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Zelda tried to snatch a bit of sleep along with her exhausted companions, but found herself too agitated. She leaned against the cave wall and kept the fires going while everyone else rested for an hour.

Her mind was on the castle—she hadn't spent the night away from it in many years. Right now everyone would be breaking for lunch, which had become Zelda's favorite part of the day since the end of the Twilight; she liked to see her people lay down their duties and come together to fill the halls with laughter.

Then again, the castle would be anything but peaceful if word of her abduction had gotten out. Hopefully Auru had been able to keep it quiet—he'd certainly succeeded in regards to Sparrow. She reread the crinkled letter in her lap for the dozenth time.

Lady Queen,

I wanted to come after you myself, but someone must keep your court in check. And the truth is that I have nothing to worry about. Your enemies have underestimated you as they always do. I know victory is yours; I know you will come home safely. I only want to tell you how proud you make me every day, and how proud your mother would be if she saw you now.

All my love,

Auru

The letter was precious and terrifying. Would there ever be a time where love didn't terrify Zelda? What was love worth, anyway? She thought of the day her mother had returned from the border skirmishes, exhausted and heartsick even as Castle Town celebrated around her, and how her father had pushed through the pomp and ceremony to embrace his wife. She thought of her uncle and aunt holding hands as they followed their sister's coffin through the grey streets. She thought of the Mirror of Twilight shattering into dust.

Would there ever be a love that didn't break?

Link, who was curled up nearby, stirred restlessly. His brow furrowed over pale, fluttering eyelashes, proving that the injury hurt worse than he would admit in his waking hours. Zelda didn't know what was stronger: her awe of his fortitude or her horror towards the circumstances that had made it necessary.

He looked very young in his sleep, but he was a thousand years old, just like her. And Zelda thought, What if I told him? What if he knew the truth?

The truth was that poison had killed her mother and broken her father, and nothing had gone right after that, not a single thing. Love had always counterbalanced the king's ambition, and he'd tried to hold onto it even after losing his wife, even after the Council thrust the regency into his hands until his thirteen-year-old daughter came of age. Zelda would swear until her death that he had tried. She'd seen it. She'd also seen his damaged body and addled mind dragging him into a hideous place inside himself, and she hadn't acted.

It's all for your sake, he would say each time Zelda questioned him for dismissing advisors who disagreed with him or striking servants for no reason at all. So that you might inherit a safe throne someday, instead of this viper's nest. So that I can avenge your mother.

Zelda had known he was lying, but she had still valued safety and honor over power. Even after her father exiled Auru for trying to mandate his eventual abdication, she kept playing the dutiful daughter, leaving the dissent to her Uncle Adric and Aunt Elaine.

But that hadn't lasted. A year and a half into his reign, the king ordered the guard to start arresting debtors and petty thieves in some attempt to establish a prison labor system that would fill the royal coffers. Adric, prince and commander, threw the orders into a throne room brazier and eviscerated the king in such scorching tones that Zelda had been equal parts proud and afraid.

Days later, Adric's body was found riddled with stab wounds in a Castle Town alleyway. A terrible tragedy, Zelda's father had told her, his face so full of false sorrow that it was insulting.

People flocked from the castle like birds fleeing a storm. Nobles returned to their estates; guards who disliked doing the king's dirty work became sellswords; bureaucrats sought other occupations. Elaine—a sweet, quiet scholar who preferred books and ancient ruins to politics—had been too devastated by her losses to be much help. The best Zelda could do was persuade those who departed to keep quiet about her father's state, for the sake of national security.

And then came the day when her father summoned her with the news that he'd finally found her mother's killers: two southern ambassadors. They hadn't even been following orders, just trying to curry favor with their king by eliminating the woman who had defeated him in the border skirmishes years before. Zelda's father would hear nothing of a trial or witnesses. He'd already built the pyre and paid off the guards—all he asked was that she spell the throne room keep the execution silent.

Inside, we will have our justice, he had said, green eyes glowing with a feverish light. Outside, no one will hear a thing. Can you promise that, my Zelda?

No one will hear a thing, she'd echoed obediently, because she had no choice, because those people had killed her mother, because a foolish part of her had hoped revenge would make her father better.

But he'd only gotten worse, and after weeks of waking up with those screams ringing in her ears, Zelda had begun to resist.

Three types of people still remained at the castle: those who relied on it for employment, those who saw profit in the king's madness, and the rare breed who cared what happened to Hyrule. Zelda made herself known to them all. She kept the castle staff out of the king's sight as much as possible, though she'd failed Sparrow in that regard. She tried to combat the corruption festering throughout his administration; she tried to negotiate with the Council for Hyrule's stability.

Young, desperate, and still somehow naïve, Zelda hadn't considered that some people might prefer winning a king's favor to helping a powerless princess. But the first time someone had leaked information to her father, he just looked at her with eyes like slick oil and said, They're lying. I'm on your side, and you're on mine. Aren't you, darling?

He'd stopped saying her name by then. Perhaps it reminded him too much of the wife he'd lost, and the ghost he'd become.

Zelda had reassured him, but somewhere in his pit of denial, he must have recognized the truth. For the third time a so-called ally sold her out to the king, her Aunt Elaine fell from her horse and cracked her skull in Hyrule Field.

There had been no point in confronting her father. Elaine had been no threat to anyone, but he still believed he was acting on Zelda's behalf by smothering her defiance and eliminating the one person who rivaled her claim to the throne. She recalled leaning her forehead against her bedroom window after her aunt's funeral, watching snow fall over Hyrule, letting the cold seep into her skin, into her marrow, until it was all she felt.

In that moment, Zelda had decided her betrayal.

She was jolted back to the present by the squad leader rousing his sleeping subordinates; their hour of rest was up. Link sat up, one hand going to his sword, the other to his injured side. He blinked away the sleep and looked at Zelda.

Something in her face made him ask, "You okay? We'll find the kid and your friend. Don't worry."

She wasn't my friend, Zelda thought wearily. Just a gardener who helped me coax the flowerbeds back to life. She supposed that was why Sparrow had caught her father's eye, because her mother had loved those gardens, and because there was a hint of a resemblance—the blond hair, the easy smile. And Sparrow had been willing to fall for his promises, or as willing as a commoner could ever be before a king.

But she'd understood what kind of life awaited a royal bastard and its mother. All she'd asked was that Zelda look after her family in Castle Town, for she would have to disappear before the king learned she was pregnant and decided he wanted another heir. He had reacted to Sparrow's departure like a sullen child whose plaything had been confiscated, but he'd never suspected Zelda's involvement—despite his loathing for everything and everyone else, he had believed in his daughter, right up until the brutal end.

Zelda stood without answering Link's question, stepping out into the sunlight and going to Peppermint, who had somehow allowed the guards to bring him along. He was dozing with one leg propped up and twitched an ear in her direction when she put a hand on his warm neck.

"I should never have promised you honesty," she told Link, because of course he'd followed her. "I barely know what it means."

"I trusted you the moment I saw you," he said to her back. "You've never made me regret it. That's all I need to know."

"You have no idea what I've done," she whispered.

"Zelda, sweetheart—look at me. There's no shame between us, not after what you've given me."

"What have I given you?" she demanded with a bitter laugh. "A kingdom so broken that you have to save it over and over, no matter what it costs you?"

Link stood there for a long time, saying nothing as the birds trilled around them and the dead leaves rustled in the breeze. Zelda thought for a moment that he would leave and swallowed her desire to ask him to stay.

He stayed anyway, circling around to look her in the face, and he said firmly, "I was a wolf when we first met, but you looked at me like I was human and apologized for what had happened to me. The next time I saw you, you saved Midna's life. You saved mine too, when you summoned the Light Arrows. Do you remember how you smiled at me? It was so small and sad and sweet, and…and later, when Ganondorf was killing me, when I wanted to let him kill me—you looked at me the same way again. I knew your heart was broken just like mine, but you still had so much hope. That's what you gave me."

Zelda remembered that last moment too—would remember it until she died, after she died. Link had been covered in blood, shaking where he stood, and still rising to his feet with that valiant, unbreakable resolve. But he was saying that he'd gotten back up because of her. That he'd stayed standing because she'd stayed standing.

He lifted her chin until she looked at him. And there was such a gentleness in his eyes, like the misty light that seeped through Zelda's curtains when rain washed the kingdom clean, and everything was silver and shimmering and so lovely that she wanted to take it in her arms and guard it from harm.

"Tell me what you're thinking when you look at me like that," she said in a trembling voice, gripping his wrist, needing confirmation that he was real.

Link's hands, scarred and gentle, came up to cradle hers. Without breaking her gaze, he pressed his lips to her knuckles and answered softly, "I'm thinking that I don't want to say goodbye."

A shudder went through Zelda's body, but she felt strong, and certain, and real. "Then let us go secure our future," she said, and he nodded.

And it wouldn't look like the past. Midna had sacrificed everything to give both their worlds a chance to heal and grow. Zelda wouldn't let these petty thieves snatch it away. She wouldn't fail Sparrow or her daughter again.

Not one more girl turned into a puppet, she promised the blue sky as she mounted her horse. Not one more crow feasting upon my kingdom. It ends today.

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The Hartwell estate could have been mistaken for part of the forest around it. Three stories of grey brick were barely visible under their curtain of morning glories: thick vines, dense emerald leaves, lovely blue flowers turning their faces up to the sun—one of the only species that could bloom into early winter, Sparrow had told Zelda once.

An old noble family had once summered on these lands, but they hadn't survived her father; he'd granted the estate to Lord Hartwell instead. What a perfect place to hide the king's former mistress and bastard child.

"Ashei's back," Link said.

Zelda exhaled a long cloud into the cold afternoon and brought her mind to task. She was crouched with Link, Rusl, and her guards along the treeline, facing the estate's front entrance and its shimmering image in the reflecting pool. From here, they could spot the guard unit Auru had dispatched to retrieve Sparrow gathered behind a row of hedges—but no sign of Sparrow herself, or the child.

Zelda's party couldn't approach without getting spotted by whoever manned the estate, so Ashei had gone to see if the other guard unit had a lookout stationed somewhere in the woods. She was returning through the trees now, grim-faced.

"The guards got here at daybreak," she said. "The estate's full of Lord Hartwell's mercenaries, but one of our guys caught Sparrow and the kid on their way to the outhouse. Only…Sparrow wouldn't go with them."

"Why not?" Zelda asked.

Ashei shrugged. "None of them worked at the castle at the same time she did. For all she knows, they could be frauds trying to steal her daughter. She didn't seem to have any idea of what's going on."

Zelda had known a gardener with sunny smiles and earth under her fingernails. It seemed Sparrow's naivete had given way to wariness in the three years since she'd left the castle.

"Lord Hartwell and the deserters came back a couple hours ago," Ashei continued. "The Bear noticed our guards, but didn't attack—his people are in rough shape—and Lord Hartwell threatened to harm the hostages if our people did anything. So it's a stalemate, Lady Queen. The enemy's got both entrances barricaded. Our numbers are about even, but no one on either side can move."

"We could starve them out in a few weeks," Rusl pointed out. "Or we could just send for reinforcements and overpower them. They must know this is hopeless."

Zelda recalled Saki in the cellar last night, urging her Captain to bring their people across the border and or else face captivity again. He should have listened to her. This felt less like victory and more like killing a trapped animal.

"I think they do know," Link said quietly. "They're just desperate."

"And that makes them dangerous," Zelda agreed. "I will go in and persuade Sparrow to leave." Her guards erupted in protest; she silenced them with a hand. "She'll listen to me."

"I'll go with you." Link pointed to a third-story balcony on the side of the estate, guarded by a lone archer. "You have your magic; I have my Clawshots. We get in and out without risking the first floor."

Knowing it would be pointless to argue on account of his injury, Zelda continued. "Once we've taken their leverage away, we can attack. Do you agree, Squad Leader?"

"Yes," the young man replied. "But, Lady Queen…"

"We'll regroup with the other unit as soon as the hostages are safe. If I do not return, take your orders from them—but I intend to return."

She and Link had ridden against their age-old nemesis in perfect tandem; this day held no fear for either of them. Rising to her feet, she surveyed her nervous guards, finding a hint of pride in their faces as they gazed back. They came for me, she remembered, and it was a feeling warmer than magic.

Zelda followed Link's winding path around the estate, using the foliage as cover until they had a better view of the balcony—a spot of grey among the morning glories. "That's Anya," Link said warily, gesturing towards the archer posted there. "One of the deserters. She's deadeye with a bow. We can't let her see us."

"I can handle that part," Zelda assured him. "She'll think the sun has gotten in her eyes for a moment, and by the time her vision clears…"

Nodding, he equipped his Clawshots. Zelda flashed a searing light at just the right angle, watching Anya wince and rub her eyes. Link had already disappeared—no, there he was, hurtling up two stories at nauseating speed. He caught the balustrade one-handed and vaulted over it lithely. In the next heartbeat he was tackling Anya before she even registered his presence, and they both disappeared from Zelda's view.

Her magic carried her up to the balcony, as it had brought her to the Shadow Temple yesterday. Link was kneeling beside the deserter woman, checking her pulse; her temple shone with a red welt the size of a sword pommel. "She's alive," he said blankly.

She offered her hand and pulled him up. The double doors of latticed glass gazed into a long stretch. Zelda kept watch while Link carried the unconscious woman into the nearest bedroom, depositing her in an empty closet that Zelda sealed and silenced with magic.

Link flowed back into the hallway so silently that she felt like a stampeding bull in comparison. Behind them, the two ends of the horseshoe-shaped hallway converged into a staircase; Zelda could hear voices coming from the ground floor, but she and Link were going the opposite way. They were hoping that the hostage would be at the center of the third floor, where they'd be easiest to defend.

That theory proved correct when Link peered around the next corner and turned back to her to whisper, "Two mercs, guarding a door."

Gritting her teeth, Zelda rounded the corner to do her part.

The men clawed at their throats as she stole the breath from their lungs, leaving them with barely enough to stay conscious. Link pinned one of them to the door, digging around in the man's pockets until he found a key.

They all tumbled inside, where Zelda released the spell. Wheezing and disoriented, Lord Hartwell's mercenaries barely put up a fight, especially not with Link's blade threatening their throats.

But the bedroom suite was otherwise empty. "Where are they?" Zelda hissed in the ear of the man she was restraining. His eyes just wheeled around in confused terror, and she grappled with a sudden urge to scream at him.

"Zelda," Link said gently. "Let's deal with this first."

The first man went into the washroom, which Zelda sealed behind him, but it was too cramped for two. In search of another de facto holding cell, she reached for another door, and Link's warning came a second too late.

Her back hit the floor, a blur of yellow and cream and flashing metal pinning her there; Zelda was halfway to casting a defensive spell when she heard a gasp. Link had crossed the room in a split second to seize the knife, but the woman holding it didn't even look at him. Her eyes were only on Zelda.

Sparrow looked older than their years apart could account for. She'd cut her blond curls so that they ended just at her chin, framing a narrow, freckled face that was well-loved by the sun. Her coffee-colored eyes were wide with disbelief.

The knife clattered to the floor. Link released Sparrow's wrist, allowing her to scramble up. Zelda sat up slowly, caught by the realization that she had no idea what to say to this person who had become a pawn because of her.

"You came for me?" Sparrow breathed.

"Yes," Zelda said.

Sparrow blinked several times in rapid succession. Link shifted, drawing her attention—and suddenly she was snatching up the knife again, guarding the closet doorway the way her namesake would guard a nest.

To Zelda's surprise, he reacted by sheathing his sword and showing his empty hands. "I'm not with the bandits," he said. "I never was."

"I sent Link undercover to learn about the Bear's Fangs," Zelda added, rising to her feet at his side. "It's thanks to him that I knew where to find you."

"You stopped that boy who attacked me," Sparrow recalled, watching Link warily. "And the houseguards said you prevented a fight later that night."

Link just shrugged. "None of it should've happened in the first place. I'm sorry."

Reluctantly, Sparrow lowered the knife and shifted her dark gaze to Zelda. "Will you tell me what the hell is going on?"

Zelda summarized the situation as briefly as possible. "We must stop Lord Hartwell and his allies," she finished. "I know he is your husband—"

"He's a lying snake," Sparrow said sourly. "I always knew that. But this—I didn't even believe your guards this morning. But then my husband brought thieves into our home, and put us under guard…" she sighed, tossing up her hands. "I'm as full of mistakes as ever, Lady Queen, but I would never wish you harm."

Only in her profound relief did Zelda realize how much she'd dreaded the possibility of this betrayal. The people who had double-crossed her in the past were acting out of self-interest, often to protect themselves or their loved ones; she'd never taken their actions personally. Losing Sparrow would be different. For all that Zelda had been unable to accept the other woman's unspoken offer of friendship, their quiet work together in the castle gardens had been a refuge from during the worst period of her life. She still took those memories out and warmed herself by them when things grew cold.

"Nor I you," Zelda said gratefully. "Which is why we must leave before we are discovered."

Sparrow stepped into the closet without another word. She returned with an oversized wool coat swallowing her thin frame, a scarf flung around her neck, and a child on her hip.

The girl was tiny and round-cheeked and innocent, but the sight of her struck Zelda like a physical blow. The solemn brow and stubborn chin. Eyes the color of soft moss. That glossy hair, curly like Sparrow's but rich brown instead of yellow. Zelda had inherited the same color from her—their—father.

"Her name is Melanie," Sparrow said.

Zelda felt Link's fingers brush her arm and realized she'd taken an unconscious step backwards. Frightened by a toddler, she thought ruefully.

"Melanie!" Link greeted with the widest grin Zelda had ever seen on his face. "I'm Link. It's nice to meet you. How old are you?"

The child held up three fingers.

"Excellent! This is Zelda. Would you like to play a game with us, a keep-quiet game? The loser is whoever makes noise first, so you're already winning!"

Melanie smiled back shyly. The corners of Sparrow's mouth were twitching as she waited for him to deposit the remaining mercenary in the closet and followed him out the door, Zelda bringing up the rear.

The estate had grown noticeably quiet. Link kept turning his head from side to side like a wolf scenting prey; Zelda felt hyperaware of each footstep, each rustle of her cloak. The balcony that was their escape was just ahead, spilling buttery sunlight across the floor. Thirty more steps, twenty more, ten—

Link whirled, one hand gesturing at them to retreat as the other reached for his sword.

"I wouldn't bother," called a rasping voice. "We've got the other end too. Send the girl and the kid over here."

"Sparrow," said another voice—Lord Hartwell, speaking so gently that Zelda barely recognized him. "Come on. You're safe."

"Go through the balcony doors when Link tells you," Zelda whispered to Sparrow, who stared back white-faced, clutching Melanie to her chest.

The Bear waited atop the stairs, backed by a throng of his deserters and Lord Hartwell's mercenaries. Those Link and Zelda had fought in the gully this morning sported dirty bandages and sleepless looks. Elias seemed worse than any of them, pale and unkept, his eyes circled with exhaustion.

"You should've known I'd hear you scuffling around up here, Hero," he said wearily. "I have the senses of a beast, just like you."

Link clenched his jaw and sent Zelda a silent look of apology.

Lord Hartwell peeled away from Elias's side. Melanie squirmed in Sparrow's arms, reaching for her stepfather. "That's right, little princess," he encouraged. "Sparrow—I know you're afraid. I know y—"

"You don't know me," she interrupted sharply, "and I don't know you. Wasn't that always the way of it?"

Lord Hartwell took another step forward. That was when Zelda's barrier blazed up from the floor, stopping him in his tracks.

Elias appraised her magic with a military eye. He'd been helpless against it twice now, but he also knew it didn't last indefinitely, and that she couldn't maintain it well while moving. Zelda searched the faces behind him. The mercenaries were in over their heads, but the deserters—they were dug in. They'd follow their Captain anywhere.

Zelda withdrew Elias's shadow crystal from her cloak pocket and tossed it to the floor at her feet, still inside the barrier. "That is what brought all of us here. The cruel designs of Zant and Ganondorf. The blood of their victims. Your blood," she emphasized, looking from Elias to Saki to the others she recognized. "Even now, I can feel this crystal waiting to tear you apart, Captain. Don't let it. We have the estate surrounded; you cannot win. But surrender here and I swear you and your people will be treated fairly. You will face your crimes, but you will not be a scapegoat for Lord Hartwell's."

Elias stared at the crystal and said nothing. The lord in question chuckled, sidling up to the barrier and shading his eyes as he peered at Sparrow through the bright light. "What makes you think the Iceheart Queen is trustworthy?" Hartwell asked her. "You told me once that the king was good to you. That you loved him, after a fashion. Do you think he died naturally?"

A cavernous hole unfolded at the center of Zelda's being. Despite the warm magic in her hands, she felt like she stood at the highest point of her castle, winter wind whipping around her. Link stepped to her side and said, "Zelda, take them and go."

Blinking, disoriented, she opened her mouth to protest but paused at the look in Link's eyes: clear, calm sky. They both knew he was the one who had to stay behind. Zelda was an heirless monarch; her life wasn't hers to lose, and she couldn't send Sparrow and Melanie off alone.

"Are you sure you want to die for her, Hero?" Lord Hartwell sneered. "You wouldn't look at her with your heart in your eyes if you understood her rise to power. The bribery. The blackmail. The threats. She forced the whole court into her pocket, one way or another, until we had no choice but to help her depose her father."

Sparrow drew in a sharp breath. Zelda's pulse came in huge, throbbing waves. The line between her and the magic barrier stretched taut. Trying to hold it steady, trying not to look at Link's face, Zelda reached to pick up the shadow crystal.

"And when that wasn't enough," Lord Hartwell said, "she took his very life."

All Zelda saw was grey stone and stark shadows. Each piercing gaze watching the spectacle: her father on his knees before her, laughing and laughing. You have the sword. Use it, girl! Use it! The steel in her hand, the cell, the rope, the sunbeam—

She lost the barrier, like dead flower petals slipping through her fingers.

Lord Hartwell kicked the shadow crystal, sending it skidding across the floor until Elias trapped it under his boot. Link moved; Lord Hartwell screamed.

"One more word and your throat is next," Link snarled. "Zelda, go! I'll see you later!"

Those last three words woke Zelda up, but only when Sparrow grabbed her arm did she remember how to work her body. At the balcony doors she looked back, shocked to find that the scene before her shimmered behind a veil of tears.

Lord Hartwell, crumpled to his knees and clutching his bleeding hand to his chest. Link, his strong back to her, sunlight catching his tawny hair, the sword a bright promise in his hand. The enemy closing in on his lone form.

All except for Captain Elias, who stayed where he was, meeting Zelda's eyes with stark and undeniable pity.

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