CHAPTER 3

The woman strode through a dark hallway. She had arrived at her destination in mere hours, as promised, thanks to her honed horseback skills. Turning a corner, she happened upon a cloaked figure, obviously expecting her from its unflinching demeanor.

"Majesty." she greeted, "A messenger hawk just arrived with a possible lead from the southern borders of Hyrule."

Silence met her for several seconds, until another voice spoke. "What did you find?" It was male-deep and resonant from the chest, but also as dark as a cave.

"A man in a small village meets several of your descriptions. From what I read, he's likely nearing his forties, has blonde hair, and is keeping to himself." she reported, "And he's not alone. He has a girl with him."

The figure paused, an aura of intrigue encompassing his consciousness, but did not give in to it. It was too soon and the descriptions were too vague.

"They have a location?"

"Yes." she responded, "According to my sisters, all they need are your orders."

The figure hummed in thought, then nodded to her. "Bring him to me." he told her, "Let me judge him with my own eyes."

"Yes, my lord." she said with a bow, then turned to depart.

As soon as she was gone, the figure delved into his own thoughts. "Could it be him? Could it be the one who got away?" he asked, then allowed himself a slight laugh, "If he's hidden this long, I wonder how he will respond to the sight of an old enemy?"

-

The next day brought more or less the same chores that Aria was used to. She found herself, once again, tending the farm and monitoring the goats. Currently, she was helping till soil so that new crops could be grown. If they planted them now, they would have plenty of vegetables by the end of the season.

That was, until…

SNAP!

The head of her father's hoe embedded itself in the ground and stuck as the wood handle splintered right at the tool's head. He lifted it up with wide eyes, then furrowed his brow as he tossed the now-useless handle aside with a curse.

"Broken." he muttered to Aria, then turned to the house. "Keep working. I'll see if there's another in the house."

When he disappeared behind a door, Aria stifled a laugh, then set back to work overturning soil. It legitimately amused her to see him so grumpy. It was a nice change of pace from the stoic, expressionless mask he wore, and she wished she could see just a little more from him-

The sound of rustling vegetation caught her ear. She stood straight up, eyes and ears searching for the source of the noise. It had sounded close. Another noise joined the rustling of bushes and low-hanging branches. It started faint, then grew louder and louder with each passing second-a bout of screeches and screams that sounded almost like a horrific, undead creature from the darker stories she had read.

A bush on the rim of the forest shook, then parted its leafy curtain as something charged through it. It was a boar, snorting and squealing as it violently shook its head to and fro, like it was trying to shake some nasty parasite. Aria knew not to provoke these wild hogs. She'd had to stitch several wounds that her father sustained from their four-inch tusks.

Something was different-most boars retreated into the woods if approached, but this particular one looked disoriented, pained even. At times, it even seemed oblivious to its own surroundings, often crashing into nearby tree trunks and boulders.

The boar looked Aria's way and she actually screamed at what she saw. The skin around the boar's left eye had peeled away, revealing raw muscle and even the bone of its skull, with a strange, dark substance rimming the circlet of bare flesh. The beast was not blind, it seemed, for is lidless left eye fixated itself on Aria and the mere sight of a Hylian was enough for it to unleash a frenzied scream before charging at her.

Aria sidestepped the beast, its hooves thundering just past her and into the patch of garden, stampeding through what vegetation had grown. The quickest path of retreat was back to the house, but Aria knew boars were fast creatures and to never turn your back on one. The frenzied swine proved a different ordeal, however. It missed Aria on its first charge, but it pivoted swiftly and gave chase. Aria backtracked faster than she ever had before, dodging to the side every time it charged at her, circling to always keep it in her sight. Suddenly, her heel hit an outcropping in the ground and she fell backward, barely catching herself on her hands, but forced to crawl backward as the boar readied its next charge.

"Aria!"

She had barely registered the voice shouting her name and scrambled to her feet when something whistled through the air, striking the boar right in the forehead. The beast's front dropped so suddenly and heavily that it flipped, head-over-heels, before remaining motionless on the ground. Aria turned to see her father, holding her bow, headed straight for her from the doorway.

He knelt to meet her gaze and asked, "Are you alright?"

Aria took a moment to try and steady her breathing. "I'm fine. Just...shaken."

Her father sighed in relief, then stood and went over to the felled boar. Aria picked herself up and hastily hurried over to join him. The look on his face was one she had never seen before. His eyes were wide at the sight of the boar's left eye.

"Oh no." she heard him faintly whisper, "It can't be…"

"What? What can't be? What's wrong with it?" Question after question fell from Aria's mouth until her father looked at her. Then she finally put the pieces together and asked another, not out of fright or uncertainty, but concern. "You've seen this before. Haven't you?"

Link looked at the boar again, then back at Aria. "Yes." he answered, gravely, before sharply ordering, "Check the spice garden. Quickly."

Aria and her father ran to the garden. On arrival, nothing appeared wrong, but then Aria's father took a spade and a small sack, kneeling to check each plant with swift-but-sharp observation. He was at it for more than a minute when he suddenly recoiled and held out his hand as though it had been stung.

"Father!" Aria cried, going to his side immediately. What she saw horrified her-a pulsating, black-and-red substance on her father's index finger. It almost looked alive and, from the sound of his voice, it clearly pained him.

"Your knife!" he told her through gritted teeth, "Give it to me!" He held out her hand.

Aria stared in shock at her father. Was he seriously considering-?

"I won't cut off my finger. Now, give it to me!"

Barely finding the strength to trust his words, Aria unsheathed the knife on her belt and handed it to him. He didn't try to cut off his finger, as promised. Instead, he placed the blade on his skin and slid it down, scraping the substance off, showing relief when he was rid of it. He flicked it into the small sack, then used the spade to uproot the plant he touched and put it in as well.

"If you've seen it before, what is that?" Aria asked, concern thick in her voice, "Is that what made the boar act like that?"

Plucking the last tainted plant, her father went eerily quiet, then turned and with the slightest shake to his breath. "It is. It's called 'malice'."

He looked at his hand, the skin of his finger was a raw, pinkish color, as though scalded by boiling water. "It slowly kills plants and turns them poisonous. If you had eaten one of these, you'd have been sick at least and dead at worst. Animals are affected if they eat something touched by it or they're touched themselves."

"Wait," Aria said, seeing it on his finger and what it had done, "Does that mean you'll…?" She could not bring herself to finish that sentence.

"No." he hastily assured her, "It doesn't affect people. It burns us on touch and makes us sick when we eat it. It's only fatal in large doses. You need to touch a lot of it for a very long time if you wanted it to kill you."

Aria breathed a sigh of relief. That relief slowly melted to suspicion and she looked at her father, hoping it was not visible in her eyes.

"When did you last see it?" she asked.

Her father cast his gaze to the side, as though weighing his options, but then stood. "It will have to wait. I have much to tell you, but this isn't the time or place." He took the sack of infected plants and threw them on the boar, then started gathering kindling and firewood from a log pile just beside the door. "I'll get a fire going. We cannot risk hapless animals finding-and eating-these. They must be burned."

"And what do you want me to do?" Aria inquired.

"Go back to the house." he said in a hushed voice, "Pack only what you need, and release the goats." He gave her one last look, letting it be known that this was no request, but an order. "We cannot stay any longer. We're leaving."

Aria could only look at her father in shock. This was not completely new-every few years since she was young, she remembered her father would take her to a new home and start a new farm. But the way he said it now felt so much heavier and dead-serious that it almost felt like a blunt force. She did not know what to say or how to respond to such behavior, and it scared her slightly.

Feeling returned to her after a few seconds and, just as her father got the fire started, she clenched a hand into a fist to restore her anchorage to the world, then turned toward the goat pen. She did not bother with subtlety. She flung open the gate to their pen so hard that it almost fell off its hinges. The goats did not even wait to ponder their freedom, bounding off to places Aria could only imagine the minute they were out of the borders.

Her task complete, she looked to the now-roaring fire her father had going. The dead hog was going to smell strongly, even after it was reduced to nothing more than bones. She went inside, her father hot on her heels, and started going through what few belongings she possessed. After packing some food, a few essentials like firewood and tinder, extra clothing, and a full quiver of arrows for her bow, Aria paused and looked to the book she had received from her venture into town. After a moment's hesitation, she snatched it and put it into a pack.

She slowed to a halt and looked to her father's back, curiosity furrowing her brow. "Where will we go?" she asked, forcing some strength into her voice.

"Not now, Aria." her father said, hurriedly, as he stuffed another object into his pack.

"Is that blight really so bad that we have to leave this quickly?" she asked, seeming to forget about packing and approaching her father.

"You have no idea." he answered her.

"You're right. I don't." she huffed, "Are you always this evasive with questions like this?"

This caused her father to stop packing, then stood and turned to face her. His face looked like it could have been carved from stone.

"Our lives are at stake right now." he said, his voice tense as though he was straining to not yell at her, "I can tell you more when we are far away from here, but we don't know what will-"

Something suddenly slammed onto the door, repeatedly, causing both father and child to stop what they were doing and glance its way. All was quiet for a second before another series of loud knocks struck the door.

"We know you're in there! There's no use hiding!" a woman's voice called, "Come on out! King's orders!"

"Aria," her father said in a harsh whisper, the rare sound of fear ringing in his voice, "Hide. Now!"

Aria looked around. There was nothing to hide behind or under. The small table and beds offered so little cover that it would have been worse than useless to even try.

"Where?" she asked, her voice matching her father's.

Amid another bout of bangs and aggressive demands from their unknown harassers, he went over to a small carpet on the floor, then pulled it away to reveal a latch. He pulled it up, and the hatch of a trapdoor opened up.

"In here! And, no matter what happens, stay quiet!" he hissed, beckoning Aria toward it.

Recognizing this was no time to question anything, from when that trapdoor was built or why her father needed one, Aria scrambled inside and huddled herself to the first wall that she could find. The trapdoor fell shut and, after hearing her father throw the carpet over it, she was left by herself as things went eerily quiet.

Alone in the darkness, she waited-and prayed-for his safe return. He could not answer her plethora of questions if he was dead.