"I'm so glad you asked, Lady Gerrell," Zelda said in a voice so sweet it made her teeth ache, tapping a knuckle against the chalkboard. "As you can see, after the high costs necessitated by the first two months of recovery, the guard has ended this month under budget."

The Minister of Agriculture smiled back with equal artificiality. Zelda had just finished outlining the guard's progress in the three months since her coronation; of course, everyone was a critic. Even she felt it was too good to be true sometimes, but Hyrule finally had the beginnings of a functional fighting force.

One to protect the kingdom? her father asked at the back of her mind. Or one to conspire against its queen and drag her from the throne?

Zelda was operating on even less sleep and more coffee than usual. Auru kept urging her to delegate more tasks to her extensive staff, but trusting them with anything more important than paperwork did not come easily.

"And what of the missing children?" Lord Cregan wondered, seizing eagerly on what he thought was her weakest point. "When will you deploy these new forces to search for them?"

"Actually," Zelda replied, returning to her seat at the head of the table, "I traveled to Gerudo Desert for that purpose just last week. I have another lead, which I will be pursuing personally—hence why I postponed our next meeting."

"Personally?" he blustered. "Is leaving the castle wise, given the assassination attempts?"

"Thank you for your concern, but as a sorceress I can learn things others cannot—and as queen, I have no higher duty."

Zelda lingered after the meeting adjourned, pretending to review her notes as the members of her Council murmured amongst themselves and filtered out of the chamber. Auru remained, shooting her aggrieved looks. The last to leave was Lord Hartwell, who winked and murmured, "Masterfully done, as ever, Lady Queen," before he swept out of the room.

"He flirts a lot for a married man," Auru complained after the door closed.

"He also smiles a lot for someone who lost his prized horses, and all the Rupees they would have earned him," Zelda mused. Lord Hartwell had remained mysteriously quiet about the Bear's robbery; she only knew thanks to Link.

"He was right about one thing," Auru allowed. "That was smart. Whether you return with news of the children or not, you'll have put yourself in danger to search. They can't claim you don't care. But…is chasing this shadow worth the risk?"

Zelda recalled the desert ritual chamber where Link had killed the shadow beast a few days ago. The place had reeked Zant's and Ganondorf's magic, combined in a miserable chain that bound the captured scouts and the missing children and the shadow crystals all together—but she had kept that to herself, because she still didn't understand the nature of the connection. That was why she hoped the Hidden Village would contain evidence of the enemy's work there, or that the old woman who had saved Ilia's life would know something useful.

"It's worth the risk," she answered.

Auru sighed. "Well, I'll do my best to ward off any coups while you're gone."

Zelda smiled grimly. He wouldn't make that joke if he knew what had happened to her father, but that was a story she could never tell.

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Of course, leaving the castle was a risk, one she could mitigate. As she had for the desert trip, Zelda dressed in breeches and a leather jerkin under her dark Sheikah cloak, pulled her hair into a simple braid, and slipped unnoticed into the tunnels that channeled water from the Zora River to her people's wells. She had done this many times during her father's reign, setting off into the city to watch and listen and learn, or to attend meetings that belonged in the shadows.

Telma and Auru were staying behind; every other member of the Resistance met her outside town. Privately, Zelda wished she and Link could make the journey alone so they could speak freely—but Ilia had suffered during the Twilight, and Rusl, Ashei, and Shad had done so much for Hyrule's recovery. They all deserved answers.

Winter was breathing down Hyrule's neck. They rode out into a dreary grey morning, cold enough that Zelda caught Peppermint's warmth before escaped into the air and redirected it towards her fingers and toes. The journey took them east, then north across the Bridge of Eldin, and in less than an hour Link was leading them to their destination.

Ilia ran ahead, eager to see Impaz. While others tethered the horses, Zelda lingered under the rusty sign that named this place Old Kakariko. Her history books described this place as a bustling hub in centuries past; only a single lane of ramshackle houses remained. The village's only inhabitants were a small army of cats: lazing in the sun, jumping from one balcony to another, playing under the remains of a Bulbin watchtower.

"What do you think we'll find here?" Link asked her quietly.

"Nothing good," Zelda admitted, bending down to pet a calico that brushed against her legs.

"I'd take any answers, grim or no," Rusl sighed. "For the sake of those children's parents."

"Well, aren't you three dour today?" Shad said. "For my part, I hope to hear all about the sky beings, and the rod of the heavens, and—"

"Don't start," Ashei groused, propelling him forward.

Ilia waited beside a tiny, wizened woman, who watched their approach in front of a squat, rundown house at the end of the lane. More cats milled around them. Link nodded a greeting. Zelda began to introduce herself, but something in the old woman's eyes stopped her.

"I know who you are, Lady Queen," Impaz breathed, pressing her hands to her heart. "You look just like her."

"My mother?"

"Oh, I'm sure you resemble her too. But I meant your grandmother—my dear friend." Impaz wiped tears from her crimson eyes and smiled. "You're even wearing the cloak I gave her."

"You mean—" Zelda gripped the folds of her black cloak, which was emblazoned with the Sheikah's teardrop eye crest across the back. "You were my grandmother's bodyguard."

"Yes. For most of my life. But tragedy made me the last member of my clan, and your grandmother had a peaceful court, a husband, and three grown children to protect her…so I returned here, to fulfill my destiny." She reached up to squeeze Ilia's hand, which rested on her shoulder, and to nod at Link. "But I was very sorry to hear of your losses, Lady Queen."

Zelda swallowed hard. People gave her their sympathy all the time, but this was someone who had known her grandmother as a human being, not as the stern, austere Half-Century Queen. Someone who had known her mother, uncle, and aunt when they were children. Long before Zelda's birth, Impaz had vanished from court as only a Sheikah could—and now they were both the last of their kind.

"My family was grateful for your service," she said evenly. "As I am grateful that you were here to help Ilia and share your knowledge with Link. It helped Hyrule more than you know."

Link nodded his agreement distractedly, less interested in the conversation than in the cat he was petting. Shad's eyes took on a hungry glow at the mention of Sky Writing, but Ashei silenced him with a glare before he could drag them off-track.

"Ilia told me why you came," Impaz said. "I'm afraid I can't be of much help. The only time those beasts showed interest in me was when they ordered me to heal her. I never understood what they wanted here."

"There is more to this place than meets the eye, is there not?" Zelda asked, goosebumps prickling her skin as a frigid wind swept through the rusted, empty structures.

With a grave nod, Impaz led them behind her house, to the convergence of the two rock walls that sheltered the village. Trees ringed the top of the gully and dug their roots into the crag, weaving together with dried vines and yellowing vegetation that obscured the gap in the wall until Impaz swept aside a curtain of dying bracken.

Zelda passed under the opening and into a place of ancient quiet. Wind-bent trees stood sentinel around the small clearing, watching over the mossy graves that slouched into the old earth, their inscriptions faded by weather and time. The air hung thick with slow-drifting mist. Zelda crunched through the dead grass along the rows of her ancestors and Impaz's, buried underneath the weight of their shared, bloody history.

"I suppose I don't have to explain it to you, Lady Queen," Impaz said. "This village was the hiding place for my people's greatest shame, as much as it was their home. That drove most of them away in the end—too many ghosts, and not enough arable land. My family were among the few who remained. They are buried here."

Only she and Link had followed Zelda to the largest headstone, which lay at the rear of the graveyard. Above their heads stretched a short cliffside, where a half-collapsed fence guarded the entrance of a cave.

"The Sheikah were following royal orders when they tortured Hyrule's enemies," Zelda pointed out, gazing up into that dark opening. "And then my ancestors covered it up, rather than confront it."

"Such is the legacy we inherited," Impaz agreed. "But the blame rests with those that sleep here, not with us. Remember that." She patted Zelda's arm in a maternal fashion—a liberty that no one at court would take with the queen—and shuffled away.

Link remained, gazing up at the cliffside cave with an odd look on his face. "What's up there?"

"A place of great power," Zelda replied. "No wonder Zant operated here…at Ganondorf's suggestion, no doubt. The village is isolated and easily defensible—except against you—and any sorcerer would feel stronger here."

Their friends wouldn't be able to follow them up there. Persuading the empty air to hold her for just a moment, Zelda cast herself a staircase made of light, while Link's Clawshots brought him up to the ruined fence.

The mouth of the cave led them down into a small room ringed with torches. Zelda kindled a few of them with a wave of her hand, shedding light on a tall black door emblazoned with the Sheikah sigil.

"Are we going inside?" Link asked anxiously, and she found herself thinking of a different wielder of the Master Sword, a boy with a fairy who had walked through time to prevent a horrible future. Forgotten by the world he'd saved, he'd entrusted bits and pieces of his story to the queen of Hyrule.

Zelda recalled an entry of the journey her family had passed down from monarch to heir for centuries, one that had always filled her with inexplicable sorrow: He told me he followed future-Impa into the Shadow Temple, buried under Kakariko's graveyard. A fitting place for ugly secrets. He couldn't tell me what it was like inside, but twice that night, he woke up screaming.

"We're not going inside," Zelda promised. "I can cast right here."

Heart thudding in dread, she opened her senses. Though the Hero of Time had slain the great evil that once dwelled here, the Shadow Temple remained a place of ancient power, restless ghosts, and uncorrected wrongs. So many layers to sift through. So many stories these bloodstained walls could tell.

But in the end, her job was simple—she needed only to seek the familiar sun-stained sear of Ganondorf's magic intertwined with the dark ink of Zant's.

Zelda's head was always ten steps ahead of her heart. She'd been expecting this truth since encountering the shadow beast in the desert, had been fleeing it ever since, but now it closed in like a pack of baying hounds. She was the one who had surrendered her kingdom to this fate. The one who would have to convey the unimaginable to the families of these lost children. The one who would have to tell Link.

He was picking something up from the dusty floor: a ragdoll, faded and much-loved, lying among bits of torn clothing and tiny little shoes. He looked at Zelda, his face bone-white, waiting as a convict waits for the axe to fall.

Zelda had promised Midna she would take care of him—but she would have done so without being asked. She had wanted to protect the blue-eyed wolf with the chained paw from the moment he loped into her prison tower, even before she received his kindness, learned his jagged edges, saw herself reflected in his gaze.

But the only way to shield Link from the truth would be to conceal it, and she'd made him a promise too: honesty, despite its cruel cost.

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Beneath the cloudy sky, Link watched as Zelda's magic carried her down like an evening star. He associated her most with the castle that was her home, stone-strong and undefeatable, armored in silks and jewels. Out here she was just as lovely and severe, her face flushed in the cold, her pale blue keen eyes on his face.

"We should speak alone," she said as the others wove towards them through the graveyard.

"They deserve to hear it, too," Link replied numbly, flexing the fingers of his sword hand.

"Link—"

But Impaz was there, coaxing them back to her house with the promise of a warm fire, and Link followed without question. It was time to stop running away.

Inside the cramped quarters, Impaz and Ilia made tea while everyone else found seats amidst a plethora of cats. Zelda turned a rickety chair into a throne; Link made sure Rusl took the other chair and located crates for Shad, Ashei, and himself.

"I must ask that nothing we say here leaves this room," Zelda said. "There will come a time to bring it all to light, but not yet."

Everyone nodded. Zelda scratched a tabby cat behind the ear, glanced at Link, and began.

"Here is what we are nearly certain of: Zant captured the scouts I dispatched to the desert. Half of them survived, including Captain Elias, who carries a shadow crystal that turns him into a beast. Zant created it with both his and Ganondorf's magic in pursuit of their shared goal—domination of our world. Hyrule was ripe for the taking, but expanding beyond our borders would have required a larger army."

"They took the castle with the help of those shadow beasts," Ashei remembered. "Couldn't they just bring more in from the Twilight Realm?"

"That was the problem," Zelda replied. "The beasts are not natural creatures—they were created with the shadow crystals themselves. Between what I sensed here and in the desert, I have no doubt."

"But magic cannot create life, only influence it," Impaz pointed out.

Link sat unmoving: a fist was squeezing the breath from his lungs. The kettle released a screeching whistle that made Ilia jump. He could feel the worry in her gaze as she brought him a cup of tea, but he didn't look at her, or at anyone.

"I am sorry to say that you've guessed it," Zelda continued. Her eyes were on Link too. "The first wave of shadow beasts that took the castle must have been Zant's own people, forced into that shape."

"Then the scouts," Rusl realized. "The scars Link described…"

"Yes. Light dwellers are far less susceptible to Twili magic—turning them must have been a challenge. What did we find in the desert? A corpse and a shadow beast unlike any other I encountered. Some of the scouts died. Some transformed. Others survived, damaged but human. I believe Zant was…experimenting. Creating more effective shadow crystals, different types for different purposes. The one Captain Elias somehow stole from Zant transforms him and clouds his thinking mind—both desirable outcomes for our enemies. Except he reverts to human after a short time and suffers physically, perhaps because his crystal is a flawed prototype."

"Whereas the final product," Link heard himself say, "worked perfectly."

A cat squeezed out through the flap cut into the bottom of the door, sending a brief chill into the house. Wind rattled the shutters. People sipped tea uncomfortably.

Link stared down at the white cup between his scarred hands. A chasm had opened inside him. He stood on its precipice as the shadows dragged him down, slowly and inexorably; he couldn't fight them anymore.

"I disagree," Zelda said, leaning forward as if they were the only two people in the room. "I think the last shadow crystal only accomplished half its goal. I think Zant and Ganondorf wanted to control you, to make you a weapon for their cause. In that they failed miserably, Link."

But that was no better. The others had all been choiceless and blameless. The shadow beasts, Darbus the Goron patriarch, Stallord the reanimated fossil, Yeta corrupted by the Mirror of Twilight—even Zelda, her skin sallow and her eyes demonic, aiming her blade at his skull.

Link hadn't become a puppet. He had become something worse.

"We came here looking for the missing children," Ilia murmured, sinking down on the bed beside Impaz, who took her hand gently.

Link reached for calm, for courage, for the quiet inner stillness that had kept him grounded through the worst moments of his life. He couldn't find anything. He was unraveling. He had never needed Midna more than he did in this moment.

His eyes flitted to Zelda. No one could call her the Iceheart Queen in this moment. She wasn't cold or distant or uncaring. She was heartbroken, and she was holding Link's gaze like keeping a drowning person above water. He pressed his palms hard against the hot sides of the teacup.

Don't say it, he wanted to beg, but she had no choice.

"As I said, transforming light dwellers would have been difficult," Zelda went on softly. "I compared the scouting unit's records against the names Link provided for those who follow the Bear. All of the older veterans survived the desert. But the unit was mostly comprised of younger recruits, and only three of them still live."

"How does this relate to the children?" Rusl demanded, his fear a cold blade to Link's skin.

"I believe Zant's experiments demonstrated that younger subjects were more vulnerable to the shadow crystals. That aligns with what I know of magic as well." Zelda closed her eyes briefly and opened them, still looking at Link. "Children were easiest to capture and the most likely to successfully transform."

Ilia put her face in her hands. Shad braced a hand on Ashei's shoulder, as if reminding himself that she was there.

Rusl rose, cats scattering across the as he paced to the door and back, running his hands through his blond hair. "No," he decided. "No one would do that."

"Zant would," Zelda said plainly. "Ganondorf would."

The air had vanished from Link's lungs. Blood in his fur, between his claws, coating his fangs, rolling down his throat. Midna's magic guiding his attacks. The screams of the enemy. The guileless faces of the Twili after they'd returned to themselves.

"How can we be sure?" Rusl asked desperately. "Isn't this all conjecture?"

"The Bulbins left the kids in Kakariko because they didn't want to risk me dying before we got here," Ilia mumbled through her fingers. "There was a reason. They didn't want to lose another soldier."

"Bulbins were never prone to kidnapping before the invasion," Shad reasoned grimly. "Why else would they target children? I know it's hard to hear, Rusl—"

"Hard to hear," Rusl repeated raggedly. "None of you are parents. Forgive me if I want better proof that dozens of children became those—those things! That my nine-year-old son almost—"

"Rusl," Link whispered, "Stop."

The only father he had ever known looked at him through a sheen of tears. Link had seen Rusl cry only twice—for joy, each time Uli announced she was with child. Link tried to cut that thought off, but it was already spiraling beyond his control.

Colin. Ilia. Talo, Malo, Beth. What if they hadn't gotten away? What if they had become like all the others he'd failed, captive and afraid and twisted into something unthinkable? Had the transformation wiped them away entirely, or had some part of them remained terrified children, lashing out at the monstrous wolf who wanted to hurt them?

And Link had hurt them. There had always been human pain in those screams. He'd heard it then, and he could hear it now, and—

There was a sound that made everyone in the room look at him. He lowered his eyes to see that the teacup had shattered in his grip, sending scalding liquid and bits of porcelain and blood from cuts he didn't feel raining down to the floor. Something rose inside Link, hot and cold all at once, something nameless and visceral and wretched.

Rusl sucked in a loud breath. Zelda produced a handkerchief, identical to the one Link had soiled in the desert after he killed…after he killed the…

"Link," Zelda breathed—just that.

He was three steps to the door when someone seized his elbow.

"I'm sorry," Rusl pleaded. "The queen is right. But it was Zant and Ganondorf, not you. It wasn't your f—"

"You wouldn't say that if Colin had been one of them," Link snarled, and then he wrenched his arm free and was gone.

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