Sacrifice

There was a tremor with the blast, I nearly fell to the ground.

The way Kahen had exploded, goddesses, I could hear the crunch of bones still ringing in my ears, as if an invisible fist had hit me. I pulled myself together to check that the others were okay, but damn it, they were still standing there. I shouted to Impa to move, to get the hell out of there.

"I'm not going anywhere without you, Captain," Ardren said, the tip of his spear trembled as much as his hands.

"Get away with them, it's an order! Go to the southern forest!"

They finally reacted. Impa took my wife almost dragging her and I got in the way of the snake, which was withing around looking for a new victim, it seemed strengthened after getting inside Kahen.

Ganondorf and I knew how to stand up to the creature, but little else we could do than run and dodge blows. The monster was poisonous, elusive.

"You need the Master Sword. That will cut through the black smoke like meat."

I turned around looking for the spirit of one of the Masters. I saw nothing, but his voice rang clear in my head.

"You should run too, Captain Link," Ganondorf said, his teeth clenched and blood dripping down his shield arm. I didn't even see how the monster had hit him, but his only defence was shattered on the ground.

"We'll face it as hard as we can and when it wanders off, we'll flee into the woods," he looked at me and nodded.

The sky turned dark and the thunders creaked over our heads. I was sure it was the monster's work. Then I turned and saw it, an immense horde of monsters was coming towards us. I sighed, nodding, understanding. I wiped the sweat running down my forehead and grabbed my sword. I couldn't even remember the last thing I'd said to Zelda. Whatever it was, I hadn't been able to say goodbye to her. What if I fell? I had to hold on longer, the more monsters I wiped out, the fewer would be left alive to pose a threat.

Prince Ganondorf began to distract the creature, while I faced the horde. Everything got ugly when three lynels appeared, as dark as night and red-eyed, as if they had emerged from the hell itself. I'd killed hundreds, on the steppe, but I've never seen monsters like those before. I was able to get rid of the first one, almost the second. The third hit me in the chest with the mace.

I didn't know what hurt the most, the blow to the chest or the fall, on my back. My head bounced off the ground and I lost my vision. It became very blurry, and my mouth tasted like iron. I tried to move, but the blow to my ribs prevented me from breathing. Goddesses, the pain was everywhere, I was defeated. Not defeated, I was dead. I thought I would hold on a little longer, that I would manage to face the darkness. But the Masters of the Sword were right, I was far, far from being worthy.

I opened my eyes and saw a darkness where a few distant white stars were shining. There were no more monsters around me, but I did see the trampled corpses of more Hyrule soldiers. They must have been harassing the monsters from Akalla's stronghold to there. I turned on my side and vomited blood, goddesses, I must have a lot of broken ribs, but I could move. I kept some pain potion, Zelda had prepared small vials that I carried in my belt pocket. It was enough to wet your lips, "if you drink more than that you will hallucinate," she warned me, with a blonde frown, and I mocked her, of course, I told her I'd drink it all when she wasn't looking and... This time I drank the whole bottle, for real, or I wouldn't be able to move to look for her, because deep in my heart I knew she was still alive.

My sword was broken. I had no bow, no arrows and I had lost even my dagger. I walked awkwardly, stumbling upon the bodies of the fallen, and from the ground I recovered some weapons. I also tore off a soldier's breastplate. When I took it off, I realised that he was young, just a kid, he must have been a little older than Mabet. I pulled the breastplate tightly around my waist, it made my broken ribs hurt less. Then I tried to understand what had been going on around me while I had been lying unconscious. A massacre, that's what. Black bodies, some charred, most mutilated. I searched and called out to Ganondorf, but there was no answer. There was no trace of the monster either.

I crept south, climbed on a horse that, frightened by the battle hid in the nearby grove. It took a while to calm him down, but I had experience, I'd tamed wild horses with Dad since I was a kid, he taught me. This animal was docile long before any wild specimen, and somehow felt comforted by my presence. I perched on his rump and spurred it on. The animal instinctively followed the southern path, and with the trot I began to get dizzy, it should be the effect of the pain potion, so I tied myself to the saddle so as not to fall off. By a miracle I had a second chance, I wasn't dead, so I just had to try, I had to get to the magic weapon, because that was what could save us, the weapon that cuts through smoke as if it were flesh.

I reached the big forest border, that place where I once stopped with Zelda and the others to rest. I knew it was there. I didn't have to ask anyone, I didn't have to wait for the signals from the Master of the Sword. I stopped the horse and with one of my stolen weapons I cut the straps that held me on the mount. I fell to the ground like a bloody bale of flour, still in a pitiful state. I crawled through the thicket, a mist covered the ground, similar to what I experienced blindly at the Spring of Courage, only now it was bone-chillingly cold.

I started to feel how the weakness became strong, my hands and legs were numb, the pain in my side, in my head, but I had to keep going. I'd move on as long as I needed to. I heard voices, whispers and sinister laughter in the thicket. The forest mocked me and my inability to find the magic weapon.

"It's time to wake up, fate awaits you." , said one of the voices.

"The curse of demons will haunt you forever in an endless circle. Don't forget, ours will be an eternal struggle." , answered a hoarse and grave voice.

Then I saw something. A bright light, through the mist and thicket. I ran towards it, bumping into trees and branches, it didn't matter. It was calling my name. The closer I got, the clearer it sounded, then...

"Link!"

I fell to the ground and someone hold me. I felt like a few drops of hot rain falling on my face.

"Goddesses, Link..."

"Am I dreaming?"

"No!"

My wife pressed me against her. She gave me water and wiped her own tears from my face. Then my vision began to clear. I tried to join and she stopped me.

"You're hurt... Impa, do we have anything left in your bag? Any potions?"

"There's no way you're here, Zelda... it's impossible," I reached out to touch her face, because it seemed more like a vision than her. She grabbed me and kissed my palm and I felt as if the warmth of her lips spread through my body, like a flame.

"Impa brought me here. She said we'd be safe in the heart of the Korog forest."

I made a little effort and sat on the floor. She had a dirty face, skinned knees and dried blood. But she was alive and breathing. And she wasn't a vision. Impa gave me a different potion to drink that cleared my mind. I felt more pain, but the world was no longer a murky place.

"How are you feeling, Link?" Impa asked, inspecting the armour I wore for the broken ribs.

"As if everything had exploded inside me. What about Ardren?"

"We lost sight of him," Zelda said, and two other new tears, round like two shiny balls, walked her face. "We lost sight of you all. I don't know how you got here, I don't believe it."

She hugged me. I looked around, surveying the place. It seemed different, perhaps the first potion made me see the forest as if it were another. With my clearer eyes, and the warmth my wife gave me, I saw clearly a canopy of green leaves and flower petals. And a gigantic tree. And in front of the tree...

"No, Link...," Zelda argued, "don't touch it, I beg you."

"What? It's what we were always looking for from the beginning. The cave, Mopai... all."

"It could be a trap, what if those spirits you've seen are just another ruse of this enemy? Don't touch it, please..."

"No one in my tribe is aware of this object," Impa intervened, "we've walked this forest many times, but we've never come this far, not to this place. As chance would have it-

"It's no coincidence," I stood up with difficulty.

"Please...," Zelda pleaded again.

I advanced towards the Sword, almost saw it shine with a bluish light, with the blade bare and sunk on a stone pedestal. I had to blink several times, in case I was still dazed. I reached out and then the ground trembled, causing me to fall on my back again.

"No!" Zelda screamed.

With as much pain as if a thousand blades were sticking me all over my body I sat up, to see the darkness advancing, the black clouds and thunder crackling above our heads again. It was a trap, it was waiting for us there.

"This is where fate comes," the dark cloud spoke, in a grave voice.

Impa, agile and clever, stood between the darkness and Zelda. I thanked Or for having Impa with us. Then the darkness took form, a human form this time, no longer a dark monster or the snake. With each step it became more and more like a monstrous version of Prince Ganondorf.

"I'm finally going to put an end to this curse, to this infinite cycle," he said, and his voice looked more like Ganondorf's.

"He's possessed by the darkness...," Impa said, "stay behind me!"

"You shouldn't stand in the way, my fight is with the two of them," he unsheathed his sword and pointed it at Zelda.

"Prince Ganondorf! If you hear us, fight!" Zelda shouted, "I know you can, I saw it in your eyes, you can face another fate! You're not cursed!"

He laughed, and his laughter became guttural and deep, mingling with the one the monster would have had. Impa faced him.

"I don't feel like crushing any more insects...," Ganondorf said.

The two engaged in combat. Impa was defending herself well, better than I'd ever seen. Maybe we had a chance, if I drew the Sword... I took a deep breath, my lungs digging into my broken ribs. A cold sweat drenched my forehead, but I was able to stand up and wrap both hands around the sword. It was so cold it burned.

"Stop it!" Ganondorf cried.

I pretended not to hear him and kept pulling, levering with my legs. If only I was in better shape... but it was exhausting, I was getting tired just trying.

"No!" Zelda's squeal made me let go of the handle and look back at the fight.

Ganondorf had skewered Impa with the sword, and lifted her into the air, as if she were a trophy. She let out mouthfuls of blood, as her feet trembled, in a last gasp. Then he shook the sword and tossed Impa aside. Zelda burst into tears, so bitterly that she seemed to be choking, as short of breath as I was. I looked at the Sword again.

"If you touch that, I'll break her neck," Ganondorf said.

Zelda crawled back as she could, but in two strides he grabbed her by the neck, helpless as she was, and raised her. She kicked and twisted.

"Let her go!" I screamed.

"Face me!"

I clenched my teeth so hard I thought they would break, and I lunged at him with my sword raised high. But he dodged me like nothing, luckily I got him to let go of Zelda, he threw her against a tree. Out of the corner of my eye I heard her coughing and writhing, but she was alive.

I got in the way again and he crushed my support leg. Damn bastard, that did hurt, it hurt so much. I felt the bone break, I almost heard it. Dragging my leg, I moved to mount my guard again, protecting Zelda, who was still behind me saying things I couldn't understand, because my mind was deaf, attentive only to him. Ganondorf let out another one of those sinister laughs. My thrusts were clumsy, like those of a child defending himself with a wooden sword against an elite soldier. He amused himself with me until he managed to hit me and I was unarmed, facing him. Still I stood up straight and got in the way. My body could still serve as a shield, he would have to break me completely if he wanted to touch her, and I wouldn't let him do anything to her while I had the slightest breath left.

"Zelda, run away now!" I screamed.

"No!"

"This is over. Forever, this is where the fate of the three of us dies."

"Run, damn it, hide in the woods! You promised me!"

"There's no place she can hide from me."

He raised the sword with both hands, above my head, and I closed my eyes, maybe it would be fast, anyway my whole body was already hurting as if it were going to explode.

"Run!" I screamed, I broke my throat waiting for her to obey me, to get out of there.

The next thing I heard was a screech. I opened my eyes and saw nothing. A white light covered everything, glaring as brightly as when you look at the sun. I rubbed my eyes and saw Ganondorf on the ground, he had jumped several feet away.

"But what the hell..."

"Link..."

I turned and Zelda was shining. She shone like the sun, her whole body, her hair, burned like a torch in the middle of the forest.

"Was it you?"

"Link, draw the Sword."

I looked at her quizzically, I thought for a moment that something had possessed her too, but it wasn't something bad, it was clear. I nodded and crawled to the pedestal. It was even harder now than before, with my leg broken I could hardly support myself. But I remembered that last moment, that last breath when I saw myself defeated by the enemy, and her being crushed because of me. I clenched my teeth and felt the blade sliding across the rock. It glowed, but with a different light from my wife. I turned to look at her and she nodded and then turned her head back to Ganondorf.

"Damn it... you're only making the circle longer and longer... you curse us all again!" He growled, standing up. The substance around him had become unstable.

"He wants to escape," Zelda said.

Then she raised her hand, and the light came out again, hitting Ganondorf, causing the dark substance to twist.

"Now, Link!"

I screamed, Sword raised high, and with my leg burning with pain I leapt upon him to plunge the blade into his chest. It cut through man and substance as if they were one flesh. The body fell to the side and the dark substance fell away completely. Zelda's light caught it, struggled for a while, but eventually vanished altogether.

"Captain Link... " murmured Ganondorf, dwarfed and pale, the man we had known, "well done."

He fell dead, but there was no more darkness. He was but a container that darkness had corrupted. Darkness had fallen in the magic light, and a kind of icy wind waved all the leaves of the forest, shook them as if they were a single being twisting to get rid of a shiver.

Then there was confusion. In my eyes and Zelda's. She kept shining like the sun, and I approached slowly.

"It's okay," she said, when she saw that I withdrew my fingers, hesitating just before touching her.

It was she who hugged me, and infused my whole body with warmth again, with much more strength this time.

"Zelda-

"It's the Triforce, the power my family protects. Now I understand everything. You were right, but... I didn't know..."

"Calm down," I stroked her cheek and pushed her hair away from her face. Her eyes glowed with a golden halo, my wife no longer looked human. She was something from another world.

She helped me lay next to the trunk of a tree, while she quietly took care of the inert bodies of Impa and Ganondorf. Then she took care of my wounds, gave me water and she found the horse I had ridden into the forest. She got me to climb on him, she led him on foot through the forest.

"Where are we going?" I asked. Then I coughed up and spit out a breath of blood.

"You need medicine."

I must have fallen asleep or lost consciousness at some point. When I opened my eyes, I discovered that we were standing on a mountain of charred rubble. It was hard to recognise the place, but I remembered that we had camped very close to it, by the river inn, when we left Hyrule Castle. She was crouched down, searching through the rubble.

"You don't shine anymore," I observed.

"It's okay, it's still inside me." She smiled. And she stood up to give me water.

"It's... it's horrible...," I said, seeing the desolation left behind by hordes of monsters. They must have attacked, everyone, everywhere. It was impossible to defend against something like that.

"I haven't found Ardren," she lamented, "I looked for him through the woods. I found several dead lynels, but..."

I swallowed and didn't say anything. There were only ashes and death around us, though the night was clear and clean, you could say it was beautiful. I found everything unreal.

"Is it over, Zelda?"

"Yes."

"You sure?"

"I am. Now I can feel it clearly, in here," she said, pointing at her chest.

"Are we heading to the castle?"

"I need to see Gae," she murmured, looking away.

The pain came back to me to torture me and she prepared a potion with something she found along the way. She also touched my leg, just with her hands, and I felt warmth and relief, it felt so nice that I fell asleep again.

When I regained consciousness we were at Hyrule's heart. The whole citadel had burned, the flames had to grow high, Even the once white and majestic banners were scorched. Many people had fled, we guessed, others were still hiding in the rubble and staring at us in fear, we sensed the gleam in their eyes, their breaths, as we walked through the world of ashes. So we reached the foot of the main gate of the castle, which was collapsed, and she gently helped me to dismount.

"Don't cry," I whispered.

"Lean on me to walk, I will find a safe place for us," she replied, with new tears turning her green eyes brighter.

I don't know where she left me, but I slept, all night long. When I opened my eyes it was full daylight, though my head was still dull. She had splinted my leg, and had taken off my armour to clean my chest wounds. I had a bruise darker than night, from my chin to my navel. She had bandaged me and covered me with some ointment that smelled like fresh grass. I grabbed a piece of wood for support and limped out to look for her. I was somewhere in the castle, somewhere she had arranged, clearing away debris. I'd always been lost in that castle, and now it seemed like a different place. I felt a breeze of fresh air, coming from a window somewhere. I found her there, looking at the horizon.

"They're all gone, Link," she said, without turning to me, "We've lost them. Even Gae. My Gae's gone."

I didn't know what to say, what could I say about something like that? Then she withed in pain and fell crying again, into my arms.

"No one knew this would happen," I whispered, stroking her hair, "even we couldn't anticipate such an attack. We were fooled."

"I don't know how to tell you... I was able to find out...," she sighed, in hiccups of tears.

"Tell me what?"

"The West fell long before Hyrule Castle, Link. There were wraiths everywhere, fed by the darkness of the Spring of Power."

We both knelt down and we mourned our pain in silence, for a long time, until we were exhausted. I ended up with my back resting against the stone wall, under the window, she curled up on top of me. With the tangle of dishevelled hair on her face and her pink, wet cheeks, she looked small and vulnerable, not the invincible golden image I had seen in the forest.

"We only have each other," I said.

Anxiety began to take hold of me. What if there was still someone left alive in the West? I know she didn't believe it, because now she could feel different things, she could feel the life and the death. And it was that certainty that had made me cry for mine even without having seen them. She also began to be uneasy, there was something going around in her head that made her expression change.

"What if we could fix it?" She murmured.

"We can't."

She leaned on me to sit up. She looked into my eyes and I felt a shiver.

"What if we can?"

"No... you're tired," I waved my head. It had been a lot for her, and for me. Hell, it had been a lot for anyone.

" The power of the goddesses is very great, Link. It is as Kahen and Ganondorf said, it is possible to summon it to fulfil a wish. It is still in me, but not for long, we must hurry."

I don't know why, I didn't find hope in her words. I should feel it, the slightest chance of undoing everything, of seeing my family and friends again. But I remembered the Masters of the Sword, mysterious and melancholic. Why?

"Can you ... wish to bring back the life of all those we've lost in this war?"

"I can," she frowned a little, and looked at her hands, "from the beginning. But I can't do anything for those possessed by darkness."

I nodded, trying to understand. It was too late for Kahen and Ganondorf, then, their souls were lost spite of everything.

"What about the others? Fridd, Impa, Ardren? Gae, our families?" I asked nervously. She nodded, silently.

"Even Bri."

"Bri..."

Eve's little sister, the laughing Bri, the first big victim. I remembered her small, stiff hands as her parents mourned her in Nightfall, and the white flowers I laid for her.

"How do you know? How do you know you can do that?" I hesitated.

"The Triforce is still awake in me and... it's very rare, but I can hear the goddesses. They say, they tell me that others before I fixed it. And that I can make the wish."

"As easy as that?"

She smiled, frustrated... That's it... that was the feeling that was in it and I could not identify.

"Power requires a sacrifice, a really... a really sincere act, Link. Not just anything will do, and they have already decided."

"There will be no sacrifice," I said suddenly, grabbing her shoulders, "understood? I'm not going to let you sacrifice yourself. I'd rather die a hundred times first."

She smiled and held my face to kiss me. I reciprocated, with all my soul, with everything she meant to me. I hadn't fought so hard to protect her and let her do something stupid. I felt her tears slide down my own cheeks.

"I'm not going to die, and neither are you," she murmured, on my lips, "I could never allow something like that."

"I wouldn't let you do it."

"If we wish to save the first lost life, Bri's life, it will be like saving all the other lives. Without that death you and I would never have met, and we would balance the scales."

"You mean go back in time?"

"No, it's different. I just have to wish her alive, and everyone will live. But no one will be able to remember anything that has happened since... nothing to do with the two of us, the chosen ones to meet from that terrible mistake. Memories are the price that this wish demands."

It took me a while to process that. If we saved the first life, all the lost lives would come back. Mabet's father, our families and friends, thousands of fallen soldiers, the poor innocent souls who had perished against the dark hordes.

"Just a moment..."

"It will be as if we have never met," she said, looking into the void.

"What the..."

I understood. And I felt like throwing up, no, it was as if something had just been ripped off, an arm, a piece of flesh inside my chest. But we couldn't be so selfish. A sacrifice, that's what being the Master of the Sword was all about. My anguish was even greater because I'd seen that emptiness before, that's what I'd seen in the eyes of the other Masters. I'd somehow sacrifice what mattered most to me, without losing it, but losing everything at the same time. That was their melancholy, and I was destined to suffer it too.

"I love you, Link," she said, in a broken voice.

"Don't say goodbye to me, damn it," I growled, and she smiled.

"I don't say goodbye, I just didn't really tell you, like this. I love you more than anything or anyone, so the Triforce came to me to save you."

"I love you too."

"I know."

"I can't bear the idea that... I just can't even imagine it." I denied.

"I know, too. But there are too many lives, too many just in return for what we feel now for each other."

"This can't be lost. It's too expensive. I hate the gods."

She laughed when she saw me growl and we kissed for a while, without saying anything else. I could never get enough of her, or her kisses, or her incomprehensible laughter.

"We are cursed," I concluded, "not just Ganondorf. Maybe he was right, maybe we'd have to break the circle at once."

"Maybe someday," she mused. "I hope you understand the weight in my heart. It weighs so much on me... I can't leave all those souls without any ransom, I can't, and none of the others who were like me could."

"I get it. I don't think any of the Masters could allow this either. We would live in torment for having done nothing when we had the chance, you and I, in a world of ashes."

"We'd end up blaming ourselves for everything, and hating each other..."

"Well, I don't even need a world of ashes to hate you a little bit," I teased her. She hugged me again, hooking on my neck. She whispered many more "I love you" in my ear, as many as she wanted. "You know what?"

"Surprise me."

"Sacrifice doesn't matter."

"How the hell can it not matter?" She let out a laugh.

"We'll meet again. And I will love you again."

"It's highly unlikely," she waved her head, "nothing would unite us anymore, there would be no need, no invisible destiny to unite us to save the world as it is written must happen, to awaken the Sword and the Triforce."

"True. But you forget I'm a stubborn barbarian. I'm sure we'll meet again, somehow."

"We've talked about it many times, Link, about our chance. I was about to marry Richard, you were with Eve. Father wouldn't want me with a barbarian and... you don't even... you loved..." she stopped, trying to undo the knot in her throat.

"We'll meet. We'll leave a message, explain everything in writing."

"I fear that if we try to deceive the goddesses in this way, we cannot save everyone, we might receive a greater punishment. It must be a sincere sacrifice, that's for sure."

"Then I don't care, we don't need it. Never mind giving up our memories, everything that's happened to us. I'll look for you and you'll look for me, we'll start again, I'm sure, I can feel it."

"Even if we have all forgotten everything?"

"I promise you."