no heed." He kissed her on the forehead and left her in the garden with the flowers and her dreams.
But as he lay down to sleep that night, weary from a long day of hunting in the Amtarin Wood, he dreamt a disturbing dream. He saw a roaring inferno, the flames violent and elegant, orange and red streamers licking at the air. He actually smelt the sulfur and brimstone, the foul smell of rotten eggs and melting rock. And from that pulsating wall of heat and flame reared the huge, horned head of a awesome black dragon, its eyes as hot and terrible as the fire from which it sprang. Those terrible red eyes bored straight into his soul, searching for something...
He awoke with a pounding heart. The dream was so vivid it took him a moment to remember where he was. But then he recognized the familiar surroundings of his bedchamber, and he stood, walking to the window and letting in some cool air. His chamber had become unusually stifling.
He looked out on the sleeping castle, watching the sentries walk the walls with their silver mail glinting in the cold moonlight. And he remembered what his sister had said in the garden that morning.
"Your face looked strange...like it was burnt."