Chapter 10
It was already hours past the evening meal when Zelda retreated to her room. She didn't want to sleep, but wished instead for the comfort of her personal chamber. A sense of unease had been growing on her all day and it was starting to tell on Zelda's happiness. Her room seemed silent and cold, devoid of the warmth and light that usually inhabited it. Even the Hero of Time seemed to be smirking at her from the tapestry.
Impa bustled in, breaking Zelda's musings. She put the clean linen she was carrying aside and turned back to Zelda.
"Are you okay, princess?" she said, concern knitting her features. She stared at Zelda for a moment before light dawned in her eyes. "So you can feel it too then."
"Yes," started Zelda "Evil is stirring."
"It is." whispered Impa "The Cycle is turning. Something has been set in motion priness, although what I do not know."
She paused turning her head toward the curtains that masked Zelda's private balcony. "We will post more guards tomorrow, nothing can be allowed opportunity to harm you Princess."
Zelda frowned. "What about tonight?"
The nurse raised an eyebrow, realizing her charge wasn't joking. "I'll go talk to the guard." Her eyes twinkled "In the meantime, I'm sure Gabriel would be happy to protect you in my absence. I'll send him in."
Zelda blushed, pale rose creeping up her neck and into her cheeks. "I would like that very much."
Impa turned and left, leaving the princess alone with her thoughts. If the Cycle had shifted than a great evil was being loosed upon the world. And she, Zelda, would have to combat it. Her thoughts shifted to the Hero of Time. Where is he? she wondered, trying to conjure up a face in her mind. But instead of getting the courageous hero she wanted, Demon's face appeared as she had last seen it. The despair in his eyes seemed to drill into her head. Desperately she tried to turn her thoughts to happier things, but her concentration was broken as Gabriel walked into the room.
He sat down beside Zelda and kissed her smoothly on the cheek, causing Zelda to blush anew. "What is it that his troubling my Princess?"
Zelda was momentarily annoyed by the note of possession in his voice, but instantly forgot about it as Gabriel twined his fingers through hers.
"I have been sensing...something sick, all day." started Zelda. "And Impa tells me darkness is stirring. Frankly I'm scared. Scared for myself. Scared for Hyrule." She buried her head in Gabriel's shoulder.
"We'll just have to make you forget about it then, won't we?" He hesitated for a moment before coming to a decision in his mind. "I have been wondering for a while when would be the best time to do this, but I can wait no longer." Smoothly, Gabriel pulled his hand from Zelda and dropped to one knee in front of her.
"From the moment I saw you Zelda, you have been the light in my heart. You are my sunrise and sunset, morning and evening. When you were stolen by the Aratians it almost killed me, I never wish to be separated from you ever again. I love you princess and I wish to spend the rest of my days with you...Will you marry me Zelda?"
The princess sat stunned, mouth gaping open as she looked down at the kneeling Gabriel. She surprised herself by hesitating, so often had she dreamed of this moment and now it had come. But something stopped her from giving voice to the words that she had said so often in her sleep.
The door creaked open behind Gabriel, and something heavy hit the floor. Zelda tore her eyes from Gabriel's face and went rigid with shock. Seeing her face, the noble turned and drew his sword. "Who disturbs us." he snarled. His blatant anger made Zelda nervous, the transition between emotion had been like lightening.
The body of her nurse lay crumpled on the floor, a trickle of blood falling from a shallow gash on Impa's temple. The kind of gash made by a blade. Zelda's relief was almost tangible as she realized the nurse was merely unconscious. She looked from Impa to the doorway which was strangely dark. The torches that would usually have lit the corridor had been snuffed out and the strangely shifting shadows hid whatever had pushed Impa into the room.
A figure detached itself from the wall and moved to the centre of the doorway. A cape fluttering down from his shoulders to the floor below. The eyes were the only distinctive feature on the figure, little red dots like embers sparked in their depths.
Gabriel tightened his fists on his sword and moved into a fighting crouch. From the small portion of her mind that wasn't in shock Zelda noticed that the movement actually put herself between Gabriel and the shadowy figure.
"Who's there?" rasped Gabriel, fear dancing in his eyes.
Demon...came the reply. A thin whisper that seemed to swirl around the chamber, momentarily flickering the torches. Recognition flared in Gabriel's eyes and his sword began to shake furiously.
"No, you died in the manor." he whispered "You can't be here. It's not possible!"
The shadowy figure advanced, stepping forward into the torchlight over the body of Impa. The twisted knives he held in either hand cast misshapen shadows on the floor. His eyes were locked on Zelda, sucking her into the inferno that was harboured inside them.
Zelda was falling, falling into a dark hole from which there was no way out. This was the Demon she had seen in her dreams. The one that had laughed as blood spattered the air around him. Sparks and broiling shadows danced in his eyes, the blue she had seen in them gone almost entirely.
Demon advance on Gabriel, taking him as the larger threat. Knives whirled in his hands, their flashing edges spinning complex shapes in the torchlight. Abruptly finding himself, Gabriel swung his sword at the approaching warrior. Demon dodged the blow easily and kept coming. An insane grin formed on his features, amplifying the terror his eyes inspired.
Gabriel launched into a whirling attack pattern that would have had most other opponents on their knees. He was known as one of the best swordsman in Hyrule and the title had not been misplaced. The sword appeared to be everywhere at once, slashing and hacking at Demon. Only one successful blow was needed to turn the battle in Gabriel's favour, but one blow was one more than Gabriel would ever get.
Zelda began to scream, a shriek that gave voice to the terror that gripped her. The worst nightmare she had ever had, was fighting right in front of her, against the man she thought she loved.
Gabriel grunted, beginning to sweat under the terrible strain of swinging his heavy sword so fast and hard. "They will not hear you princess, the chamber walls are too thick."
Demon was a blur, an insubstantial shadow that slipped away from even the fastest of Gabriel's strikes. He was darkness itself and the torches seemed to shy away from his presence. A cut appeared on Gabriel's forearm and then another as Demon harried the tiring warrior.
It was only a matter of time Gabriel knew, Demon was inhumanly fast, faster than any man he had ever faced. Something seemed to snap inside of the dark-haired noble. Never in his life had he been so afraid and the new-found terror was beginning to tell. He broke off his attack and looked over at the princess, her wide blue eyes pleading with him to save her. To be her hero.
Gabriel tore his eyes back to Demon and gave the assassin a warrior's salute with his sword. "She's all yours." he whispered and fled out of the room.
Zelda watched Gabriel run, her eyes not really believing what they were seeing. The man who had just professed love for her had run away, leaving his princess with her worst nightmare. "Gabriel," she murmured, "come back, please."
Demon grinned at the stunned princess. Now she knew what it felt like to be betrayed. To have your world turned on end and shattered. He moved, bloody knives ready in his hands. "Now it's just you and me princess," he snarled, the anger flooding his body. Wave of fury crashed together, carrying him on their frothing peaks.
He was slowly walking toward her, his eyes filled with madness and hatred. Zelda was beyond fear, she had reached a level of terror she had never thought possible. The warrior of darkness stopped almost right in front of her, looming down toward Zelda like the angel of shadow he was.
"Why?" she whispered, as he raised one red-stained dagger.
The dagger stopped, frozen in time. "You ordered my death."
Zelda eyes widened, the confusion penetrating her terror. "I did no such thing."
Demon did not seem to hear her. "You were my only hope." The dagger began to rise again.
"What are you talking about? I healed your wound and made Gabriel let you live."
"He came back...under your orders."
Zelda gasped, looking into his eyes "Gabriel, did that?
Doubt flickered briefly in the swirling darkness. "You didn't know."
"No," she murmured "I didn't."
The fires in his eyes flared to life once more. "Shadow and flame" he whispered, bringing his dagger up. He plunged it forward. "Die, Zelda."
The princess closed her eyes, waiting for the piercing pain of the knife. It never came. She looked up at Demon in confusion, fear written plain on her features. Some kind of inner struggle was raging inside the black-cloaked warrior.
Curse you Link, Demon raged to himself, the dagger trembling his hand. The last vestiges of the Hero of Time's soul had risen up in response to Demon's attempt on Zelda's life. It was the one thing that could have recalled them from their dark and lonely exile and it did so with vengeance. Zelda, the voice whispered. Zelda! Demon could see the fear in her blue eyes and hated himself for causing it, but the rage was out of control.
Zelda looked up at Demon and saw little of the blue return to his eyes, some sanity seemed to enter his gaze. She looked at the dagger clutched in his left hand, noticing it's shaking. But something else had caught her attention. The gauntlet on his forearm had been pushed upward during his battle with Gabriel, leaving the back of his hand bare. There, glowing golden, was the triangular symbol of the Triforce. The mark born by the Hero of Time.
Demon followed Zelda gaze to his hand and his eyes widened. "No..." he whispered as the triangle started to glow. The golden aura was matched by the one emanating from Zelda's own Triforce mark. The princess looked up at him with disbelief, it was not possible.
The warrior of darkness backed away, his shaking becoming more and more pronounced. The dagger fell from his left hand clattering to the floor. "Zelda" he whispered, the word sighing through the chamber like a restless ghost. Blind panic exploded in his head, crushing the anger and suffering alike.
He had tried to kill Zelda.
Demon turned and fled onto the balcony, trying desperately to escape.
He had tried to kill Zelda.
He through himself over the rail and began to climb down the wall to the ground. Scrabbling wildly at the rock wall he only managed to get halfway down before he lost his grip and fell.
He had tried to kill Zelda
The mantra repeated itself over and over in his head as her ran. The secret tunnel felt his passage and then the Market Town. Hyrule field marked his flight over its expanse, but the Great Forest hid the spot where he finally collapsed.
He had tried to kill Zelda.