Zelda rapped on the door of Ganondorf's rooms with her knuckles.

"Come in," he said in a clear voice from the other side of the door.

She entered and closed the door behind her. When she turned to face Ganondorf he was gazing at her with an expression of intense interest.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, his curiosity plain in his voice.

Ganondorf stood next to a bookcase holding a large leather-bound volume in both hands. The books on the shelves were in a state of complete disarray. It was as if he had been picking them up, rifling through them, and putting them down at random. Instead of gaslights or lanterns, he had placed some sort of small glowing globes in the spaces between books. They emitted a soft golden light that was still bright enough to read by. In their glow she could see that the number of plants in the room had increased since she had last been here. If she wasn't mistaken, he had placed a small tray of what looked like flowering rue on one of the shelves, and the slightly protruding middle ledge supported a vase of white foxgloves. He had also placed an earthen pot containing a pothos plant on top of the bookshelf, and its vines hung down in a thick tangle. What in the names of the goddesses was this man doing with so many plants and flowers in here?

Now that she was here, Zelda found herself at a loss for what to say. She briefly regretted her decision to confront Ganondorf immediately after leaving the king's quarters, especially dressed as she was, in a gown and sandals, with her hair just as messy as his bookshelf. She knew how she must look, but she couldn't very well excuse herself and leave.

She withdrew the folded note that she'd found at the bottom of her mother's chest and held it out to Ganondorf along with the small illustration that had been affixed to it.

"This is – was – your mother's. That is to say, she sent it to my mother."

Ganondorf put the book he was holding down next to the vase of foxgloves and walked over to her. He took the two sheets of paper from her hand and studied them briefly.

"I thought as much," he said, his face betraying no emotion. "Where did you get this?"

"I found it hidden in a chest of my mother's personal effects. There were other letters as well, but I'm afraid I don't understand what this implies. What did your mother want, exactly?"

"I assume she wanted me killed."

Although she had no desire to admit it to Ganondorf, that had been Zelda's conclusion as well. She'd more or less been able to piece together the story on her own, but she still needed confirmation before she made any assumptions.

"But the poison never found its way to you," she prompted.

"Obviously." An unreadable look crossed Ganondorf's face, and he crushed the paper in his fist. Before Zelda could say anything, flames leapt up from between his closed fingers, and in an instant his entire hand was wreathed in fire.

Zelda couldn't manage to suppress a small gasp, but she forced herself to remain calm as her mind raced. She had no intention of continuing a conversation with Ganondorf if his reaction was to start setting things on fire, but the intensity of his response signaled to Zelda that she no longer needed any sort of corroboration for her hypothesis. Ganondorf's mother had wanted him to die, but she couldn't bring herself to do it with her own hands, so she had asked the Queen of Hyrule to do it for her. Regretting her decision at the last moment, however, she must have ingested the tea brewed with the petals of the Silent Princess herself, and it had killed her. Her own mother had died shortly thereafter. Either she had been so consumed with guilt that she had taken her own life or the Gerudo had suspected her of murder and surreptitiously taken the matter into their own hands. The result was the same either way.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't know," Zelda muttered. "I had… I really had no idea. I'm so sorry."

"Not as sorry as your mother, apparently."

Zelda winced at Ganondorf's cruelty. Strike him, a voice whispered like a chill winter wind from the back of her mind, and she had to exercise every ounce of her willpower not to give in to the urge to do precisely that.

"What drove them to do this?" she asked instead.

Ganondorf relaxed his fist, and the flames surrounding it faded. There was no ash on his palm, nor any trace of the paper he'd been holding. Once again his face was as smooth as a mask.

"What drove them to do this?" he repeated her question. "Me, apparently."

"Just because there's some sort of legend that Gerudo males are cursed? I refuse to believe that."

"Who's to say that Gerudo males aren't cursed? You've seen the proof with your own eyes. We both have. Curse or no curse, the only thing either us has seen in your visions is war."

That's not all we saw, Zelda thought, remembering how he had kissed her, but she held her tongue.

"But why does there always have to be some sort of conflict?" she demanded instead. "Why does it have to be like this?"

"Did Link tell you about the Master Sword when you spoke to him?"

"What?"

"You heard what I said."

"How do you know that I talked to Link?"

"He suggested as much to Nabooru, and she told me." Ganondorf shrugged. "I've tried speaking with him myself, but I can never get him to be serious. I suppose I can't blame him. He is destined to kill me, after all."

Zelda shook her head, flustered at the strange turn this conversation had taken. She considered her options and decided that it was easiest simply to trust that what Ganondorf was telling her was true. If the ocarina and its magic were real, then the Master Sword must be real as well.

"If Link is 'the legendary hero,' then he would indeed wield the Master Sword, but he's never said anything about it. At least, not to me. But…" Zelda paused for a moment as she thought, trying to remember what she had read in various places. "The Master Sword is part of the magic that seals whatever darkness is supposed to be lurking just under the surface of Hyrule, and if it's drawn from its pedestal then the seal will be broken. It's said that it can only be drawn in the most dire of circumstances, when the evil in Hyrule is already greater than what would be unleashed by breaking the seal. There's a lot I don't know about what happens in this kingdom, but surely there's no cause for Link to have to draw the Master Sword, not now. I know him, he wouldn't…"

"You don't know anything about him," Ganondorf snarled. The undisguised fury on his face frightened her. She had seen Ganondorf angry, but never like this. She took a step back, and his expression rapidly shifted to something resembling shame. In that moment Zelda realized how frightened he was, and how difficult it must be for him to control his emotions while discussing whatever curse had caused his mother's death and would presumably result in his own as well. Nevertheless, she refused to respond to this burst of rage and fixed her own face into a cold frown of displeasure as she met his eyes.

Ganondorf looked away first. "The Master Sword is located somewhere in this castle," he said, obviously struggling to maintain a calm tone of voice. "There would be no other reason for Link to come here. He loves animals, he always has, but I can only assume that he found a position as a menial laborer because servants tend to know things that pass beneath the eyes of their employers. If there's a secret to be found, that would have been the best way for him to find it, and I'd be willing to bet he located what he was looking for almost immediately. I've never met a more restless person in my life, and I can assure you that the only reason he stays here is to be close to that sword."

"You're making a lot of assumptions," Zelda replied. "But let's just say that all of this is true. Even if the Master Sword is here in the castle, and even if Link does know exactly where it is, and even if he does for some reason feel a compulsion to be close to it, what makes you think that he would ever use it?"

"He'll use it," Ganondorf said, turning his back to her as he returned to the bookshelf.

Zelda hated it when people walked away from her, and she made no attempt to conceal the irritation in her voice when she responded to him. "He won't use it if I don't tell him to. If he's the hero of legend, then I'm the princess of legend, and I'm the one giving the orders."

"He'll use it whether you ask him to or not. In case you haven't noticed, you're not the person he's pledged his loyalty to."

"Then who is?"

"Isn't it obvious? He's a spy for the king."

"Oh…" Zelda exhaled. She hadn't noticed; but, now that Ganondorf stated it boldly as a fact, a great many things started to make sense to her. The sudden rush of information made her feel faint, and she realized that she had been standing just inside the doorway of the sitting room and talking to Ganondorf for quite some time.

"That's a problem for both of us, then, isn't it," she said in a flat voice. "Are you going to invite me to sit down, or are we just going to stand here making accusations at each other all night?"

"Fine. Come in. Sit down. Make yourself at home," Ganondorf said, his words clipped.

Zelda walked over to the couch with as much dignity as she could muster and sat, lifting the hem of her gown to cross her legs as she folded her arms over her chest.

"Now offer me tea," she ordered.

Ganondorf turned to her with an incredulous look on his face. "You just found out that your mother killed mine with an herbal infusion, and now you want tea?"

"Don't act all high and mighty," Zelda replied, making an angry gesture with her hand. "You've known this all along. And you've kept it from me, lording the secret over me like my ignorance gave you some sort of power. And your mother isn't the only person who ended up dead, so don't act like you have the right to get upset with me. All this time we've been sharing visions of past wars that both of our mothers died to prevent from recurring. So yes, I think you owe me the common courtesy of giving me something to drink. I'm thirsty."

"Great Din, you haven't changed at all since you were a girl. How could I have forgotten how bossy you are?" Ganondorf rolled his eyes, and the gesture was so childish that Zelda couldn't help smirking. "But fine, have some tea," he continued. "Be my guest. You're lucky that I already have some brewed and put on ice. I'll pour you a glass, if it suits Your Highness. Or would you prefer to watch me go through the trouble of making fresh tea myself?"

"Chilled tea will be fine. Be a dear and try not to poison it."

"I'll do my best to refrain." Ganondorf lifted a corner of his mouth in a vague approximation of a smile. "But what would you do, if I did?"

"I'd die, I suppose." Zelda shrugged. "But I'm going to be queen in what, two days now? Think of all the plans that will have to be canceled. I'm serious, just think of all the banquets you'd no longer have to attend. Of course, I wouldn't have to go either, so you might just be doing both of us a favor."

"I suppose you're right." Ganondorf nodded sagely. "I can't deny that I'm tempted, but a lot of cake would go to waste."

"Wasted cake? How much cake are we talking about here?"

"If only you know," Ganondorf hinted as he made his way over to an icebox set directly into the stone floor. He withdrew a handsome glass carafe filled with pale golden tea. It was covered in frosty condensation. "I've been to the kitchens, and I've seen what's being prepared for your coronation. There are hills of cake, mountains of cake, cake beyond your wildest imagining."

Zelda smiled in satisfaction. She didn't care for cake herself, but she remembered that Ganondorf had a sweet tooth, and it amused her to know that he hadn't outgrown it. "You have access to some of the most powerful magic in Hyrule, and that's how you use it? To sneak cake out of the kitchen?"

"Of course," he answered, offering her a glass of cold tea with mint leaves floating on its surface. "A man has to eat."

"I could have you arrested for treason." Zelda took a sip of the tea. It was delicious and refreshing, and she suddenly found that she was incredibly thirsty. She threw her head back as she drained the glass.

Ganondorf smirked down at her. "You'd have to call it treatson.'"

Zelda almost choked as she swallowed. Did he actually try to make a joke? she thought, coughing. "Is that supposed to be funny in Gerudo?" she asked once she recovered.

"I'll have you know that I'm much more charming in Gerudo. You should really learn to speak it."

"I should, actually," Zelda agreed. She could read the language with almost perfect fluency, but she had never had any occasion to practice speaking it, and she wasn't confident that she could carry on a conversation without embarrassing herself.

"While we're on the subject," she said, changing the subject completely, "where did you get those lanterns on the bookshelf? What are they? I've never seen anything like them before. Do the Gerudo make them?"

"I guess you could say that," Ganondorf replied as he sat down beside her. "But the truth is that we just refurbish them. The ruins in the desert are filled with things like this, and we're only just now excavating some of the more accessible sites and figuring out how to get these artifacts to work. But excavation is dangerous and progress is slow, and in the meantime we have other things to worry about. Nothing that's come out of this research has been profitable, so it's not something we devote our resources to. So there these archaeological sites sit, just as undisturbed as they've been for centuries, I'd imagine."

"That sounds fascinating," Zelda said, genuinely intrigued. "I'd like to see some of these ruins for myself."

Ganondorf stared at her in disbelief. "Perhaps you understand why you wouldn't be welcome."

Zelda smiled and met his eyes. "Then welcome me."

"It would be my pleasure." Ganondorf held her gaze, but the humor had faded from his face. He was a stranger in this castle, and Zelda was just now realizing that he had probably expected to meet his death here. In fact, now that she reconsidered their conversation in the inner courtyard garden, it struck her that he clearly thought his death would more than likely come at her hands. As long as he remained in Hyrule, she held the power in their relationship. In truth, between their visions of the past and what had already occurred during their own lives, there was no reason for him to be friendly to her. She should have been a much more gracious host in the weeks that he'd been here, and it was only now that she'd sought out the opportunity to speak to him in private like this.

Zelda swallowed her pride and made a firm resolution to be kind. There had already been enough misunderstandings, but for the time being it was her responsibility to ease the tension between them.

"Are your quarters in your own castle filled with flowers as well?" she asked, trying to draw him out.

"No," he answered bluntly. The was a strained moment of silence, and she couldn't think of anything to say to fill it. She tried to take another sip of tea, but her glass was empty. Ganondorf gave a gentle smile at the awkwardness of the situation and took the cup from her.

"We have greenhouses filled with flowers, of course, but we maintain them for medicinal purposes," he said as he refilled her glass from the carafe. "No one would use flowers to make a room look pretty. But here in your castle, before they're more than a day old, you just…" He paused, apparently searching for the right words, but then shrugged in resignation. "But you just throw them out."

"So you rescue them, and you keep them here because you like them?"

As Zelda saw a faint blush creep up Ganondorf's cheeks, she realized that was exactly what he did. He loved flowers; he always had. It made her happy to think that she knew these things about him: that he loved flowers, that he liked sweet things, what he had been like as a child, the way he could never pronounce certain words correctly, how he put books up and back down without any regard for their proper order. At the moment, all of these tiny bits of knowledge about him seemed even more meaningful than the fact that he could use magic or that both of their mothers had believed him to be cursed.

"Herbs are useful in potion brewing," Ganondorf remarked while he poured himself a glass of tea. As he drank, Zelda noticed that he chewed and swallowed the mint leaves at the top. She tried it herself as he continued speaking. "It's something the Sheikah and the Gerudo have in common, our herbal lore. Gerudo legends say that the Sheikah learned their magic and technology from us, but who knows for sure? Sheikah symbols have been found in our ruins, so we may have once been the same tribe. We have entire walls of scrolls in the palace library, so many that it would take a lifetime to read even half of them. The truth might be written in one of them, but just like the ruins in the desert, we have other things to worry about."

"Speaking of legends," Zelda interrupted him, "Link may be loyal to my father, but I think he may have tried to give me a message."

"How so?" Ganondorf asked, openly curious.

Zelda was surprised by the lack of bitterness in his tone, which was completely at odds with the anger she had seen him express earlier. "You don't really hate him, do you?" she asked.

"No, I don't hate him. I even wished we could be friends, years ago. He may have already told you this, but he spent some time with the Gerudo, and he was the only other boy in the palace. Nabooru found him wandering out in the desert and took him in, and she found a position for him as some sort of courier. I always wanted to find an excuse to talk with him, but I wasn't…"

Zelda smiled, remembering what Ganondorf was like when he was younger. "You didn't strike me as the sort of kid who made friends easily."

Ganondorf returned her smile. "You could certainly say that."

"So," she continued, "while Link and I were talking, mainly about how dangerous you might be, Link played a song for me. He played it on a Gerudo guitar, but it didn't sound like any Gerudo music I've ever heard. He played the refrain more than once. It was like he was playing it for my benefit, so that I would remember it. I showed him the ocarina a few days ago, and he seemed quite interested in it. If he knows about the Master Sword, I wonder if he doesn't maybe also have some understanding of what the ocarina is and how it works…"

"So why don't you try playing it? Did you bring the ocarina with you?" Ganodnorf asked, motioning toward her satchel, which she had kept close to her side.

"I do want to try to play it, but… Is that okay with you?" she asked, thinking of the vertigo and confusion she experienced during her visions. "Is it uncomfortable for you, to do this?"

"It is," Ganondorf answered honestly. "But I want to do it anyway."

"Okay." Zelda exhaled slowly, gathering her thoughts as she took out the ocarina. With Ganondorf watching her so closely, she felt awkward, but as soon as she put her lips to the mouthpiece of the instrument Link's melody came to her naturally. The song was rousing and heroic, and even though she missed a few notes at the beginning she was able to find the tune quickly. She was almost starting to enjoy herself when she began to feel the familiar sense of displacement in the pit of her stomach, but she closed her eyes and continued playing until she could no longer feel the ocarina under her fingers or hear its music in her ears.

When she opened her eyes everything was bright, and she was flying. Or, no – not quite flying. She was in the sky, but she had no awareness of her own body. It was as if she were the sky itself, a brilliantly blue sky, and she was so high up that she could look down on the clouds. One in particular caught her attention, a towering cumulonimbus ringed by eerie lenticular swirls. When she focused her gaze she realized that she could see anything she wanted in sharp detail, and it didn't take her long to realize that there were two distinct figures standing at the top of the cloud formation. One of them was Link. He was wearing a strange green tunic sewn from coarse fabric, and a long matching cap that flapped behind his ears, but he was undoubtedly Link. He held a long blade of shining steel in his left hand. He was pointing the sword at his opponent, but what he was facing was entirely beyond Zelda's comprehension. It was like a blur of pure darkness that trailed a mantle of flame behind it, and she could almost make it out, but –

Spare that pitiful creature from your sight, a voice spoke in her mind, except it wasn't a "voice," exactly, but a magnificent chorus of song. It lifted Zelda's spirit, and she felt as if she were suddenly borne aloft on a profusion of wings, each pinion quivering in harmony. The sensation of flight and the accompanying feeling of being filled with power flooded her heart with light. The intensity of the experience would have taken her breath away if her breath weren't the very wind itself.

May the goddess grant me wisdom, Zelda prayed, the words echoing through her heart more earnestly than they ever had before.

Her silent prayer was met with laughter, a tintinnabulation of joy that was radiant in its purity.

You are the wisdom you seek, the voice sounded again in her mind. But it is a balance, a sweep and a rise, a creation and a reshaping, the dance of youth and age, the triumph of experience and the renewal of innocence. Look, and understand.

Zelda's gaze was swept through the clouds, skimming along the white fluffy tops of the altostratus dusting the sky, and then she could see a city, a beautiful city of stone and marble and trees and waterfalls, all perched on a series of islands floating serenely in the aether. The buildings soared over the tops of the trees even as roots dangled from the bottom layer of soil, and the entire ecosystem was teeming with vibrant life. Zelda could feel its energy vibrating in every particle of her being.

How, she asked herself, but she already knew. This was divine magic. What Ganondorf had learned from his books and scrolls was nothing more than a tiny remnant of this vast force. How impressed she had been with him, but he had merely scooped a thimbleful of water from an endless ocean. What she was seeing now was the magic the had created this world.

Again laughter pealed like bells through the heavens. These are nothing more than the ruins that formed the cradle of your birth, the voice sang. Let me show you the true magic – let me show you Hyrule!

The clouds began to race around her, and the stars danced across the sky, streaming light in their wake. Zelda allowed the passage of time to flow through her, and it felt incredible. She was on the verge of crying out in pleasure, so she closed her eyes until the sensation had abated. When she opened them again, the sight that greeted her was nothing less than pure glory.

She was looking at Hyrule. She knew this as surely as she knew her own name, but it was a Hyrule beyond her wildest fantasies. Towers blazing with illumination stretched to the sky, and wide roads cut across the land like rivers. These monuments erected by Hylian hands were interspersed with bodies of water so clear they reflected the azure of the sky and stretches of green so lush and deep they were like a hymn offered by the very earth itself. The sight was so vast and rich that Zelda could hardly take it all in, and she knew it was hers. The city and the floating islands and even the sky itself – it was all hers, and it was all good, and it was all just, and it was all as it should be.

Zelda's heart was filled with an overwhelming sense of peace and contentment, but something was wrong. Everything was bright and beautiful, so much so that it was difficult to concentrate. She resisted the pull of this expansive sense of enlightenment; she had to, if she wanted to think for herself.

She struggled to form words in her mind, and slowly she was able to germinate her seeds of doubt into a solid sense of purpose. If I truly am a descendant of the goddess Hylia, she thought, then why am I mortal? If Hyrule was meant to be a shining beacon of civilization, then what happened to it? How did it fall?

There was no response, so she concentrated the force of her will into a silent scream. Show me the battle! she commanded whoever or whatever was guiding her. Even if she were speaking directly to the goddess Hylia herself, she still had a right to understand her heritage. Show me what the hero had to fight with that sword!

There was a sound like a soft sigh, and the most delicate and gentle feeling of regret passed through her. In an instant, the city below her was engulfed in flames. Time turned back on itself and flowed forward once again, and the proud towers fell as the roads were blasted away. The green became brown, and the water became mud. In the sky the some of the floating islands were swept violently away as if on the back of a great atmospheric wave, while the ones that remained crumbled away, falling bit by bit below the clouds until only a few small hovels and meager fields remained on a scattering of mossy rocks only barely holding themselves aloft.

And then her gaze shifted once again to Link, who no longer stood opposite an amorphous challenger but danced in a succession of blows with a black scaled monster that had only the vaguest resemblance to a man. It spit fire and fury, but its movements were oddly lacking in coordination, as if it had forgotten how to move and was only manipulating its body through brute force. Link's sword – it must be the Master Sword – was straight and shining and pure, while the blade the monster clutched in one of its gigantic clawed fists was horribly twisted. Link was the perfect embodiment of skill and grace, and Zelda felt sorry for the pitiful thing he struck, over and over again as each of his hits landed with deadly accuracy.

But what were they fighting about, and why? Zelda looked even farther down, and she saw that the column of clouds was rising from a pit in the earth. She narrowed the focus of her gaze, and then she could see, at the very bottom of the pit, a girl in a dirty white dress lying inert on a stone tablet riddled with cracks and blotched with bloodstains that were still wet. The girl's face was terribly contorted in anguish, but Zelda still recognized herself immediately. A second later, she understood why she was in pain – her spirit was being leached by the monster in the clouds, and she was resisting it with all her might.

The scope of her vision widened, and she saw that this girl on a stone lay at the center of Hyrule, which was nothing more than miles and miles of ruins and scorched earth. The mountains spewed lava, and the sea had become a barren desert. Zelda suddenly understood what had happened, and how.

She lifted her gaze to the battle, and she examined the monster's face closely. Despite its jutting fangs and its sharp protruding scales and the jets of flame it expelled, the curve of its nose and the angle of its jaw and the gold of its eyes were intimately familiar to her.

Curse you, she prayed, her words echoing through the sky. May your fury forever be futile. May you find no allies on this earth, and may you forever walk alone in your misery. May your struggle only bring you pain, and may you never be anything more than raging and blind.

Time slowed, and the edges of the world blurred as the demon turned its head away from Link and fixed its glowing eyes directly on her. It saw her and then, with its fearsome mouth, it smiled.

Then let it be so, it said, its sonorous voice beautiful beyond reason. May this battle be yours as well, and may it continue until not a single memory is left of your kingdom. Until the sky falls, and until the earth rises to meet it, my hatred will follow your descendants. This is the fate you have chosen, Goddess. May the curse you have laid become your legend.

It hated her, of that she could be sure, but there was a strange look of longing in its gaze before it bowed its head and closed its eyes. Time resumed its normal flow, and in that instant Link leapt into the air and brought the Master Sword down on the creature's head. As it fell to its knees, Zelda understood that it had allowed itself to be defeated. It knew it could not win this fight, but it had decided to lose it on its own terms.

The monster seemed to be saying something to Link, but Zelda could no longer hear its words. The wind was rushing in her ears, and the light was fading from the sky. She felt her spirit being violently pulled back down into the body on the stone altar, and the last thing she saw was the uncannily familiar golden eyes of the demon as it trembled and shook in agony.

Everything went black, and when Zelda returned to herself she found Ganondorf staring at her, his own golden eyes burning with an unfathomable rage.

She didn't understand why he was looking at her like that, but she wasn't sure she understood anything at this point. "Did you… Did you see that?" she asked, desperately trying to reestablish her foothold in reality as she processed what she'd just experienced. "I don't… What happened?"

"You're asking me if I saw that idiot child murder the divine guardian of this land?" Ganondorf asked her, his voice cold and dry. "You're asking me what happened? You saw it as clearly as I did, you heard their words. Your goddess destroyed Hyrule to spite the one force on this earth that could keep her power in check, and then she doomed its people to eternal war. Your ancestors did this, Zelda – you did this. Hyrule will burn, and you will watch it, knowing that its people will turn to their sacred princess in their weakness and despair. All this death, all this decay – this is the glory of your throne. This is your legacy."