Chapter 4

Damage control

Content notes: brief mentions of blood and the death penalty

Nabooru enjoyed market days in Castle Town: the cheerful din of lutes and tambourines, the constant parade of street performers, the smells of fresh-steamed rice and smoked meats and spices, the housewives in their colorful printed skirts, the dogs and children weaving underfoot, the general festive air that made strangers smile at each other as they passed. It was just the right kind of crowded for a lone wolf who sometimes wanted to be around other people without having to engage in idle chatter. On a usual visit she might try to haggle with Vasu over some new earrings, stop for dinner at her favorite back-alley hole in the wall, maybe shoot a few rounds of Bombchu bowling… Never mind Hyrule's stuffy weather and stuffier aristocracy; the ordinary folk of this city affirmed her belief that wherever you went in the world, most people were mostly good, most of the time.

Today, though, it was all lost on her. The crowd saw her stormy frown and gave her entourage a wide berth as they guided their horses through the fountain plaza.

It had been a week and a day since Parapa's companions staggered into the fortress, horses and riders half-dead from exhaustion. Beiru and Liana wanted to throw them all into the lockup for their cowardice, but Nabooru made them calm down long enough to hear the women's story. They were from the western clans—Ganondorf's home territory—and they had apparently tried to bully the Zora into handing over some mystical rock the king wanted. Behind her back. It didn't surprise her as much as it should have. If not for their current predicament, she might have felt smug at how it had blown up in their faces.

But the facts were, the Hylians had used the Zora to lay a snare for her king, and now they were letting the consequences of their meddling fall on Parapa.

North of the market were a few high-end shops, large townhouses with painted timbers and oil-paper windows, and a handful of miniature estates complete with gardens and orchards that must belong to nobles in the court. Beyond that was a gravel road winding through a short valley up to the castle itself. She fanned herself with the edge of her pearl-pink odhani. Hyrule was colder than the desert, even in the summer, but she would take the dry heat back home over this humidity any day.

As they approached the gate on the road to the castle, she could see the guards' hackles rise. She sighed, preparing herself for the endless rounds of nervous sputtering and let-me-ask-my-superiors that were sure to follow. That was about the level of professionalism you could expect when most of your army consisted of illiterate sixteen-year-olds plucked straight from their father's wheat field.

At first, she mistook the dark shape reclining against the wall of the gatehouse for an unusually pretty gargoyle. She jumped when it peeled off the wall. A woman about her own age, all hard lines and severity, from the slant of her brows to the midnight blue armor to the stiff bundle of white hair at the back of her neck. Ruby eyes caught Nabooru's and held her gaze with an intensity that made her shiver.

The shadow folk were a rare sight in Hyrule these days. Most of them had retreated into the mountains after the last war. Probably haunted by what they had done in the name of peace. There was only one she knew of who lived in the castle. With a gesture from the woman, the iron bars parted before them. This must be Impa, Princess Zelda's personal attendant.

"Exalted Nabooru. Welcome to Hyrule Castle," she said in the rhythmic tongue of the grasslanders. She made a formal bow, but all the while those eyes stayed trained on her.

Nabooru wasted no words. "I'm here for Parapa."

"I see. That's a complicated matter," said Impa, ushering the last of their horses in and re-locking the gates herself. Every word she spoke was perfectly enunciated, every motion swift and precise. Like some kind of automaton.

Sudden fear gripped Nabooru's heart. Was Parapa alive? Had they shipped her off to Eldin to—

"She has not been harmed."

Nabooru let out a slow breath. "Forgive my manners. It's been a long trip." She paused, mouth twisting as if she'd bitten a lemon, and made herself say, "We humbly request an audience with the Chancellery in order to resolve this, ah, misunderstanding between our people."

Much as she hated to admit it, Ganondorf would probably have been better at this part. Flattery, courtly manners, and silent seething were more his style; she preferred to speak plainly, whoever it might offend. A trickle of sweat ran down the back of her neck. Mother's mercy. I'm practically swimming. She put on her most charming smile.

Impa, however, seemed to have no use for either flattery or charm. "We have much to discuss. Please come, share our bread and salt. I will have rooms prepared for you and your companions."

Nabooru briefly weighed the option of finding an inn in town and spending half a month's earnings on mediocre food and a cramped room, surrounded by other cramped rooms full of strange sweaty men. She nudged her horse forward.

As they rounded the bend approaching the drawbridge, she caught a flicker of movement across the moat. Brown boots, green shirt, disappearing into a tiny hole. If Impa noticed, she didn't react. For some reason Nabooru thought back to the tale she'd heard from Ryma, the herald they'd dragged unconscious from the battlefield, that the Hylians had a "little green devil child" who fought with the strength of ten grown women. At the time she had dismissed it as fancy, perhaps a side effect of her head injury.

She had much bigger worries than vermin in the bushes, though, so she ignored the odd pricking down her spine. It was only much later that she recognized the feeling as deja vu.

When Link entered the courtyard, Princess Zelda was sitting on the steps by the window, trying to coax a butterfly to land on her finger. She brightened when she saw him and skipped across the new path through the flower bed.

Last month he'd walked in to find her spreading mulch and raking gravel. She told him it was a whim. It was Impa who explained that someone trampled her pansies every time he came to visit, and apparently garden flowers died if you stepped on them.

He had tried to apologize, but she would hear none of it. Doesn't it look nicer this way?

She giggled softly at the sight of his wet tunic. "Did you swim through the moat again?"

"Yeah."

"You can use the front door, you know."

He shrugged. "It's kind of a game between me and the guards now. Sergeant Viscen's getting wise to my tricks. I gave him the slip this time, though."

(It had been a lot easier when Navi was there to help him peek around corners.)

"Well. If you are going to appear before me in such a state, I shall not stand on ceremony any longer." With that, Zelda flopped down on the grass. Link hesitated only a split second before he joined her, leaning back on his hands and closing his eyes. The sun felt good on his face. Bees hummed in the garden, and a bird's warbling drifted in on the wind.

"Here, let me have your boots."

At first he wasn't sure he'd heard right. He pointed at his damp, grimy toes with a questioning look.

"If you don't mind. I want to try my elemental magic," she explained.

"As her highness wishes," he said, undoing his buckles. "How are your lessons going?"

"Slowly. Father won't let me practice as much as I'd like, because he's afraid I'll strain myself. And Impa's always worried that I'll start a fire in the castle." She rested her chin on her hand, pouting. "It was one time, and a very small one at that!"

He stifled a laugh, and hoped he wouldn't be walking home barefoot. She picked up his boot, turning it over like a puzzle. They were probably breaking about a dozen rules of royal etiquette. When they were older and no longer had these moments where no one was watching, they would have to start pretending to care. But they had a few years yet.

"Elemental magic can be understood in terms of four principles: solidity, flow, heat, and movement," Zelda said. When her mind was occupied, she would spout a continuous stream of random information. He enjoyed listening to her, though he would never remember it all. "These correspond to the four great elements of Earth, Water, Fire, and… oh!"

"What's wrong?"

"It's like threading a needle. I can sense the energies, but I can't quite grasp them."

"You'll get it," he said, sure as he would say the sun rose in the east or Farosday followed Nelsday. "What about the elements?"

"Oh yes, the fourth is Wind. That one is of particular interest to the royal family. You see, many years ago Hyrule was visited by a tribe of tiny people called… Aha! There we are." A faint blue light shimmered around her hands. "The obvious solution would be to use heat to encourage evaporation, but in fact it's much more effective—and all right, yes, safer—to draw the water out directly by applying the principle of 'flow.'"

Her face puckered in concentration. Before his eyes, droplets beaded up and ran off the leather into her cupped hand. He watched, mesmerized, as she lifted the silvery bubble into the air. Their distorted reflections stared back at them. He poked it lightly, grinned at the way their faces wobbled.

"We look funny," she laughed.

He was about to try again when her breath hitched. The bubble popped, splattering in the grass. She was blinking unevenly, and a thin sheen of sweat had formed on her brow.

"Hey, are you all right?"

She swayed. Alarmed, he reached out to catch her in case she fainted, but she steadied herself. "I'm fine! It shouldn't be this difficult… Don't tell me you're going start worrying, too."

"I might." For once, he found himself agreeing with her father. "Please don't overdo it."

She sobered. Her gaze drifted across the yard to the throne room window. "Storms and darkness. I had those dreams over and over… for years… But still I wasn't prepared." She set her jaw, determination so sharp that it almost looked harsh. "I will not watch that man set the Loftwing Crown on his head."

His brow furrowed. That was why she wanted to study magic?

"We have time," he assured her, and forced down the swell of vague, unreasoning bitterness. What they had was borrowed time, stolen time. (It wasn't her fault.)

"I hope so."

Those deep blue eyes fixed on him, and for a moment he felt, irrationally, that she must know every one of his thoughts. One question and he would crack. He would tell her not to worry about the crown, that Ganondorf had never bothered to crown himself when he turned Castle Town into a scorched wasteland. He would tell her about the nightmares in the temples, the Gorons in cages waiting to become dragon food, the Zora frozen in ice, Kakariko in flames, the Gerudo closed off and wary in their fortress as women continued to vanish in the night, and Saria's brave, sad smile as she confessed she hadn't wanted to be a sage…

"Link?" Zelda was waving a hand in front of his face. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he lied. She still looked worried, but didn't press him.

After a few seconds she shook herself, like a bird throwing off raindrops. "You're right. We should focus on what we can do now. Impa has questioned Parapa, but I'm sorry to say we're no closer to finding Ganondorf. She claims the last time she met him face to face was almost a year ago. Her orders came by messenger guay. Impa put three different truth-stones in her hands and none of them broke."

He frowned. "It's possible to fool those things, isn't it?"

"Technically yes, but…" He knew as well as she did that it was wishful thinking. He tried to keep his face neutral, though his heart was sinking. They were back where they started. Again.

"I'm not surprised. She must be one of his most trusted followers to be given such a mission, but he had no reason to let her know where he was, at least until after she had the Sapphire."

Liars don't trust other people as a rule, Link thought with a hint of a scowl. Suddenly restless, he got up and tugged his boots on. They were a little too small lately. He grunted, wobbling on one foot. Zelda steadied him with a light hand on his shoulder, which probably broke another dozen rules.

"Thanks," he said, a little red-faced when he finally managed to wedge his toes in. He coughed. "Do you think she knew what it was? The Sapphire, I mean."

"Only that it contained some magical power. She may not be aware of Ganondorf's more dangerous ambitions or… his other crimes." She paused for a beat, and he could see the sympathy in her eyes, though she tried to smooth it over. He had only mentioned the Great Deku Tree to her once. She knew by now that he didn't like to be pitied. "Impa says there are many in the desert who doubt the existence of the Triforce," she went on quickly. "They think it's a myth we invented to prove our land is favored by the gods."

Link had to wonder if it wouldn't be better to let the thing be lost forever.

They started a slow, aimless lap around the courtyard. The high gray walls suddenly felt like a prison, and he wished they could go for a stroll in the woods instead. At least it was better than sitting still.

"To be honest," she said in a halting voice, "I'm not sure we should be detaining her at all."

His mouth dropped open. Where was all her resolve from a few minutes ago? "She's Ganondorf's loyal follower."

Zelda pursed her lips. "She's also the kind of person who, faced with an unwinnable battle, ordered her soldiers to retreat while she fought alone to buy them time to escape. Good and evil aren't always straightforward."

"I'm aware." He could hear a slight edge in his own voice, almost as if they were having an argument.

She turned aside, anguish written on her face. He traced the outline of another woman in her profile, looking down at their fallen nemesis in the broken tower room, and whatever budding anger he'd felt toward her withered. Ganondorf… pitiful man… Even then Zelda was compassionate. He would not fault her for it now.

But he would never share the sentiment. His left hand twitched, aching for a sword. He yanked off his hat (empty) and pretended to wring it out, though it was mostly dry.

Zelda fiddled with the claw-like beads on her necklace. "I know you're trying to protect everyone, but if she doesn't know anything, all we're doing is using her as a hostage."

"She killed a man."

"In self-defense. Because of my plan." She shuddered, fingertips pressed to her temples. "It's all my fault again."

"No," he said sharply, really angry now, but not at her. "There's only one person to blame for all this." Her arms dropped to her sides, eyebrows rising until they vanished beneath her wimple. As her friend he might get away with a little less formality, but commoners didn't take that tone with princesses. Sometimes he forgot.

In the next moment she reached out and clasped his hand. Her lashes drew together, and she lowered her head until it was nearly resting on his shoulder. "I'm afraid, Link," she whispered.

Etiquette be damned. He folded his other hand over hers, golden triangles glinting in the sun, stood as tall as he could, tried to summon the legendary Hero of Time into this tiny body. "I won't let anyone hurt you."

"It's not me who will suffer." She swallowed hard and looked him in the eye. "This is how wars begin. I just learned that my father didn't even tell the Gerudo we'd captured Parapa. I don't know if he assumed her companions would relay the news, or if he planned to try and sentence her without a word to them… Their second-in-command arrived this morning. She must be livid."

Link did a double take. "Lady Nabooru's here?"

"You know her?"

"I, um, know of her."

He thought he saw a hint of suspicion in her eyes, but her voice revealed nothing. "Would you like to meet her? I could arrange it."

He told himself it wouldn't be the same. She wouldn't remember any more than the others. Still, his heart leaped at the thought of so many of his old friends gathered here in the castle, almost as if it were fate. Maybe he could somehow get Ruto and Impa to join them, and…

He reeled in the daydream. Fate had caused them all enough trouble already. "You don't think she'd be too busy?"

"Link, you're too modest. Actually, if she could speak with the key witness against Ganondorf, it might help ease any doubts she has about our motives."

When Zelda had that look on her face, there was no changing her mind. He nodded slowly. "If you think it'll help."

In the ground at the center of the highest rock at Gerudo Mesa was a perfect circle of black glass. Hard as steel and polished mirror-bright, so perfectly flush that not a grain of sand slipped into the seam, it might tempt the rare adventurer who wandered to these parts to waste a bomb or two, but it was not so remarkable that they would not eventually convince themselves it was just a natural phenomenon.

Kotake and her sister turned a wide circle, scanning the terrain. Satisfied at last that there was no one in sight, Koume found the circle's southernmost point and traced an arcane symbol in white-hot fire. Swirling patterns ignited on the surface of the glass. The surface bubbled and warped, then gave way, gooey streams dripping into the darkness below. Kotake sighed in relief as a blast of cool air hit her face, a welcome change from the suffocating heat of the open desert.

They wound through the dark tunnels by memory. Carved out from an ancient lava tube, the cavern stretched for miles beneath the mesa. Her sister grumbled at the damp, the low ceilings, and the musty smell, but Kotake relished it all. (Well, maybe not the smell.) For a few wonderful minutes, all was silent and still except for the occasional plink-plop of water dripping somewhere in the distance.

The wizard's rattling laugh as they entered the deepest chamber set her teeth on edge. As always, he sat waist-deep in the spring, scarlet robe trailing in the phosphorescent water. Tendrils of sickly purple had already invaded nearly half the pool, and its once steady light now flickered and sputtered, deepening the creases in his face. She wondered how long it would be until he sucked this one dry like the last three.

A massive stone trident was stuck into the ground beside the pool, the red gem in its head glittering like a keese's eye. She glanced at it just long enough to verify that it hadn't moved.

"It seems this fellow was telling the truth, Kotake," her sister remarked when his cackling finally abated.

He bowed, somehow both entreating and smug. "What can I say? You're welcome."

"That young lady is still their prisoner," Kotake said pointedly. "The king will not be pleased if any harm comes to her. He was beginning to talk of riding for Hyrule himself to rescue her. It was not easy to dissuade him."

The wizard's glee evaporated in an instant. "Does he not understand the purpose of a decoy? He will die if he goes to Hyrule, mark my words!"

Kotake clucked her tongue. "We tried to tell him, but he never listens to his old mothers anymore. Thankfully, Nabooru took action on her own."

"Only time I'll ever be thankful for that brat," Koume muttered.

The wizard steepled his fingers beneath his chin. His hands were the most unsettling thing about him. Maggoty white and knobby, nails sharpened to a point, and never still. "May as well let her be, for as long as she's useful."

Kotake looked up at him with a rigid frown. "Good women died for this. We believed you for our son's sake, and because you claimed to speak the will of the God." Her voice dropped to a gravelly whisper. "But if we find out you're lying to us…"

"I am not lying," he cut her off. "You'll see. History is in the making—and the unmaking. Soon enough we'll know who was telling the truth. Oh yes. This time you'll see I was right."

She narrowed her eyes. "This time?"

"I have foreseen many fates." His annoying grin returned, those pale hands tracing some imaginary diagram in the air as he muttered to himself, "Hmm, yes. This must be the fifth."

She glanced at her sister, but Koume just snorted and rolled her eyes. She had long since stopped trying to decipher his rambling.

He rose, billowed to the edge of the pool like a cloud of red smoke. At full height he was as tall as Ganondorf. When he spoke his voice had dropped an octave, and anyone but a four hundred year old sorceress would have flinched.

"He will not be patient forever, Twinrova."

Restless dreams drove Nabooru from her bed long before dawn. Hours later, as light from the tall, narrow windows stretched in thin stripes across the tile floor, she could feel the ache of exhaustion growing between her shoulders and behind her eyes, but still her feet carried her up and down the halls, mind swirling with a hundred thoughts she didn't need. Every once in a while, the echo of her own footsteps made her jump and glance over her shoulder.

Below, in the inner courtyard, a young maid was carrying an armful of flowers up the stairs leading to the royal family's quarters. (Nabooru's mind wandered to her collection of potted succulents, clustered in the sunny spot on her bedside table. Beiru's cat was probably spilling them all on the floor this very minute.) Across the square, the forge in the blacksmith's workshop glowed orange. A thick-armed woman was shaping horseshoes at the anvil while her apprentice sharpened a sickle, likely preparing for the rice harvest. At the inner gate two workers unloaded crates of eggs from a wagon bearing the logo of Lon Lon Ranch. All around, the routines of life continued, oblivious to the political machinations upstairs.

Two of His Grace's chief minions, Grand Chancellor Potho and Minister Herald Chirila, wanted to review the facts with her before the trial, so as not to waste the king's precious time. Hylians certainly did love their meetings. Formal meetings, informal meetings, meetings in hallways disguised as conversations. Meetings about meetings! This one, however, she suspected would be more of an interrogation. She wasn't giving them anything until they let her see Parapa. In spite of Impa's promises, she still had no solid proof that she was alive. Would they really have invited her into the castle, put on such a show, if they had already killed her? She didn't like to think the worst, but it was hard not to in this place where there was a lie on every tongue and a conspiracy in every corner.

A tiny shuffling sound caught her ear. There was someone behind her. She whirled, trying not to look too startled, and saw… no one.

"Ahem."

Nabooru looked down, met wide blue eyes and a shining golden Triforce medallion. It was impossible not to look startled then.

For all the townsfolk carried on about Princess Zelda's beauty, Nabooru found her unremarkable in person. She was the milquetoast kind of pretty that came with being well-fed and well-groomed, and that was all. Take away her finery and she would be interchangeable with any merchant's daughter. There was a fierce gleam in her eye and a stubborn slant to her jaw, which on the merchant's daughter might have been endearing.

"Sav'otta, yai Nabooru Vahisanva," she said in a thick accent. Her voice was saccharine, over-polite, and her smile was tight at the corners.

"Your Highness. Hylian is fine," she added, because the way the girl mangled her V's was painful to listen to.

Her relief was obvious. "May I have a moment of your time?"

"You may have two or three, if you like."

Zelda tittered into a gloved hand and fell into step beside her. "I hope you found your rooms comfortable."

"Yes. We appreciate your hospitality." The mattress was lumpy, and their little baskets of potpourri could not fully mask the stench of the midden outside, but it was the best they had to offer.

"Minister Chirila gave you the grand tour yesterday, I believe?" There was a note of apology in her voice (which Nabooru honestly felt she was owed, after an hour with that swaggering popinjay.) "If you need help finding anything, please don't hesitate to ask."

"We're fine… well, actually, Riza and Liana wanted to know where the library is." Those two didn't seem to understand the gravity of Parapa's situation, and were enjoying every amusement the castle had to offer. She would let them, for now. There was nothing they could do anyway.

Zelda seemed eager for the chance to be helpful. "Down that hall over there, take a left, go up the stairs, and it'll be the second set of doors past the guard tower. They won't be disappointed. Not to boast, but we have one of the largest collections in Hyrule."

Nabooru's only reply was a distracted nod. They turned down a side corridor that was mostly used for storage. Less windows and more privacy. The princess gathered herself up. When she turned to face her, all the sweetness was gone.

"I won't tire you with small talk. Have you heard what the courtiers are whispering? About King Ganondorf's true reason for wanting Zora's Sapphire?" Her voice caught on "king" and Nabooru wondered if it was dislike of the man, or of the fact that her people still had their own leader.

"Rumors aren't always reliable."

"Indeed not, and my father is not rash enough to act on rumors alone."

"Or visions?" Nabooru couldn't resist adding. Ganondorf's ambitions weren't the only subject of courtly gossip. The girl reddened and averted her gaze, but only for an instant.

"We have a witness who can offer much more compelling evidence, if you will hear him. It is rather bold of me to ask for your trust at a time like this… but the fate of the entire world is at stake." She folded her hands over her heart. "Please believe us, Lady Nabooru."

Nabooru's level stare asked, why should I?

"We were wrong not to include you in our plans," she admitted. "If I could have found a way to contact you without risking everything… I believe you would have seen things as I do." An excuse dressed up as an apology, with a dash of condescension for good measure.

"Princess, let me be completely honest with you." Zelda looked surprised, as if, in spite of her supposed boldness, she wasn't used to being taken seriously. Nabooru for one didn't believe in shielding children from facts they would soon discover anyway. "If we're not careful here, there's going to be a war."

"I understand," said Zelda, nodding patiently.

"Good." She couldn't really understand—she would have been maybe five, sheltered in her father's castle, when the last war ended—but at least she was aware in the abstract. "We don't want that any more than you. I'm only here for Parapa. She's an old friend of mine."

Zelda blinked. "Oh. I didn't realize you two knew each other."

"We go way back. But even if we didn't, she's Gerudo. We look out for each other. I could care less about the Zora and their trinket."

A crease formed in Zelda's brow. "You don't believe in the Triforce, do you?"

"I'm not here to make fun of your religion," Nabooru said with a shrug. "Now, King Ganondorf has done a few unsavory things—trust me, I know—but unless he's violated a treaty, or broken laws in your territory, it's not your place to put another nation's king on trial. Not for something you only suppose he might be trying to do."

Rose-petal lips curved in a stubborn frown. "I would very much like you to meet my friend. He has a different story to tell."

"This friend of yours, he's been to the desert?"

"He's been many places."

"And he understands the intricacies of clan politics—age-old rivalries, shifting alliances, a hundred different interpretations of tradition, brought together once a century by the one tradition we all agree on?"

Do you know what it means to us, she couldn't say, to have to watch the head of our nation kneel before your father? Do you understand why I can't be led by personal hatred? Do you think I don't know Ganondorf better than you?

Zelda tried to form a reply, gave up and stared at her helplessly. And Nabooru stood, equally helpless with this four foot scrub of a girl blocking her path, trying to figure out what to say so the princess would let her go back to her room and get an hour of sleep before breakfast.

"He's a time traveler," Zelda burst out.

Nabooru squinted, wondering if lack of sleep had dulled her hearing. "A what?"

She heard a smoky hiss, glanced back just in time to see Impa materialize like an ink stain bleeding through parchment.

"Pardon my interruption," she said, in the casual tone of one who knew her interruptions would always be pardoned. "Zelda, I wanted to let you know that your father agreed to let us move Parapa to the tower."

Nabooru shot Zelda a questioning look.

"I thought she would be more comfortable there," Zelda explained.

Though she still addressed the princess, Impa tilted her head slightly so that Nabooru got the feeling her next words were meant for her. "They're transferring her right now, in fact. If someone were to look out from over there…" She gave a slight nod to a single open window across the main hall. "They might be able to see her."

"Hurry," Zelda said softly. "Don't miss her."

Nabooru bowed again, walked very calmly across the hall, looked back to make sure the princess and her bodyguard weren't watching, then made a dash and vaulted over the sill, aiming for a narrow spire atop the garrison a story below. She hit the slate roof hard. Her teeth rattled as she slid down the uneven surface. Behind and above, she heard Zelda's startled cry—she must have been following her after all—but most of her attention was focused on controlling her momentum. She dropped onto the flat rooftop in front of the tower door. It was locked. Marching footsteps came from below, growing steadily louder. She hopped nimbly down the branches of a small tree at the corner of the building and landed soft-footed in the courtyard, just as the garrison doors creaked open.

Soldiers… two heavily-armored knights and a mage… more soldiers…

She caught a flash of orchid-hued ringlets amid the sea of gray helmets. There was Parapa, cool and dignified as a queen even now. She squinted like it had been quite a while since she'd seen daylight, but she didn't seem to be starving or injured. When she caught sight of Nabooru, her face melted into a smile of pure relief.

"I'm here to take you home!" Nabooru called out, jogging to keep up with the procession. "Just hang on a little longer."

The guards weren't keen on letting them have a long conversation, and quickened their pace. Parapa looked back, shouting something she couldn't quite hear. All she caught was "tricked me," and "little green devil." The doors shut, the lock rattled, and she was gone.

Nabooru lingered a while in the yard, staring up at the coursing gray bricks and iron-barred windows. She tried to stay optimistic. Parapa was alive. At least now she knew someone was here for her. They would find a way to talk some sense into the Hylian king. They would not start a war. She would bring Parapa home, and maybe Ganondorf would just stay hidden on the far side of the desert with his magic rocks and his wild dreams, and never bother her again.

She scoffed at herself. Trust a pair of kings to be reasonable? That was too optimistic.

A soft footfall, a flicker of movement at the corner of her eye. Impa was standing an arm's length away, watching her.

"Do you always sneak up on people?"

She laughed through her nose. "If I meant to, you would not have seen me. Do you always jump out of third-floor windows?"

"Only when I'm in a hurry."

It was hard to tell if the quirk of Impa's eyebrows was amused or derisive.

"I had to see her," Nabooru said, dropping the sarcastic facade. "To let her know she's not alone."

Impa nodded in understanding. "I'll make sure you have a chance to meet her in private before the trial."

"Tomorrow," she countered. She couldn't afford to trust vague promises.

"Consider it arranged." Impa spoke confidently, and Nabooru believed she could make it happen. She called herself Zelda's attendant, but she seemed to be involved in every important function in the castle. Adviser, administrator, diplomat, spy. People like her were the real power behind any throne. Best to stay on her good side.

Now she was thinking like Ganondorf. She hated that.

"In the meantime," Impa went on, "the chancellor hopes we can reach an understanding today and avoid a long, exhausting trial. He is a good man, with a mind for fairness. You are more likely to find a sympathetic ear in him than any of the other ministers."

She was less worried about a long trial than one that concluded in half a day, because the ministry had decided Parapa's guilt before it began.

"Zelda is waiting for us inside," said Impa, gesturing toward the hall.

Nabooru shook off her gloomy thoughts and followed her up a flight of stairs on the back side of the building.

"Your princess is a strong-willed young woman." It didn't occur to her until after she said it that it might not be taken as a compliment.

"She does what she believes is right."

"Good. So do I."

Impa paused in the middle of the staircase. "Her plan was far more subtle than the one proposed by her father's generals."

Folding her arms, Nabooru returned her level gaze. "You should have come to me first."

"Yes. We should have. Don't make excuses for me, Impa," Zelda said from the doorway above. She came down to them, hands folded meekly in front of her, but when she looked up at Nabooru her eyes were still blue fire. "If our situations were reversed… I would find it very difficult to trust someone who plotted against one of my people, no matter what the reason. I'll do everything in my power to see that Parapa is released. And then… I hope we can find a way to cooperate. Avoiding war must be our first goal."

Nabooru was quiet for a minute. "I was sixteen when I took command of the fortress. I made plenty of mistakes," she told Zelda. "A word of advice. Start acting like a queen now. You have the mind and the spirit for it, if…"

If you learn to be humble. If your father doesn't ruin you. If this thing you people have started doesn't ruin us all.

"If your friend is still in town after my meeting with the chancellor, I'll hear him out."

"Come on, Link! You can't fish out now!"

Waving away Sedge's good-natured taunt, Link glanced back one more time to make sure he was lined up, crouched, and backflipped off the rampart. He splashed feet first into the moat next to the drawbridge.

Sedge clapped like a polite spectator. "Not bad, not bad!"

"Your turn," said Link as he climbed onto the bank. He dangled his legs in the water, watching the swift current form silvery bubbles over his toes.

"Yeah, okay, in a minute. Let me finish this snail."

"Now who's fishing out?"

Sedge glared and splashed him in the face. "I did it three times already! I've got nothing to prove."

Link shook water out of his bangs, laughing. "Fine then, I'll go again."

Sedge picked the last bits out of the shell as he scaled the wall. Link grinned and made a flying leap out over the river. "Cannonball!" he yelled, tucking up his knees. Sedge wasn't ready, and got a face full of water himself when he landed right next to him. Knowing better than to stick around and savor his revenge, Link dashed for shore, but Sedge caught his ankle. They tumbled under the drawbridge, came up on the other side yelling and splashing. It wasn't long before Sedge got the upper hand.

"All right, I give!" he gasped after the other boy dunked him for the second time.

"Sorry. Too much?"

"I'm fine." Link climbed out of the water, collapsing on his back in the grass. The sky was so wide. So blue.

A slimy, jointed thing skittered past his ear. He rolled to the side and swiped at it. Pain shot through his hand. He lifted it up, glaring. A greenish-brown crawdad dangled from the flesh between his thumb and forefinger.

"Ow."

"Nice! You caught a big one!" Sedge exclaimed.

"It hurts a little."

"Right. Here, let me." Sedge pried its tiny claws open with two fingers. "That looks tasty…"

"You can have it if you want." He didn't have much of an appetite these days, while his friend's seemed endless.

Sedge licked his lips. "Oh, I couldn't."

"Call it even for getting the thing off my hand," Link said with a shrug.

"That's no good. At least I ought to give you something in return. Here, I know!" He pulled a gleaming white conch shell from the satchel at his hip. "I found this at the bottom of the fountain. Pretty, isn't it?"

Link turned it around in the light, watching rainbows shine along its curves. "Wow! Are you sure?"

"Mrrph." Sedge had already bitten off the crawdad's head and was chewing contentedly. Link tried not to make a face as he tucked the shell into his bag. He wasn't like Zelda, who had been vegetarian since the moment she understood what meat was—growing up in the forest, animals eating each other was a fact of life—but he didn't know how anyone could stomach raw shellfish. To each their own.

Sedge backstroked lazily against the current. His eyes wandered to the castle on the horizon. "I wonder what they're still talking about up there. Seems like a pretty open-and-shut case. Princess Ruto is anxious to be done with it."

Link frowned slightly. "Be done with it how?"

"A public execution, I suppose." The casual way he said it made Link feel ill in a whole different way. Sedge was only a few years older than him, and had seen a lot less death in his time.

Then again, he had also caused a lot less death, so who was really more callous?

"Princess Zelda hopes it won't come to that," he said after an awkward pause.

"She has a kind heart, and that's all well and good for a princess. Ours is maybe a little less naive, but she doesn't enjoy the business either. That's why they have soldiers like you and me, to do the terrible necessary things that keep their kingdoms running. I don't mean to sound cold," Sedge added, shaking his head in dismay. "But that woman is Ganondorf's follower. She killed a man. She's just too dangerous."

Link's mind went back to yesterday in the courtyard. Was that how he'd sounded to Zelda?

He didn't really want to think about her right now, though. Every time he recalled their last conversation, he came away more irritated. Good and evil aren't always straightforward. Was she going to tell him that now, after everything he'd been through—everything she had not been through? He knew. At the end when he and Ganon faced off in the burning ruins, covered in grime and sweat and each other's blood, drawing on every last ounce of killer instinct to defend what was already lost, "good" and "evil" started to look pretty similar. And what about all the lives he and Zelda had wrecked, trying to save the world?

But it wasn't her fault. It wasn't.

Sedge's hand on his arm startled him so badly that he let out a yell and rolled backward, coming up in a fighting stance. His hand was on his sword before he knew what he was doing.

"Whoa! Calm down!"

He blinked, coming to his senses. Sedge was backing away slowly, wide-eyed. Link jammed the blade back into the scabbard, stumbled and dropped to his knees in the grass.

Sedge laughed nervously. "Did you think I was an octorok or something?"

"Sorry. I don't know what I was thinking." Before, Navi's varying hues and musical voice would have cued him whether to expect friend or foe. Left to his own devices, it seemed his instincts would assume the worst.

I almost…

Sedge seemed more worried about him. "Are you okay? You were muttering to yourself."

Link ground the heel of his hand into his eyes. "You know what, I'm going to head back to the inn. I need some sleep."

"All right. Take care of yourself." Sedge started to clap him on the shoulder, then thought the better of it. "Maybe tomorrow?"

"I'm supposed to meet Zelda again tomorrow, but yeah. Maybe." Shouldering his pack, he hurried up the hill and across the drawbridge, barely pausing to wave goodbye.

Evil was pretty straightforward after all, he decided.