The letter burned like a hot coal in the Princess's clenched fist. A damned thing it was, such that it sizzled between her fingers and cooked flesh down to delicate sinew and metacarpals with so hellish an intensity the back of her hand ached from the heat. Thought to have blackened her bones stiff, Zelda's eyes flickered downward as she dropped the crumpled note with a spastic jerk; no flame engulfed her flesh as she expected, only the steadily increasing glow of Wisdom on pale skin. The burning was inside, not a physical flame as she anticipated.
It was her heart charred black and aching by anger, sorrow, and betrayal. That damned letter.
Her hand rested unmarked, pale as cream, delicate, young; Wisdom, however, she hummed same her ancient tune in the familiar vessel of Hylia's blood. Nayru's gift from time immemorial rose her voice in a song of cautious welcome… her sister had arrived.
'Silly girl, Princess. You hold Wisdom itself and yet a child's heart… hold onto that, my little lady.'
Sweet memories rotted like fruit in the sun. The child was small and frightened and too sick of heart to heed Wisdom's whispered words. To have lost it would have served better… perhaps she still would.
"Princess?"
The fog cleared from Zelda's eyes and refocused on the interior of the tower solar around her. It had been the queen's before she passed and with her departure left the room to a young princess who clung to whatever had been left of her mother. Part solar and part study: Zelda kept it as such. Ancient books belonging to the queen betrayed more than Hylia's magic steeping in the royal blood. Vast collections of Sheikah histories, technology, and spells filled high shelves. The late queen's eyes had been more crimson than violet and her hair white-gold like frosted glass: traits passed to her daughter. How fitting the Shadow Folk's black magic should coexist with Hylia's silver-woven blood.
The view served as the key feature of the room that captivated daughter as it had mother, a view of not only the central square of Castle Town but one that stretched beyond moat and gate out to the green of Hyrule Fields and Death Mountain's distant peaks looming over sleepy Kakariko. It was the place a ruler could keep her kingdom beneath a protective gaze, as if an unblinking, watchful eye would stay all harm and misfortune from beautiful Hyrule. "Eyes must sleep…" the Princess murmured to herself.
"Zelda." Impa called again. The elder woman remained ever patient even with Death looming at the door. The Princess turned and met her nursemaid's crimson eyes.
"It's so dark. And quiet—is it always so quiet? Like a breath before the plunge." Zelda took that breath. The wadded letter remained a jeering insult on the stone floor. Impa's hand lifted from her robes and rested on the Princess's shoulder, squeezing with more strength and reassurance than the old Sheikah's body portrayed.
"It is. It's the calm before the thundercrack, before you know if you've skidded the storm."
"Or sitting in the eye of it." She felt the heavy smattering of hooves at the palace gate more than heard them from such a distance; each beat was a hammer beat on the inside of her ribcage. The Triforce glowed ever brighter on her hand.
"There's still hope, child," Impa fixed the golden clasp of the princess's violet cloak out of habit. "The Hero will return. It's the way of the Cycle. Courage and Wisdom will prevail as they always do." Zelda smiled without humor.
"Could we have only broken it this lifetime." It was a long scaffold's march from the solar to the throne room and as eerily silent and heavy with dread as the blackened sky. Servants and members of court were at last equals as they hid in the same cellars and locked storerooms and the muffled cries of babes were without the distinction of class. The letter rolled over and over in Zelda's mind like a barrel organ's tune.
"Send Link from the castle or he will die."
"Send Link from the castle or he will die."
"Send Link from the castle or he will die."
Her mistake had been heeding Wisdom's warning as she helped the Hero pack his saddle bags and flee, run to Goddesses' know where, perhaps even to another trap. After all, Zelda had fallen so easily for the first, what was another slight-of-hand trick to fool a stupid, naïve child? Her self-loathing changed nothing. 'Father is dead. Link is gone. The sky is dark. I'm scared.'
More hooves, now fully audible and clattering on marble instead of stone. The Demon King had arrived.