"Darkness without the glint of stars; that is my worst fear."

Professor Shikashi, Royal Astronomer


All he could feel besides the ache in his body was the freezing ground beneath it. Something pounded in his head as if it were trying to escape, pulses drumming against his skull in rapid succession. He could not feel his hands, he could not move his feet, and when he opened his mouth to groan, he could only exhale a painful, voiceless breath. His own weight seemed to hold him against the ground, and when he tried to bend his legs, a white jolt of pain spread from his knee to his hip. He struggled against his own eyelids, but the caked mucus on his skin and eyelashes held them shut. After a few minutes of lying paralyzed in the cold, he managed to lift an arm. Muscles aching with effort, he lay his freezing fingers over his face, and wiped his eyes, picking at the mucilage that had fused his lids shut. With each rub of his fingers, his head throbbed a little more, pain pounding behind his eyes all the way down to his jaw. He rubbed his temples, ran a few fingers through his hair, and discovered he had lost his hat.

When he finally managed to crack his eyelids open, he saw nothing. He blinked, rolled his eyes in his head, blinked again—but he could make out no shapes, no color but inky black. He tried to groan again; this time, a wheezing, pathetic rasp squeezed out from his lips. He struggled to roll to his side, pain shooting from his waist to his shoulders. His fingers probed the ground beneath him—hard stone, cold to the touch. With a wave of nausea, he pulled himself onto all fours, head dangling with aching pulsations between his shaking arms.

Slowly, the events of the recent past returned to him. Somewhere in the darkness of his vision, he saw Impa, running through a startled crowd ahead of him, he saw the glint of armor as the guards pursued them, the grey blur of snowy cobblestone rushing up to meet him. His heart started to race as the implications of his imprisonment dawned on him.

He groped around for any sign of Impa. He called her name a few times, his hoarse voice echoing closely around him. It seemed he was alone in the small chamber. When he shakily pushed himself to his feet, he found the ceiling out of reach. He crept to a wall, hands trembling, and ran his fingers along the stone, tracing out the perimeter of his cell. When the rough, uneven surface of rock gave way to smooth metal, he stopped to feel the tall, elongated rectangle of a solid door, unadorned with a window or handle. He tried to push his fingers into any cracks in the frame, tried to find any purchase or weakness in its shape, but could find nothing noteworthy or encouraging. It quickly became clear to him he was not going to escape, at least through the door.

So he dragged himself back to the corner of the room. He slid down against the wall farthest from the door and stared, waiting for his eyes to adjust so he could discover more about his current surroundings. But the darkness was absolute; no matter how long he blinked, how long he moved his teary eyes this way and that, he could see nothing.

He wondered where he was—this was not the same sort of cell that he and Impa had been thrown into at their first meeting. Those were reserved for petty criminals caught on the King's property: vegetable thieves and trespassers, defiant slaves or servants who had slipped one too many treasures into their breast pockets while cleaning. Those torchlit chambers were not like this one, with its dark, stale air and its thick windowless door, its freezing floor and complete, oppressive silence.

He supposed his current location depended on the nature of his crimes. If his forged papers were the cause of his imprisonment, he would no doubt be in some holding cell beneath the Capital's outer wall, or in one of the many gendarmeries scattered about the city. If he were thrown in this dark chamber for the crime of impersonating royal personnel, he would probably find himself in front of a high court soon enough. If he were wanted for treason, however—

Link thought of what Shaddon may have said to the sentry guarding the city gate before he urged his cart through. For all he knew, the man could've told the soldier anything—or worse, everything. He could've slipped the guard a hint about the two doctors that followed him out of the city, he could've informed him of Link and Impa's suspected involvement with Daph's old insurgent group. Hell, for all Link knew, the man could've implicated his own infant daughter as a pretender to the Dragmires' throne.

"Damn him," Link muttered. His voice echoed absurdly loud through the stone cell, but he could not stop himself from repeating the words. Over and over, he cursed Shaddon, his certainty of the man's complicity in his capture growing with each second.

Of course he had told the guard. Link could not recall if it was the same sentry that had inspected his own papers, but he knew word could travel fast among soldiers on duty. Goddesses damn it, he and Impa should've left the city right behind the traitorous bastard. Then at least the royal sentries wouldn't have had time to rally themselves and close the portcullis before he had time to escape. Maybe, if they had followed Shaddon more closely, they would've made it out.

Perhaps Impa still had. Link held onto the image of her soaring over the crowd effortlessly, knife glinting. He focused steadily on it, hoping to all the gods she'd made it away from the guards in time. Perhaps she had found another way over the wall and was now screaming through the fields of Lanayru toward Shaddon's wagon. Perhaps she had made her way back to their hideout, or lurked somewhere outside of his prison, planning to spring him, while he sat useless and helpless in the dark. He leaned against the wall and pulled his knees tight against him, hanging his head between them. He apologized inwardly, fervently, as he had done every time he'd disappointed or impeded her. He could only hope she had made it out of the city in time, that she had caught up to Shaddon and quickly and violently separated him from his wife and daughter. He tried to imagine Impa, Gwen and Zelda in tow, pulling their humble cart into the turning shadow of Old Riko's creaking windmill. Zelda's big blue eyes would widen at the sight of those monstrous rotating arms, at the glint of colored glass in the Playhouse's windows, at the bustling snowy streets. Perhaps they had all made it far enough away from the city to be safe, maybe they were still hurrying past Oldcastle; Link could not tell how much time had passed since his capture. The way his stomach rumbled suggested it may have been the better part of a day.

He lowered himself to his side, folding his hands beneath his cheek. One by one, he explored the possible outcomes of his imprisonment (of course, he would've found this mental exercise easier if he'd been at least partially aware of the realities of his situation), but they ran the gamut from a swift release for mistaken identity, to a slap on the wrist for his forged travel documents; a fine and prison time for false impersonation, to a public beheading for treason. He could not help but linger on the image of an axe falling on his neck, severing his head from his body in a violent, bloody thump.

Talon had taken him to a public execution once. He did not hear the sound of the criminal's head leaving his body, but he had felt it through his feet. When the executioner's blade had met the block, the impact traveled through the wooden platform, through the stone streets and up Link's shaking legs. It was a sound—a feeling—he would not easily forget, and one he had always hoped to avoid in the future.

And now, it might be him up there, head rolling to the feet of a cheering audience. Maybe the sound of an axe tearing through him to land thickly into wood would scare another little peasant boy into compliance. Maybe it is just as well, he thought. Perhaps my purpose is to serve as an example. I'm certainly not fulfilling any other role.

But he dreaded the thought of dying before he saw the little girl again. He hoped Impa could tell her why he had been killed, or at least the girl would retain some memory of him—as much memory as an infant could, at least. If he could linger as an unconscious thought in the back of her mind for years to come, he would have to content himself with that. Especially if he could not watch her grow up into the spitting image of a lost friend.

Though he still did not know if she would have the opportunity to grow up at all. If Shaddon had revealed too much to the guards at the gate, they would no doubt come for her. Link wondered if the man even cared, but he had to admit he could not guess what Shaddon might feel or do. Maybe he had turned their cart around and returned them to the Capital after he'd sold out Link and Impa. Perhaps he'd handed over his own family to the royal guard. Perhaps he kept riding, kept driving that clattering cart out into the countryside of Lanayru, wearing that self-satisfied smirk as he thought about the impending arrest of the doctors who had uprooted his life, harassed his wife and made a fool of him.

Then again, perhaps Shaddon was not to blame. Perhaps it had been Link's own clumsiness, or Impa's negligence regarding some otherwise trivial matter. It could've been anyone—the man who had secured a wagon for the Stockwell family to leave the Capital, or any wandering spy who had overheard too much in the Last Resort. Or, worst of all, it could've been that witch—she had certainly noticed him the day of the wedding ceremony. He clenched and relaxed his fists, partially to alleviate the agony of sorting through all the insurmountable possibilities, partially because it distracted him from the aches and pains pulsating through other parts of his body.

Maybe he would find an answer before long, maybe he would languish in the dark forever. Either way, he had nothing to do but close his eyes and hope that when he opened them again, there would be some light, some movement, some indication of his fate.

He could not sleep, so he ran his hands against the floor beside him, counting the pocks in the stone.


When the door to his cell opened, metal wailing torturously on its rusty hinges, a wave of flickering torchlight blinded him. He raised one arm over his face, pushing himself to a sitting position with the other. He crossed his pained legs under him, squinting over the shadow of his forearm to the figure in front of him. As his eyes adjusted, he could make out its wide shoulders, its small head, the way it occupied the doorway as an army might occupy hostile territory, and he could tell the owner of the silhouette was entirely too pleased to be there. Two guards stood behind it, helmeted and caped, torches raised high. In the light of their fires, he could make out a few stray hairs of the shadow, backlit orange-white and waving past a long, pointed ear.

Link knew the man before he spoke. But when his voice filled the room, booming like a shout, he could not help but grit his teeth. Haema being his first visitor narrowed the possibilities of his future. He could already feel the chopping block under his chin.

"We meet again, kid."

Link caught himself between the desire to stand his ground and the overpowering instinct to kneel before the man in silence. He hovered, half-bent, just a few inches from his usual obsequious bow, but he knew the general would not fall for the wiles of a subservient stableboy. His secret had been revealed in Obra Garud, when Link had raised his sword against him. There was no doubt in either of their minds as to Link's allegiance in that particular battle.

So he did not bow, he did not grovel, he did not hope that if he could only maintain a convincing mask of innocence, he would somehow find a way out of this situation. He just steeled himself for whatever words the general had for him.

In retrospect, he should've guessed how their conversation would begin. When Haema lifted his boot and kicked Link in the sternum, knocking him back against the wall, he knew he shouldn't have expected any less. After he fell to his side, breathless, the general adjusted himself and kicked him again, this time in the tender spot beneath his ribs. Link writhed, releasing a cry as a sharp web of pain sprang from his gut to every part of him. Haema leisurely floated to his other side, giving Link just enough time to flail into a different position, before striking him between the shoulder blades. The general stood in silence for a few seconds, watching Link stretch out, attempting to assuage some of the agony with useless twists of his torso, before beginning the routine anew. He struck at Link's ribs, his stomach, his arms as they flailed uselessly, trying to stave off the blows.

Link did not know how long he lay curled under Haema's boot. He did not know how many strikes the general delivered to his body, he didn't know how long the man hovered over him, panting lightly as he rested his foot, he could not count the number of pained grunts he released despite telling himself over and over to deny Haema the satisfaction of hearing him cry out. He just balled his fists, tried his best to protect himself, and failed utterly.

The guards in the doorway watched silently, motionlessly, holding the torches high so their general might see where his foot struck. They seemed quite accustomed to this kind of routine.

After one stray kick split Link's lip and left him sputtering blood onto the stone, Haema bent to him as if to ensure he was not too badly harmed. He looked over him, harsh grey eyes wandering down the length of him, moving from his bruised arms to his inadvertently shaking legs, back up to his bleeding lip and wet eyes.

He raised himself again to his full height, pinning Link with his foot. A heavy heel jammed into his shoulder, over his mark, and he hissed in pain as Haema leaned in, crossing his arms over his thigh. Link lifted shaking hands to Haema's boot and tried to push the man's weight from his shoulder, but his fingers just slipped off the leather, and his arms couldn't muster the strength to push hard enough. His stomach turned inside him, but it was the only muscle with any life left in it—even his lungs and throat had given up their pained groaning. After all, there was no point; no amount of cries or pleas could deter Haema from doing as he wished.

The general twisted his heel into Link's shoulder, leaning into it. The cloth of his tattered shirt rubbed against his skin, burning with pressure. He tried in vain to squeeze out from under it, but only managed to hit his head against the stone floor, only managed to make Haema lean all the harder.

When the general was evidently satisfied he had Link pinned and compliant, he withdrew a little pressure and crossed his arms, eyes shining in the firelight. "You think you're clever, don't you?" he hissed. "You and that little Sheikah savage of yours."

Link drew in a quick breath at her mention. His heart struggled in his throat, his hands shook, but he managed to reach up and grip the decorated flap of Haema's boot. He opened his mouth, trying to push out the words, but they emerged nothing more than a pained hiss, meaningless and frail.

Haema just brushed Link off his boot and pushed a little harder with his heel. "I find it amusing you think you can come and go from my domain as you please," he growled. "Good thing word of the redead stableboy reached my ear as quickly as it did. Do you know who it was who betrayed you?"

Shaddon's name hovered over Link's lips, but he was either too weak or too prudent to say it.

"The good stableman Talon. He thought he saw a ghost. He made the mistake of expressing his concern to a captain, who happened to remember seeing you in our camp in the desert. Of course, they both have been amply rewarded for their loyal service. It's odd how fate works in one's favor, isn't it?" Haema drove his point home with a twist of his heel. "I hoped I'd never see you again. Slithering up to my King like the evil little snake you are, exploiting his mercy. You're not worthy to shovel his horse's shit, boy." He paused a moment, narrowing his eyes at Link's weak protests, watching his fingers uselessly scratch at his toes. "I can't believe this," he laughed to himself. "You. Of all people, you." He shook his head. "I've never seen an insect more worthy of crushing. But His Highness wishes that you live, at least for now." Something of a grin, tainted with cruelty, passed over his features. His eyes shone and he leaned a little closer to Link, smile spreading. "Luckily he did not force my restraint in the case of your Sheikah friend. Do you know what I did to her?"

Link's stomach turned. A sudden impulse shook through him, tightening his muscles and forcing a bead of sweat down his cheek. He gripped either side of Haema's boot and twisted with the last of his strength. The general stumbled, throwing his arms out to catch himself, and with a grunt of pain and effort, Link pushed out from under him. He rolled to his aching side, hands groping the wall for purchase. If he could just pull himself to his feet—or even to his knees, he'd have a chance of reciprocating a strike. If he could land one blow, just one good punch on that self-satisfied grin—

But he couldn't. As he tried to tug himself to his feet, the general's foot met his ear. He felt something rip—his head spun, his ear rang, and a warm stream dripped down the side of his face, pooling around his collarbone as he collapsed back to the floor.

"Save your energy, boy, I haven't even told you yet," Haema laughed. He gave Link's stomach a hearty stomp just for good measure, and lingered over him as he curled on his side, trying to hold in whatever food remained inside him and deprive Haema of the satisfaction of seeing him vomit. "But seeing as you're deaf, I'll say it slowly and loudly. I had my executioner cut her lengthwise, like this." He indicated a line up Link's shaking leg, stopping at his hip. "I had him pull her muscle from her bone and throw it to the dogs. She, of course, watched." Haema shifted his weight to point to his other leg. "Then we did it with the other side. Not enough meat on the first one, you know—she was a lean little bitch. The hounds were still hungry even after that, so we moved on. We sliced down her arms, then her back, but the dogs wanted more, so we gutted her and let them have their fill." He smiled broadly at the incomprehensible sobs that came pouring, weak but in rapid succession, from Link's bleeding mouth. "She wasn't the most generous slab of meat, but she fed my animals well enough."

With a wave of misery, it happened. Link's stomach twisted so violently he had to throw back his head and hack up what little was left inside him. He shut his eyes, releasing a groan of misery too pathetic for even Haema to revel in. The general wrinkled his nose at the display and removed his foot, watching for any sign his prisoner had the will to stand up and resist him. When Link just lay on the ground, heaving, he turned and strode back to the cell door, where the torch-bearing guards waited for him.

"It should be considered a mercy she died as fast as she did. Her people certainly aren't known for expiring in a timely fashion." With a snort that may have been meant to resemble a laugh, the general left the cell. With him he took the last remnants of warmth and light from the torches, and when the guards closed the door behind him, Link found himself left alone with nothing but the insurmountable darkness and his own wounded breathing.


He did not know how long he lay on the floor of his cell. He did not count the meals that were thrown in front of him, and even if he bothered, it was equally likely they brought one every three days as three a day. His stomach was indifferent to the nourishment, his sense of time's passage had ground to a deathly halt. He did not want to eat, he didn't want to assuage the terrible thirst that parched his throat every hour of his lightless days. He did not want to continue breathing, to bend his agonized ribs to let in the stale air, he did not want to lift his head every time the door opened and a guard arrived in a rush of blinding torchlight, to deliver another meal or carry off the chamberpot.

But his body did not let him sink into nothingness—every time he closed his eyes, they opened again, despite his best intentions. He knew it was his own tortured thoughts of Impa that woke him each time he slept. Every time he imagined her, the way the knife must've cut through her, of what must've been rushing through her head when the last of her blood left her veins, a voice in the very recesses of his mind told him it couldn't be true. Link had seen the impossible many times, but this atrocity, Impa's ignoble death at the hands of one of Haema's nameless torturers, could not have happened. It simply couldn't have.

None of the hounds Link had trained at the palace had ever been fed such horrid fare, and he knew (or hoped), they had not developed a taste for it in his absence. Nor would the King's men kill a prisoner so soon after they caught her, if she had information to give. Besides, he was sure if Impa had left this world, especially under such grisly circumstances, he would've felt it. He knew, he just knew he would've felt it.

But he had felt nothing the moment of the yellow-haired girl's death. He had felt nothing the moment of Ahnadib's. He did not have the sensitivity a deadseer might, he was not a man who could simply feel the end of another. He knew he couldn't rely on the hope that Impa had to be alive simply because he hadn't supernaturally felt her die.

As the hours dragged on, each wave of optimism was succeeded by another wave of despair; each time he convinced himself to hold onto hope, the next moment he would readily release it. He had no recourse, he had no charm of courage to help him through his mind's despicable wanderings, he had nothing to do but nurse his wounds and masochistically bargain with himself. If only he'd run when he'd seen Talon. If only he hadn't spoken to the man, hadn't looked him in the eye and given him enough time to recognize him. If only he'd waited a few more minutes to walk down that street, he wouldn't have run into him at all.

If only. There was little comfort in speculation. He could sit here and lick his wounds and conjecture all he wanted, until he was wrinkled and grey. He could tell himself a thousand stories about Zelda and Gwen, about Shaddon's guilt or innocence, about his own death and Impa's. He could imagine Palo bursting through the door, knife in one hand, the other outstretched to him. He could imagine Nabru doing the same, lifting the metal off its hinges with one shaking groan of her ample musculature. He could imagine Impa herself leading him once again to freedom, hand around his, but it would do him no good.

He was utterly without knowledge, without hope, without options and without any chance of escape, excluding, of course, successful self-destruction.

He thought about it. Over and over, with all the time in the world to consider the possibilities. Between meals, between painful trips to the chamberpot in the corner, he thought deeply about how hard he could hit his head on the floor of the cell, if he could remove his trousers and tighten a leg sufficiently around his neck to choke the life from him, if he could manage to cut himself on the edge of some outcropping of rock on the cell's wall and bleed out before a guard could stop him. He wondered if he could somehow choke himself on the slop they threw in front of him, unaccompanied by cutlery, or if he could just simply lie down and will himself to stop breathing.

But he couldn't. He just waited in the freezing darkness, day after day (or for each hour of this one endless, dark day) for the guards to come, for his meals, for any semblance of a break in his miserable, empty routine of self-blame, mourning, bargaining, and elevating his own hopes only to dash them again.

Relief came in the form of two armored guards. Link had no way to tell the time when they came to him, silent and bearing a jingling set of fetters between them. He hadn't the strength to resist them when they pulled him to his feet, twisted his arms behind him and snapped the metal to his wrists. He could only thank them silently for not bringing Haema with them, for finally leading him out of the darkness of his cell and into the torchlight of the hall.

One of the guards slipped a burlap bag over his head and tightened it about his neck. He squinted to see what he could between the fibers of fabric, but a larger shadow fell over him when the guard threw a blanket of black wool across his head and shoulders. Thoroughly blinded and sufficiently bound, he started his journey upward.

The guards dragged him down the hall, roughly redirecting him when he stumbled the wrong way. They made no sound except for a few dissatisfied grunts when Link tripped over himself, or when the wool they'd thrown over him started to slide off. They stopped several times to readjust the cloth, or to let Link, hurt and weak as he was, catch his breath before leading him through increasingly warmer halls and up winding stairs. Link figured he was a pathetic sight, a blind, stumbling figure cloaked like some sort of black ghost, but he could not tell what others passing by might think of him.

But he knew there were others that passed him. He could hear their footsteps, hear their quick intake of breath as they made way for the duo of guards and their staggering prisoner. The stone beneath the thin soles of his shoes had turned to carpet a few staircases back—and tiny wisps of cooking smoke met his nose every hundred or so steps. As the soldiers dragged him down hallways and around curving corners, he lost all doubt about his location. The air was warm around him, thickened with the heat of stoves and well-stoked fires. The sweet smells were no doubt the result of the palace cooks, or of the floral arrangements lining the halls, the sounds around him none other than the shock of dignified servants finding themselves suddenly in the presence of a criminal so heinous he could not even be brought out of the dungeon without a tarp over him.

He knew where they were taking him, but even with that knowledge, his hands still shook, his breath wheezed with anxiety, his stomach turned. He knew he should have accepted the inevitability of his situation when they finally ripped the coverings from his face, when they shoved him to his knees and pushed his forehead into the ground in front of him. But still, he could not stop his heart from dropping deep into his stomach when he raised his eyes and saw he had been brought, not for the first time in his life, before the King.