The Malice that surrounded Hyrule Castle had, for the months that Zelda had spied it from a distance, resembled a whorl of purple-and-red smoke. No longer. Now, as she and Paya stood at the gate that stood between the ruins of the town and the castle itself, the Malice was an inferno. Instead of smoke it had the look of flames, as if Hyrule Castle was the kindling that fed a conflagration that licked at the heavens. The targeting lights of the Divine Beasts and the viridian halo of the forest spirits who kept the Calamity's influence contained were no longer threat and barrier; they were only accents, lending the extra light and color necessary to transform the impression of an enormous fire into a visual surety.

Hyrule Castle burned with evil. The war between the Hero and the Calamity raged at its heart, and the flames hissed and danced in tune with the distant clash of steel on steel, steel on stone, steel on flesh. Beneath that din—above it?—the Calamity's laughter shook the earth. The massive gate yawned, and two women stood at its threshold.

"Does it know you're here?" Paya sked.

"I do not believe so. If it did, there would be some sign." She paused, considering that. "Or, more accurately, I believe I would have already been pulled into the fight."

They stood staring up at the castle for a while longer. The change to the Malice had occurred during their approach. The Calamity might not sense her directly—she hoped she was right—but something about her proximity was making the conflict fiercer.

There is a terrible gravity, here.

They were prepared for battle: on Zelda's back rested the weapons of the Champions, and at her hip she wore the Ancient Short Sword forged in Akkala. Her ancient armor had been set aside for her blue tunic and white blouse; there was power in that symbol. Paya's raiment was as it had been when she left Kakariko, save for the addition of a Great Fairy's blessing on her armor, the amber earrings that danced whenever she turned her head, and the radiant glow of Zelda's blessing on her eight-fold blade.

But it would not be enough, Zelda knew. Ganon hated Paya as fiercely as it hated Zelda herself.

"I wish to protect you to the fullness of my abilities," Zelda said to her companion as they turned to face each other. "Will you accept my blessing?"

Paya nodded. There was no shyness, then; they were far past that.

Every blessing was rooted in love; the act of conferring a blessing was an expression of that love. So it had been with the Great Fairies; so it had been since the most ancient times, when the goddess's love was said to have been laid on the Sword that Seals the Darkness.

Zelda drew Paya into an embrace, brushing her right cheek against Paya's. "Whatever happens," Zelda said in the Sheikah's ear, "whoever I am in the next hour, that person will not abandon you. I swear." She brushed her lips against Paya's cheek.

If Hylia's power was the golden sun, then the light that bloomed between the two women was the silver moon, the truest reflection of the light of day. It spread from Paya's cheek, across her face, down her neck, and across her body; its radiance shimmered through the seams of her uniform. In a moment she was engulfed in it; then it sank beneath her skin, infusing her, and was invisible to the eye.

The embrace ended; the two stepped apart. Paya looked down at her hands, flexing her fingers, as if she could still see the light there. Perhaps she could.

Zelda said, "I will go up the hill. Follow at a safe distance. Do not join in the battle until and unless absolutely necessary."

"By your word," Paya said.

Zelda took hold of the thinnest sliver of her power, and with that sliver she connected her mind with Paya's. It would be necessary, if Paya was to judge the situation well enough to interfere or to stay away.

If the gods are kind, then the Hero and I will be enough on our own.

But had the gods ever been kind?

She turned up the path. Began to walk. Paya watched her go.

Zelda had walked a hundred meters when the ground heaved beneath her. She threw her arms wide, trying to maintain her balance as the earth danced. She kept her footing, then nearly lost it again when the quake was followed by laughter, then a howl of triumph:

"SHE IS HERE!"

No more caution. No more stealth. Zelda enrobed herself in the fullness of the power and ran with all the strength that the goddess conferred. With her senses she reached out, and with a goddess's awareness she saw.

She saw as Ganon's body exploded, not in death but in retreat, the eruption of hate and force driving the Hero back as the Calamity's true shape, the storm at the heart of the Malice, howled and swirled up the mouth of the chamber that had imprisoned it for ten thousand years and a century more.

Light exploded from between her shoulder blades, unbidden, and the beating of mighty wings lifted her into the air. She could not think; all of her faculties were focused on the approach. What remained was drawn in by that terrible gravity, making her the witness of the battle's end.

She saw as the Hero responded instantly, leaping at the wall of the chamber. A century of warfare had taken that smooth, unscalable surface and filled it with cracks and divots that were more handholds than Link needed. He heaved himself up at absurd angles, nearly flying out of the chamber, keeping pace with the Calamity as it fled from him.

Revali's Gale blossomed to life beneath her and she sailed upward, swooping past the parapets of the castle. Guardians tracked her with their killing eyes—and in the light of her passing the Malice inside of them dissipated, returning to them their original purpose.

She saw the construct that hung above the throne room, above the very Sanctum beneath which the Calamity had been sealed; she recognized the brightly lit tubing, though its light was that of the Malice, purple-and-red instead of blue. She recognized the life-giving energies coursing there. She recognized the same twisting of form that separated the Blights from the Champions, from the Guardians. The storm of the Calamity poured itself into that device, which was the very image of the chamber in which she had floated for a hundred years in the Chamber of Resurrection.

The power was twin suns in her hands, and she was prepared for battle. She could not think, but she could visualize; she would hit the Calamity with everything she had from the first moment, test its strength with the fullness of hers. She folded her wings against her back, and the Sanctum loomed large before her.

She saw as the Hero leapt from the pit where he had waged war for a hundred years, and the Master Sword was in his hands before his feet were on the ground. As the healing chamber in which the Calamity's body had been constructed over the course of a century split, spewing liquid Malice onto the floor. As the true body of the beast, of which the Hero had only been battling mockeries for a hundred years, landed on its feet with an impact that shook the castle. As the Hero held the sword aloft and it sang a high note of defiance. As Ganon swung a blade of pure Malice and the Master Sword met it with a thunderous roar.

Zelda landed outside of the Sanctum, losing no momentum, and ran the last few meters to join in the battle beside her Hero.

And she tried to see. She couldn't.

She couldn't see.

Something was wrong with her eyes.

She saw the Sanctum itself, the ruined throne that sat beneath the shattered symbol of the kingdom's covenant with the old gods, the high arches that had been blown away by some previous unleashing of Ganon's fury, the halo of green light that sang a child's song to keep evil contained, the hole in the floor out of which war had come leaping like a monster from its den.

She saw the Calamity's body. In another time, another life, it would have been a misshapen horror built under duress and unleashed in desperation; not so now. She knew at a glance that it was whole, fully formed. The beast had made for itself an armored body, as if a Guardian had been built in the shape of a man taller than a Gerudo and stronger than a Goron, with a mane of Gerudo-red hair hanging down nearly to its waist. Its armor was so fine, so carefully articulated, that it might be mistaken for skin. The sword it wielded was a burning flamberge, its flared hilt a downturned mockery of the Master Sword's, and the hands that held it were strong and fine and terrible. Only when she saw the Calamity's face was the illusion broken: above the shapely bent nose and up-turned smiling mouth, beneath the jutting stone brow, there were no eyes. From within a hollow opening there burned the conflagration of Malice that was the Calamity's true form.

Why can't I see the Hero?

She saw the fight against apocalypse, the Master Sword flashing in the Hero's hands, his movements too rapid for mortal eyes to follow. But she could not see Link, even as she looked at him. Surely it was the goddess's clarity that denied her the simple reality of her eyes. Surely. Surely, she prayed, and so much of herself was poured into that prayer that the power in her hands went out.

Imagine spending your entire life with one sure understanding of the world. It is the bedrock on which you build your identity. It is the single goal toward which the entirety of your self is focused. You love, you struggle, you learn, and you grow outside of it; but it is the background of your universe, the ancient law that dictates the motion of the stars, the order laid upon you by the heavens. It is not everything, but on it everything is built. Remove it, and everything crumbles. You crumble. You are dust.

Zelda was crumbling.

How long?

The Calamity looked over its shoulder at her, and she saw that she had been wrong: from within the hollow of its head burned two golden eyes, the eyes spawned of its Malice. Its armored mouth spread in a grin that showed off its burning teeth.

"How good of you to join us," the Calamity said, its voice a whisper that stirred the dust of the universe.

The Hero looked to her. There was a gentle light where should have been his eyes, a field of stars where should have been his body.

How long has he been dead?

Only for a moment did he see her. Only for a moment did relief flash across his face, relief that was worse than pain, relief that reached inside of her chest and grabbed hold of her heart and pulled. It was relief written on the very face of his soul, for that was all that remained of him. Only for a moment was he distracted.

In that moment the Calamity's hand closed around the blade of the Master Sword. There was an outpouring of Malice that would eclipse every Burning Earth that had ever haunted the land. A metallic groan. A high note sung by a mighty voice, suddenly strangled.

An eruption. Shards of steel raining on the floor. A voice cut off.

The Hero's soul guttered like a flame caught in a gale. He staggered, the broken hilt of the Master Sword in his hand, and she could see through him, through the fading brightness of the unfaltering spirit that had kept fighting long after his body had worn away. He was falling, and still he looked at her, and he was so happy.

She was running. She was reaching out to him. She was screaming for him, screaming his name, but the power overwhelmed her. She fought it down, fought down the very will of the heavens, and she screamed for Link. Then the gold was too bright, the chime too mighty, and it drowned her.

The goddess's voice rang out, speaking a single word.

Paya staggered and fell, barely catching herself. The quaking was growing worse, as if the earth itself rebelled at the horror taking place on its surface.

The connection between her mind and Zelda's was thin, and so she was spared the worst of whatever it was that her princess was enduring. This only meant, though, that Paya did not experience it from herself; the flash of agony, of soul-shattering horror, was like fire burning inches away from her skin. She was scalded. She had to fight the urge to scream.

She could not know exactly what was happening. Zelda's mind had become the goddess's, and even if she could have Paya would not have shared more fully in that burden of pain; whatever was happening was beyond her. It would surely kill her.

I cannot help her if I am dead.

The tears that fell from her eyes were not her own. She shoved herself to her feet, running with all the speed of her body. She was not as fleet as a god, but she chased after one anyway, leaping up the sides of the castle, finding handholds in ancient brick, climbing with all her strength. Her entire being was boiled down to that one task: reach Zelda. Help Zelda. Protect Zelda.

Above her, the goddess's voice rang out in a language older than Hyrule, and Paya looked up in spite of herself.

She saw as the air split in three places around the tower, as storm clouds roared and shifted into portals that connected to distant realms. As the embodiments of ancient powers soared through those magic doorways, undulating with perfect grace, perfect calm, and perfect purpose.

Paya tore her attention away from the vision above her. She climbed up the side of the castle. That was all that mattered. She had to hurry. She couldn't afford to be awed. She paid no mind as the walls of the tower were torn away, as harmonic roars drowned out the howl of the Calamity.

Around the Sanctum, for the first time since the original demon king had walked the land wreathed in darkness, the dragons were going to war.

Every blow that had killed every Blight, the radiance that had cleansed the Malice from Kohga, and the strength leveraged in protecting the Gerudo guards from the Calamity's wrath—all of these paled in comparison to the power unleashed against Ganon in that moment. The sun dawned as Zelda screamed. The Calamity was sent hurtling across the Sanctum.

It laughed as it flew. Laughed as it crashed into the broken throne. Laughed as the symbol of the covenant was smashed and fell atop it. Laughed as it rose, moving through the rubble as easily as it moved through the empty air.

The divine princess ran to her Hero, to the shining radiance of a night sky bound into the shape of a single man, and caught him as he collapsed. The broken Master Sword's hilt clattered to the ground. There was no song.

"Please, please—" Then light shone from her eyes, golden and terrible, and grief was joined by panic. "No! No, not now! Not—"

Memory swallowed her.

In the shape of a man the Calamity crossed the Sanctum, and its laughter faded to a satisfied rumble. It relished the vulnerability of its prey, though that did not slow its step. It crossed the floor, eyes locked on the catatonic Zelda and the fallen hero she held in her arms, and its sword hissed with the aura of its power.

Then three voices rang out in a language so old that even the Calamity did not know it. The age of that language, the volume of the roar, and the power of the voices made Ganon look up from its quarry just as the walls of the Sanctum exploded outward, torn away by claws the size of horses or blown apart by a howling current of fire and ice and thunder. The Calamity's grin shifted in irritation.

"HYLIA!" Dinraal, Naydra, and Farosh called out in their ancient tongue, and all of their power was unleashed.

An eruption, a roar, and the Sanctum exploded in fire and lightning and ice, a maelstrom of destruction that scoured the walls and drove the very air from the chamber. Stone melted and froze and exploded and danced with lightning that screamed outward in tornadoes of peeling light that reached toward the sky.

The space around the oracle was untouched, a perfect circle of calm in the heart of catastrophe. From her back the artifacts of the Champions rose, as if hoisted by invisible hands.

Ganon's eyes shone in the maelstrom. Its power exploded outward, the Malice eating at the world around it.

The heart and source of the elements warred with the very incarnation of hate, and in the midst of that inferno that Calamity raised its hands. It felt for its enemies. It roared.

The dragons circled the tower, and they roared in return, and their power redoubled. The storm of fire and ice and lightning became a pillar that exploded upward, tearing off the roof of the Sanctum, sending it hurtling skyward. Red and blue and white and yellow rose into the air, and the green halo of the forest spirits dissipated as the children of the forest scrambled to get out of the way of the guardians' fury. The roar of the dragons was drowned out by the destruction.

And then Ganon struck back.

Massive shapes reached out from the sides of the pillar, formless mounds of burning darkness, each of size with one of the dragons. From that formlessness erupted fingers tipped in claws, and from behind the unfolding hands emerged forearms, and the dragons howled as the Calamity's limbs closed around their bodies.

Malice exploded from between those crushing fingers. The dragons bellowed, turning their power against the reaching darkness to protect themselves.

The arms flexed. Heaved.

The continent shook as the Calamity slammed the dragons into the earth. Their kilometer-long bodies fell in long sections as the power holding them up faded, as the Malice ate at them, and Ganon's roar silenced theirs utterly.

The hands dissipated. Dinraal, Naydra, and Farosh were still, their bodies stretched across the entirety of the castle and into the countryside beyond it. There was silence.

Ganon lowered its arms.

"Now," the beast whispered from within its body, "I can tend to—"

The Boulder Breaker crashed into its ribs. There was a moment where its power, its personal gravity, seemed to resist the blow—and then it was sent careening across the ruined hall, directly away from the princess, bouncing off the floor and over the pit in which it had battled the hero, crashing into the far wall with an explosion of stone and dust.

A heavy foot stamped out its place on the flooring, and then the other. The Boulder Breaker's owner was not laughing as he sank into a defensive posture and shouted:

"Champions!"

A blue light coursed along the floor as the Lightscale Trident was brought to bear, and as the holder sank into an orthodox posture her golden eyes glittered.

The wind howled and the Great Eagle Bow spun, balanced on the end of a single feather. For all his nonchalance, he was even more watchful than his fellows.

Daybreaker and the Scimitar of the Seven were sheathed and put away against the belt of their mistress, but only for a moment. She wanted both hands free as she donned the Thunder Helm.

Daruk, Mipha, Revali, and Urbosa all shone with the power of the goddess; by Hylia's grace did the movement of their feet disturb the dust on the ground; by the power of the gods did they wield their weapons with solid hands, however momentarily.

Ganon stepped out from the rubble. Stopped. Stared at the warriors it had killed a century ago.

Daruk grinned, then held out his fist.

"Attack!"

What were dragons—what were gods—to the fury of the vengeful dead?

"What if… one day…"

That stopped him mid-motion, and the look of concentration slipped from his face. Nothing ever did that. She couldn't look at him as he turned to her. If she looked at him, she would never get the words out.

"You realized that you just weren't meant to be a fighter. Yet the only thing that people ever said was that you were born into a family of the royal guard, and no matter what you thought, you had to become a knight."

He had changed so much in the past weeks. Or maybe she had; his reservation had given way to something else, to an openness of expression and attentiveness that readily betrayed his concern. Had she been blocking that concern—that care—before? She couldn't think of it. She realized she was meeting his eyes, then looked away, at the ground.

"If that was the only thing that you were ever told… I wonder, then… would you have chosen a different path?"

The rain did not stop falling, and the Hero did not move. After long seconds she forced herself to look at him again, to not buckle under the weight of his eyes and his concern. The rain barely seemed to touch him as he sheathed the Master Sword on his back.

He did not answer her; based on his expression, he would not answer her for some minutes. He strode over to the tree, and she made space for him so that he could sit a respectful distance from her while still taking shelter under its scant branches. His eyes never wandered from her face; he was not staring, exactly. It was a look too rooted in empathy to be staring.

"I am all right," she said. She wasn't, but it wasn't really a lie if he knew she was lying. "I'm sorry, I don't know what I hoped to hear."

"I have to think before I can answer," he said.

She was definitely staring at him, then, and not trying to hide it. That was the longest sentence he'd spoken in days. After a few moments he actually broke eye contact—was he being shy or was she just that rude?—to look out across the vastness of Hyrule Field. The rain was too thick, the day too dark, to see the castle, but he still stared in that direction anyway.

They stayed like that, quiet in the rain, for a long time. When the downpour had first started, they had taken shelter like this for what they thought would only be a few minutes; when the rain persisted, Link had begun to fill the time by walking through his normal exercises. That was what had started her thoughts down those paths: seeing him, the ease with which he transitioned through the motions, the intensity of his dedication apparent in every shift of his shoulders.

I envy his strength so much.

"I like animals." His voice was a surprise in the rain; more because she wasn't sure how it followed from what they'd been talking about before. Would he have been a stable hand, then? "Horses. Dogs. I like them, and they like me. Always have. But when the—" He paused. "When there were signs of the Calamity, people told my mother and father that I should use a sword. Because I've always been good with swords, too."

"Do you… like fighting?"

He shrugged. "It's not about liking it or not."

She didn't answer. If she wasn't careful, she would drag him away from his story, from his answer, and she realized she wanted desperately to hear what it was. That curiosity was stronger than how morose she had felt moments before.

"I trained with the knights alongside other recruits. It was just like when I was a kid, only now it wasn't just me. The hope was that, in a few years, someone would be worthy of finding the Master Sword. But there was something our instructors told us, every single day." He paused again.

"What was it?"

Link seemed to roll the next words around in his head. Then he turned slightly, looked at her again with his wide blue eyes. "They said, 'Anyone can be the Hero.'"

Mipha's arms were red blurs, the Lightscale Trident lashing out like a living thing, a liquid thing, tracing silver arcs in the air that rained sparks as she thrust and parried and twisted. Her feet did not move. Her eyes, huge and golden and brimming with the same quiet expression that had made the Waterblight draw its weapon in defense, never blinked. Only her arms, her shoulders, her hips, her hands, her weapon.

The Calamity matched her, blow for blow. It stared back at her, as if answering her determination with a kind of curious apathy. Its mouth slowly twisted up into a grin.

"You," it said, parrying one of her thrusts and then shoving, sending her back a step. "You in particular I think I would like to kill a second time."

Its hand flashed out, past the Lightscale Trident, reaching for her.

Its fingers closed in front of her face as a cyclone exploded at its feet. It hovered a scant few inches off the ground, looking down with that same apathetic curiosity—and then Revali's Gale howled and the Calamity went hurtling straight up, spinning.

Revali was in the whirlwind, and Ganon swung its sword—but the Rito was just out of reach, and the Great Eagle Bow was in his hand. The arrow he pulled taut was armored like a guardian, tipped with a glowing blue blade. Ganon's eyes focused on that arrow, just for a moment.

Then three arrows hit Ganon in its chest, its throat, and the gap in its armor out of which the Malice stared. There was an eruption of light, and of power, as the ancient weapons dug into its armor. No one could say if Ganon felt pain, but the earth shook as it growled. It flexed its power, blowing the whirlwind apart, and Revali was sent spinning. The Calamity righted itself as its momentum carried it upward, and it turned its eye on the Rito.

"I suppose that I will satisfy myself with all of you, and let you dictate the order."

The world disappeared in a white flash, not from the heavens but from the ground, and a woman rode the thunder, gold on her head and steel in her hands. The earth pulled at the two, but still they rose, the Calamity on dregs of wind and the woman on eruptions of lightning. For the first time in a long time, Ganon seemed to pause.

The Calamity's voice was strange and thick when it spoke in a language that had long since left it behind: "My sister—"

Lightning crashed into the Calamity's face.

"You will not speak the tongue of my mothers!" Urbosa's shout sounded over the crash, over the roar. She was screaming in Hylian, denying the Calamity the dignity of address. "You are not Gerudo! You are not even voe, and no monster will speak our language!"

Gravity's claws pulled at the two warriors. The Calamity's growl grew to something else, a beast stirring within an infinitely vast cave, as it began to descend. As they both began to fall. As Urbosa raised her hand to the sky.

"Cousin! Lend me your power!"

And in the distance Farosh raised its head, its enormous horn surging with lightning. It answered her call with its own. The Thunder Helm glowed as brightly as the power of the gods.

A thunderbolt that filled the heavens fell upon the Calamity—but it was not a flash, there and gone as lightning was. It writhed like a living thing, like a dragon born from fury itself, and as it crashed into Ganon it drove the monster down, careening to the waiting, ruined floor below. Miniature bolts peeled off from it as it ate into the Calamity's armored skin, their arc scoring stone and blasting apart the last parapets of the crumbling tower.

The Calamity crashed into the floor far from the princess, and lightning exploded from the impact point like a boulder crashing into a lake. Electricity still coursed over Ganon's skin as the beast fought its way to its feet. It flexed its free hand and now wielded two swords, and as it threw back its head and roared its fury—

Daruk brought the Boulder Breaker down on top of it, smashing it into the floor, through the floor, hurling it down into the pit in which it had been fighting the Hero for a century. It fell, and fell, and fell.

"Champions!" Daruk called out again, and Revali and Urbosa touched down together at the same time that Mipha ran up, and all three were looking to him. "We can't hold that thing forever, but we don't need to! We just have to buy time. Are you ready?"

They were about to answer when the Calamity exploded out of the flooring between them, aflame with Malice, twin swords dancing in its hands like extensions of its body. The eruption of stone staggered them all, and then its swords were flashing.

What followed was a whirlwind of steel and stone and fire and violence and lightning as the Champions fought together in death as they never had in life, unleashing all of their strength with no thought given to where that would leave them in the hour to follow. Revali traced a perimeter in the air around them, sending ancient arrows soaring with perfect precision between the limbs of his compatriots to strike home against Ganon's body. The air in front of Mipha was alive with her weapon, which clamped its jaws around the Calamity's blades, shoving them off-course and pulling the beast itself away from its center of balance. Urbosa whirled in open combat with Ganon, sword singing and shield bashing against the base of the burning blades, and every space not filled by her weapon was filled by lightning. And Daruk was there, in every moment, and every time one of the others slipped he would step in and turn aside a blow that would have crushed any of them should it have connected.

Ganon's body was a burning blur, its swords cutting and whirring and chopping. From four directions it was attacked and from four directions it defended itself.

The dragons' smoking heads rose above the castle and the guardian gods roared, their power exploding to life beneath the beast.

The Calamity fought through it all. Its motions were always perfectly sure; its blades shifted in perfect synchronicity; every action was, even when it resulted in taking a wound, the best action to take in that moment. And with every passing exchange it grew faster. Surer. Stronger. It even began to laugh as it fought. Why wouldn't it? These were Champions, but for a century it had warred with the Hero.

For a breadth of time spanning perhaps five seconds there was perfect balance. Every blow thrown was intercepted and turned aside. Every follow-up strike was parried. Swings too powerful to be blocked were ducked under. The dragons leveled their assault.

Then the balance broke.

Ganon's fist smashed against Daruk's face, sending the Goron flying like a rock launched from a sling. Urbosa's sword came down on its shoulder and it released one sword to grab her by the wrist, swinging her over and down as if she were a flail, shattering the stone floor under her back. It hurled her after Daruk. Revali was on it, sword flashing, and it slapped him in the chest so that he hit the floor ten meters away. Mipha held out for nearly a full second before it slipped past her guard and wrapped its hand around her throat. It smiled as it squeezed.

Fire and ice and lightning exploded at its feet, the force of the blast tearing Mipha from his grasp and sending her careening limply across the room. The dragons bellowed as they unleashed their fury, and Ganon bellowed in return as it held up its hands and flung its power at the guardian gods of the land.

There was a great deal of screaming from mouths that could shake the mountains, and the dragons fell, writhing, in different directions—all away from the castle.

The earth shook, then grew still.

And then, just for a moment, there was quiet.

The Calamity looked about itself. Urbosa and Daruk lay in an unmoving pile, half-buried in the same rubble that it had been flung into earlier. Revali did not stir; nor did Mipha. The dragonsong had faded. The wind had died.

Slowly it turned its golden eyes to the blood of the goddess and the soul of the Hero. It paused, as if savoring the moment. Took a step forward.

In the silence, it was easy to hear a person scrambling to the top of the wall. In any other situation, this would have been so small as to go unnoticed. Now, though, the Calamity looked up.

"Ah," it said. "So, you have decided to die for your beloved princess, too?"

Paya stared back at it from atop the rubble that had once been the southern-facing doorway. Her silver hair blew in the wind. Ganon watched her as she took in the sight of the Sanctum. It smiled when the color drained from her face, seeing the scattered Champions, seeing her princess, seeing the Hero.

Its smile fell away when it saw the flash of blue in her hands.

She brought that blue to her lips.

Ganon held out its own hand, reaching for the girl with its hate, to crush her without touching her, to pull her soul apart like a child with a spider.

There was a flash of radiance under her skin, like the moon reflecting the light of day, and Ganon hissed, recoiling as Zelda's blessing rebuked it.

Paya brought the Ocarina of Time to her lips and played the song that had lulled the blood of the goddess to sleep since Hylia had walked the world.

"'Anyone' can be the Hero?" It was an absurd idea; her first instinct was to laugh, as if responding to a joke, but the look on his face said that he was not trying to be funny. "Why would they ever say such a thing?"

Again, he paused. He might have been trying to gauge her reaction, to determine if he'd shamed himself in front of her, but whatever his conclusion he did not let it stop him. "Because it is true."

She folded her hands in her lap. She waited.

"I think it's true, anyway. The sword and its guardian… everything I've learned from them makes me believe. That the Hero is made, not born. That what matters most is…" Here he paused again, faltering. His color did not rise, but he looked away from her; unbidden, the thought occurred to her that his embarrassment was rather like a puppy's. She felt a sudden urge to console him.

She couldn't say for sure what the source of his embarrassment was, so she made a guess. "It is all right to talk about what you've done. I promise that I will not think you are self-aggrandizing." I don't think I ever could.

His expression didn't change, he didn't look at her again, but he nodded and continued. "What matters most is a willingness to do what needs to be done. There have been times when the Calamity returned and everyone was afraid. Then, only one person was willing to even try to take up the sword. But there are times—like now—where many people want to protect Hyrule. Protect their families. Protect… everyone." He gestured with his hand, though that gesture only seemed to include the castle. "I thought that the person who took up the sword would be the best fighter, the most fearless… but that's almost never the case."

Zelda was not an anthropological historian; it occurred to her that she actually knew very little about the legacy of the Hero, important as it was. She would try to amend this failing later. For now, she just nodded.

"Nobody really knows what makes a person more likely to be the Hero, or else we'd train for that quality. Even the sword and its guardians only meet those who have already proven themselves. I thought it would be me, because I've always been a good fighter…" Now he looked at her again, and she was struck by the intensity of his eyes. He wanted so desperately for her to understand. "But that's not why." He did not swallow; he did not blush; he did not look away; his expression was so stolid it would be difficult for anyone else to tell how hard it was for him to keep talking. "And while I was training, I found something besides strength to drive me."

Her curiosity was humming under her skin. "What was it?"

"You."

The last notes of Zelda's Lullaby faded, and Paya lowered the ocarina, returning it to a leather pouch at her waist. Her expression was distant, removed.

Ganon slid the blades of its sword against each other, and fire and Malice rained on the floor between its feet as it walked toward the mound of rubble on which Paya stood. It could be patient. It could be sure. It would kill her, and with every defender dead it would address the divine princess at its leisure.

Then the air shifted, as if from empty space being filled. The increase in pressure was only temporary, but it created a breeze so strong that it pulled at the Malice around the Calamity, and the beast stopped and looked about itself. With its eyes it took in the Sanctum. With its ears it heard the marching of hundreds and hundreds of feet.

It turned its eyes back to the girl, and then it stopped in its tracks.

Behind Paya stood three figures clad in green. One young, sea-skinned and smelling of brine; one older, sharp-eyed and wild-haired; one who bore the blessing of the goddess under his skin and carried her love in his heart. All three stared openly at Ganon, not with hate but with recognition.

"What is this trickery?" the Calamity whispered, bemused and disbelieving.

The air shifted again, and it looked up. Around. Everywhere.

They were gathered, the Heroes—standing around the arena that the Sanctum had become. Mostly men, mostly Hylian, mostly in green, but representing every people and every color that the gods had painted the world with. They stood steadily on debris that should have collapsed under them, they stood on edges which should have pulled them down into pits; those with wings stood in the very air. All of them watched on.

Who can say what storm raged in the Calamity's mind, seeing the faces of those who had been the arbiters of its defeat since the dawning of the world? As it swung the hollow of its face from one corner of the Sanctum to the other, as its hands tightened on the grips of its swords? None could speak to the truth, save the beast itself.

It only said: "If you think I will be delayed by—"

Footsteps. Hard-soled boots, from the north-east entrance. The Calamity turned. Paya turned. Only the Heroes paid no mind.

A figure stepped into the Sanctum. Taller than the other Hylian men, his green tunic had long ago been traded away for the armor of a general. He had discarded his helmet, letting his sandy-blonde hair hang down to his shoulders. He stared at Ganon with his one blue eye. There was plain steel in his left hand.

Ganon recoiled despite itself, sinking into a defensive stance, both blades brought up.

"You," it hissed, and that hiss shook the earth. "How many times must you fall? How many times must I kill you?"

The Hero of Time rolled his shoulders, hefting a round shield in his right hand. He was silent; he stalked around the edge of the Sanctum, sword held out toward the Calamity, point gesturing at its heart. The Calamity rotated to face him, staying perpetually ready.

After twenty paces, the ancient warrior allowed himself a thin smile. "I am grateful."

Ganon shifted its feet, leading with its left foot. It prepared to launch with its right. It had been fighting a Hero for a century; it knew how this one fought, all those lifetimes ago.

"To be called upon one last time—to rise in service to her—is an incomparable honor. I have you to thank for that." He raised his sword, shifting to a combat stance.

"You are only delaying the inevitable." Ganon spoke above a whisper, now, and the echo of its voice was a howl that sent a gale blasting through the castle. Paya shut her ears against the sound. The Heroes paid it no mind at all. "I have done combat with your better for a century. If you wish to die by my hand again, I will oblige you with relish."

The Hero of Time, in the chronicles that spoke of his life, was supposed to have laughed only very rarely. Indeed, he did not laugh now, but he showed his teeth in a grin that recalled the snarl of a wolf. "I won't be the one killing you today."

The rain fell hard and heavy and did not seem like it would ever let up, and the Hero's words hung in the air like a pronunciation from the gods in a language she had never learned.

"…Me?"

He nodded. For a moment he did not offer anything more. Perhaps he was reaching for words. Perhaps he was mastering himself.

It didn't matter. Something in that answer was like a fire inside of her, burning down through the walls of her stomach, and she felt the world shifting wildly beneath her. That couldn't stand. To speak of her that way—the absurdity. The, the impertinence. To pretend that he had looked to a failure and found inspiration, found something worth doing… everything for! Everything! All the world rested on his shoulders and he dared to claim, to pretend—

"Please," she said, stunning herself with her own calm. "Please explain what you mean."

A pause of four seconds. Then: "You didn't have a choice. Your fate was decided by your blood. It didn't matter if you were strong, weak, wise, foolish… you had to do it. You had to."

"I haven't done it yet! I haven't done anything yet!" The calm slipped and she found she didn't care.

He stared, waiting to see if she would say more, and when she didn't: "In the times when everyone was afraid, someone rose out of necessity, because no one else would. It's supposed to have been harder for them. They were less suited to it, but Ganon returned anyway, they had to fight him anyway." He flexed his hands, staring at them. "And I realized… if somebody didn't step up… if somebody was less suited, but took up the Master Sword…" He shook his head. "Anyone who can draw the sword is suited. But anyone can draw the sword. And whoever it was, I didn't want them to…"

"Say it. Whatever it is, say it."

"You've been hurting for such a long time," he said. "So, if I'd never wanted to be a fighter… if I wasn't good at it… and they told me I had to be a knight anyway?"

She swallowed.

"I would have looked to you. I would have thought of fighting alongside you. Of holding you up. And I would have done everything the same."

The Calamity's eyes darted away from the Hero of Time, but only for a moment, the barest fraction of a second. And in that fraction, the Hero halved the distance between them, never seeming to change his stance. Ganon took an involuntary step back.

"Not you?" it asked. "You don't have the power to fight me now." It grinned, wide and vicious and revelatory, as if it was just realizing the truth of its own words. "All of you together wouldn't."

The ancient warrior tilted his head. "The Champions, and the Dragons—and now the Heroes too, you say."

They circled one another, then, drawing steadily closer. Ganon no longer retreated; it seemed to have the measure of its opponent, at least enough to engage him. Paya stood, silent and breathless.

And then the Hero lowered his guard. Lowered his shield, lowered his sword.

Ganon lunged.

She tried to accept this; she couldn't. There was something inside of her that was stuck, some obstacle that wouldn't be dislodged by the Hero's sentiment, however desperately she wanted to wrap herself in it, however badly her soul cried out for her to do so. She wouldn't allow herself that succor. All she had were questions, still.

"Well. You did decide to be the Hero, after all."

"Yes, I did. To try, anyway."

Succor turned to bitterness. Of course he did. Why wouldn't he? A child's hypothetical, meant to mirror her own situation in his, could never reflect the truth of the Hero. Perhaps he was a good man, but he was still a product of the gifts granted him by the gods.

She said, not trying to hide that bitterness: "Because it would be easy? Or glorious?"

"No."

His answer was so instant that she flinched. She couldn't look at him; she knew that his eyes were on her, and as much as she knew intellectually that he would not judge her for her words she couldn't tamp down the shame that his earnestness stoked in her chest.

"I decided to reach for the sword because if I didn't, then someone else might. Someone who might fail. If I didn't do it, then you would have had to shoulder that burden. Perhaps someone else could have done it, but. I thought of a world where you fought the Calamity alone. You needed to be… I needed to protect you. I needed to help you."

She fought the urge to grab his hand. Bit down on her tongue, fighting the urge to speak. In a few weeks he would march to war for her; for a hundred years he would fight for her. He would die for her, and keep on fighting in death, and she didn't know that now but the woman who would remember this later, who would realize what it meant, would feel this moment blowing apart the firmament of her soul.

The Hero said, his voice hoarse: "It had to be me."

A hundred years and more hence, memory smashed against the wall of the princess's amnesia. The wall toppled.

Ganon's blade caught only empty air.

The Hero of Time was gone. The walls were empty. The Champions had vanished from where they lay. In the whole chamber, only Paya and Ganon stood, the former staring in tight-lipped hope and the latter staggering at the shock of its attack meeting no resistance.

Paya barely breathed. She did not pray, though if she had wanted her goddess to hear her, she needed only speak.

There was a ringing, the sounding of the bell that had presided at the birth of the world.

There was an eruption as the girl woke, though her eyes were still closed, her arms still fiercely clutched her Hero's body. The wall in the amnesiac's mind crumbled, blown away on the torrent of the power, and the past flowed through that space where once bricks had stood. Of that mighty edifice, fit to hold back the shared past of the blood of the gods, only one humble brick remained on the ground. The past flowed over and around it, memory blossoming atop it.

Ganon raised its head toward its quarry, turning to face her squarely.

Within the vast interior space where resided the vitality of the goddess, the power unfurled itself with the rustle of mighty wings, the bristling of cosmic feathers. Zelda felt everything, knew everything, and every moment of her life from her first memory of her mother's face to the desperate image of Link's back receding came flooding to her all at once. She had done all of this. It had all been for this purpose. It had been for this moment.

"Take it," she said to eternity. "I will be host to you in your fullness. We will end this together, and whatever comes after… will come in a world free of Ganon."

The power embraced her. Enveloped her. Swept her away. She did not even tumble; she drifted, becoming something greater than she had been before. Her thoughts melted into the light.

The golden figure opened her eyes.

The Sanctum—the castle itself—exploded outward. There was no debris. Every stone, every beam, every mote of dust dissolved into radiant golden light and disappeared.

The stone under Paya's feet vanished, but through her connection to that golden mind she knew what was happening, was not afraid as she landed on her feet.

The Calamity held its arm before its eyes, warding off the light. This was familiar to it, too.

The golden figure lifted the Hero's guttering soul in her arms, and kissed him, and laid him on the ground.

"Rest," said she, in a voice that echoed throughout the sky. His hand still clutched fiercely to the hilt of his broken sword, and she brushed her fingers against his forehead.

She rose to her feet, turning to face the Calamity. She raised her hand, summoning to it a long sword whose blade danced with flames.

Ganon roared its laughter, its challenge. "It should have been you! You could have held me! See the ruin you have brought! See how the world crumbles!"

Hylia answered with the ringing of a bell.