Zelda jerked awake from the most vivid and horrifying dream she'd ever seen, and touched her throat to reassure herself there were no one else's hands around it. It had been horrible. She always dreamed in symbols; she suspected most people did. Hers seemed largely accurate. More and more often in the month since Link had gone to retrieve the stones for her, she had dreamed of him. She'd seen the boy skipping stones over a sea of red with flowers in his hands, and the next day heard that a child had gone into the cavern under the volcanic mountains and rid it of a mighty monster. She'd had to smile at that. The leader of the gorons was a practical man who, like most of his kind, thought primarily with his stomach. If there was anything that would convince him to give up the stone it would be the promise of food from what had once been her cave. These last few nights she'd dreamed of fish. She had gone to bed smiling at the thought that he would come back soon with everything she needed to make the kingdom safe. She had dreamed of screams and running and the smell of blood. She did not even know what blood smelled like, but in the dream it had cut through her, straight to that primal part of the brain that demanded that she run, and when she had tried she was trapped. Hands seized her neck from behind and lifted her up just as she awoke.

"Impa," she said quietly, not for want of anything other than the feeling of safety that the bodyguard brought. But she did not answer. Zelda did not think too much on it, getting up and padding over to pour a glass of water with her blanket around her shoulders. "Impa?" She called again, a little louder. It was still full dark outside. Even the Sheikah slept sometimes, and Impa would occasionally have business elsewhere. After a long draught of cool water Zelda was almost recovered, and was just sitting back on her bed when she heard a cry. It was short, sharp and ended as abruptly as it had begun, but in that instant she almost felt her heart freeze. She nearly shouted for Impa, but decided it would be unwise to make too much noise. Instead she stood again and, moving as quietly as she could, opened her door and leaned out into the long hall. There was no guard on the corner. There were always guards on that corner. Another cry, closer and a little longer, ended with a crash. Zelda stepped back, closed the door and bolted it, then pulled the long knife from under her mattress and set it beside her as she put on her riding shoes.

Her seeming calmness came from what she considered to be the most valuable thing her father had ever taught her. The mind is like a desk, little one. When it is cluttered with feelings it is impossible to get things done. Look at the clutter, find what is useful and keep it, then sweep the rest aside. Fear tugged at her mind, heightened by the nightmare, but she resolutely swept it away along with tiredness and anxiety, and instead held on to a kind of determined curiosity. Part of her warned that it was the same kind of determined curiosity that convinced moths to fly into lit candles, but she brushed that aside too, and went to investigate.

Zelda's childhood as she and her father saw it had ended three years ago, the day she learned that there were people who would kill her just because she was alive. It was a tutor. He'd had kindly eyes and an encouraging manner, and had taught her much of other languages and cultures in the two months he'd been living as part of the royal household. One day he'd asked her to go up to a room at the top of a disused tower he'd been borrowing for a study and fetch him a book. He'd described in detail the long and winding path she should take to get there. Deciding that was because he was not yet familiar with the castle's layout, she'd taken a shortcut. That had saved her life, for if she had taken the route prescribed she would not have passed a single patrolling guard, and nobody would have thought it odd that the princess was heading to a part of the castle used only for storage and dust collecting. As it was, it did not occur to the guard until a few minutes after she had passed him that it was not a place she should have been going, and another short while before he decided to follow her. His longer stride was the only reason he reached her just after she had opened the door to what her tutor had told her was a small library, and come face to face with a ReDead. She'd seen its eyes, and the guard had burst in to see her in that twitching, standing fit they brought on. He was quick with a sword. The tutor vanished within the hour. The King had insisted she sleep with him in his bed that night, and the next day Impa had come, and had rarely been more than a room away since then.

Zelda had never had to physically defend herself, but Impa had given her the knife and shown her a few tricks with it. Aside from staring into the eyes of the ReDead she had never known real physical danger, and so she gripped that knife with a steady hand as she edged her way along the hall and to the stairs. Something caught her by the hair and clapped a hand over her mouth, and before she could react she was flung to the ground and for a moment the world was full of stars as her head hit the flagstones. Then she looked up to see Impa standing over the slumped body of a man in Gerudo clothing. In the moonlight through the window, the blood on her blade was black. "We have to go, princess," Impa said matter-of-factly, helping her up.

"What's happening?"

"Treachery." Impa had both a tone in her voice and a look in her eyes that Zelda had never seen before, and she suddenly realised just what the Sheikah were: the blades in the shadows ready to leap out and spill blood for the crown at any moment. The last shield of the crown, and the closest to their hearts. Impa did not waste any more time, taking Zelda's arm and half-steering her down the servants' stairs. There was not a soul in sight, but there was a body or two. The princess tried not to look at them, but could not help herself. One of them was about her age, a cook's daughter she thought. About the same height, with the same golden hair. Eventually they came out by the king's own bedroom. "My lord," Impa muttered in barely more than a whisper as she drummed her fingers on the door in a pattern just a little too precise to be random. And then she pushed open the door.

Zelda breathed a sigh of relief to see the shape of her father sleeping in his bed. It turned into a choked half-cry when the breeze from the open window fluttered the curtains and lit up the sheets. They had been white. They were black now, the same shining black as the stains on Impa's sword. Zelda knew by daylight they would be red. She got two steps towards him before her bodyguard's arms around her shoulders halted her. She didn't quite struggle, but neither did she yield. She simply continued to walk, even straining against those stronger arms to do so. "Don't," Impa said quietly. "Don't look. You don't need to see what you know." The princess found her eyes straying to the window. It had been a clear night when she went to bed, but now a dark cloud spread over the kingdom. A dark cloud… "We have to get out of the city," Impa whispered. "Out of the kingdom." Her arms were like iron, but warm.

"A moment," Zelda whispered. She ducked out from under Impa's arms, and the Sheikah did not attempt to catch her again when she saw that Zelda did not go to her father's body. She went instead to a tapestry on the wall, brushed it aside and disappeared into the hidden tunnel behind it, returning only a few seconds later with an ocarina in her hands. The royal family's sacred ocarina, for the royal family's sacred songs. Impa felt a deep stir of approval as she looked into the eyes of her princess. Even now she thought like a leader should. Confronted with the corpse of a king, she thought of duty. Zelda met her eyes and nodded, and they left, pausing only to close the door behind them.

Again they took the winding route, staying where the shadows were darkest until eventually they stopped in a hall only one floor above the ground. Impa opened the window. "All the doors out of the palace are being watched," she said quietly. "We'll have to climb down. The stables aren't far from here."

"But saddling a horse can get so loud," remarked a silky voice far too close to them. Ganon, in full armour with his sword in his hand, detached himself from the shadow of a statue and gave Zelda a little bow. Impa pushed the princess firmly behind her. "What an honour to meet a Sheikah warrior," he said as calmly as if he were chatting at a banquet. "Your kind get rarer every day."

"We're far from extinct."

"Are you sure?" A tiny noise made Zelda look down. It was the sticky little splash of a drop of blood falling from Ganon's sword onto the floor. Rage flared up inside her; it was not something she had ever felt before. She went to step out from behind her protector, ready to scream, but Impa was faster and firmer than ever, holding her in place. "You may well be the last of a dying breed," Ganon told Impa. The smile never left his face. "If you wish to remain in any position to protect the girl, you will not stand between us."

"That seems a little contradictory." Impa's left hand slipped off Zelda's shoulder and into the pouch on the back of her belt in a slow, tiny motion. "Am I expected to trust you?"

"You? No. You are expected to follow your master like a good little guard dog. You, princess, I would like to trust me. Of course I understand that at present you may find that… difficult." The muscles on Impa's wrist moved in a manner that suggested she gripped something in the pouch. Zelda tried not to look there, but the alternative was Ganon's eyes. She met them coldly but found that once she had she could not look away. She felt like a mouse before a tiger. "You should go back to bed, princess," Ganon continued. "You'll sleep safely. We have made promises, after all. And in the morning things will seem a little clearer, and I shall explain-"

Impa's arm shot out. It was a deku nut, and the flash was almost blinding. Without ceremony the Sheikah picked her up and jumped through the window, smashing it as she went. They landed hard but the bushes below saved them from the worst of the fall, and without a pause for breath Impa picked Zelda up again and ran. Saddling a horse could be loud, but it was also slow. Once in the stable Impa opened the first stall she came to, pulled out a startled white horse and took only a moment to pat its nose and whisper something soothing before she flung the princess up on its back and climbed up behind her. Side-saddle was not an option, even if there had been a saddle; Zelda hitched her nightgown up around her knees and swung one leg over the horse, then with nothing else to hold on to wrapped the fingers of one hand around the horse's mane, clutching the ocarina tight to her chest with the other. Impa's strong arms wrapped around her and in a moment the horse went from still to full speed, heading for the town.

"The bridge will be raised," Zelda realised. Impa said nothing. There were few around at this time, but the guards that should have patrolled to keep the night safe were absent as well. The occasional scream cut into the darkness. "What's happening?" She already knew the answer, and that was why she only whispered it though it seemed to her the horse's hooves on the road were louder than the distant thunder. On and on through the town they went, and she saw as they passed it that the splintered remains of the soldiers' watch house hung from one hinge and the lamps were unlit. In her mind she was calculating how quickly Ganon would recover from the stun, find his own horse and chase them. Very quickly, she suspected. They were near the edge of town. Looking up, she saw a single light atop the wall. Impa raised a hand in greeting but did not slow the horse, and with a shudder and a creak the bridge began to fall. It was not fully lowered when they reached it, which did not stop them. She heard a shout above her and tried not to think of the fate of the soldier who had helped them escape, but then her frantic eyes caught another sight: a flash of light. A fairy on his shoulder. Link must have been waiting for the gate to open in the morning. He'd drawn his little sword and stared at her with questions in his eyes. He had the stones, she thought. He must have the stones. And the stones opened the door, but only with the other key. She did not have time to think. She barely had time to aim.

His eyes followed the ocarina as it landed in the moat, and then snapped back to her. She watched him over her shoulder until they passed the crest of the hill and the castle vanished into blackness and night.