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After the storm, Zelda saddled Peppermint in a washed-out world of blues and greys. It was cold enough that the ground and Castle Town's pipes might freeze tonight; she had to get home and ensure her people were prepared.

Impaz bid a warm goodbye to the others, but her face sobered at Zelda's approach. "Lady Queen," she greeted, glancing around with sharp practice to ensure no one was within earshot. "May I ask an unpleasant question?"

Zelda nodded.

"I loved your grandmother," Impaz said bluntly. "And the Goddesses rewarded her long life of service with a peaceful death, did they not?"

"Yes, she went in her sleep. We were all with her." She remembered her parents wrapped up in each other in the dim bedchamber, and Auru hugging her close—that was nearly ten years ago, and it was more a memory of sadness than sadness itself.

"That's what she would have wanted," Impaz decided. "Yet your mother was just over thirty when sudden illness took her. A common alleyway thug took down your uncle Adric, captain of the guard. Your aunt Elaine, an experience rider, fell from her horse…all within two years of each other. Tell me—was it truly tragedy, or is a reckoning in order?"

Zelda looked into the crimson eyes of the last living Sheikah and almost wished there was still an enemy to fight. Tucking her hands into her cloak, she said very quietly, "There were no accidents, Impaz. But there is no one left to blame."

"I see." Impaz was sharp and all-seeing, her brows hardened into an expression that reminded Zelda of her grandmother, but her hands were leathery and soft. "What a fearsome thing you are, Queen Zelda of Hyrule. They would all be very proud."

Zelda squeezed her hands and had to swallow several times before she could say, "Thank you."

Turning back to her horse, she caught Link's gaze from across the way. For some reason he gave her a small, sad smile, and it eased something inside her, even though she couldn't quite return the sentiment.

The Bridge of Eldin carried them over the foggy ribbon of the Zora River. Everything glowed with the soft majesty of sunset, and Zelda dragged in deep breaths of the breeze as it lifted her hair away from her neck. Across the bridge waited the wide-open field, gilded with drifting mist and golden light. There inside the gloaming, a feeling traveled up from the earth and through Peppermint's strong legs to reach Zelda's beating heart. It wasn't anything as straightforward as happiness or sorrow—but it was life, and it was Hyrule, and it was enough to keep her breathing for as long as she could.

Link had his fingers curled in Epona's mane and his face turned towards the western sky, the last rays of sun catching in the pale eyelashes fanned over his cheeks. Zelda wondered if he felt the same way she did: older than time and just as weary, yet still caught up in a child's breathless awe of the world.

But then the wind shifted, and Link's eyes flew open. He trotted Epona past the rest of the group to crest the nearest hill, gazing south now, and not until she reached his side did Zelda understand why: a plume of black smoke marred the orange sky.

"That's Kakariko," Link said grimly. "I'm going."

Ilia and Rusl started to protest on account of his bandaged hands, but Link was already holding himself differently, his body sharpened into a blade, his eyebrows raised as though asking how they proposed to stop him. Ashei volunteered to go, but Rusl said there were two Ordonian boys in Kakariko to whom he owed his protection, and Ashei retorted that he was and old man with a bad leg, and—

Zelda stepped in diplomatically. "Ashei should go with Link. The rest of us shall ride to Castle Town and send a guard unit as soon as possible—Rusl knows Kakariko and will lead them there."

Link gave her a long look, his tired eyes matching the deepening sky around him, his hair turned to bronze by the sunset. With a nod of gratitude, he and Epona plunged down the hill towards Kakariko, Ashei's dark mare following behind.

Zelda turned west with Rusl, Shad, and Ilia. Peppermint speared towards home, responding to her urgency with long, beautiful strides, strong and sure despite the muddy footing.

There was no time to take the safe route through the tunnels; she aimed straight for Castle Town's eastern bridge, broken and then repaired during the Twilight. To her relief, guards were stationed there, doing their jobs for once. There seemed to be an awful lot of them, in fact—half a dozen men for one bridge seemed—

Those aren't guards, Zelda realized.

The world exploded like a thunderstorm in miniature; her senses flooded with a crackling boom and a flood of blinding light. Peppermint reared in terror. Half-deaf and half-blind, Zelda could only control her fall as he tipped her from the saddle. Then came searing pain at her scalp as someone dragged her up by the hair and brought cold metal to her throat.

Her ears rang, and rang, and finally cleared enough to make out Rusl's indignant demand: "Who even uses Deku nuts anymore?!"

Someone had Zelda's arms pinned behind her. She couldn't see very well past the black spots swarming her vision, but she knew when someone loomed directly over her.

"Hello, Iceheart Queen," someone growled.

"Hello, Captain Elias," Zelda greeted, because she never forgot a voice. "What a lovely homecoming. Rusl? Shad? Ilia?"

"Still alive, Lady Queen," Shad muttered unhappily.

The point of the blade remained at Zelda's throat. Rope pulled tight around her wrists, binding them together. She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again, able to make out some blurry figures—one captor for each of her companions, plus two behind her and the Bear before her. Outnumbered six to four. The Triforce thrummed warm magic into her palms. She could try stunning the enemy, but that wouldn't guarantee her escape or her companions' safety in their disoriented state.

There was another option—even half-blind, she could steal breath and heat from a human body. Killing these people meant killing any chance of gaining their knowledge; it meant killing her heart—but Zelda could do it. She thought of Link touching her face in the garden and saying, You have strength for anything.

"You could fight," Captain Elias agreed, as though she'd spoken aloud. "I could transform and we could finish it right here. But there's something you should know first: we have the Hero."

Ilia gasped. Rusl cursed. But Zelda had already put two and two together, and she retorted icily, "So you hope. But do you really think your friends can take down the person who single-handedly saved us all?"

"With collateral, certainly," Elias replied calmly.

Zelda was an empty sky, a frozen lake. Link had people he cared about in Kakariko, people who could be used against him—but he would find a way to win no matter what. Her vision had finally cleared enough to let her view the scene: the Resistance facedown in the mud, and the Bear standing bricklike before her, his arms crossed irreverently.

"I shouldn't be surprised that losing your dog has little effect on you," he rasped. "But there's more: we have the sparrow and the fledgling."

This time, Zelda felt everything. She was ten, laughing with her mother in the garden. She was fourteen, coaxing the flowerbeds back to life with a yellow-haired girl at her side. She was fifteen and that same girl clutched the frame of her bedroom door, fresh tears rolling down her cheeks with each word: I'm disposable. You're the one who matters.

That girl was supposed to be gone forever—for her own sake, for Hyrule's, for Zelda's…

"Would you like proof?" Elias wondered, stepping closer to pull something from his pocket.

Zelda squinted ferociously until her blurry eyes brought a gold locket studded with sapphires into focus. She had last seen it clutched in the girl's hand as she fled the castle in the dead of night. Elias popped open the catch to reveal two intertwined locks of hair: one yellow as wheat, the other a sleek earthy color that matched Zelda's own.

"That's right," he sneered. "You'd better surrender, Iceheart Queen. It's what you do best."

She reached for her control—blank and unknowable and safe—but could not find it. The river had broken the banks to drown the world around it, and Zelda didn't recognize her own voice when she said, "Swear that my companions will walk free with no bloodshed."

The Resistance erupted in vehement protest, but as her vision cleared, she looked only at the Bear and he looked only at her. He was still gaunt and pale, but steely resolve had replaced the ragged anger she recalled from their first meeting.

"You have my word," he replied. "But you and I will get a head start before my friends let yours go."

He was telling the truth; that was the best Zelda could hope for. While the deserters gathered their horses—at least Peppermint had escaped—she looked at her companions. Shad, terrified and trembling; Ilia, vacant and far away. Rusl looked the steadiest by far.

"Tell Auru everything," Zelda said to him. "Tell him to find Link, and that I trust his judgement. Tell him that—"

When Bear pulled a hood over her face before she could finish, she was almost relieved—it saved her from saying goodbye.

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Kakariko stretched out below, small and windswept between the arms of the red-rock canyon. Link had last come here after the dragon Argorak left him viciously burned, though that wasn't the first time Renado had saved his life. Along with Telma's bar, this place had offered him sanctuary during the darkest hours of the Twilight.

The village didn't feel safe today. It felt like the breathless moment before a snare yanked fast around its prey.

The source of the smoke was a bonfire built among the ruins of Barnes's storage shed, which Link had inadvertently destroyed while hunting for shadow insects a lifetime ago. As he watched, a figure in dark leather tossed dead leaves and hay onto the pyre and skipped backwards as flames belched forth.

Link recognized those light-footed, flighty movements. Perfect for a hunter, and—in retrospect—for a scout. "That's Rai," he told Ashei. "One of the deserters who follows the Bear."

"Shit!" she hissed. "And they're trying to—what, signal someone? Is this a trap?"

"Probably," Link said grimly. "Maybe I should handle—"

"I'm not going anywhere," Ashei interrupted calmly. When he drew breath to argue, her chin went up with a stubbornness that explained why she and Ilia had become fast friends. "I don't care how much of a badass you are. I'm not looking the other way again."

"You never—"

"I did. We all did. We let you keep everything from us because you seemed so unstoppable. And—" she made a face, "—maybe because we were scared."

Link blinked at her, uncomprehending.

Ashei sighed. "The Resistance is on your side, yeah? That's all I'm saying. So tell me the plan."

"Okay," Link conceded reluctantly. "Well…we need to find the villagers. Rai will see us even if we try to sneak around. Maybe we just show ourselves and find out why they're here? They won't be happy to see me, but they don't kill without reason. I think."

"How comforting," Ashei grumbled, loosening her sword in its scabbard.

They picked their way down, past where the horses were tethered and towards the buildings. Link had never heard Kakariko so quiet. Under the Twilight it was all skittering insects and howling shadow beasts; after, it was filled with laughing children. He forced his hands to stay loose at his sides.

Rai spotted them as soon as they entered the thoroughfare. He picked up his spear but held his position, a silhouette against the darkening, smoke-filled sky, watching them approach the Elde Inn.

Saki waited under the rusted awning, hands propped on her hips, as casual as someone meeting a friend for a drink. Varn, the Captain's second-in-command, looked far less relaxed.

"Colin," Saki said with that knife-slash of a smile. "Or do you prefer Hero?"

"It's Link."

"That's what your friends in there called you," she said, jabbing a thumb at the inn. "Guess you were honest about one thing, at least—you really were a farmhand. Weird fucking kids, by the way. Did you know the rude little baby sends flyers all over Hyrule, advertising his store as the Hero's favorite place to shop?"

Ashei swore softly. Link was a bit slower on the uptake. "You mean—you came here looking for me?" he said, bewildered.

"Oh, yes," Saki laughed. "We had it on good authority you'd be passing by. Thanks for taking the bait. You even brought a friend!" She looked Ashei up and down in, arching her eyebrows so suggestively that Ashei flushed.

"Are you actually flirting with the people we're about to take captive?" Varn asked wearily.

"Who wouldn't?"

"Let's get to the point," Varn said with a long-suffering sigh. "Hero, you'll go with Saki. I'll take your friend to join the kids and the two men we've got inside. You remember Anya? She's already up there with them—if she hears a peep from us, she'll start cutting throats. I suggest you come along nice and quiet."

Link had spent enough time with these people to know they weren't cruel or wasteful, Rai and his temper notwithstanding. Would they really kill hostages—children, even—in exchange for Link's cooperation? Zelda would be able to see through this plan clear as day, but Link couldn't, and he wasn't going to jeopardize six lives on a hunch.

Trading helpless glances with Ashei, Link forced himself to comply while Varn stripped off his weapons, cloak, tunic, and chainmail, leaving him shivering in his undershirt while Saki did the same to Ashei.

"Don't," Link said sharply when Varn paused over the pouch he wore around his neck.

"What is it, Hero?" the man said impatiently. "Some lover's token?"

Link swallowed with difficulty, glancing at Ashei, ashamed that he'd kept this from the Resistance. But only the truth would convince the deserters. "It's a shadow crystal," he told Varn. "Like your Captain's. So don't touch it."

Varn recoiled as though the leather cord was a viper. "How the hell did you get that?"

"All the more reason to bind his hands," Saki urged.

Varn obeyed. When Link's hands were tied behind his back, Varn turned away for a split second, and Ashei jerked her chin at Link to get his attention. She mouthed out three words: Buy me time.

Did she have a way to get herself and the villagers out? If she succeeded, Link would only need to worry about himself. If she failed, she and the villagers could die. He owed Renado his life. He'd held Talo and Malo in his arms after they were born, taught them to swim, followed them into the Twilight.

But Ashei was a friend, and a skilled warrior in her own right and the closest thing the Resistance had to a leader now that Auru worked at the castle. Hours after learning that the shadow beasts had been human and Link had slaughtered them like livestock, she was still on his side.

He wouldn't throw that faith back in her face. He gave her a tiny nod, and she returned it, her coal-black eyes blazing with a conviction that made Link feel very lucky for his friends.

Saki brought him to the second floor of Barnes's bomb shop, tying him around the chest to the base of a wooden support column. Rai swung his narrow frame through the window while she worked.

Link had last seen him over two weeks ago, his arms around a bleeding Nil—like Saki and Varn, he'd somehow acquired fine leather armor and quality weapons: a steel-pointed spear he leaned against the wall, and a sheathed dagger he tapped restlessly against his thigh. But unlike the others, who looked healthier and better-fed, Rai remained stick-thin, and he regarded Link with unadulterated hatred. Link had expected anger, but this was different. No one had looked at him like that since Ganondorf breathed his last.

"Someone better be keeping watch," Saki said shortly.

"Varn's outside," Rai shot back irritably.

This brambling tension, too, was another surprise. These two had grown up alongside Nil in a Castle Town orphanage; like all childhood friends, no amount of bickering could prevent them from fitting together at the end of each day. But Saki barely spared a glance for Rai as she settled down on a crate, her lantern beside her, and addressed Link.

"For what it's worth, I wish this wasn't necessary," she confessed. "I don't like involving civilians, and we still owe you for taking down Zant. What was that like, by the way?"

She asked the question like they were chatting over tea. As if Zant hadn't dragged Link through the places that housed his worst memories; as if it hadn't been one of the most grueling fights of his life; as if it hadn't ended with Midna tearing apart the man who had taken everything from her. Shaking in Link's arms afterwards, she had whispered, I thought it would be easier.

It's never easy, he'd replied. It shouldn't be.

"He'd lost it by that point," Link answered. "He was just Ganondorf's tool."

"Ganondorf," Saki repeated like a curse. "I can't really wrap my head around the fact that Zant was serving someone worse."

"If you get how dangerous they were, you get that Hyrule stood no chance," Link tried. "That's why the queen surrendered. She's the only reason there was anything left to save. It's not fair to hate her for—"

"She's got you wrapped around her finger," Rai observed acidly.

Saki sighed. "You're not here to convert us, Hero. Just to answer questions. Here's one: how the hell did you get that shadow crystal?"

Goddesses above, Link hadn't even told Rusl or Uli or Ilia about this—but he needed to buy Ashei time. Swallowing hard, he said, "Zant used it on me. I transformed like your Captain. That's…that's why I lied to you, because it's dangerous magic. I had to figure out where you got it."

"And did you?" Saki wondered, her dark ponytail swinging behind her as she cocked her head in interest.

"Zant captured your scouting unit in the desert and tested the shadow crystals on you," Link said, shifted in feigned discomfort as he tested his ropes. "Half of you died or—or transformed. The rest survived. Captain Elias broke you out, didn't he?"

"More or less," Saki confirmed, touching her scarred throat. "The fortress caught fire while Zant was…at his experiments, with the Captain. That was enough of a distraction for the Captain to get us out."

A fire—the one King Bulbin had set after losing their fight. And then Link had charged blindly onwards to Arbiter's Grounds, desperate to reach the Mirror of Twilight, without ever knowing the scouts were there.

"Zant did what he did to you to perfect the shadow crystals," he said in a hollow voice. "He wanted to build his army efficiently, and—to remove me as a threat, I think."

"You're saying that we paid the price meant for you?" Rai asked flatly.

Link dropped his gaze, trying to remember everything Zelda had told him. "I don't think it worked out like he planned. But…yes. It was meant for me, and I'm sorry." He risked a glance at Rai, frozen and unreadable, and then looked at Saki's ashen face. "Zant and Ganondorf never created anything good. I think your Captain's crystal is even worse than mine—that's why it's hurting him. Killing him, maybe."

Rai flinched back into life. "That's a lie."

"It's not," Link pleaded, focusing on Saki, who was listening with frightened focus. "For his sake, if nothing else, you have to stop all this. I know you're good people."

Saki choked out a laugh. Her hands balled into fists, and Link braced himself for a blow, but she only snapped, "If I was ever a good person, Zant took that away from me. And your queen let him do it."

She whirled, clattering downstairs and out the door. Canyon wind rattled the windows in their tired frames; otherwise, the shop was silent. Night was settling over the world outside.

Link wondered if he'd bought Ashei enough time. She had to contend with Anya, one of the Captain's oldest comrades, and Varn was on guard somewhere. If Saki went to the inn now…he swallowed, straining against the ropes; the ones around his chest were beginning to loosen.

"This," Rai announced, "is a fucking joke. You just want the Captain to stop using the crystal. You're full of lies, aren't you, Hero? The person in the stories wouldn't bow to the Iceheart Queen. He wouldn't trick people. The others want to let you go, did you know that? You'll get showered in glory for the rest of your life, and no one will realize that you're nothing but a killer."

Link took a breath; his chest felt like it was full of broken glass. He thought of walking into Impaz's house and seeing only sympathy when he expected recrimination. He thought of the promise he'd made to Midna. He thought of Zelda, her fingers gentle against his pulse, her eyes sharp and uncompromising: Once you made your decision, you became an arrow that cannot miss, a blade that never breaks.

And for the first time, he spoke the truth aloud: "If I hadn't become a killer, Hyrule would be gone."

"What's Hyrule?" Rai sneered. "More lies. Years spent fighting for scraps just to get sent to your death by a spoiled brat in an ivory tower. But at least I had my friends. I had Nil, until you took him from me."

The words were icy as a Snowpeak gale, exceptionally clear in Rai's hateful voice, but Link did not comprehend them. Nil had caught him by surprise at River's Edge, and he'd defended himself—but no way in hell had he dealt a fatal blow. He distinctly remembered pulling back.

"The wound festered," Rai spat, looming over Link, tears spilling from his molten eyes. "He died in blood and filth, taking hemlock just to end it, after everything we survived. And you get to walk away from that?!"

Link stared at him, speechless, numb. Nil chuckling at Saki's campfire stories. Nil taking on extra chores for his older and sicker comrades. Nil holding Rai through his panic at the nobleman's estate. He was dead because Link had defaulted to violence, like he always did; it was the reason he'd been born.

But he attacked first, whispered a voice that sounded like Midna. You just reacted. That mattered, didn't it? And it mattered that Nil would've survived that wound with proper medical care, something the deserters had given up by becoming enemies of Hyrule.

Link wanted so badly to believe those truths, as much as he wanted to believe everything Zelda and Rusl had told him today. He wanted it more than anything besides a way back the Twilight Realm, and that was just a dream—lovely under the stars, impossible in the light of the day.

Forgiveness was possible. Link wasn't entirely convinced he was worthy of it. But when he saw the knife in Rai's hand, he knew he wanted to live long enough to find out.

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