I just realized something.

All of the ZeLinkers must hate my guts.

Thanks again for all the reviews! This story is almost at 200, which is totally amazing. If we happen to get to 200 reviews by the time I get around to posting it, I will have a lovely surprise for each and every one of you in chapter 13. If you've never reviewed before, now would be the time to do it. It will seriously be worth your while.

I can't wait to see your reactions.

~Alyssa

Hint #2: Identical letters

Si furor docet ars nondum sit necne sublimitatem intelligentiae.

….

Science has not yet taught us if madness is or is not the sublimity of the intelligence.

Now

Everything was perfect.

I'd made sure of it.

We were on my balcony, under the perfect full moon with gentle snowflakes fluttering down. Vapor rose both from our mouths and the mugs of chocolate we clutched with white-knuckled fists.

She smiled as she spoke, the frost biting at her nose and turning it red, likewise with the tips of her ears that peaked out from the blue wool cap she wore.

I laughed at whatever she said, abandoning the warmth of my cup for that of her hand, running my thumb back and forth over the satin of her skin hoping to warm her with the friction.

She sighed happily, snuggling up to my chest, and I rested my head on hers, whispering endearments into the soft fabric of her hat, oh-so-subtly checking my jacket pocket with my left hand, making sure the small box that contained my entire future was still accounted for.

Slowly, I removed myself from her, sitting up and placing my cup on the ground, taking both her hands in mine.

"Kassia," I whispered, looking into the copper of her eyes.

Endless, beautiful violet blue.

"I know you don't want me to say it." I said, never once breaking her gaze. "And I won't, because I promised you I wouldn't. But you know I do."

She bit down on her lip, knowing where this was going, but I knew if I stopped I would never get the courage to do this again. And I'd be damned if I let it slip me by. Not before the end.

Before it was too late.

"And I know I haven't known you for long," I continued. "But in the short time we've been together, I've discovered things about myself I never would have found before."

"I learned how to be brave and strong and merciful, my sense of pride and duty, but above all else…"

"I learned that there's someone out there that I care about more than myself." I leaned down and kissed her hand gently. "I would do anything for you. I would gladly walk to the end of the Earth and back for you."

"I would go through this complete Hell all over again for you. The only reason I agreed to do it the first time was because, even then, I realized that I lo—"

I choked on my words, looking carefully up at her face. It was wiped of all emotion, her Princess Poker Face never wavering at the use of the explicative.

"I've made my promises." I said again, my tone growing softer. "And all I ask is for you to make one in return."

I stood up from our bench, getting down on one knee and reaching into my jacket pocket.

"Tomorrow I will go to Castle Town, and I will fight until I die." My voice almost cracked as I came to terms with that fact, but I remained steady, never wavering, being strong for her in these final moments. "But I couldn't go without trying at least once."

I feel to my knees in the shadow of the Spirit Temple, drinking in the blue of her eyes.

"Kassia," I said, taking a breath to steady myself as I let go of her hands and opened the wooden box. "I promise to treasure you forever."

"Marry me."

Her eyes glittered, her bottom lip quivering and her eyebrows turning down at the edges as she took in the ring.

"Link." She whispered, and she let go of my hands, her gaze dropping, a tear falling from her cheek and landing in the sand at my feet.

"Nox," she whispered, and for some reason I couldn't read her voice, so choked up with passion as she was, and I smiled then, happiness flooding my chest as she took a deep breath and said the answer I was waiting for…

"…No."

All at once, the biting cold pierced my chest, but it had nothing to do with the weather.

My hands dropped from hers, falling limp to my side, the ring falling from the box and clattering with a gentle clink to the ground.

Her face flamed red as she stood up, throwing the doors open and bolting inside, leaving me on my knees, empty handed, and very alone in the dark of night.

Then

I waited an hour or two.

Getting changed into my nightclothes, I padded barefoot down the hallway, ghosting through the corridors until I arrived at her door—still marked with the ink that she had scribbled in her younger years that read "kassias bedrom" in shaky handwriting.

Not bothering to knock, I let myself in and sat beside her on her bed. She was facing away from the door, towards the window, but I knew she was awake by her uneven breathing.

I reached a hand out and stroked her hair, but she still stubbornly refused to acknowledge me, like a petulant child balking in front of a candy store.

If anything, I should have been the upset one. I was the one who got hung out to dry.

"Kassia," I murmured gently, despite the fact.

She sniffled, curling up even tighter, if that were possible, hiding her face from view.

"I'm sorry." I said, sliding my feet onto her bed and hugging my knees loosely to my chest. "I didn't mean to make you upset."

Still nothing. Not so much as a twitch. A different approach, then.

"I love you, you know."

She rolled over to face me, her eyes puffy and red. A pang wrenched in my chest. I proposed to her, and that made her cry.

"I love you, too." she muttered, closing her eyes.

This threw me.

I was expecting some big confession, that really she was having an affair with someone else—perhaps Archer—and she didn't love me and I should just go take a hike and leave Noamas for good and never come back.

But the words she spoke had disproven any theory of mine.

"I don't understand," I admitted, running my fingers through my hair. "You love me, but you won't marry me?"

She sighed, propping up her elbow and resting her head in her hand. "I have my reasons."

"But you won't tell me why?"

She raised an eyebrow at my frustrated tone.

"Maybe, if you asked nicely."

I rose to her challenge, pushing her down against the bed and aligning my body with hers, lifting my lips to her ear.

"Marry me." I whispered, making the pleading known in my voice. As much as I would have loathed admitting it, I needed her. I couldn't be alone again, not after I had rediscovered how much I was in love with love. I needed someone to rely on me, someone I could trust with my life, someone to hold me close and never let me go.

And as my first option was gone from me forever, she would have to do.

"No," She refused again, squirming out of my grasp, but I wouldn't allow it.

"Why?" I pressed, not even bothering to hide my frustration. What had I ever done wrong, when had I ever slipped, when had I never been anything but perfect?

"Because," She shook her head, smiling at my tone, a renegade curl falling in front of her face.

"You don't have a good reason," I accused, freeing up a hand to I could tuck it back in place, watching the grin fall from her face.

"Maybe I don't want to marry someone so stubborn," she muttered, her eyes shifting off to the left, watching something over my shoulder that I didn't care enough to turn around and see. "Maybe I have commitment issues."

"Kassia." I rebuked gently, taking her face in my hands. "You can tell me anything."

She sighed again, pushing me away and sitting up, her eyes falling to her lap.

We fell into a silence for several moments, until she looked up, her confused, hurt eyes meeting mine.

"Who's Link?" she asked.

Who's Link.

Link.

My eyes widened as I comprehended the question, choking on my breath at the sound of my name, coughing madly in shock that it came from her mouth.

Link. Link. Link. Link. Link.

Time seemed to slow down as it echoed in my head, the quiet whisper sending white waves of numbness through me as it revived the long-dead part of my mind.

"I knew it!" she shrieked, pushing her hands hard into my chest, the force of which sending me unceremoniously off her bed. "You're cheating on me! You bastard!"

You knew this was coming. said the voice, and I could just picture the smug grin that came with it.

"Wh-what?" I asked to the both of them, sitting up from the floor, my tailbone throbbing from the impact. "No! Are you insane?!"

"Who is Link?" she demanded, her tone as angry as I'd ever heard it. "I heard you! You were talking to them the night before the wedding! You've been lying to me, Nox, I know you have, now tell me the truth!"

I blinked, trying to recover my bearing as I realized what she was saying.

How much had she heard?

My mind immediately jumped to the worst conclusions, my heart suddenly pounding in my chest. She heard me scream. She heard me cry. She heard me say I was using her.

She knew.

She knew everything.

No.

A small part of my brain was triumphant, reveling in the fact that I wasn't crazy after all, that I hadn't imagined the lookalike of me, but the rest violently shoved it down.

This ruined everything.

My entire second life's dream was crumbling before me.

All I wanted was a sense of normalcy, a wife, a family, a happy ending. Could the Goddesses not spare me even this? It seemed that every time things seemed to be going right, it was ripped right out from under me.

My past coming back to haunt me yet again.

I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. "I don't understand what you're worked up about," I told her honestly. "Link died ten years ago."

Yes, Link had died all those years ago when she sent me back in time, but how long would it take before he was buried? Would I never escape his unyielding grasp?

"You're lying to me," she whispered, tears falling down her cheeks, and it was a stab in the heart because I had never wanted to tell her the truth so badly. But I couldn't. "Why would you lie to me, Nox? Why can't you trust me? I don't understand!"

And she never would.

How could she love me, knowing that I had spent the last ten years loving another woman, one that didn't even so much as remember my name? How could she forgive me after I admitted I had used her, even though I didn't?

To tell her the truth would be to give her to Link. She would be bound in the death-grip of his grasp as tightly as I was, intertwined with my past in an inescapable tangle that would end up choking her.

And Link could not have her. He would never have her. I would rather die before I gave him to her.

She was the only thing that was Nox's, mine, and I would be damned if I ever let her fall into his hands.

I had to protect her…from myself.

So I stood up, turning to leave. "If you don't believe me, that's that." I told her, my voice cold and empty, pulling open the door. "If you won't marry me because of it, fine. Baxter wants to leave when the snow thaws. And trust me when I say, I won't come back."

Though my heart shattered at her broken expression, I reminded myself that this was for her own good. She would never know, could never know, and if her safety meant losing her outright, so be it.

Taking my frustration out on it, I slammed the door hard, the frame echoing with a satisfying crash.

But when I turned to face the hallway, it wasn't empty like I expected.

Standing there, wide-eyed, her ivory nightgown practically glowing in the black of the night, was Linden.

"I heard you yelling," she said quietly, her green eyes innocently meeting mine, her eyebrows coming together at the edges. "You woke me up."

My face melted, reaching down to pick her up like when she was small. She wrapped her legs around her waist, resting her head on my shoulder, and I marveled at the fact that soon, she would be too big to be held.

It seemed like yesterday she was leaving Zenith's arms and toddling unsteadily into mine, falling face first and letting me catch her—surely only hours ago she was demanding Archer play Princess with her, riding on Baxter's shoulders in the town square, reciting letters from her beginner's hornbook. It was hard to imagine that the girl in front of me had grown from the bloody newborn I rescued all those years ago.

"I'm sorry." I began walking down the hall to her bedroom, hugging her close. "Kassia and I just had a bit of a…disagreement." I sighed, obviously lying through my teeth. I thanked my rarely lucky stars that it was late and she was half asleep.

"But you still love her, right?" she murmured into my neck, her voice growing faint. "She's gonna come with us back home when we have to leave?"

Tears stung in my eyes, where she thankfully couldn't see. "I don't know," I whispered honestly, my chest aching in the fact. "It might be for the best that she stays here."

"I understand," she lifted her head up, her solemn green eyes meeting mine."You got pricked."

Pricked?

For a moment, I was completely puzzled, until my own words echoed through my head.

"Love is like a rose, beautiful." I had said, because she had asked. "It's soft and it's sweet like the smell, and there are many different layers: family love, friends love, a lover's love. But sometimes people get so distracted that they don't see what's underneath."

I had pulled the blossom away then, lifting it up so she couldn't see the flower, showing her the danger underneath. "Thorns," I told her, making the warning clear in my voice. "When you're not careful, you'll end up getting pricked. So you should stay away from the roses."

And then I had demonstrated, letting one of the barbs stab my finger, showing her the dangers of love. And even at the frail age of seven, she had understood.

And she still remembered.

Stay away from the roses.

A part of me wondered whether I should have taken my own advice.

Maybe then I wouldn't be hurting her now.