This chapter was a bitch.

Thanks to my beta, TML, for getting me through it. I may or may not revise this chapter later since I'm still not completely in love with how it segues from 6 (perfectionist, who me?). Anyway, feedback is always welcome, and enjoy!

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He dreamt of another day, of the dark tower where his epic battle ended. Zelda stood suspended in her crystal prison, Ganondorf was bent before his organ, and he was coming up the stairs, Master Sword in hand and destiny singing in his veins. All around him the organ's notes echoed powerfully, making the walls shake to an ominous beat.

Now, as then, the righteous fury had hold of him, dictating his actions; now, as then, he could feel the sharp sting of the cut beneath his tunic where the Iron Knuckle's axe had grazed him. The dream not only mimicked the reality, but surpassed it somehow; he felt the danger more keenly than ever before. When he stopped before the door, the feeling almost overwhelmed him. His hands shook as he slid the key into the huge door's lock, but Link willed himself to remain unafraid.

Within waited Zelda...and Ganondorf, his thick fingers moving almost tenderly over the organ's keys. Link couldn't ignore the electric shock that went through him when he saw the two of them in that tower room, couldn't master the overwhelming sense of unity he felt. This was how it should have been, he realized: the three of them together, shining together... The Triforce of Courage burned golden on his hand.

"The Triforce parts are resonating..." Ganondorf said after a pause, more to himself than Link. The man was in his forties or fifties, with red hair and eyes that burned with the light of a thousand fires.

"It doesn't matter," Link heard himself say. "We two are destined to protect the Triforce from you always."

Ganondorf slammed a fist down on his keys, creating a discordant sound that shivered through the tower room. "I commanded you to give me what is mine by rights and you dare refuse me, with naked steel in hand? You dare?" The self-styled king got to his feet and stalked towards Link, waves of darkness following behind like a train.

Link held his sword steady, facing the oncoming evil with sober eyes. "I'm prepared to die to protect it."

"And I'm prepared to give death to you." Ganondorf laughed hollowly, the Triforce of Power throbbing on the back of his hand. He unsheathed his sword and held it with both hands, almost reverently. That sword was dark, smoldering like the blackest soul. "Here's how your life ends, boy. You on the point of my steel."

Navi had fled before Ganondorf's dark advance, so Link's eyes strayed to the last source of external strength remaining to him…Zelda. She looked wholly different than she had in the Temple of Time, as if her terrible captivity had transformed her into a shade of her future self: defiant rather than frightened, she radiated a potent contempt for the evil king's magic power that seemed to permeate beyond the translucent crystal. Now, her eyes seemed to say when their gazes met, and that was all it took to strengthen his resolve.

"No," Link heard himself say as he turned his attention back to Ganondorf, "here's how it begins." He raised his sword and brought it down in a powerful killing arc. Ganondorf's own sword flashed up to parry, and the two blades came together in a clash of steel and magic. "Link!" Zelda screamed. Absorbed in destiny and the rhythm of swordplay and Zelda's desperate cry, Link never noticed this memory confusing itself with another, fading to something as old and insignificant as he felt.

"Link!"

When Link opened his eyes he found himself standing in a forest clearing on a summer day. He could smell the scent of far-off honeysuckle and peonies, yet even those familiar comforts failed to bring him pleasure. He started to pace without questioning the impulse to do so, keeping his eyes trained on the undergrowth as he tried to rid himself of the memory of her voice. "Link!" she'd screamed a thousand years ago… "You will refuse him." His voice was low and thick with doubt.

"I cannot." He raised his eyes; Zelda sat on a fallen tree nearby. Save for the golden rope of sapphires around her neck, she looked the part of a tavern wench: all in roughspun with her hair artlessly tangled, the smell of wine clung to her instead of perfume. It was hard to ignore the tenseness of her frame, the way her voice trembled. Distress had given her a vulnerable look; if anything, it only served to make her more beautiful. "I've accepted him, and pledged my holy word."

"Pledged your holy word, Zelda? Is that from some song?" Link ground his teeth. "Yes, you are a maid, I see that now."

Zelda turned her face away. "Don't mock me. Not you. Do you think I wanted this? Berent--"

"Some swamp lord."

"Berent," she repeated, angry now, "was arranged to me. 'Your mother wanted you to marry her brother's firstborn,' Father said. Now do you understand? I couldn't refuse him...not even if I wanted to."

That gave Link pause; he'd spent countless days with Zelda since he'd been sent back in time, and he could name only a handful of times that she'd mentioned her mother. Even so, his decision was made, as it had been long before this noon meeting. He'd weighed his words carefully, had considered Zelda's reaction, and could reach no other satisfactory conclusion. He said the words now, as he'd practiced them so many times before. "Then I shall challenge for the right to your hand."

"No," Zelda blurted, springing to her feet as her eyes grew wide. "You cannot. You must not. Berent's too old and ill for single combat; he'll name his brother to fight in his stead. I know your prowess with swords, but Sir Derren is renown for his skill as well...it's too chancy. And if Father should make the wrong assumption about why you raised the challenge...I might not see you for a very long time. I could not bear that. Don't you see what sheer madness that would be?"

"I thought the reason why I'd challenge for your hand would be clear," Link deadpanned, trying to hide his volatile emotions as he searched Zelda's face. "Marry me, Zelda. Tell your father it's me you want. I'll call you wife for the realm to hear, and if your swamp lord dares raise a cry we'll send him running back to his bogs..."

The princess had been coming toward him but suddenly she stopped, staring at him wide-eyed. Sunlight gleamed in the tangles of her golden hair and a vein pulsed high on her temple, but she never spoke. All Link could hear was the distant laughter of one of the children, high and mocking.

The awkward silence went on and on until it was more than Link could bear. "Zelda..." he began, taking a step forward.

Zelda drew back, her mouth growing taut. "Very droll. Can you be serious for once?" she said finally, sharply.

"Do you hear me laughing?"

"Haven't you been listening?" Desperation was overcoming her disbelief. "It will be hard enough to convince Father's council to accept Berent as my consort rather than king outright. And I...you... Even if we were to wed, the council would have the marriage annulled as soon as they learned of it. You know that."

"If they won't do as you wish, dissolve the council and appoint a new one more to your liking. I understand that's within your power." He closed the distance between them in quick steps and pulled her close. "All I want is you. I want to comfort you and protect you and make you happy. We are the only two in this world who could understand each other, I know we are; I realized that when we defeated Ganondorf. Zelda, I am not whole without you. I..."

"Link..." Zelda's voice was sick, and yet she did not pull away. "Your head is full of songs. Cast this dream aside, I beg you. You do not understand." Words she'd clearly never meant to say tumbled from her mouth. "For a long time, my father was the only one I could trust. It's only because of him I know my mother, and when the council called me mad because of my dreams and tried to strip me of my birthright, he protected me. I would obey his dying wish...but it's more than that. I have a duty to my leal people. If I must marry Berent to keep them safe, then so be it. This is something that rises far above you and I...so please, let us hear no more talk of marriage for the nonce. Perhaps the gods in their wisdom will give us a second chance in the future." She touched his hair. "Sometimes prayers are answered."

Time froze for a moment, as if purposefully allowing Link to memorize how Zelda had looked at that moment: the desperation in her eyes, her flushed cheeks, her lips still moving soundlessly as if in prayer. And then it all faded, sending him tumbling into some thick black sleep that was blessedly dreamless. Yet Zelda's face haunted him, even as that sweet summer day crumbled. Her rejection of his offer for her hand had been a crushing blow, had made his every memory of the Forest bittersweet…yet it had been a relief as well, he must admit it. For though he did love Zelda well, his love for adventure eclipsed her entirely; it burned in his blood, raged through his soul. Therein lay what he'd viewed for ten years as a betrayal of himself.

Though given her second chance, Zelda's life was predestined still. It was her fate – her wish – to sit the Hylian Throne, to bear sons to continue the royal line, to listen to those who kissed her fingers in submission and answer their plaintive pleas with wisdom and kindness. Yet, even if he were to defeat Sir Derren in single combat, Link could not have abided sitting as prince consort, ruling from Hyrule's oldest castle year after year. The great wide world called to him. It was a part of himself he was unwilling to abandon, even for Zelda herself, and a part of himself he could never forgive.

That guilt was galling, draining, making him wish more than anything that he didn't have dual passions to choose between – but even the alternative seemed bittersweet. The prudent choice would have been never to allow himself to become close to Zelda, but bereft of her friendship Link knew he would have long since been lost. From tentatively forming bonds beyond their shared trauma at ten, to reveling in casual intimacy at fourteen, to it all culminating in seeing her as a woman as if for the first time at sixteen and realizing he was falling in love with who she was, what she was becoming…the relationship they'd formed together couldn't be so easily discarded.

It was that belief – that their love would transcend time, any and all events – that motivated Link, feverish and weak as he was, to visit Zelda's bedchamber and act on their too-long dormant feelings. Kissing her impulsively as he had was beyond dangerous; not only was she married, but his queen and the king's wife. Discovery was sure to doom him to execution…something that Zelda realized as well, for after their second kiss she drew him down to sit on the edge of her bed to talk about both their relationship and the implications of what they'd done. There they'd sat for hours, their hands clasped as they talked.

It had all seemed to pass as if a dream, the encounter leaving Link both exulting in finally kissing Zelda and disturbed beyond the reach of words by his continued betrayal against his king…though that latter feeling was hardly strong enough to overwhelm his desire to continue along this dangerous course. I plan on persisting in my villainy, he'd told her before he'd left, but the words seemed empty now. Loath as he was to acknowledge it, Zelda was a woman wed, and her sense of loyalty was easily twice as pronounced as his own – and truly, what awaited them now but death? No matter how many times he considered the possibilities after returning to the great hall, the verdict remained the same – nothing else would ever happen. Nothing would ever happen. So thinking – so knowing – his subconscious had cruelly and practically opted to focus on thwarted and wasted opportunities, on all he'd had loved and lost over the years.

We've already had our second chance, Link realized then. It had been a long time since he had felt so sad.

When Link finally awoke, disquiet running sluggishly through his veins, he found the bastard staring down at him. "Dry off and get dressed," the man said without preamble the moment he saw Link was awake. "My father awaits you."

Link sat up. The great hall swam deliriously, the walls awash with a ruddy firelight straight out of his fever dreams. His injured sword arm ached fiercely, he realized...and he'd managed to sweat profusely during his night of dreaming. "Your father?" he repeated drowsily in a voice hoarse with disuse.

"That's right. His Grace the king." The bastard drew off a few feet and threw Link a tunic. The roughspun was scratchy against his healing skin, but surprisingly clean. "Now hurry up, he doesn't like to be kept waiting."

With painful slowness, Link did as he was bid, feeling numb and dreamy. Though he tried his hardest to concentrate on putting on his clothes, his mind kept returning to the tower, to that sweet summer day. He did not think it a good omen, that he should dream of those days again after all these years. It doesn't matter, he had to tell himself. Dreams are dreams. The two of us are living our second chance now, and gods help me but I do love it.

He forced himself to rise, ignoring the way his wounds burned in protest. The great hall seemed emptier than it had been last night when he rose to pursue Zelda, lonelier than when he'd last left it. Without proper nutrition and with only one doctor in residence, the weaker of the wounded were dropping like flies; Link counted himself lucky that he wasn't among them. Those who still had the will to live were healing much more quickly than expected, eager to end this nightmare with steel in their fists...and perhaps this nightmare would have a happier ending than any of them dared hope. Link could not forget Zelda's words from the night before; he clung to them, from them gleaned the hope that had seemed so absent in the aftermath of his dreams. There's to be a parley. In the worst case, Lord Emery will claim the crown and send Zelda into exile, and if the gods are good I'll live to go with her. They could house themselves with any number of merchants in Calatia...or, if Zelda was unwilling to drink from that cup, they could set out for adventure on their own. He could see it all so clearly.

In a moment of clarity Link cursed himself for his naïveté. My head is full of songs, he remembered bitterly. To be sure, Emery would never chance to leave his brother alive if he should claim the throne, and Zelda…she had been born with a surname that carried weight, was a powerful woman in her own right and presumably still fertile. Emery would see her dead, and count himself well rid of her, or else marry her to solidify his claim to the throne. And even if he did neither of those things – bereft of her throne, Zelda would never consent to traverse the world with only the warmth of consummated love and lust to comfort her. Link gave his head a shake, as if to rid himself of those shameful feverish thoughts.

"What are you looking at?" the bastard snapped, drawing him out of his reverie. "My father's bedchamber is this way. Come along."

Reluctantly, weakly, Link followed after him. They left the great hall and set out into the hallways, progressing quickly through the dark twisting passages. "Your father's bedchamber is a queer meeting place," Link said at last, keeping a hand on the wall for support as he walked.

The bastard snorted. "My father's weak and gouty, and you're not important enough for him to open the Audience Chamber for," he said. "Besides, this shouldn't take long. He means to make you answer for your treasons. Careful, there's a flight of stairs ahead."

Dread settled into Link's heart, wiping away all reason and all the puerile fantasies of life after this siege he'd entertained during the long hours he'd spent bedridden in the great hall. He must have known he couldn't hide the truth forever; in his dreams, he had known... And the timing stunned him, making his mind inflamed with unseemly suspicion that had nothing to do with the treason he'd committed by trying to escape the castle. Link had never seen the king's face, but he imagined it now, remembering him saying his vows beside Zelda in the Temple of Time. How much could he know…how much does he know?

The stairs were painful to climb, each one sending his body into a new searing agony. Link was quiet for a while, wondering what madness compelled him to keep walking toward certain death, till his mouth twisted in a grimace. "How did he know I was still alive?"

"When I was a child, my father told me his eyes saw the truth always." The bastard sighed, attempting to comb through his matted brown hair with his fingers. "As it happens, he went to visit you poor wretches in the great hall last night, and he saw you sleeping. When he looked at you, he knew."

With some of your help, no doubt, Link thought dully, glaring his hatred into the bastard's back. When the man stopped before a nondescript door, Link knew they had arrived. He couldn't take his eyes from that door...with no guards flanking it, it seemed even plainer than Zelda's door had seemed the first time he'd opened it a week ago. A week ago when he'd thought himself doomed to death, then saved by love's gentle mercy – and now fated to die again the moment he crossed the threshold of that door. "I fought for him. I'm a garrison man…"

"…and a friend of the queen. Let us not forget that."

"Perhaps you should tell that to your father, so he'll remember it better."

"Why should I? It's disgraceful enough to know that you've lived this long thanks to the grace of my father's wife. I know my father's sentence for traitors seems hard to cravens like you, but it's no harder than it has to be. His lord father thought much the same, and none of his lords bannermen dared rebel against him. Lord Collin did what he could to prepare my father for kingship, but it was only when my uncle raised his banners against him that he learned the most important lesson of all. My father is a gentle man, and there was a time during his reign when men were as apt to call him Good King Berent as they are to call your friend Good Queen Zelda...but if he is gentle to traitors during a time like this, treasons will engulf him. He does what needs to be done. Choose to believe that or not, but you must accept it."

For a moment, Link's surprise overrode his anger; he'd thought the bastard incapable of feeling the warmth that had been present in his voice just then. "You love him," he blurted, incredulous.

"Of course. He's my father." The bastard inclined his head slightly. "Now go."

There wasn't a thing Link wanted to do less than open that door, but there was no choice; he opened the door as the bastard watched expectantly and entered King Berent's bedchamber.

When last Link had seen the king, in the Temple of Time ten years ago, he had been nothing but the back of a head bracketed by two of King Harkinian's sworn swords. Whenever he'd thought of the man, as he had often in Calatia, his features had been hard and cold. But the king looked nothing like he had in his imagination; instead, he looked like someone's grandfather. Small and shrunken in his immense bed, still in his nightclothes, King Berent had snow-white hair and deep laugh lines that made him seem almost kindly...yet when his eyes, more brown than green, focused on him, Link felt a thrill of disquiet. "That will be all, Isel," he said to the castle doctor busying himself at the king's desk. "Leave me alone with the traitor so we may speak privily."

Probably counting himself lucky to be out of it, the doctor left with a quickness that was startling. When the door shut, Link heard a large thump as someone barred it, and another wave of unease swept over him. The bastard, he thought, but it didn't matter. Perhaps that should have driven him to his knees, but he remained standing as if spellbound, considering this man who had become Lord of the Realm and Zelda's husband. Old, gouty...and unremarkable. His eyes settled on the painfully swollen joints of Berent's hands and Link wondered if he'd ever been capable of so much as cupping his wife's cheek or helping her unlace her gown whenever they succumbed to passion, unable to suppress a sudden stab of mingled contempt and jealousy. Finally he bent the knee. "Your Grace. What would you have of me?"

"Get up," Berent said coldly, his voice a hair above a whisper. "Kneeling won't save you now. I would look on your face."

Rising without aid was hard, but Link was resolved to show no weakness before the king. After staring at him for several tense moments, Berent nodded. "Yes. I see it now." Link watched him as he drank from a cup of water he held, watched the way his throat worked. "When I was in seclusion with the gods I saw your face. I wondered why you looked so bloody familiar...and then my son told me the truth. I didn't want to believe there were any traitors left in my castle, but if the gods are to be believed, you'll bring both me and my wife to our deaths at parley if I allow it. I could not bear that."

Is he a liar, or mad, or both? Seclusion was an old custom that often resulted in death because of the long period of time the supplicant was required to go without food, water, and contact with other men in order to receive the gods' favor...but then, Berent was of the South, where they kept the old ways. And to think that he would bring the king and queen to death at parley – to think that he would bring Zelda to death – how could that be possible now, when he possessed no great mind and was worth less than the sword he carried? Link dropped his eyes and said nothing, though his mind whirled with turmoil.

The old man went on, oblivious. "You tried to escape my castle. When last I heard of you, you were headed for my traitor brother...yet now I find you here. How is that so?"

He had nothing to gain by lying; Link saw that plain enough. "I went to your wife for quarter," he said, but what he wanted to say was, Aye, and more than that. I kissed your wife, Your Grace. Your wife...

"Oh, yes, her. Zelda. I suppose you must know her, else she would have crushed you between her fingers...unless she has no idea what you've done. Does she?" Link held his silence, battling against the urge to say something vicious, and that seemed to be all the answer Berent needed; his laugh was an undignified bray. "I thought not."

"Are you going to kill me?" Link had faced death bravely once, a thousand times, and he wasn't going to give this old man the pleasure of seeing him skirt around the issue.

"Are you going to kill me, Your Grace," Berent corrected. "Be that as it may, I have no intention of killing you. My sweet wife has granted you clemency. The choice is entirely hers."

Relief washed over Link in a wave so strong it left him dizzy. Zelda...surely he could convince Zelda he was no traitor; she would understand his purpose behind trying to escape the castle. She was completely different from her implacable husband, he was certain; she was as she had been in that dark tower, on that sweet summer day… "As you say, Your Grace. Do I have your leave to go?"

"You do not." The king's small mouth became even smaller as he pressed his lips together. "It seems to me that you require a lesson, turncloak or traitor or whatever you call yourself. The other traitors who tried to escape with you got their lesson when they were thrown over the walls to treat with my brother Emery, but I can't imagine that would teach you a thing. After all, you begged for my wife's favor without any trace of guilt. Yes, you are a special case indeed."

You dare? Link wanted to shout at his king. You dare lecture me about treason when you mean to parley? He wanted to wipe that smug smile off Berent's face, either with fists or words; he wished he could. Yet he did no more than hold his silence, a strange loyalty to Zelda welling up within him and quelling his anger. Still, the hypocrisy of that statement was enough to take his breath away.

"You say you plan to parley with this brother of yours. What sort of lesson is there in that, Your Grace?" Link challenged, forgetting himself. "Is it truly treason to save yourself?"

"Well, as to that," Berent said, a strange smile twisting his lips, "were I you, I'd worry less about my brother and more about my wife."