.
.
.
The ground was solid beneath Zelda's feet, but it felt like the tossing deck of a ship. Sparrow still clung to her—Zelda supposed her magic had brought them down from the balcony, but she didn't quite remember it. Ashei, Rusl, and her guards were coming to meet them.
"I didn't," she said in a shaking whisper. "I wouldn't. The rest was true, but I did not want him to die."
Sparrow hugged her suddenly, one-armed and awkward with Melanie squirming between them. "I believe you," she said fiercely.
Zelda squeezed her eyes shut, allowing herself—for a few heartbeats—to be held by the only living person who could understand her grief.
But Link needed her; there was little time for tears. She wiped them away and started issuing orders as soon as the others reached her. One of her guards ushered Sparrow and Melanie towards the safety of the woods; the rest assembled around Zelda.
"Be careful and be brave," she said simple, "and if those things fail, remember you'll all be promoted when we return home."
That brought on a round of chuckles, easing some of the tension in the air. There was strength here, she realized—in the proud tilt of their chins, in the warm glow of pride that seeped from her and into her as she stood in their midst. They came for me, she thought. If they die, that will be for me, too. And it would be her burden to carry, the way she carried the men Zant had killed in the throne room.
But this time, Zelda would not drop her sword.
.
.
.
Link waited for the enemy to come, but they froze in their tracks at the Captain's order, even the mercenaries—Lord Hartwell had crawled away to huddle against the wall.
"If he is fighting alone," Elias growled, "I will grant him the same." He ended the subsequent storm of protests with a razor-sharp look. "I've got my crystal back. Join the others at the barricades; the queen's about to break in. If this goes south—"
"No," Rai interrupted, flashing a dark look at Link as his companions murmured agreement. "We already had this conversation."
"Stubborn bastards," Elias grumbled.
"Where do you think we learned it?" Saki retorted with a flick of her black ponytail.
Elias laughed. Link had never heard him do that before—it was an unpleasant sound, harsh and grating, but a laugh all the same. "Go," he ordered, "and stay alive."
His allies parted around him and filtered down the stairs. Link shifted from foot to foot, sword in hand, still waiting. Elias stared down at the shadow crystal with equal parts hunger and revulsion.
"Damnit, boy," he said softly. "I never wanted to fight you. Why do you think we lured you to Kakariko? It wasn't just because you're a devil with a sword. We wanted you out of all this."
"You took kids as hostages, and I was supposed to sit by?" Link asked incredulously.
"No," Elias admitted ruefully. "You wouldn't be the Hero if you did that. Tell me—did Hartwell speak the truth? Did the queen kill her own father?"
"I don't know. I just know you're wrong about her."
"Maybe." Elias's eyes were dark pits, sunken into the pallor of his skin. "But it doesn't matter now, does it? She's still queen. I won't let her throw my people into a cage."
Pain flared up Link's wounded side, followed by a tired sadness. There was nothing left to say.
Elias plunged the shadow crystal into his arm and dropped to his knees, screaming amidst the shadows. When the darkness wisped away, his hulking form seemed to fill the entire hallway. Blood dripped from his open jaws and from the lines of cruel magic that snaked through his dark fur. His small eyes were half-mad with anguish and bestial instinct.
The Bear charged: teeth bared, paws drumming against the floor, a bristling mountain of malice. Link let him hurtle forward, lowering his stance and raising his shield. Like stopping a runaway goat, he told himself. Like wrestling a Goron. Like fighting Beast Ganon with Midna.
Except Midna was gone, and this was nothing like a goat, or even a Goron. This was a thousand pounds of murderous animal crashing into Link's shield, making his body explode with pain and his feet scrabble for purchase—but he held. He held, and then he thrust his sword up and into the Bear's shoulder.
Elias's thick hide prevented the blade from plunging in as deeply as it should have, though he still bellowed in response. He ripped himself away, then startled Link by lurching forward instead of back, his jaws parting to reveal two rows of deadly fangs that dripped blood: the last thing the shadow beasts must have seen before they died.
Link whirled away, using the moment to slash at one of the grooves that seeped orange magic. The Bear snarled in pain. How much more would it take to end this? One cut, two?
"I don't want to kill you," Link gasped, not meaning to say it aloud, unable to stop. "Elias—"
A crash sounded two floors below, followed by shouts. He caught a whiff of fire and smoke and spring: Zelda was destroying the barricades.
"Captain!" Saki yelled, and the Bear raised his head.
"Don't!" Link said. "You said you'd fight me, just me!"
But it was plain to see that the shadow crystal had chewed away at Elias until his thinking mind was barely there—in his animal mind, all he understood was that his people needed him.
So he wheeled around and charged in the opposite direction.
Zelda. He'd go for Zelda; she posed the greatest threat. Rusl, Ashei, and the guards were nothing more than collateral damage. Link stumbled after the Bear's wake of destruction, feeling the same cold fear as the day the Bulbins had taken Ilia and Colin, or the stormy night when he'd nearly lost Midna.
They met him on the half-wrecked stairs—two men, five men, more catching up to them. Link had no time for this. Numbers were irrelevant; they were only people, and he had defeated nightmares and behemoths and would-be gods. He didn't want to hurt them, he'd never wanted to hurt anyone, but he knew with perfect certainty that he wouldn't let a single person on his side die for the uncaring madness of others.
An arrow that cannot miss, Zelda had said. A blade that never breaks.
Link met his first enemy's eyes and raised the sword.
.
.
.
The first barricade surrendered easily to Zelda's fire. Surprised and distracted by the sound of Link and Elias fighting upstairs, the enemy reeled as her guards poured through the smoking entrance. Zelda—wrapped in searing heat that would scorch anyone who came near—charged through the estate alone.
Thanks to Link's previous visit here, she found the kitchen easily and burst inside, unleashing a blaze of blinding light at the second barricade. Someone grabbed her arm and screamed as she burned him; then Zelda was free to shoot out into the cold air, the enemy on her heels.
Her allies surged to meet them. She swelled with pride at the sight of her guards looking formidable in the royal colors, Ashei's dark sword flashing in the sun, Rusl sinking into a stance not unlike Link's.
The battle had barely begun when a dark shape filled the remains of the kitchen door and then exploded through it, taking half the wall down by sheer force. Zelda's guards scrambled to form a defensive circle around her, but she saw at once the Bear would trample through them. It would be the throne room all over again: the wreckage, the bodies, the shattering of the world she'd fought so hard to save.
She was moving, shouldering past her people as they tried to pull her back. Even without time for a true plan, Zelda knew what to do; she always did. Time slid past her slowly. She broke through the circle and looked at the approaching avalanche, the Triforce uncurling like an eagle spreading its wings.
A ghostly hand touched her shoulder. If she turned, she would see no one there, but she felt them all the same: her lionhearted mother, her austere grandmother, an endless line of straight-backed women crowned in gold. They had been with Zelda when she'd overthrown her father, when she'd dropped the sword at Zant's feet, when she'd saved Midna's life.
She stood her ground and summoned the Light Spirits.
They came like a falling star, rocketing through the core of her, twining through the Triforce and the magic of her bloodline to magnify them tenfold. Trying to contain the Spirits' presence was like holding back the sun. Their power filled her and flowed through her; she glowed with it, leaking stray magic into the air. The Bear must have been practically blind, but he didn't slow.
Under Zelda's feet was soil and dying grass, roots going deep into the earth, animals moving under and over it. Somewhere above her, Courage burned as bright as Wisdom; she stretched across the golden channel to feel Link's heartbeat. I'm here, she told him. Be safe.
His answer was the sword in his hand, the smell of blood, and a promise that he would see her later.
The Twili magic came when she needed it, the same way Midna had slipped into the tower prison to change Zelda's life forever. Two dying realms and a bloody history between them, yet they'd shared a heart and a purpose—of course they still carried a piece of each other.
Wrapping herself in the might of all three magics, Zelda reached for the pulsing malevolence of the shadow crystal.
The Bear skidded to a halt. For all that he'd driven her and her people to this point, she pitied him, because she was about to take all that he had left.
The crystal thrashed, a parasite refusing to unhook its claws. She could feel its creators breathing down her neck. Zant, usurping the throne she'd sacrificed everything to claim. Ganondorf, laughing as he crushed Midna's helmet between his fingers, wrapping his magic around Zelda's body to claim it as his own.
But he could never take her mind or her heart, for they were untouchable within the fortress she'd built to protect them. Zelda had always belonged to herself.
The shadow crystal wrenched free from Elias's skin. Darkness rushed away from his form and into the vessel; animal screams became human ones. He fell to the ground, crumpled, gasping. Zelda's head spun with exhaustion, but the crystal came first—it could not be allowed to cause any more pain.
As the terrible thing hovered between her hands, she focused her exhausted power. The shadow crystal shattered with an awful sound, almost like the scream of a living thing, and Zelda had cleansed her kingdom of one of the invasion's last remnants.
"Thank you," she whispered to the Light Spirits, feeling them accept her gratitude and drift home to their springs.
The world fell back into place—shouting, the crash of metal on metal, someone's arm around her shoulders. Zelda was surrounded by uniforms bearing her family's colors, and for the first time she could remember, they made her feel safe.
"Lady Queen? Can you hear me?"
Zelda looked up into Rusl's face. He was crouched on one knee, holding her up. "There you are," he said kindly, handing her a waterskin.
She drank deep, watching over her guards' shoulders as their comrades tussled with what remained of the enemy forces. "What happened to Captain Elias?"
"He slipped away during the chaos, but Link went after him," Rusl replied. "I don't know what you did, Lady Queen, but it may well have saved all of us. Oh—what's this?"
Zelda followed his gaze to the strange party emerging from the treeline. Lord Hartwell stumbled at the swordpoint of the Hyrulean guard who had gone to keep Sparrow and Melanie safe. Sparrow herself marched grimly behind them, Melanie toddling at her side. Zelda rose shakily to meet them.
Lord Hartwell tripped on a loose stone and went down in a flowerbed, snarling something to Sparrow about her damn garden and all the Rupees it had cost him. She rolled her eyes at the guard, who threw up his hands in aggravation.
"Lord Hartwell," Zelda greeted pleasantly. "It seems our positions have been reversed."
"He tried to sneak away," Sparrow explained. "Too bad he happened to pass by us."
"Ungrateful bitch," he sneered, still clutching his bloody hand to his chest, though it didn't look like Link had cut him all that deeply. "I saved you. I gave you a home."
"You did," Sparrow agreed quietly, kneeling down so that she could look him in the eyes, her expression complex. "I am grateful for that, no matter what you think. But don't expect me to thank you for making my daughter a pawn in your game."
Something like shame crossed her husband's face. As the guard lead him through the smoking hole in the estate's wall, Sparrow stared at the crushed flowers by her knees—but little Melanie watched until he disappeared.
"I'm sorry, love," Sparrow sighed. "He wasn't a good father. Nor was your true one." She smoothed the child's chestnut curls and glanced up at Zelda. "But we have someone better looking out for us."
.
.
.
The trail of blood led Link to the barn, where he'd once stolen Lord Hartwell's horses for the people who would later become his co-conspirators. Everything smelled like warm animals and hay and home. Horses paced restlessly in their stalls, nervous about the commotion inside and out.
The Bear waited at the end of the long stone aisle. He was leaned against the closed rear door, and his eyes found Link immediately. Saki and Rai—frantically tacking up horses in the stalls on either side of him—took no notice.
Elias was human, but his hunched, hostile form still brought to mind a wounded animal. There was too much blood for Link to identify the source; he had to respect that Elias was even standing, albeit leaning on the waraxe he rested on the floor.
The wound in Link's side protested every step forward. He'd fought like a wolf, but he'd spared every single person on that staircase. He had to keep reminding himself of that.
Saki saw him then and swore colorfully, bursting out of the stall with her dagger in hand. Rai followed, the point of his spear as sharp and deadly as the glare he directed at Link.
"You can have me," Elias rasped, watching through glazed eyes. "Just let them go."
"Nope!" Saki dismissed instantly. "Not happening!"
"There's one of him and three of us," Rai agreed, leveling his spear at Link. "And he killed Nil."
"Nil would want you to stay alive," Elias said evenly. "I was never going to make it. But he should have. Your freedom is the least of what I owe him."
"You know I can't let anyone go," Link said quietly, trying not to shiver at the pain that gnawed up his battered side. "I'm sorry. But I didn't start this. You should've gone to the queen after you escaped the desert. She would've explained. She would've helped you. You should have gone home."
Elias's eyes were black as pitch. "Have you tried to go home, Hero?"
The words went right through Link. His hand tightened around the sword; his mouth tasted of blood. He didn't reply or break the other man's gaze.
Zant's torture had shattered these people, and some broken things could only get pieced together into a jagged, inharmonious shape. Perhaps Link shared that with the deserters. The difference was that Elias had let his sharp edges cut into everyone else. Even Saki and Rai were here out of a desperate love that had nowhere else to go. If their Captain surrendered, they would follow—but he wouldn't, and they wouldn't, and Link had no choice.
"Let it end, then," he murmured.
"Yes," Elias decided wearily. "Let it end."
Tired and heartsick and in pain, Link wasn't at his best—but it still wasn't much of a match.
Rai got there first, closing in while Saki tried to flank; they operated in practiced tandem, retreating and renewing the attack each time he countered it. Two against one, they expected Link to stay on the defensive—only they didn't know how fast he was.
He sidestepped Saki's slash, pivoted to avoid Rai's lunge, and slammed his boot down on the wooden shaft of his spear so hard that it splintered in half. Rai fell back, startled, just as Elias bulled forward. Link whirled right into the path of Saki's descending dagger and caught the blow on his shield, his sword flashing up.
Saki cried out. Rai dove to catch her; Elias charged forward with a yell of rage. Despite the damage he'd already taken, he moved with the shocking ferocity of someone with nothing left to lose.
The axe swung right, left, center; Link dodged, but then Saki yelled, "Right side! Captain, get his right side!"
A mailed fist connected with Link's wound. He gasped, the world tilting wildly, his vision flaring white with crippling agony. His back hit the barn door; his knees buckled—and then locked, because even cornered and hurting and alone, he wasn't the least bit afraid. Elias wasn't Zant, and he certainly wasn't Ganondorf. Link had already conquered the worst thing fate had in store for him. No one could ever make him afraid again.
He pushed himself off the door. The pain was nothing. The sword felt loose and light in his hand. He stood tall and raised his head to glare up into Elias's bloodshot gaze.
"Golden Goddesses," Saki said faintly, "he's not human."
It was over in three moves. Strike, parry, counter—then everything was clear and cold and simple, and Link was driving his sword into Elias's gut.
The axe thudded to the floor; the man followed suit. Saki sobbed. Link stood still for a moment, drawing in breath after shuddering breath through the agony in his side, feeling sunlight on the back of his neck.
Boots scraped on stone. "Die, Hero," Rai snarled, his face a mask of hate, Saki's dagger glinting in his hand.
He crashed into a golden wall. Zelda glided forward, glowing with magic. "Enough," she told Rai as her guards flooded into the barn. "Enough."
Link couldn't meet her eyes; he would fall apart if he did. It took two guards to drag Rai down the hall, kicking and screaming; two others stayed to tend Saki's wound before they moved her.
Slumped against the wall, Elias released a wet, gasping cough. Link opened his mouth to call for the guards' help, but the Captain looked up at him through half-lidded eyes and said, "Never mind. Knew you'd win. I just had to try."
Link shook his head, but Elias grabbed his wrist and yanked him down with what was probably the last of his strength. Zelda knelt at Link's side, graceful but hesitant, and said, "I'm sorry it came to this. I swear your people will survive."
Elias's chest rose and fell weakly. He watched her through half-lidded eyes. "The king was a bastard," he murmured after a long time. "The things he permitted inside the guard…his death was a gift to Hyrule."
"I didn't kill him," Zelda replied very quietly. "But I might as well have. And I would do it again." She sighed, a sound so tired that Link longed to reach for her, only he was covered in blood. "I wish we had met in peacetime, Captain Elias."
"Too late for that, Lady Queen," he replied, but there was no malice in it, and he'd used her true title for the first time. as he looked past them at Saki. Her wound was as shallow as Link had been able to manage; his was a different story. His voice dropped to a husk. "Just keep them alive. As for me…"
He trailed off, his dark eyes fixed upon the bloody sword that lay between them.
Link understood at once and reared back, shaking his head.
"You would honor me, Hero," Elias whispered.
"It's not an honor," Link choked out senselessly. "And I'm not—don't you know what I did? To Nil? To the people Zant changed? I—I—"
"You ended them," Elias finished, and there was nothing worse than hearing it spoken aloud by someone who had cared for those people. Someone who had known their names and stories; someone who had mourned when Zant turned them into slaves and Link turned them into corpses.
Suddenly, the fragile peace Link had been trying to construct was gone. In his mind's eye he saw Ganondorf in the field with the Master Sword speared through him; he saw his own claws rending the shadow beasts apart; he saw the guileless faces of the Twili he'd saved. He clutched at his middle, trying to keep all of it contained even as it screamed for escape.
Zelda's hand was on his shoulder. But if Link met those crystal-clear blue eyes, they would pierce through all his layers and go straight to the place where the wolf snapped and snarled. It was the last thing he'd ever wanted her to see.
"Boy," Elias said harshly enough that he had to cough violently before grating out, "There was nothing human left in them. They died as soon as the shadow crystal touched them, just like I did."
He tried to reach out, but his fingers only slid bloody trails across Link's already-filthy sleeve. For some reason, this small, shocking effort at kindness from his dying enemy brought Link back to himself.
"What are you saying?" he whispered.
"I'm saying you gave them mercy," Elias answered firmly. "And I ask for the same."
Mercy.
The word struck like roots cracking through dry soil. Link felt something new and uncertain take form, drawing life from all the darkness inside. He uncurled his arms and looked at the Captain. He'd dealt enough wounds to know when one was fatal.
Then he looked at Zelda. She turned her sharp-boned face towards him. To his shock, silent tears were rolling down her face. Her fingers slid down his left arm, finding his pulse between the straps of his gauntlet.
"He's right," she told him softly. "We can't save everyone. The choice is yours."
Link squeezed her hand and let it go, rising to his feet.
"Stay alive," Elias said to Saki, who looked on wordlessly, her eyes hollow and dry. To Link he said, "Thank you, Hero."
My name is Link, murmured a voice: small, quiet, wisp-thin, but still there—still clinging to the earth.
He raised his sword.
The strike was true and unfaltering, just like the Hero's Shade had taught him. After it was done, Link turned away, stumbling for the door.
He didn't stop until the trees closed around him. The setting sun flushed the sky with deep, pure gold, turning the clouds into billowing mountains of light, cascading down to the brutal earth. Even the bare winter forest gleamed beneath all that splendor, and the air was cold and fresh in his lungs.
Do you ever feel a strange sadness as dusk falls? Rusl had asked a lifetime ago, when everything had been too simple for Link to understand the question. He looked at the blood that dripped down his blade into the soft brown leaves underfoot. He looked at the twilit sky. And he had his answer.
There was a sadness that would never leave. There was also beauty, and a promise as old as time: the rise would always come after the fall.
Zelda's presence was a radiant flame at his back. She said nothing. Link knew that, once again, she was letting him choose. He knew his choice.
He turned to meet her pale blue gaze, and just like the first time, found his own familiar humanity reflected back. There was something else blazing quietly beneath—the fierce fire Zelda had sustained through all the cold seasons of her life. The gift she had opened to him after years of guarding it from the world.
"Zelda," he breathed—just that.
"Link," she replied, her eyes shining with tears.
He dropped the sword to take her into his arms.
.
.
.