Every Shard of My Heart Belongs to You: Insurrection

The guards left with the dismissal of the king's hand. The echo of their metallic footsteps lingered in the hall, obtruding the strange new silence. Silvanna could read from the king's unsurprised expression that her return been anticipated. His pensive frown proved that it had also been unwelcome. He motioned for her to come forward.

"Defend yourself, Silvanna. You have always been a woman of reasons."

She paced in front of him. "Is it so wrong to return home?"

"This is not your home," Harkinian interrupted.

Ignoring his comment, Silvanna continued. "You know why I have come," she sneered, "I want my daughter, and I want my kingdom. I want my life. The Ocarina will give that back to me."

The king looked at Silvanna like a spoiled child who asks her father for a pony. After this brief glace, he turned his head away, finding the dirt under his fingernails to be more enthralling than this particular conversation.

"No, Silvanna. You won't have it," he said, sighing in quiet complacency.

Silvanna's calm expression was replaced by one of utter rage. "No?" she began, "No? I am Queen, you faux-faced miscreant!"

"You are not Queen, but a treasonous wench!" he reproached her, rising to his feet.

"I have not committed treason against myself," she smugly chided.

Every chord of patience within the king's being instantly snapped. He came at her and held her by her wrists. "In this realm, treason is against the kingdom, and I am the kingdom!" he shouted, pressing the back of her hand to her face. "You have worn this scar for nearly twenty years, Silvanna. Don't pretend you don't know what it means!"

Her face betrayed her feelings of fear against the will of her arrogance. The king saw her fear, and his anger melted into grief.

"Why, Silvanna, why? You know it means death," he lamented. He loosened the strong grip on her arms, almost as if to embrace her. The king did not lie when he said he loved her.

"Not mine," she whispered, plunging Klave's dagger into the heart of her former lord.

The world for Zelda was a discordance of colors and of sounds. Slowly her vision began to focus and her sense of awareness returned to her. Her eyes then focused on the face above her.

"Impa?" she called weakly. The woman was leaning over her, fanning her face with a delicate wooden fan.

"Aye, milady? How are you feeling?" she asked, placing the fan next to her.

Zelda sat up, massaged her forehead and groaned. "Dreadful," she answered, "What happened?"

"Why, you went into shock, milady. You fainted. Sir Iain was..."

Impa's words were drowned out by Zelda's memories returning to her. She conjured thoughts of Silvanna and Klave, Link and Iain, and blood everywhere. She startled Impa by grabbing her by the arms. "Is Iain all right?"

"I'm sorry, milady. Sir Iain is dead."

Zelda raised a trembling hand to her mouth. "That man and that woman... did they kill him? Where are they now?"

"The man is dead, and the other is awaiting sentence, milady. I'm sorry, but she was..." Zelda looked up at her inquisitively. "She was arrested by two guards for..." Impa could not look Zelda in the eye. "...the assassination of King Harkinian. His closest advisor suggests it was an attempt to usurp the throne." She hugged Zelda in consolation. "I grieve with you, milady."

Zelda her wide vacuous eyes stared into space. "She killed them both?"

"No one knows for sure what happened to Sir Iain, milady. Sir Link and yourself were the only witnesses."

Link.

"Oh Impa, where is he?"

Impa was again taken aback by the princess's sudden emotional outburst. "I believe the guards took him below to be questioned." She saw that Zelda intended to find him. "Oh, but milady, please, stay and rest awhile."

"No, Impa. I must go to him."

Zelda weaved through the mass chaos that had formally been her palace and home. She raced down the stone staircase. The scenery grew more putrid with every step downward. Every inch grew increasingly similar to dungeon that waited for her at the base of the stair. The princess had never been in a dungeon before. She hesitantly unbolted the black iron lock and mentally prepared herself for the gruesomeness that was rumored to lie within.

The repulsive stench made her stomach ill. With one hand lifting her skirts, she used the other to hold a kerchief to her nose through which she could breath. A guard who caught sight of her bowed clumsily. He had never seen the princess before.

"Excuse me, sir," she addressed him, "I must see Sir Link."

The poor soul was too bewildered to speak. He merely pointed her in the general direction.

Zelda turned around the corridor she had been directed to, finding a row of ramshackle cells, most of them empty. A few contained dark masses of filth and presumably prisoners. The only source of illumination was a few dying torches and cracks in the walls. The largest crack had roughly half the diameter of croquet ball. To new arrivals it served as a window to fresh air and sunlight. To veterans it was a taunting reminder of an outside world.

She heard the whistle of somber tune several cells down and followed it to the end of the corridor. She stopped at the very last cell and peered through the bars of iron. The light from the large crack created a beam of light, which revealed Link's now scruffy and matted locks of golden hair. He did not notice her. He was huddled against the wall, tracing his finger on the floor.

"Link," she called. He looked up at her. She could then see the blood that had dripped down his face and shirt, mixed with sweat and dirt, and his hair plastered around his face and against his neck. His clothes were torn. His eyes were lifeless.

He turned his face away from her. "You shouldn't be here."

"I had to see you," she explained. "There are things I must know."

"Guard!" she yelled to the warden. The ungainly guard she had met before came quickly to her aid. "Sir, please unlock this door."

"Ye-ye-yes, ye-your high-ne-ness," he replied, fumbling with the rather large set of keys. The hinges screeched open and the princess stepped inside.

"You may leave," she said to the guard. He attempted to thank her before slinking back to his post.

Zelda approached Link tentatively. He refused to look at her. Shame would not let him. "They brought me down here for questioning and threw me in here. I tried to tell them I had nothing to do with Iain's death, but they said they couldn't do anything about it until you were awake." He felt her hand on his cheek and he momentarily reveled in her touch.

"It's all right now. I'll explain what happened," she assured him, "Only, I would like to know how you seemed to know them."

Link sighed. "Very well. I shall tell you what I can." He nervously folded his hands together. "I sailed on the vessel, the Ile de Ciel, for almost four years then one night I had a dream... of you. We were older, before you sent us back in time. It was when we parted. And while I dreamed that night, there was a terrible storm. I had been ill so that I was below deck. The ship was ripped apart. I do not recall how I even survived, but when I again saw light, I lay on some foreign shore, pieces of the ship all around, but none of the crew. I was so lost." Link paused a moment to reflect, and then continued, "I was armed with nothing but my sword and the ocarina you gave to me. I often played it and thought of you."

Zelda smiled, but said nothing and motioned for him to continue.

"I took up masonry in a town there. That is how I met Iain Klave."

"The man in my room, Iain's father?" And hers also, though he did not say it.

"Aye, the same. He was my master's neighbor. I did not speak to him, though I often saw him."

"And that woman—she was his wife?"

Link shrugged. He couldn't tell her. "I don't know," was all he said.

"They were the ones who nearly slain me, and the reason why I returned to you so near to death. They wanted the Ocarina of Time, so that they might..." He paused.

"So that they might... what?"

He did not know how to explain their intentions. "I don't know exactly, Zelda, but there must have been something in time that they wanted to change."

"It's funny. I don't understand how Iain's father would know about the Ocarina of Time. It's a family secret." The princess puzzled over it for a moment and asked, "Is that why you thought that one of them who attacked you was of the royal family?"

He never told Zelda about the portrait of her mother he had seen in the king's hall, and he meant to keep it that way. "Yes, though I don't suppose it matters now."

"Yes, I guess there are greater things to be concerned about, like what will happen to Hyrule now. She killed my father, Link." She did not cry, but her voice ached with sorrow. She threw her arms around him and buried her face into the crook of his neck. "It is all so muddled now. How did it become so?"

"Milady, Princess Zelda," a young man's voice interrupted. The messenger bowed respectfully. "Your presence is demanded at the sentencing."