Hiraeth is thirteen when Brother Goro adds twice as many rings to his necklace as usual. His father says he is going to grow a lot this year, and most of his presents turn out to be clothes. Loose trousers cut too long but with drawstrings at the hem so he can tuck them up into his boots. Shirts with seven ells of linen gathered on the too-wide yoke, and all hemmed as long as a nightshirt. Plain vests with laced side panels, and a new sash he has to double over to keep it from dragging the ground when he sits down.

It's all very boring, but his stepmother confides that it was the same for her when she was young. She promises he will be glad of these things in a few months, and makes him promise to be especially careful of his clumsiness in the coming year, and actually go to bed at a reasonable hour.

Hiraeth spends the rest of the day idling at the traveling carnival with his sisters, spending his birthday rupee on games and sweets and frivolous little amusements. The twins make fun of his terrible scores at every one of the target games and races and tests of strength, but the travelers wink and smile and make sure he hears their little comments about a proud young man's devotion to his kid sisters.

They don't realize he's only thirteen, and he doesn't correct them. They don't know his reputation. They assume he's losing to the girls on purpose to amuse them.

Hiraeth pretends it doesn't bother him to be terrible at these things. He is the best mathematician in the whole province, and no one can be good at everything. No one else has headmasters from city academies and priests from rich temples sending letters and servants to petition his father for an audience with 'the rustic prodigy'.

But no one else has to pretend they don't read and write in seven different languages, either.

He pays for the girls to enjoy a ride on the bored carnival mules, and walks beside Saso on her miniature horse to make sure she doesn't fall off. Hiraeth knows better than to hire even a gentle draft horse for himself, for he learned years ago he would only manage to fall off at the worst possible moment.

The twins take turns carrying Saso back home, for he is obliged to carry Ishi. She tired herself out running a dozen foot races and fell asleep in the middle of the jugglers' show. Hiraeth agrees with the twins that it was a good day, hoping that if they all say it enough it will become true.

Not that it was a bad day. He can just feel the charm of birthdays has begun to fade exactly as their weird neighbor always said it would. He starts reading them a story of the Wandering Knight and the Quest He Never Completes, but even the twins are yawning by the time the Mysterious Sheikah is reprimanding the wayward Knight. So he marks the page for another night, and goes out to lay on the garden bench and watch the stars come out.

Link joins him an hour before midnight, carrying a couple jars of spiced lemonade and a lumpy parcel. "Thought you might be thirsty after your long walk."

"Thanks," says Hiraeth, holding the cool glass against his brow.

"Headache?" Link asks mildly, sitting down on the opposite bench.

"Only a little," lies Hiraeth. After all, he's endured worse - and he doesn't want to be dosed with potion and sent to bed for it.

"Physical strength and skill aren't everything," says Link softly. "Try not to measure yourself against farmboys and laborers' sons."

"I don't," says Hiraeth, drinking his lemonade and biting his tongue against the truth that he is jealous of his little sisters.

"I've heard that after summer harvest, some of your classmates will be going to the capital. Apprenticed to the guard, or sponsored into the army," says Link. "It is not glorious, or exciting, or any of the other things they will say."

"I know," says Hiraeth, thinking of the chilling contrast between the Hylian and Holodrun accounts of the Silver War, and the haunting description of the Telado Valley mass graves in the Memoirs of Harkinian IV.

"It is not a good life," says Link, as if he has not heard Hiraeth agree. "Do not envy these foolish children."

"I won't," promises Hiraeth.

"War is not the correct or rational answer to disagreements of any kind. We have the good fortune to live in a civilized time, with laws and courts and councils. Violence is the last resort of the impatient, the selfish, the ignorant. You are better than that," says Link.

"Can I ask you something?" Hiraeth murmurs after a moment.

"You want to know why I say this when I keep a sword," says Link.

Hiraeth nods because he cannot speak.

"I was born of war, and for it," says Link with a shrug. "I want better for you."

Hiraeth nods again, puzzling over his plain words. His stepmother calls Link a coward when they argue, which is often. His sisters don't seem to notice - or they pretend it doesn't matter. Even the elders in the village who respect him as an artisan whisper about his desertion when he's away on another building project. They question the origin of his scars, because he still has both his eyes, because the line on his throat is so thin and clean, because he is alive to bear them.

But cowards make excuses. They boast of what they would have done after the danger is over. They exaggerate their strength and skill from a safe distance. They glorify violence as Link never does.

Little things like this, unadorned, cryptic statements dropped only when they are alone feel like a page bound in the middle of the wrong book.

"Anyways, there's something else I wanted to talk to you about," says Link, finishing his jar of lemonade.

"Sure," says Hiraeth, watching the slow drift of the wandering stars and trying to resist the nameless, selfish hunger that rises every time his father lets slip another shard of his past.

"The Zora who just moved here. You have seen him?" Link asks.

"Yeah. I heard he's some kind of musician on holiday," says Hiraeth, sitting up to finish his lemonade. "Are you really building him a giant bathtub?"

"Hn. Not quite," says Link with a lopsided grin. "But we do have a - business arrangement. And there is one present you haven't opened yet."

Hiraeth frowns as his father stands to light the six little garden lamps. The orange-gold light seems strange and ominous, but his father is almost smiling. He gestures at the forgotten parcel, folding his arms.

The strange oblong shape rings softly when he unties the dusty ribbons. The sweet twanging sound stops his breath and seizes his heart as if he's caught in a giant's fist. His hands shake as he unfolds the layers of plush wool and quilted silk to unveil the relic they guard.

The polished amberwood cittern looks more like a confection than an instrument, with delicate whorls of silver filigree and mother-of-pearl inlaid. Even the delicate strings seem gilded in the flickering lamplight, and Hiraeth is almost afraid to touch them.

"Go on," murmurs Link.

Hiraeth holds his breath, brushing his thumb across the bridge. The shimmering harmony sounds the way it feels to swim in the rapids in the stream above the village on a hot summer afternoon.

"I don't know how to play it," whispers Hiraeth.

"We can fix that," says Link with a strange kind of melancholy thinness in his voice.