Wraith
The sheikah woman could move in the dark at inhuman speed.
It was difficult to follow her. Besides, once we walked away from Fort Hawk, a cold also inhuman froze my bones. I wasn't prepared to go out in the middle of the night. I wore the thin tunic I just used for the banquet, and my cloak was thick but it wasn't enough. My knuckles were frozen, it was the only part of my hands that peeked out because I needed to squeeze the reins of the horse tightly.
She stopped dead in her tracks and jumped off the horse. Goddesses, what speed. She crouched like a cat behind some low bushes at the foot of a grove of old oaks, and I imitated her.
"There. In front of you."
"I don't see anything."
She sighed smugly. Yes, the slow, blind Captain Link couldn't keep up with Hyrule's military elite. I hated feeling that way, it was as if she were constantly testing me, as if she were testing whether or not I was still worthy to take care of Zelda's protection.
"Do you see them or not?"
"I don-… Hold on..."
There were at least three. They crawled confused with the shadows of the trees. They were advancing east, towards Fort Hawk.
"There are many more," said Impa, before I could open my lips, "thousands. It's impossible to count them."
"No… that's not... Our defences are strong, we should have seen them."
"With the same eyes you've barely been able to see them now, right?"
"We will resist," I clenched my fist.
"For how long? You can't deal with them. Not alone. They must have set secret and safe steps for months. They seem to be clear on how to move."
"Damn it... " I dropped to the ground. It was too much, how had Dad neglected our defences like that? "What do we do now? Should we stop them?"
"I hadn't brought you here to stop them, that would be an error. After them others will move sheltered in the cold and the darkness, we would be surrounded easily. They'll get to Hyrule, it's their real destination."
I was going to argue that, but I bit my tongue. Of course, they were going to Hyrule. I'd faced them on the other side of Tanagar Canyon. It was a serious problem, a problem of an unknown dimension, the war with Ikana would be a reality as soon as Dad knew about this.
"I can't understand how they've come this far," I thought, "our defences have always been strong."
"A door is useless if someone leaves it ajar."
I looked at Impa in anger. I'd have liked to answer her bluntly, tell her that in the West we are not like that, that we do our part and we protect the border. But everything was confusing. The men of the mountains were ambitioning gold, they were ambitioning Fort Hawk. They were ambitious, that's it. I didn't trust them. Maybe in the past I would have trust them, but after seeing what happened at the Or Games I knew for myself that they were willing to go as far as it took. And that enemy was at home, drinking and dancing in my father's halls. That enemy had mixed his blood with my family's to guarantee a position of privilege, and now they threatened to steal power from my father one step at a time. First it was the inheritance of Fort Hawk. Now it was their ambition to neutralise what little was left of me, my humble tower on the southern border with Hyrule. It was of little value in its own right (it was to me, of course), but the Eagle's Nest was a strategic place. The mountain men had always wanted to own lands in the south. They wished to harass the Rito in exchange for more pacts and in exchange for the diamonds they thought sprang from the caves of the Rito Mountains, as if the Rito cultivated them, like teeth that watered and grew at will from the bowels of the rock.
Stunned as I was, I let myself be dragged into darkness by the sheikah woman.
We only had two possible paths: find out who commanded the Wraith or follow them until we figured out how they made their way to Hyrule.
She decided to go for the second option. The first one was too dangerous, we had no weapons, no food, no warm clothes. It was like walking bare-chested into the monster's den. The second was dangerous too, but it brought us closer to our own territory.
The night became endless to me, as much as the rows of Wraith, crawling like a snake among forests and darkness. We followed them and they turned north, away from the walls of Fort Hawk. That is how we discovered the tunnel, at the foot of a rock massif that belonged to the Hebra mountain range. It was as black as an abyss and the cold that rose from within chilled the blood. I was cold, sleepy and hungry, and I didn't even know how I had managed to keep up with this demoniac woman, but I made a point of appearing impassive, in case she took any sign of weakness in me as an excuse to try to interfere with my marriage.
"It will soon dawn and the tunnel will be covered," she said.
"How do you know?"
"Ikana's wraith use ancient magic, confuse the entrance with the landscape, and be invisible to the eye. At least to the common eye."
"Then all this persecution sucks," I protested. She was surprised to hear me talk like that, but I was too exhausted to hide my frustration.
"Now we know where the tunnel is... More or less. We'll have to keep watching. Hyrule can provide a sheikah patrol that will go unnoticed. Next, we'll neutralize the tunnel and look for others, this way we'll reduce the flow of enemies entering Hyrule and the Lands of the West."
"And what the hell do the Wraith do in Hyrule?"
"Chances are they'll have an ally there."
I was about to question her when in one of her turns she jumped on her horse and started her frantic pace, this time back to Fort Hawk.
When we arrived, it had dawned. I wanted to rest a bit, but Impa insisted that we should talk to my father as soon as possible. Despite everything, I managed to slip away from her. I'd left my wife alone in the middle of the dance, without explanation and with a "I'll be back soon." I wanted to see if she was angry that I had abandoned her like that.
I went into my quarters and found only scrambled sheets. No sign of Zelda. The dress she had worn the night before was thrown over the back of a chair. I couldn't control the urge to touch it and get my nose a little closer. Damn it, I was so pitiful. I missed the opportunity to spend more time with her, when she was clearly waiting for a dance. But I got so nervous that all I could do was be a jerk. I had no idea how I was going to keep living with her like this, I was hoping everything would normalize again.
Even though I needed to rest in my bed, I washed my face and immediately came down to talk to Dad. Impa had an idea that might seem crazy, but on the other hand... we didn't have much choice. I had confessed my distrust of Aldry and the Wolf Fang Clan, after all they were neighbours of Kruu and the other clans that would have allowed the uncontrolled passage of Wraith towards Hyrule. But she thought it was better to expose the traitors to a trap. So, we could find out if Aldry and Grimla were involved too.
Luckily, only Grimla came to the meeting. I trusted him much more than Aldry, who was impulsive and had a huge grudge against Hyrule, because, once again, Hyrule was a representation of my mother in her head.
"I just can't believe what happened," Dad lamented, holding his fingers to the bridge of his nose.
"Do you know the exact location of the tunnel?" Grimla asked us.
"Yes. I could find it even in the dark," I said. Impa didn't open her mouth, she kept in a discreet background.
"There will be war," Dad said, "nothing will get us out of it anymore. And we must also warn the king of Hyrule."
"The king of Hyrule is already warned," Impa intervened. They stared at her dumbfounded, but then they kept drawing up a strategy.
"It's quite possible that not only Ikana wraith cross around," I warned, "they could use those tunnels to introduce monsters of another nature."
"And we fought with the mountains over a stupid sack of gold," Dad complained.
"Link, you should lead a group of men into that tunnel," Grimla suggested, "we will set as many troops as we can gather and do a great purge. They won't be crossing using the same strategy again."
"That means war with Ikana," I said.
"Yes, I guess so. But they provoked it."
I exchanged a look with Impa. Grimla was clean, it had to be up to the other clan leaders.
We've accelerated our back to the Eagle's Nest. I didn't want to act until I had come home, Zelda and Prince Gaepora needed to be as far away from that conflict as possible. Impa and I agreed not to tell them anything until we got home, and that made Zelda assault me with questions throughout the trip. It was impossible to hide anything from her, she looked at me and it was as if she knew, as if she had a power to know that I was hiding something from her. It didn't make any sense to wait, so I ended up telling her and the prince everything.
That night, at last, we all crossed the wall of the Eagle's Nest after a frantic journey, harassed mostly by Impa. I had not slept for exactly two days, two, and could barely stand up. The others looked tired too, and as soon as we arrived everyone retired to sleep. Zelda barely said two words to me, she made me feel like I had swallowed a spit of lizalph. Maybe after keeping her at a distance for so long, she had become fed up with me and she was the one who had moved away.
"Are you going to sleep now?" Impa asked me. We cross our path on a flight of stairs to the tower, "there's something I wanted to suggest to you before you retire."
"I'm tired, can't it wait?" I wondered how she could stand it as if nothing.
"I prefer to tell you now, so you can mature it during your sleep."
"Damn it. Go ahead." I sighed, resigned.
"It wouldn't be a bad idea for the princess, to retire for a time under the custody of Lord Tyto of the Rito. That way she'd be less exposed during the war with Ikana."
"Didn't you say her killer might come from Hyrule? And now you're trying to convince me to send her to Hyrule..."
"To the border. It's Hyrule, but it's safe. No one will suspect she's hiding there."
"Good night, Impa," I growled, waving my head.
"You'll be fighting on the west border with Ikana. So are your men. I can send a sheikah patrol to protect her, but she's still in danger," she insisted, "will you think about it?"
She was a real pain in the ass and I knew she wouldn't stop insisting.
"Yes, damn it, yes. I'll think about it."
Goddesses, the sheikah woman always meddling, always questioning. I could perfectly take care of her, I had done it so far. If I got angry with her insistence it's because Zelda was my wife, that's all. It seemed as if everyone laughed at our marriage when it was no longer their business, never again. Did they want to play the blood marriage card? Well, that means never sticking their dirty noses back in our lives. So, I didn't need any sheikah, no army of royal soldiers, or those arrogant border birds to take care of her when she was mine. Not Impa', not Rhoam's. We'd made a promise, and that made us free. And my mother's ring was on her finger, that's it, if Impa was so smart she should know what that means, fuck it. It'd be interesting to have that sword duel that Impa and I once talked about, I was looking forward to it, maybe I managed to get revenge for that bump she made me, and for her constant demands.
I entered the room, left the door ajar and felt like I could fly when I took off my boots. My feet were squashed, swollen and sore. As it was, I let myself fall back on my back on the bed, I had no strength for anything else.
"Link..."
I opened my eyes and ran into hers, what the hell was Zelda doing there?
"What happened?" I rubbed my eyes trying to open them.
"Everything's okay, Link. But these aren't your quarters."
I shook my head and looked around... oh, hell. The bedroom at the top of the Nest. I was too sleepy, I was exhausted to such an extent that I had forgotten where I was, my feet had carried me there without thinking. I made an attempt to get up and get my boots, but she held me back.
"You can stay the night here, you're too tired, your eyes are red. You really need to sleep for a few hours."
I stared at her and wasn't able to say a word. My mind refused to reject the offer, and every inch of my body begged to get inside those soft blankets that sure had her scent.
"Come on, don't sleep in with all those clothes on."
I let her help me remove my tunic, leather protectors from my arms, the belts and even the pants. Then she dragged me to bed and she also got inside, first lowering the light from the oil lantern.
"Zelda, I'm so sorry-
"Sssch," she interrupted, "you and your barbarian manias of spending whole days without sleep, chasing ghosts. One day you'll scare me to death, for sure. Rest now."
"Are you worried about me?"
"I just want to sleep now, please, you should do the same."
"But nothing happened to me, really, we've only stalked those things."
She snorted and tried to snuggle her head on the pillow. She turned her back on me, and because I was profiled in the same direction, I could see her soft white neck, among the tangled strands of hair. I came over and kissed that spot. There was only one kind of sigh in response, but not a rejection. I wanted to do it so much and I was so tired that I didn't care about anything. I was tired and I just needed her close, so I wrapped her with my arm. That's the only way I was going to be able to fall asleep.
I was awakened by a gust of cold air. I opened an eye and saw that Zelda wasn't there, and the door that ascended to the top of the tower had been ajar.
It had dawned and it was still too early, I wanted to sleep more, but I also wanted to know what the hell she was doing at the top of the tower, apart from freezing cold, of course. I decided to wrap myself in a blanket and go upstairs and convince her to go back to our bed or at least to the room.
"Everything is snowy," she said, when she heard me coming. I peeked out at the same point she did. The snow was no longer just a local storm, it was a reality, the whole horizon and mountains were white, and the forests looked dark and crowned with snow, like dark veins emerging from the bowels of the earth.
"Winters are always white in the Eagle's Nest. What the hell are you doing here, Zelda?"
"I've been awake."
"You're not dressed warmly enough to come up here." I observed. She had only worn a thin robe on top of her nightgown.
"Me? You've come up here without pants..."
I grabbed her hand and it was frosty. She got rid of me in a slightly abrupt movement, which made me take a little step back.
"Sorry, I didn't want to... " I bit my tongue and kept by her side, staring at the white horizon and at some cottony clouds that threatened more snow.
"I don't understand you, Link." She said, after a silent moment.
"Are you mad at me?"
"It's not that. You are contradictory," she said, without diverting her eyes from the horizon.
"I… I don't know... Just tell me if I did anything wrong." I shrugged. I didn't want her to be mad at me, but she was right if she wanted to, since I was still a jerk.
"When we were at your parents' house…" I saw her falter a little, she didn't look so ice-like after all, "I did something that upset you, but you didn't say anything. And after that you didn't want us to sleep in the same bed, but you did it anyway not to argue or out of a weird courtesy, I'm not sure yet."
"Oh, no, no... you're wrong," I smiled. Ironically, I liked what she did so much that I had to manage so she wouldn't notice.
"Then you avoided me for much of the day, and during the banquet, you didn't want to dance with me. Ardren dragged you to do so."
"I wanted to dance with you."
She sighed and turned to look at me.
"And then, last night you… you came over… I don't know. You confuse me," she confessed, and her gaze stuck so deep that I felt the same as when someone was throwing me to the ground in a fight, "so now I'm not sure how to behave with you."
"You don't have to behave in any way, just be yourself, as you've done since you got here."
"Sometimes you're affectionate and sometimes you're not," she said, and I saw the blush growing on her cheeks.
"I see."
"It may be cultural, something to do with barbarians, I don't know. But I want you to know that it confuses me a lot, about being close and then avoiding me. I tried to believe that it's necessary to maintain a reasserted appearance of marriage in front of others and in that case, some closeness is necessary. I share that view. But the more you confuse me it's when we're alone, so I don't get it."
That truth was knotted in my stomach. Probably because she was right, Mom always said that truths are hard to swallow, while lies are sweet like Tabantha's bread. I wanted Zelda, but I didn't want to hurt or scare her. I tried to control that need by putting some distance between us, but at the same time I found it almost impossible to keep it. I was as if the air didn't fill my lungs every time we grew apart.
"I'm sorry, Zelda. I'm just trying to be respectful of you, of who you are and what you represent. And from the start we had, I find it hard to forget when you were afraid of me, I… I never know if I'm doing anything wrong with you." I waited for any comment, but she stood silent. "Besides, I've never met anyone like you, you're different, but... this has nothing to do with politics, I swear. I don't want you to think I get close to you to appear we are good in front of others as you said. It's that… I prefer to be affectionate with you, rather than the opposite," I admitted. I had a hard time confessing that, but since she'd had the courage to tell me about her feelings, I had to answer in the same way.
She cast a look of mistrust at me, frowning. Her breath turned into a cloud of white steam in contact with the cold.
"I'm a clumsy barbarian, I know, but would you mind if I was more affectionate and not just... not just when I'm tired?"
"No. I wouldn't mind," she frowned and folded her arms.
"Well," I opened the blanket with which I wrapped myself and caught her inside, with me, "you were making me suffer with so little warm clothes, so you'll be better off now."
She hesitated a little, but soon got carried away and her tension smoothed. Of course, she was confused, I was really confused too, it was like a continuous struggle. But if I hurt her by putting distance, then I'll hundred times preferred to live tortured by her closeness.
We stayed like this for a while, the icy wind burned my cheeks, but otherwise, being stuck like this was as warm as one could imagine. Those moments of intimacy with her were different than anything, I'd never had this with anyone, not even Eve. Eve would have made a joke, dragged me into the bedroom, I don't know. But with Zelda everything had another meaning. I didn't want to spoil something like this being a moron.
"I don't want you to go to war," she whispered.
"The Wraith rush into your country. You should have seen them, they looked like a huge black snake crawling on the forest floor. We can't consent to it. And I'm still captain of Fort Hawk, I remind you."
"This conflict is very inopportune."
She made me laugh, I couldn't help it.
"Only you would call it that way. By the way, I've been talking with Impa about this."
"I suppose you did."
"It's about preparing our defence."
"The Nest is very safe, they could only defeat us with a siege and those... creatures don't seem very smart. They are rather shadows of darkness, without too much intelligence or autonomy. That was the impression they gave me when I examined them, that time we were attacked in the woods."
"Yes, it's true that those things are stupid. And true that the Nest is safe, but maybe you'd be safer in Hyrule."
I noticed her elbow moving to unfold from me until she completely separated. She hugged herself when she noticed the sudden cold.
"Is that your strategy? Sending me back to Hyrule?"
"I'm not sending you back," I snorted, "but there's more than one enemy behind you out there."
"I can manage on my own, I'm not helpless."
She turned around and walked downstairs, I followed her. Inside was much better, I closed the door and threw a log to light the chimney.
"Zelda, if I go to war and my men go to war, I won't be able to protect you in any way."
"In war no one can protect anyone."
"It was just an idea."
Damn Impa. Cursed for all ages.
"And were you going to send me to Hyrule and leave Mabet, Frea and Manroy alone?"
"They would never leave the Nest. They've been here a lifetime."
Her eyes flashed and I noticed she was biting her tongue.
"My answer is no. I don't like sheikah ideas."
"Okay, that's what I expected. If you don't want to, there's nothing more to talk about", I growled. I didn't want to send her anywhere either, dammit, but I always had a doubt about what would be best.
"I don't want to leave here Link."
"I don't want you to leave. Let's forget that idea, okay?"
By Or and the goddesses how much I had yet to learn to understand her.
"Okay."
That same morning, preparations were made for Impa and Prince Gaepora to leave. They too had to get away from what was coming. The time had come to act.