Chapter 45: The Assassin's Blade

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Link was finding it increasingly difficult to keep his eyes open, despite the ever-present burn in his side as Ronelda brusquely worked on his wound, when the infirmary doors burst open and slammed back against the stone walls, startling him alert. Ronelda scowled and pursed her lips as she continued removing the stitches that had popped, but Link couldn't dismiss the shock of the sudden interruption so easily.

The King loomed in the doorway, his beard bristling and his eyes practically on fire. Janin stood beside him, fists clenched and shoulders rigid, but his face was cold and impassive. Zelda, half-hidden behind her father's hulking form, was wringing her hands together, and her brows were pinched together worriedly.

The General was the last to enter the room, and he alone seemed at ease. Nonetheless something dark flickered in his gaze; he wasn't pleased with something. Link felt his guts squeeze at the thought that it might be his fault.

The King jerked his head at Ronelda. "Leave us," he ordered coldly.

A glare that would have brought most brave men to their knees did nothing to sway the head physician, and she glared right back. "This boy's wounds require immediate attention. He's losing blood, and fast -"

"Then stitch him back up, and fast," Janin hissed, rolling his eyes.

Ronelda's scowl deepened. "I'm not stitching that wound until I've cleaned it out and put a poultice on there to counteract that poison, else it won't do him any good!"

"Then remove the stitches once we're done talking with him, and then do what you need to do," Rhoam said irritably. "Do what you must now to keep him awake and alive. Worry about the rest later."

"Father!" Zelda exclaimed, her eyes wide with reproach, but Rhoam ignored her.

A muscle jumped in the General's jaw as he glanced sideways at the King, and for the first time Link caught a trace of anger in his eyes. But he said nothing, and Ronelda, still scowling fiercely, agreed with a stiff nod to the King's demands.

"I'm genuinely sorry about this, boy," Ronelda muttered, rushing back to her cupboard and withdrawing a curved needle and a spool of thread. She threw the King another withering look and sat down at Link's bedside. "I'm afraid I can't give you anything to numb the pain, either - they want you awake." She spat the word out as if it had a foul taste before digging her needle into the skin on one swollen side of the stab wound Filo had left; Link's breath caught and he closed his eyes briefly, gritting his teeth against the heightened prickles of pain.

"Can I -" Zelda began meekly, but Rhoam cut her off with a curt shake of his head.

"Perhaps she could fetch him some water to drink," the General intervened quietly. "Surely that would be reasonable, my King."

Rhoam nodded slowly, and Zelda rushed to Ronelda's cupboard, pulling out a ceramic mug and looking around for water. Link wondered groggily what she had wanted to ask, but the thought fled from his mind as Ronelda pulled her needle tight and a wave of cold pain flooded his side, drawing a strained cry from his lips. Holding his breath, he curled his fingers around the sheets beneath him, trying to find something to ground himself. Silly thing, he thought, pressing his lips firmly together. Ronelda pushed her needle once again into the inflamed skin surrounding the wound and he closed his eyes again. Not like I haven't been stitched up before. Shouldn't be this hard to deal with.

"So what's so important that you can't trust me with it, eh?" Ronelda glowered, glancing briefly at the King. "If it's something to do with how he incurred this wound, I, if anyone, should be permitted to know about it. It might help me treat this better."

Janin's gaze darkened, but Rhoam merely rubbed a massive hand wearily over his face. "We don't have all the answers yet ourselves," he sighed, some of the anger dissipating from his features. "I assure you that once we know what happened, you'll be the first to know about anything that will help you with this."

Zelda returned with Ronelda's mug filled with water from a barrel sitting at the far end of the room, near the window. At a nod from the King, the General hurried forward and took the mug from her before she reached Link's bed, indicating with a slight twist of his chin that she return to her father's side.

Link felt something diminish within him, like a small tongue of flame suddenly snuffed out, as he realized that Rhoam was purposely distancing him from Zelda. A tidal wave of memory and emotion threatened to crash over him, a split-second reminder of the anguish lurking in his soul; his eyes watered and he tightened his grip on the bedsheets, struggling to remain in control of himself. Goddesses… of all the times I'd have liked her to be by my side…

The General dragged a stool from one of the other beds with a grating screech to Link's bed before sitting down and holding out Ronelda's mug. "Best drink up, lad."

Link drew in a shallow, shaking breath, uncurling his fingers from the blankets and reaching up for the mug. His hands trembled, and as he took the mug in both hands he nearly dropped it, and would have if not for the General's steadying grip on its handle. Any other day he would have felt annoyed by his weakness. Now it was a reminder of how far he had fallen in such a short amount of time, and the pressure behind his eyes built as he fought not to show his pain.

Janin was watching him carefully, steel glinting in his eyes. Link did his best to ignore him, narrowing his attention on bringing the mug to his lips. It was cold and smooth, comforting against his hands, which still bore the partially-healed blisters he had sustained that night. The water was cold as well - shockingly so, sending a jolt straight to his mind, clearing his head of the fog that had settled over it. He blinked slowly, then winced as Ronelda gave her needle another tug. He took another sip of water, but it didn't have quite the same effect as the first, merely sliding down his throat and settling like a cold pebble in his stomach.

"Right, then," Ronelda muttered, pulling the thread tight, cutting it, and tying it firmly in place. "That should do it, boy." She turned her hard gaze on Rhoam and Janin, fierce as a dragon. "Don't take too long, and be gentle. He's liable to lose consciousness with all the blood he's lost."

Rhoam nodded stiffly, and Janin merely raised an eyebrow at her. Brows pinched together, Ronelda gathered her rags, needle, and thread, and shoved them back in her cupboard before marching out of the room.

Like vultures, the King and the Captain swooped in, pulling other stools close to Link's bed and sitting down. Zelda moved to grab her own stool, but at a stern glare from her father she sat instead on the bed closest to his.

"So," Rhoam began, clasping his hands together. "Perhaps you can help us… fill in the blanks, Sir Link. We wake up on the second day of the year and find seven men dead - four outside of the Princess' quarters in the hall, two half-buried in the snow outside, and one in the docks. Murdered in cold blood, by an arming sword, from what the General's men could discern. In your room, we found blood on the bed, the wardrobe, the floor… it created a trail leading out the door, to the Princess' room and through it to the outside. We also found this." He motioned to the General, who pulled a slender object wrapped carefully in cloth from a small pouch at his waist. Sliding the wrappings off, he revealed a steel knife with a double edged blade and a crossguard stamped with the Hyrulean crest. There was dried blood staining the blade and the hilt. Link realized that it was the knife Filo had used to stab him.

"A carrier pigeon found us at noon," Rhoam continued gravely. "It bore a message from the Sage Temple. My daughter and the knight bearing the Master Sword arrived in the early hours of the morning, both of them frozen half to death, and with the knight badly wounded. I sent a sleigh to bring the two of you home - you, of course, were in too critical a condition to be moved right then.

"Zelda told me what she remembered, but she was in a state of shock when she arrived." The King's eyes darkened, and he studied Link with nearly murderous scrutiny. His gaze shifted to Zelda, softening, and he dipped his head. "Tell us what you can remember."

So this is why they let her come in the first place, Link thought, dread squeezing his heart. He doubted it meant anything good for him, and his soul felt tight and sick at the thought of her being used against him somehow.

Zelda avoided his gaze, studying the cold stone floor beneath her feet. "I… I remember waking up on a boat in the middle of the river," she gulped. "There were… there were Yiga warriors around me. I managed to escape and ran across the ice, but they… they followed. Link arrived and… and killed them, and… we ran… but Choice fell through the ice. That's… all I can recall."

Link couldn't help but stare at her, an icy hollow feeling filling his soul. That's… that's it? So much more had happened - or at least, there were many more details that would have helped her sound surer of what had happened. She was in shock… evidently it affected her memory. He swallowed thickly, feeling his pulse pounding faster and faster in his throat. He felt awful for it - for feeling disappointed that she couldn't remember more - when it wasn't something she could have helped. But at the same time, his heart felt constricted with loneliness in a way that it hadn't in such a long time.

"So what is it that you can tell us, Sir Link?" Janin asked coldly. "How did those men die? How did one of the daggers issued only to the General's spies end up in your room?"

Link could almost feel the blood draining from his face. Oh, Goddesses…

Men killed by an arming sword - the same type of blade as the Master Sword. A knife used only by the most elite of the General's men. And -

"There's more," Rhoam continued gravely. "After the Princess told us what had happened, I sent men out to that river to investigate. They found a man - a Yiga - who had been wounded, but was still alive. Barely. We brought him back, questioned him, and before his death he confirmed our suspicions. That they had help from someone inside the castle, someone with a knowledge of the secret passageways, someone who would have had access to a knife such as this. He said that this informant struck a deal with the Yiga Clan, that he would perform some task for them if they would stage this kidnapping, and make him out to be a hero." Rhoam's eyes narrowed. "Now, who do we possibly know that could take advantage of a situation in which he finds himself saving the Princess' life and thus regaining lost favor?"

Link's mouth had gone dry, and he struggled to draw breath. They think it's me. Merciful Goddesses above, they think this is all my fault! He looked at the General desperately, remembering his abrupt kindness earlier, and he felt something give way inside of him as he considered that perhaps it had been a ruse. Some way to make him vulnerable, make him feel safe, before they dragged the rug out from beneath his feet. The pressure behind his eyes increased, and he stared fixedly ahead, struggling to keep himself from falling to pieces.

"His silence says it all," Janin hissed. "Chosen hero or not, we have no choice but to -"

"If I may," the General interrupted calmly. "I might remind you that we have not yet heard his side of the story. There is every possibility that we are missing pieces of the puzzle - that we have come to the wrong conclusion. Sir Link has limited knowledge of the secret passageways, and anyway, if it had been him using them, we would have seen the trail of blood."

"Unless he left the trail we did find on purpose, to cover his tracks," Rhoam pointed out.

"I didn't," Link croaked, his voice hoarse with desperation. "Y-you have to believe me - I didn't set this up! Any of it!"

"Then who did?" Janin demanded angrily. "I'm assuming they were the one who stabbed you with this knife - you would have seen who it was. So tell us - if it wasn't you, which I find highly unlikely, who was it?"

Link glanced desperately in Zelda's direction, his heart lurching uncomfortably when he found that she still wasn't looking at him. Does she care? Oh, Goddesses - what if this has all just been some elaborate set up? She pretended to love me, got me to lower my barriers and make all those mistakes, all so that they could frame me for some awful thing and get rid of me forever!

It did not matter how illogical the thought was - the mere notion that she could have betrayed him just as cruelly as Janin had was enough to destroy the fragile barriers he had erected, and the tidal wave of despair and anguish that he had so desperately tried to hold back crashed over him, forcing a choked, anguished cry from his throat as tears finally trickled from his eyes.

"Well?" Rhoam's eyes burned with hate. Hatred… it's all around me… everywhere… I'm alone… no more Choice… no Janin… no Zelda… no family…

He was sobbing now, searing pain cutting at his wounded side as his chest heaved with erratic breath, and he attempted to curl inwards around himself, to protect himself somehow, to hide -

But Janin gripped his shoulders and pushed him roughly back against the bed's headboard, forcing him straight. "You'd best tell us what you know now, before it has to get ugly," he warned, and Zelda sucked in a sharp breath from her place on the next bed over. The General watched warily, his brow furrowed, and King Rhoam continued to glare. Link closed his eyes, wishing it would all just disappear, wishing he wouldn't have to deal with this anymore - I can't do this, not anymore, please -

"Link," the General spoke his name calmly, gently. "You need to tell us what happened. I don't believe you're at fault here - you need to tell us if I'm right. If there's a traitor in the castle, we need to know. They tried to kill you, and they tried to kill the Princess. If we don't find them soon, they might try again."

"He doesn't want her dead," he whispered before he could stop himself. "He… he…" Stop it! Stop it! Stop! "He l-loved… loves her…" He clenched his teeth tightly, heart hammering violently; despair crushed at his soul like a gauntleted fist around his throat. I've ruined it - I've made a mess of everything again! I've betrayed one of Zelda's oldest friends!

"Who?" the General prodded gently.

Link screwed his eyes shut, grimacing, the pressure behind them burning all the worse. Trembling, he managed to jerk his head to the side, fighting with himself about what to say. "I… I can't…"

"Filo."

The Princess' voice was quiet, nearly inaudible, but Link heard it nonetheless; his eyes flew open and he stared at her in utter bewilderment. "Wh-what…?" he croaked breathlessly, his heart seizing as he noticed a crystalline tear dripping down her cheek. She flicked it away with her hand and resumed staring morosely at the ground.

"He… he was with me, and the other Champions, when we went to check on you after your… after your punishment," Zelda explained softly. "I… I thought he was just being kind. But it's been so long - so long - since he and I had anything to do with each other… and he made it quite clear that he's not at all fond of you… I should've noticed how… how suspicious it was." Her face crumpled in a pained grimace, and a tear squeezed past her eyes. "He… he heard Ronelda say that nothing could wake you up. That… that you were too tired to… to notice anything."

"Is she right?" Rhoam demanded angrily, rounding on Link. "Filo the bard attacked you?"

He struggled to swallow past the swelling lump in his throat. "Yes," he gulped, dragging his eyes up to meet the General's gaze. "Yes, it was… it was Filo."

Janin nodded curtly. "Very well. We'll send someone to the armory to confirm - to see if they saw Filo anywhere near there a few days ago."

"Velvilen, get some men to detain him," Rhoam ordered grimly. "We'll need to question him, of course - see if his story matches."

"Yes, Sir," the General - Velvilen - bowed respectfully as he got to his feet and strode swiftly out of the room. Link felt some of the tension leave his shoulders - Are we done? - and waited expectantly for the others to leave as well, so that he could close his eyes and forget about everything that had happened, the painful memories that he bore…

But he was disappointed, and his hopes fell, as Rhoam and Janin made no move to get up.

"So what happened then?" the King asked. "Filo attacked you, and you… ? How did you know where to find my daughter?"

Link's heart squeezed, and he ground his teeth together, fighting to regain control of himself. He licked his lips, drawing in a deep breath, and rubbed angrily at his moist eyes. "He… Filo told me. He said that they left through the docks and… and planned to bring her to Karusa Valley. I left at once…" His voice trailed away and a slight tremor shook his shoulders as he remembered the biting chill, the piles of snow gnawing at his calves through his trousers… For an instant his mind skipped ahead, to what happened at the end, and nausea squeezed his gut. He blinked rapidly, staring intently at his feet at the end of his bed, forcing himself to dwell in the present. One thing at a time. One thing at a time.

"There must be more to it than that," Janin scoffed, leaning back with a hand on his knee. "It would have been impossible to find the river, or anything, in that blizzard. The men on guard duty reported a complete whiteout lasting through the early hours of the morning. How'd you get through that, eh?"

Link winced, picturing what he had seen - or thought he had seen, he thought grimly - firmly in his mind's eye to keep himself focused. "The Master Sword sort of… kind of… spoke… to me." He gulped, breaking his gaze away from the toes of his boots to glance anxiously at the King, to try and guess how he was reacting. Rhoam's features were as dark and stormy as ever; with a thrill of desperate fear piercing his heart Link snapped his gaze back to his feet. "Choice…" A lump of emotion sprouted in his throat, and he barely managed to choke the next words out. Don't think about that. Not yet. Not yet. Hold on! "Sh-she heard it too. And… and saw it when a… a spirit appeared. It said that it was… the spirit of the Master Sword. And it… it guided me through the storm, always just a few feet ahead."

"Your sword was glowing," Zelda remembered with a gasp. "I… I saw that much, when you… when you came for me."

Rhoam tugged thoughtfully at his beard, his brow heavily furrowed. Janin snorted. "Ridiculous," he chortled, drumming his fingers impatiently on his knee. "Do you even hear yourself right now? Utter nonsense, all of it! Clearly you've snapped!"

"I wouldn't be so sure of that," Rhoam murmured, deep furrows crinkling his brow. "If the legends are to be believed, there is a spirit in that sword… a voice that, so they say, only the Chosen Hero can hear." He shook his head slowly. "Which, of course, means that no one can confirm if he's telling the truth or not. The best we can do is interrogate Filo to determine if his story matches or not. There's still the fact that whoever really was responsible stole that knife…"

"Or Link is lying, and one of our soldiers stabbed him as he escaped with the Princess," Janin pointed out nastily, glancing sideways at Link.

"Only our spies carry those knives, and none of them were found among the dead," Rhoam protested firmly. "Regardless of whether or not Link is a guilty party here, the knife must have been stolen. Be reasonable, Cassius!"

Link's guts twisted into knots and he slumped back against the wall, grimacing. The King had made it sound as if he still believed that Link was somehow involved in Zelda's kidnapping. His will and strength were failing; he wanted nothing more than to sleep - Cassius murdered my parents, my horse is dead, I've been stabbed… when will it be enough for them? When will they let me be? Why can't they just believe me?

"What happened next, boy?" Rhoam asked. "This sword spirit led you to my daughter, and…?"

"It led me to the river, which had frozen over," Link answered. His pulse pounded harder, almost painfully so, and he blinked rapidly, struggling to remain in the present. "I left Choice on the bank and ran out onto it; I heard the Princess struggling with someone and there were people chasing after her -"

"Struggling?" Rhoam demanded, on edge at once.

"She had escaped from them, and they were trying to get her back," Link answered quietly, trying to avoid the details. It had certainly looked as if something compromising were about to happen, but she had told him they didn't hurt her - "One of them had… tackled her. I killed him and then attacked the others." His gaze flickered, almost involuntarily, down to the scratches across his chest, shoulders, and thighs - wounds given to him by the hulking Yiga warriors that had kidnapped his Princess. If I hadn't been already wounded and frozen half to death, I wouldn't have gotten these. "One of them ran off after I hit him. The others… I killed them."

"Which matches our reports of bodies washing up by the Gleeok Bridge," the General announced, letting the doors to the infirmary fall shut behind him as he walked back to his stool and sat down. "Bodies in Yiga uniforms."

A chill struck Link's soul, nearly paralyzing him. Bodies? He couldn't breathe; his heart pounded faster and faster and faster, painfully battering his ribs. Bodies? Does that mean…? Is hers…? Is Choice…?

He couldn't finish the thoughts. Images raced through his mind - empty sockets, blood glistening in the torchlight, ravaged flesh, protruding bone - he couldn't breathe, it was cold, too cold, there was light all around but all he could see was darkness, dark forest, blood, death -

"Link. Link, look at me."

He blinked, and the forest was gone, and the General was studying him anxiously, concern warming his dark eyes. Link shivered violently, struggling to draw breath; it was as if something had lodged in his throat, choking him - perhaps it was his heart, attacking from the inside out with the force of a mace. Another forceful tremor gripped him and then the General's hand was on his shoulder, firm, reassuring.

"I'm sorry," the General said quietly. "That was insensitive of me. Try to breathe, alright?"

Link nodded blankly, hardly aware of what he was agreeing to. Distantly he heard Janin scoffing, something about a waste of time, and Rhoam's curt response; his mind had gone inexplicably blank and it was all he could do to follow the General's request - breathe, in, out. Gradually he felt his racing pulse begin to slow, and his lungs remembered how they were supposed to function. His mouth was incredibly dry, and his head ached, his mind wrung out like a sponge, his strength all but depleted.

"Is there anything else you need to know, my King?" the General asked testily, turning his attention back to Rhoam and Janin. "We have what we need, don't we?"

"Do we, Velvilen?" Rhoam growled.

The General leaned back in his chair. "We don't have the bard, if that's what you're asking," he answered calmly. "It would appear that he has fled. That he left the day after the attack. My men are conducting an investigation of his quarters as we speak, and my two best trackers have left the castle to find his trail. Is that enough for you at the moment? The way I see it, we have nothing further to discuss here. Let the boy rest."

Janin's gaze was cold. "We still have the matter of a highly expensive, prestigiously trained warhorse that was lost," he pointed out, and Link squeezed his eyes shut, curling his hands into fists, fighting not to slip into another panic. Velvilen's grip on his shoulder tightened.

Janin continued with a sneer, "He said that he left the horse on the bank, away from the fighting. How is it she's dead, then?"

Please, Goddesses, spare me! Link prayed, tears burning his tired eyes as another tremor shook his body.

"She walked onto the ice of her own volition," Zelda explained quietly, and Link gave a start at the sound of her voice - he had almost forgotten that she was still here. "She was… she was comforting me." Her voice caught, a hint of guilt lacing her morose tone. "I already told you what I remember about that, Father. It's exactly what happened - we don't need to discuss it any further."

"I'll decide that for myself, daughter," Rhoam said warningly, glaring. "But… in this case… I agree. We have nothing more to do here." He pushed himself to his feet with an audible creaking of joints; rolling his shoulders back he turned and started for the door. "Velvilen, Cassius - with me, if you will. And, Zelda," his voice turned hard and stern, "you will not be permitted to enter this room as long as he is in here. I am bound to keep him as your knight, but so help me Din, it is not what I want."

"Father," Zelda protested softly, her eyes glimmering with tears. "I - I could help -"

"It's best you listen to your father, Princess," the General interrupted gently, looking over his shoulder and flashing her a slight knowing wink and a nearly imperceptible nod. "We've had enough conflict for one week, eh?"

Zelda dipped her head in acquiescence, but there was a trace of curiosity in the furrow of her brow. "Of - of course. Very well, Father… you have my word. I won't set foot through these doors while Link remains inside."

"Good girl," Rhoam muttered, continuing towards the door.

Link was too tired to try and puzzle out the meaning of all of the secret looks, and as the door closed behind the General and the Princess, leaving him alone once more, a cold ache settled deep into his bones. He felt constricted, fit to bursting, with pain and sorrow. His strength was gone; he could barely keep his eyes open, let alone say another word, nor did he feel at all like talking.

When Ronelda reentered the room, the ache in his heart deepened. He wanted to be completely alone, isolated, cut off from reality and the pain he faced there - and at the same time, when his hazy thoughts drifted towards Zelda, he craved her company, so that he could finally tell her everything, release the burdens pressing down like boulders on his chest… and his soul hurt all the worse knowing that she was forbidden from seeing him.

At first, when Ronelda irritably began removing the stitches Rhoam had demanded she put in place, the sting of the needle and the burn of the inflamed skin around the edge of the wound was enough to keep him awake. But his exhaustion won out in the end, and his tear-burned eyelids slipped closed, everything fading at last to darkness around him.


Updated 7/8