"The Rova knows no right, she knows no wrong.
She knows how the spokes of the world's wheel turn,
She knows the weakness of the human heart,
She knows the course of rivers and the stars in the sky.
She knows many things, but feels nothing.
And this is why she must be avoided at any cost."
Ghadib ahn-Molgud, The Creed of Molgera, Canto 7
Ganondorf looked a true King, adorned in gold and black and reclining on an ornate chaise, one ankle crossed over his opposite knee. On his forehead his omnipresent jewel glinted, and his wide mouth spread elegantly in a half-smile. He stroked his beard, eyes shining with something that resembled amusement. Behind him, standing tall over the back of his chair, loomed his wife. Long red hair fell over one shoulder, and she glowed like the sun, firelight reflecting in the infinite gems and metals that adorned her. Link could not bring himself to look directly at her—partly because of her garish ornamentation, and partly because his last encounters with her taught him merely staring at her could cause him physical pain.
So he quickly averted his eyes from the King and his wife, instead taking in his surroundings. The room around him resembled something of a lounge; a few small but elegant tables, opulent chairs, a roaring fire. At its far end, between gilded black pillars, windows stretched up to the high ceiling, decorated in stained glass. On their outer sills piled the winter's collection of heavy snow. Link could tell the sun had set only moments ago—the tainted light reflected in factory smoke lit the windows a brownish gold, and the brightest source of light in the ornate room was the healthy fire.
It was what sat in front of it that caught his full attention. Curled tightly before the flames, bright yellow eyes blinking over a black nose, a little sand fox watched him carefully. Link narrowed his eyes at the creature as recognition dawned on him. He could make out every glint in its golden eyes, every vein in its sail-like ears, backlit a morbid pink by the bright fire.
The creature did not seem surprised to see Link again in its presence. It yawned, showing off its numerous, sharp white teeth before resting its little head back down between its paws like a faithful dog. It closed its big eyes and heaved a comfortable sigh.
Evidently the King's wife was pleased with his interest in the animal. "Any good witch must have a familiar," she said. Her voice was heavily accented with the music of the desert, and forced a terrified shiver up his spine. "Do you recognize him?"
Link said nothing. He did not take his eyes off the resting creature. He just shifted his arms behind him, hoping in vain that alleviating some of his physical discomfort might also help with the mental unease.
"Answer her," the King said. "I know you can hear her."
Link's eyes did not leave the floor. His heart already hurt with every beat, fluttering against his ribcage. He opened his mouth to answer, but no sound emerged.
"Speak up," the King commanded. The curt irritation in his voice forced Link's fists to clench behind his back.
"Y…yes." He pushed the air out of him as forcefully as a shout, but all that came from him was a dry, raspy squeak of a word, barely intelligible.
The witch must've moved—Link could hear the slight clinking of her jewelry. "Of course you do. He was the one who led you to me the first time we met."
Link dared to look at the two of them, but kept his eyes on the King. Ganondorf's gaze darted up to his wife, but a brief wrinkle of his thick eyebrows was the only query he gave her. He seemed nothing but charmed with her statement, as if introducing two friends and discovering they had already known one another.
"You… knew…" Link croaked. He could not articulate his thoughts, he could not walk her through the memories he retained of a kindly sand fox, who had led him into the Colossus and distracted the King's magicians just in time to save him from discovery. He had thanked the little animal, thoroughly convinced it was wholly (but perhaps inadvertently) on his side. But now, here it was, lingering before the witch's fire, bushy tail flicking in contentment.
"She knows many things," Ganondorf said. "More than you'd think possible."
"Why…" Link started, directing the question at the fearsome woman but still unable to meet her gaze.
She seemed to understand his meaning. "He brought you to me because I wanted to meet you. I wanted to meet both of you." Her words seemed empty, rehearsed, devoid of emotion. "When my eyes in this world revealed to me I had visitors for the first time in a century, how could I not welcome them inside? Especially such good-looking gentlemen." Her laugh struck Link's heart like a blow, and he had to lower his head as a dull pain pulsated from his chest to his limbs.
"Ah, so you did follow me there after all," the King said, folding his hands and laying his chin across them. "I suppose that explains who killed my men outside the Colossus. Though I must admit I wouldn't have guessed you had some skill with a blade. When Haema told me you put up a fight in Obra Garud, I was as surprised as he was." The King wore a discomfiting smile. Link could not pick apart the emotions in it—to him it was equally likely to be smile of pride as it was a grin of loathing. "But it looks like dear Haema has exacted his revenge. He must've given you a stern talking-to." Link did not know how many marks Haema had left on him as proof of retribution. He looked over himself, briefly—at his ripped, bloodstained shirt, at the way his legs shook slightly just from the effort of kneeling, and knew whatever bruises or lacerations remained on him were more than enough to tell the King all about the nature of the general's visit.
The King shook his head, never losing his complacent half-smile. "That man. He has an implacable sense of justice. What did you tell him?"
Link's eyes widened. He hadn't said a word to him.
Ganondorf laughed at his look. "He didn't question you? That is very much like him. He dispenses the punishment before the inquisition. Very well then, I suppose that duty now passes to me." The King leaned forward, intertwining his thick, decorated fingers. The shape of his wife shifted a little as she seated herself behind him—Link could only see the sway of her glowing robes, the glint of her jewels. "Tell me everything. Tell me why you followed me to the desert. Tell me why you came back to my city."
Link bit his lip, lowering his eyes to the polished marble floor in front of him, dancing orange and yellow from the flickering fire. He said nothing.
"Although I do enjoy these sorts of puzzles, I'm afraid I don't have the time or energy to resort to conjecture. I am a very busy man." The King narrowed his eyes, but with more bemusement than malice. He stared at him a while, expectant, silent. When Link did not speak up, he shook his head and sighed. "Then we will have to resort to questioning your friend. Although the Sheikah do have a well-earned reputation for being hard to break."
Link's ears perked up and he raised his head. Images came and faded rapidly in his mind: Impa, flayed and bloodstained, the hungry mouths of the palace hounds, the smile Haema wore as he delineated the details of her death. His heart skipped a beat, renewed with cautious hope.
Ganondorf smiled. "Have I caught your interest? If you tell us everything now, we will not have to resort to hurting her. I am a reasonable man, you know this. I abhor cruelty."
Link's gut twisted around itself. If Impa was still alive and he still had something to lose, he'd have to conduct himself carefully. Either Haema or the King could be lying to him. Or both.
Link rolled his head on his shoulders, stretching the aching muscles in his neck, brow furrowing in thought. When he spoke, his voice seemed to creak like old wood, and he swayed weakly on his knees. "Snapping the necks of little girls isn't cruel?"
The King frowned, taken aback. He seemed to lose himself in thought for a moment, but eventually clicked his tongue, nodding slowly. It seemed a chore for him to recall the particular incident to which Link referred—perhaps it was such a mundane occurrence it passed through his memory as the details of breakfast might for some other, lesser man. "Her death still haunts you? Hm… Clearly you have retained some recollection of the events of that night, so you will no doubt remember what I told her before I killed her. It was necessary. Everything I do, I do because it is necessary." He leaned back, eyeing Link from the height of the certainty of his own words. "I do it because there is no other recourse. Surely you remember even a little of what I told you all those nights in the desert. You must remember what I showed you, what I said to you about this fractured land, about that golden curse of the heartless gods."
Link's head filled with a single image of an ethereal triangle, floating elegantly above the King's palm. It was the same menacing power that had enticed the yellow-haired girl, that forced him to his knees in fright, that collapsed and built nations, that designated the divine right to the throne of Hyrule, but that was the extent of his knowledge of it. He couldn't guess its origin, or purpose, or what in the world it had to do with him.
The King did not seem concerned with Link's eternally confused stare. "Haema seems to think you share in that curse. But you are a mysterious child. I'm still unsure whether you are worth my mercy, worth all this time and effort. Barudi."
His wife rose beside him, robes rippling with firelight. "Yes, my King."
"Take a good look at him. Tell me if I should throw him out and forget about him. I'd rather not have to worry about this particular thorn in my side."
"Of course."
Link's heart shrank at her mere approach. Her golden shoes clicked across the marble, and with each step he found himself squirming a little more desperately. He did not tell his muscles to writhe at her advance—he did not want to give her the satisfaction of seeing him so afflicted—but every fiber in him told him to run from her, and if he could not run, crawl.
But he was weak, shackled firmly, and had nowhere to go. When she knelt before him, he turned his head, looking anywhere, at anything, but her. The fox by the fire perked up, big ears rising, tail flicking. He found he could not quite look at the animal either, so he tilted his head toward the fire and decided it was probably the safest thing in the room for him to stare at.
When he felt Barudi's breath on his cheek, a disturbed shiver ran through him. "He's such a little thing, isn't he?" she said. She lifted her hand to his shoulder and tugged at his ripped shirt, pulling the fabric away to reveal his heavily bruised mark. "And he already belongs to you. Strictly speaking. It is an old rune, but a good start." When she pressed her nail into his brand, he could not tell if the pain that spread from his shoulder was searing hot or ice cold. "Such pretty eyes, too. Look at me." Link clenched his jaw and watched the flames dance in the fireplace. "I know you can. You have done it before."
Ganondorf shifted on his seat. "Obey your Queen."
It was not so much because of the insistence of the King, but the force of inevitability, that made Link finally raise his eyes to hers. He knew what to expect; he had experienced it before, but he could not help but grind his teeth the moment their stares met. His heart froze in his chest, his blood ran cold through his veins, pain spread from his torso up to his head, through his limbs, to the ends of his shaking fingers and his blood-caked ears. He could not breathe; he could barely see. He lost himself in her terrible golden irises, in the bottomless black pupils. His mouth hung open, his every muscle ached, but he found himself unable to look away.
She waved her hand and he flinched. He couldn't guess what kind of spell or curse she was weaving over him, if it would break his bones, tear the breath from his lungs, or devour him slowly. Irrational terror rebounded in every corner of his mind, until he felt a snap behind him. Something clattered to the ground by his feet. His arms fell to his sides, now free from fetters, but he found he couldn't raise them to push the witch away, couldn't do anything to stop the icy pain radiating from his heart.
"Show me your hands."
Her voice seemed a contradiction. It broke the silence in his agonized head, grating yet mellifluous, distant yet far too close. It was a musical command, like a forceful tune Impa might play on her lyre, and he couldn't disobey it. He lifted his hands and placed them in her open palms. A dreadful cold stung him where his skin met hers, but he let her look over his hands, tracing the creases in them with one long fingernail. She absorbed herself in the intricacies of his shaking palms for a long few minutes, humming and muttering to herself in the deep tones of her language. When she finally dropped his hands, they fell limply at his sides, and she tilted his head at him for a moment.
"He bears the marks of magic. A few curses in his past, perhaps a few blessings." She turned his left hand over and examined it. "And his hand shows promise."
"I did not see much in it, I must admit," Ganondorf said. "Though I am no chiromancer."
"Do not distrust yourself, my King," Barudi muttered. "You were right to heed your own suspicions and those of your general. But I will have to probe further." The jewelry on her wrists jingled as she raised her index finger.
"Very well. Try not to destroy him." The King's voice seemed farther away each second.
"Of course, my love." She hovered one long, gold nail between Link's eyes, right above the deep wrinkle of distress. The finger was only a blur—her eyes still held his full unwilling attention, both burning through him like fire and freezing him in place. "This will be unpleasant," she said. He could tell by the way she smiled slightly, the way her lips parted to show just a hint of a wicked tongue, that she would find it enjoyable enough.
With a quick, almost viper-like motion, she dug her nail into his forehead. His eyes rolled back, darkness overtook his vision, and he let out one last desperate breath before he collapsed.
It was not at all unpleasant.
It was soundless. Lightless, limitless.
Painless.
For the first time in a long while, Link could feel nothing. He knew that somewhere far from him, a fire blazed, and a little farther, heavy flakes of late winter fell on a sleeping city. He knew that somewhere near his body (from which he was now fully disconnected), a sand fox twitched in the first pleasant chase of sleep. He knew that deep in the desert, the creature's ancestral home, a worm-goddess turned with certainty of her own prowess, and high in the cloudy tip of a familiar mountain, an intangible wolf-spirit kept his dreams safe in a flurry of glacial wind. He knew that in some distant future and some infinite past, somewhere boundlessly far from him, a baby girl slept in her mother's arms, rocking in a wagon across the fields of Lanayru. He knew many things, but knowing was all he could do. He heard nothing, saw nothing, felt nothing. Nothing except the eternal gratitude for this moment of peace, this silent, comfortable solitude.
He did not know how long he slept in the sweet safety of numbness. There was a surety in the motionlessness, a peace in the silence, a sense that he did not have to hold onto anything because there was nothing for him to hold. He had nothing, he was nothing—he had not left the world because there was no world to leave, there was no him that could leave.
He had never been aware of his own self sleeping. Each night was a blink, each morning not a renewal but a continuation. He did not dream—he knew he had dreamt, before his ascent of Mount Eldin, but he could not recall the feeling of unconscious sight, the airy emotions of a dream as it fled the waking mind. He could not remember any of them, and it did not trouble him. He just fell into the silence of his head like it was a pool of steam, like it was the beckoning water of the hot springs above Kakariko.
When he opened his eyes, he did so with the purposefulness of a well-rested man. He did not move, he just lay on his side, arms and legs splayed comfortably. The stone under his cheek was warm, the air still. The marble shone with the light of the fire, and on it stood a pair golden shoes. Link kept his eyes locked on the pointed toes; he knew if he glanced up at the woman who wore them, he'd lose this moment. Whatever numbness she had granted him, he wanted nothing more than to hold onto it.
So he just lay in silence as she circled him, feet clicking on the white stone. He could feel her eyes on him, leaving a trail of goosebumps on his skin. He told himself to ignore her, to clutch at this rapidly fading feeling of emptiness while he still could. He focused on the warm stone beneath him and lay motionless, utterly unable to make a sound or mouth a word. The fox woke by the fire, lifted its white head and twitched its ears. It wrinkled its nose and stood, circling its little spot and clawing the stone as if making a burrow of sand.
"Fascinating." Link warded off the shiver Barudi's voice sent through him. "The boy has no dreams."
The King shifted slightly. "None?"
"Not one. Forgive me, but I can learn nothing from his sleep."
Ganondorf stood. "It is quite all right, my Queen."
Link's watched their feet shifting in the firelight. With each second, more awareness returned to him, and with it came the dull ache of his injuries, the harrowing uncertainty of his own future.
"There is one thing left we can do," Barudi said. "But I will need some time to prepare."
"How much time?"
"However long it takes for me to procure the heart of a newborn foal, a maiden's first blood, the tongue of a young widower and twelve inches of golden thread."
"Very well." The King called two names, voice ringing so loud Link started from his place on the floor. With the movement, his body returned to him, the sting of his wounds, the ache of his exhaustion, the hunger in his stomach and the dry cracking of his parched lips.
When two guards entered and pulled him from the floor, he groaned with renewed awareness of himself. Barudi's spell, whatever it had been, had faded; his moment of peace was gone.
The soldiers adjusted Link between them and heaved him toward the door. They wrestled with his arms, reintroducing the fetters to his wrists. Too weak to fight, voice still paralyzed in his throat, he let them grip his shoulders and haul him out the door. The King watched them practically carry him into the hall, gracing him with a thin smile.
"Farewell, odd child," he said. "Keep well. At least until we meet again."
Impa must not have liked him very much if she wanted him to look like an idiot.
Palo smiled and shook his head. He lounged in the shadows of a bustling café, trying his best to ignore a giggling group of teenaged girls daring one another to approach him. He suspected if they had half an ounce of intelligence between them, they could figure out he could already hear them. He was, after all, a Sheikah currently in the act of spying.
The inadequately bundled man sat in the shadows of the Old Riko Playhouse, Ordish Children's Stories open before him. Every once in a while he'd lower the book and look around him expectantly before burying himself again in its tales. Palo found it charming that every few minutes he furrowed his brow as his eyes darted across the page, as if he were fully, truly engaged in the moralistic fables of gallant knights and talking animals. Palo had read the book once, when he was a child, and had thoroughly disliked it. Maybe his opinion of it was half-formed by the culture around him; the author had set out to tell stories of every province, every ethnicity of the land, and depicted none but Hylians in a remotely favorable light. Palo had stopped reading when he got to the tale of a lustful Sheikah kidnapping the betrothed of an Ordish knight, after which the wronged man rampaged through the mountains, killing all in his path to rescue her and preserve her maidenhood. Palo didn't think he'd been a particularly sensitive child, but that was too soon after the Eldin War for him to stomach it. The corpses of his people were not quite cold enough yet.
But this man seemed engrossed in the book, only tearing himself away when presumably he remembered he was supposed to be on the lookout for someone. Occasionally he removed his glasses and wiped condensation from them before replacing them on his reddened nose. Old Riko was still in the throes of winter, and it was not a pleasant day to sit and read outside. He would have to endure the cloudless chill a while yet—but that's all he deserved for showing up late.
Talm had gotten bored, as she was wont to do, shortly after high noon. It did not take her long to grip her mother's arm and pull her toward the Playhouse, promising a matinee. Poor Irma tried her best not to appear tempted by the prospect of warm ale and musical entertainment, insisting waiting was more important, but Palo nudged them both toward the Playhouse. The small city seemed to revive Talm and her mother in a way he, or few other Sheikah, could understand. To him and the others, it was at best a place to resupply, at worst a reminder of everything the Ordish, among others, had taken from them, before, during, and after the Eldin War. But to Talm and Irma, it was a place of wonderment, of excitement and pleasant experiences. He could not fault them for that outlook—it was at least more productive than his own habit of lingering on the bloodied history of the place. Though he had an excuse to, since each time he blinked he could see the ghostly echoes of what had happened to the city over decades of bloodshed.
It had been nearly an hour after the midday striking of the town's clocktower that Palo finally spied a bespectacled, ragged-looking man with a book under his arm. That was only after he'd returned to his hiding spot; he'd taken the time to go negotiate some firegrass from Temon, nimbly avoiding the subject of exactly how much money he owed him. The old man, though perpetually ill-tempered, was in a forgiving mood, and accepted all of Palo's money without comment, handing him two sealed jars of dried firegrass worth much less than what he'd offered.
He had smoked some behind the man's barn, but since he'd forfeited every gold piece he had, he'd found himself unable to satisfy his subsequent hunger. He'd have to wait for Talm or Irma to reemerge from their matinee. Or he could try wrestling some money from the man in front of him, now deeply engrossed in his children's book. According to Impa's letter, he would sit there until sunset, and if he had not been approached by then, come back the next day.
Palo wondered how many days the man had sat in the cold shadows of the Playhouse. Probably not too many—although the elder hadn't received a letter from Impa since before she'd left the Capital, Palo knew how long it took to get a carriage all the way from the city to Old Riko. She might be somewhere nearby, in the town or just outside it. He imagined all the things that could've delayed her; mostly they came in the form of Link—spraining his ankle or getting distracted by some creature or another, insisting she stop and teach him what she knew about this plant or that type of carriage, falling into the River Hylia or getting kidnapped by a passing group of Gerudo soldiers straight from the pages of Ordish Children's Stories, hungry for a pretty boy like him. In any case, Impa would no doubt rescue him and they would both arrive in Old Riko within a few days at the latest.
Another half hour passed. The simpering group of teenagers had left the proximity of the cafe; in the end, none of them had mustered the courage to approach him, to his relief. A few clouds passed overhead, and the man in front of the Playhouse shivered. He set his book down, rubbed his hands together and surveyed the square, eyes following the well-dressed passersby.
A figure wearing a thick wool shawl and long skirt separated herself from the crowd and stopped before him. He smiled and reached up, pulling something heavy from her arms. Palo watched folds of cloth fall away from the bundle, and a little blonde head poked out. The baby lifted its eyes to its father, wiggling in his arms as he lay it on his knee.
"Gods…" Palo couldn't help the breathy laugh. "She did it. She really did it."
He was well hidden behind the tinted windows of the restaurant and even more so in his black robe, but he was close enough to see the little girl's big blue eyes widening at her surroundings. Even from this distance, and even with the unformed roundness of infancy, Palo could make out the beginnings of a dignified, noble face.
He watched the family for a while, transfixed. The mother kept adjusting her coat nervously and running her fingers through her shining black hair. The father just bounced his daughter on his knee and held the book in front of him. Palo saw his mouth move, but from this distance he could not read his lips. Palo figured he should've shown his daughter something better-written, something a little less tainted with the racialism of Ordona, but the way her eyes widened, the way her cheeks flushed as her smile spread, cleared the resentment from Palo's head. Evidently hearing her father's voice was enough enjoyment for her.
Five minutes before Talm and Irma were due to emerge from the Playhouse, and about fifteen after Palo had lost his comfortable high, he exited the cafe and approached the family. His hands deep in the pockets of his cloak, he crossed the sunny square, avoiding patches of melting snow, and stopped deliberately in front of the decorated bench.
The man looked up from his daughter, eyes narrowing behind his fogging glasses. "Who are you?" he asked.
Palo removed his hood, revealing his face and the tattoos that adorned it.
"Ah." The man handed his daughter to his wide-eyed wife, and stood to shake Palo's hand. "I'm Shaddon Stockwell." Palo took the hand reluctantly in his glove, unused to the gesture. It had always struck him as too formal—plus, you never knew where a man's hand had been. "Are you the one who's going to lead us to Kakariko?"
"Me, and some others," he answered. He glanced to the woman and child, eyes lingering on the infant's face for a moment. "Where's Impa?" he asked.
"Who?" Shaddon's brow furrowed and a wide frown spread from one poorly-shaven cheek to the other.
"About this tall, red eyes, always has a scrawny Hylian following her around."
"Oh, you must mean Doctor Borville. He—she said she'd catch up to us. I think her friend is with her."
A creak sounded beside them. The doors to the Playhouse opened with a wave of light and heat, and theatergoers poured from the building. Talm and Irma were among them, talking earnestly about the show, the wine, and how simply dreadful that aria had been. They stopped at the bench almost absentmindedly, as if Palo and their mission to escort the royal family up the slope of Eldin were trivial compared to the performance of that season's newest soprano.
"Who are these people?" Shaddon asked. He seemed nervous—as any man would be when the crowd scrutinizing him and his family grew bigger.
"This is Irma, and her daughter, Talm. They're here to help you up the mountain." He did not mention that they were specifically chosen as guides because of their shared Hylian culture. This is Irma, your ethnic cushion. And her half-breed spawn, just to get you a little nervous about miscegenation.
The brief surprise at the new introduction passed over Shaddon quickly; soon he was offering his hand to them, offering his child to Irma's doting, outstretched arms.
"She's beautiful," Irma cooed, rocking the curious girl. "So big and healthy, too."
Just pudgy enough to make a good stew. Palo stopped himself there—of course Irma wouldn't make a soup from the scion of the royal family. Not yet, at least. She was smart enough to know you had to fatten something up before you ate it.
"So, where's my sister?" Talm asked Palo. She had refused her mother's attempts to get her to hold the baby.
"Not here. She told them she'd catch up." He removed the pack he'd been holding for Talm and handed it to her. "Can you make it up the mountain with those three?" He nodded to the family—Shaddon had laughed at something Irma had said, and even his silent wife had cracked a shy smile. He was suddenly glad they had brought the woman down with them.
"Yeah. We should be all right." Talm hoisted the near-empty pack onto her back. Whatever possessions the family brought with them would have to fit inside. Otherwise, their belongings stayed in town, either discarded, or (as Palo let himself hope) if it was worth something, bestowed to Temon to alleviate his debt.
"I'll stay here and wait for Impa. Could be a few days."
"All right then."
Before she could turn and go, he gripped her elbow. "But I need some money."
She shook her head, but reached into her pocket for a few coins. "Don't spend it all on firegrass."
"Already have. That's the problem." He lifted his cloak to reveal his bag, glass jars shining from under its flap.
"I should've guessed." She simpered, adjusted the pack on her shoulders, and stepped toward the laughing family. Palo could see a spring in her step, and could not stop her optimism from outshining even his worry at Impa's absence.
They had done it. The last blood of the royal family was here, under their protection. She was young and healthy, ready to sprout into the queen her country needed, to usurp her usurper and reclaim the blessing of the gods that had run through her blood for centuries. She was going to grow up fast, grow up strong and wise, grow up to inherit the chaotic shards of a fractured country and the onerous task of piecing it back together.
Palo almost felt sorry for the kid.
