Chusai rode with her head down the entire way back, too stunned and shocked to say anything. For quite a while she did not think at all, heard nothing around her, concealed in a bubble.

She did not remember what first began to nudge her out of it, some sharp sound or sudden movement. She raised her head to look in disgust at the convoy, trying for honor's sake to keep her face impassive among the motley assortment of Gerudo raiders, shadow soldiers, and all-out monsters. The ember of rage, dampened by trauma, began to flicker back to life.

Her eyes rested on the back of the warlord just ahead of her, and the flicker burst into roaring flame. Slowly she began to edge her horse closer to his, her hand straying to the dagger she kept at her belt. I'll kill him now…forget Zelda's plan, this man has taken too much for me to sit by and allow him to do more…

Slowly, slowly, she moved closer and closer, staring straight ahead and keeping her face a tight mask of indifference. She flicked her eyes for a brief moment every few minutes, gauging the distance between her hand and the soft flesh of his neck. I've only got one shot at this…I have to make it good…

Abruptly he reined in his horse and turned to face her. Instinctively she startled, and her spirit quailed as he looked straight into her eyes. Too late!

But before she could attack, retreat, or even think, he turned his head and nodded at the castle. "Chusai, take care of that, will you?"

She jerked her head up in consternation and saw with alarm orange flames pouring out of one of the second-floor windows. The room that was home to the Hall of Records.

"Maroi!" Chusai spurred her horse and raced up to the gateway of the castle. Leaping off, she ran up the stairways and through several hallways until she burst into a scene of complete bedlam. Guards ran with water buckets, burning ashes floated throughout the rooms like evil fairies, and blasting-hot flames poured out of several doorways.

"Oi oi!" Chusai shouted for attention. "Seal up the doorways! Give me that bucket!" She snatched a bucketful of water from a guard and splashed it over one of the many tapestries in the hallway, its edge already starting to smolder. Pulling it down from the wall, she hurled it onto one of the small fires in the doorway and stamped on it. "Come on, come on! Tear off those things and wet them down!"

The others scrambled to follow her orders. Chusai stamped on the damp cloth, embers swirling around her as more people started blocking up doors and windows with stones, to deprive the room of air.

"Maroi!" Chusai screamed, the roar of the flames drowning out her voice. She prayed that he was not here; she knew that he had not been here all day, and yet a dark feeling in the back of her mind told her to fear the worst.

A knot of servants hauled up wagons of dirt and mortar; Chusai began shoveling the material into the burning rooms, throwing it over small fires and hurling it at the combusting material all over the room. Others threw water over the walls in the hallway, stamping out what little fires managed to fly through on burning ash.

All of a sudden Chusai's lungs seized up with deep, bone-rattling coughs. She beckoned the few that were inside the room out, and they clambered over the stones that had begun to block up the doors. They plastered more stones in place, chasing any cinders that managed to escape.

Once the fire began to look contained, Chusai leaned against the wall and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, streaking soot across her face. She rested just a moment, then plunged back in to ensure that the fire died.

As gray dawn broke over Hyrule Castle, Chusai and a handful of guards began dismantling their firebreak. The smoldering ashes still radiated heat, but Chusai was determined to find out what had caused the fire.

Looking around carefully, her hand to her mouth in order to keep out flyaway ash, she spied something on the ground near Maroi's desk. Her heart sank as she saw the blackened remains of human bones, with a partly melted medallion resting near its head. She choked, and turned her head away, her worst fears confirmed.

The guard Dalin bent over something on the other side of the desk. "I guess this is what started it," he said as he pointed to a broken lantern on the ground.

Chusai stepped closer, her brows furrowed in puzzlement. The lantern was of a very cheap kind, easily broken, but Maroi had always used the sturdiest ones he could find, treating the dusty old scrolls in this room like his honored children. She doubted he could be so careless with fire.

Something tugged at her mind, and she forced herself to bend down and examine Maroi's corpse more closely. She examined each bone, stopping when she came to the back of the skull. Cracks radiated out from a small dark circle.

An injury made prior to the blaze.

"Dalin," she called, "I don't want this touched, do you understand? It's officially a suspicious death and I don't want the remains returned to the family until it's investigated, you hear?"

Dalin didn't respond. Chusai looked up in irritation to see him staring in fear at the doorway, where Ganondorf stood watching her.

"Chusai, I need you to come with me immediately. We have serious business to attend to outside the castle," he informed her shortly.

Is he serious? "My Lord, I have not yet slept and I am hardly in proper attire for such a thing." She shook ash from her sleeve in emphasis.

"I don't care how you look, Chusai. This is important. I want you at the castle gates in half an hour." He turned and left.

With all her energy spent from the battle with the fire, Chusai struggled to keep herself in the saddle, concentrating on following the dark warlord's steed as he raced from one place to the other. She could not figure out what was so urgent about this business; he simply met with the regents he had installed in the different sections of the country. Several times she stumbled, walked into someone, or nearly fell asleep on her feet as he talked for an hour at a time. Once she felt a sharp slap across the face, accompanied by an irritated, "You need to keep awake, Chusai."

"Yes, My Lord," she said simply, too tired to argue, much less process all of the insanity that had transpired in just twenty-four hours. She placed every bit of stamina she had left in making sure she put one foot in front of the other.

After quite possibly the longest day of her life, they rode back to the castle and Ganondorf dismissed her. She shuffled back to her quarters, then stood stupidly with one hand on the doorknob, knowing she was forgetting something. After five minutes, she finally managed to remember and made her way slowly toward Zelda's tower.

She kneeled and mumbled a request to come in, then entered like a zombie. Upon Zelda's inquiry over what happened, Chusai fell to her knees and stared at the floor.

"Your Highness…he killed them all…there was nothing I could do…"

Zelda moved closer, but did not attempt to meet Chusai's gaze. "Killed who?"

"My mother, father, and brother…they are all dead…and I have reason to believe Maroi is dead too…there was a fire…but I believe he was killed before…"

Her words slid into incoherent mumbling as the last of her energy waned, the room beginning to rock back and forth. She wondered briefly why she felt no emotion, no sadness, no tears, and then some dark voice in the back of her mind told her calmly that it would all come later.

"Chusai, you are exhausted. Come back tomorrow night and tell me what happened. You need to get some sleep to preserve your strength."

"Yes, your Highness." Chusai rose with some difficulty, bowed as well as she could, and shuffled like the living dead back to her quarters.

She fell onto her bed fully dressed, and immediately drifted off into sleep.