Chapter Three

The Beginning

It was dawn when the King of Hyrule was discovered and Raneem and Ganondorf had a front row seat to watch the affair. It had all started when a young squire timidly entered the room to wake the king. The boy had screamed when he saw the dead body, had vomited when the smell reached him. And then he had raced out of the room. Seconds later, several guards rushed in as well a Hylian healer.

Raneem reclined on her elbows and watched through Ganondorf's magical screen as the men panicked, the healer fumbling through his potions and herbs but there was nothing he could do. Within the hour, the king's body had been moved to the lower sections of the castle to be prepared for burial. Raneem had smiled wickedly when the Hylians had found the Gerudo dagger embedded in their king's throat, and Ganondorf had actually chuckled.

When the king's bedchamber was empty, the magical screen slowly dispersed. "Show's over," Ganondorf said as he stood and stretched.

Raneem got to her feet as well. "What happens now?"

"Princess Zelda will be alerted. She'll be briefed on the death of her father, and as his only heir she will be expected to take over his kingdom."

Raneem looked past her king and into the distance, staring at the lush green surroundings. After escaping Castle Town, Ganondorf had led Raneem through the winding roads of Hyrule Field and to a secluded look-out post, situated to the east of the grand castle the Gerudos had just escaped from. Hyrule definitely looked different from Gerudo Valley… just thinking about home made Raneem's head swim. She closed her eyes for a moment and tried to concentrate on Ganondorf's deep voice as he began to speak.

"We're going back to the desert. We did what we needed to do in Hyrule; the king has been killed and the little Princess Zelda has no idea how to run a kingdom. It is only a matter of time before this wretched land and all its people are consumed by darkness."

Raneem frowned. "What do you mean? You left your dagger in their king's throat – you declared war on their people! You're going to leave it up to 'darkness' to finish the job?"

Ganondorf sneered. Raneem knew that under any other circumstance, had she talked to him with such aggression, she would have been sent out into the desert wastelands to die with nothing but her fresh whip-wounds on her back.

The Gerudo King glared down at the small girl. "I don't expect you to feel the shift in fate's pathway." His right hand shot out, and Raneem flinched, waiting for the blow of his backhand. But the pain didn't come. Hesitantly, she opened her eyes.

Ganondorf's fist was clenched in front of her face, but he was not intending to strike her. Instead, he removed his leather gloves so the back of his hand was revealed. The shape of a Triforce gleamed in the early morning's twilight, and Raneem recognised it immediately. Ganondorf had been blessed by Din; he bore the Triforce of Power, and all the power that it granted its wielder. Although King Ganondorf knew Gerudo magic, a lot of his spells and magic stemmed from the power of his Triforce piece. Raneem bowed to the man, not because he was her king and she was his people, but because he bore the gift of the Gods.

"The power that I wield is mightier than Hyrule, and the child-princess who will soon rule this nation has no defence for what is coming for her and her people." His golden eyes burned into Raneem and she had to look away. "Darkness is coming to Hyrule. And you, desert girl, are inextricably linked to its destructive path." He grinned widely, his Triforce piece glowing brighter than before. "We both are."

The Gerudo Desert welcomed its people with searing heat and not a breath of wind. Raneem inhaled deeply, her eyes slipping shut. Thoughts of her sisters came easily, here in this place, and the last Gerudo girl had to blink back tears as she fought with her memories.

Ganondorf's magic had transported them to a hidden oasis, known only to the Gerudo. It was far away from where the fortress had once stood, but Raneem longed for those halls again. She knew they were gone, though, torn down by Hylian catapults and burned to ashes.

She was alone for now. Deep in the oasis, hidden from view, she let her tears fall. They came and came, dampening the material of her collar. She sobbed, then choked back the sound and cried even harder, her head shaking as she fought to restrain herself from screaming. Her nails dug into her palm and drew blood but even that was not even to pull her from her grief.

An hour later Raneem had no more tears to cry, and just as well because Ganondorf had returned with his kill. She moved further into the oasis and drank deeply from the waterhole. When she was finished, she feasted on the thigh of a boar Ganondorf passed her. The desert had an abundance of food if you knew where to look. For anything else, there were always stray boar wandering around, left here when the Hylians had built the cursed Arbiter's Grounds. It was said there was a chamber on its top floor, with a mirror that could take you to another dimension, the Twilight Realm.

It was through this mirror that the Hylians had banished criminals they were too weak to handle themselves, and the Gerudo people had always hated that the Hylians had built this waste bin in the middle of their desert. It was eons ago when Arbiter's Grounds was being built, and Hylians had walked through the desert as if it was theirs. It was during a period of time where no male Gerudo had ruled as king, as the birth of a male only occurred once every hundred years. By tradition, his name was to be Ganondorf and he was to rule the Gerudo. If Arbiter's Grounds had been erected while Ganondorf was acting king, she knew things would have happened differently. But, alas, he had no power at the time, and neither did she, for the two of them had yet to be born.

And so the foreboding grounds stood to the north of the desert, and since the Hylian Army's attack it was one of the last remaining buildings in the desert. The Fortress had been completely ruined, the walls and roofs collapsed and the treasures within lost. All it was now was a graveyard, and Ganondorf told Raneem the Hylians would clean up what was left in no time. "It will be as if we never existed," he had told her.

And she believed him.