Chapter 14

The ground tilted. Ravi's ears rang with a soundless roar. "What?"

Link gave him a one-sided grin and resumed his quick pace downhill. "You can think about it."

The boy's legs locked. As Link grew smaller, he felt his mother shake his shoulders. She cuffed the back of his head and he ran after Link. "Wait. Your squire? Yes."

"It'll be a lot of work," Link said.

"I can work."

"You won't have a normal childhood."

"I don't know what that is." Ravi's heartbeat hammered in his temples.

The man squeezed his shoulder. "Breathe."

Ravi fell in beside him, trying to breathe. "But… why? I'm Yiga. They sent me to kill you."

"If you wanted to kill me, you would have done it by now. You've had several opportunities. A Yiga would have taken them."

The Zora knife hung heavy in Ravi's doublet. "But why?"

"Because you're finally telling me the truth." Link cocked his head. "And you're lively. I think I like you."

Ravi swallowed. He couldn't help but ask again. "Why me?"

The swordsman smiled softly. "You're not as lost as you think you are. You still have someone you love. The Yiga told you hatred was your greatest strength. But I haven't found that to be true."

Ravi wandered behind him in a daze. His boots padded over tufts of grass that peeked from thinning patches of snow.

"Also," Link said, "There are practical reasons. I expect the Clan will approach you again. The safest place for you, until we find your mother, is next to me. But her trail is five years cold. If we don't find her, you'll need the skills to defend yourself."

The boy's head snapped up. "You'll take me to her?"

Link frowned. "I can't promise what we'll find, but along my journey, I will help you search for her."

A fresh surge of tears tightened Ravi's throat, but he held them back and lifted his head. "And you'll train me to beat Karta?"

"We'll start a bit smaller, but yes, I will teach you everything I know." Anxiety tightened Link's face. "Eventually. One skill at a time. In return, you will support me in my search for the princess. Your duties won't be glamorous, but they are necessary. You'll have to fend for yourself a lot. There are places I need to go where I can't take you."

"I can make it."

Link pointed to the sky. "Up there?"

Ravi craned his neck. White clouds drifted against the blue heavens. Beyond the clouds, he glimpsed the distant shapes of floating islands.

He would teach me to fly.

The ground surged again, and Ravi pressed his palm to his forehead. He saw the blur of Link's sword, all those years ago, beating Kohga down in the Yiga hideout. More recently, he recalled the swordsman shooting up behind a rocket and bursting from the explosion in the Depths. He felt the impact of the arrow striking Kohga's mask.

All Link's techniques, the secrets of the strongest man in the world: more treasure than Kira ever dreamed she would find. Ravi's eyes widened. The world grew brighter, clearer, warmer. A blue finch darted from the shelter of a pine tree and fluttered, free, into the sky. No one will enslave me again.

A sob caught in Ravi's chest. He leaped forward, tripped over his feet, and tumbled in front of Link, eyes flashing. "I'll do it. I'll muck stalls, clean your armor, make potions. Whatever you need. Teach me to be unstoppable."

Link smiled. "Are you sure? My training will be brutal. You will suffer."

Ravi flung his broken blade on the ground. "I said I was ready!"

"Good. Your first task is to find Aurora."

For a second, Ravi stood frozen. His gaze swept around the mountainside, up the road to the snowy drifts, then downhill over a ridge to a forest of distant pine trees. His stomach twisted: the world was so big. One horse was so small. But he swallowed and lifted his eyes to Link. "Teach me to whistle."

"Cup your hands." Link cupped his palms, and Ravi copied him as he set his right hand in his left and wrapped his fingers around his thumb. "Make it air-tight, but leave a small gap between your thumbs. Then blow gently." He blew between his thumbs, creating a low, hollow whistle.

Ravi blew between his thumbs, puffing his cheeks. Soundless air trickled between his fingers.

Link grinned. "You can bend the pitch like this." He whistled again, waving his left fingers, and the call warbled across the mountainside like a birdsong.

Adjusting his seal, Ravi tried again. Warm air brushed his wrists. He broke apart. "Stop laughing at me."

"It takes practice." Link bit his cheek, suppressing his grin.

A shrill whinny cut through the air. The sound echoed, coming from further down the mountain. Link's head whipped toward the sound. He cupped his hands and whistled back, then broke into a run. Snatching up his sword, Ravi dashed after him.

Aurora broke over the ridge and came cantering up the road. She slowed as she approached Link, and the swordsman caught her head, cupping her cheeks. She bumped her nose into his chest and he wrapped his arms around her neck, stroking her sweaty coat as she dropped her head over his back. Link sighed, and his shoulders relaxed as they embraced. Then Aurora lifted her head and trotted a few paces back the way she had come. She stopped and gazed at Link, waiting.

"Does she want us to follow her?" Ravi asked.

She tossed her head and trotted downhill toward the pine trees. Link jogged after her, and as they left the road, a set of hoofprints appeared in the snow. The prints traveled east to west, coming from the wild to follow the road, spaced closer together than Aurora's gait. As they passed into the grove of trees, Aurora lifted her head and whinnied. A whinny called back to her, distant and desperate.

They broke from the grove and turned around a rock face. Aurora came up short and stamped the thin snow. The land opened up into a wide, rolling valley. In the distance, a giant column of rock sprouted from the center of a deep basin. The road continued downslope, twisting into green pines, and on Ravi's left, a rock shelf ran to a sudden cliff.

Sadee danced at the edge of the cliff. Her eyes were red and wide, her saddle hung under her belly, and mud caked her legs. A lone brown bokoblin pressed her against the cliff, a loop of rope in his hand. The monster shook its head at Sadee and uttered a warbling growl. Sadee tossed her head and shied to the left, but the monster shifted into her path. It spun the rope. Her back hooves dislodged a rock, sending it tumbling down into the canyon below.

Aurora stamped and butted her head against Link's sword, pushing him forward, but he turned to Ravi.

The boy's heart flipped. He lifted his broken sword to the light, examining the corroded edge. "Can I borrow your bow?"

With a half-smile, the swordsman shook his head. "Here's your first lesson: use what you have." He planted his feet wide and crossed his arms.

Ravi drew in a breath, filling his chest with the thin mountain air. He shrugged off his backpack. His pulse picked up. Fear tightened his mind, fogging his thoughts; he shook his head sharply and slid the broken sword into his belt.

What I have.

He bent his fingers and touched his palms, twisting a new string of light with each Yiga symbol he created. The symbols interwove and stacked upon each other until he no longer recognized his own flesh.

He lifted his black hands and flexed his stumpy white claws. His shadow on the ground enlarged its head. A two-prong horn sprouted from his skull, and he shook his floppy ears. Then he hunched over and ran with a loose, choppy gait toward the bokoblin on the cliff. He growled a hoarse call as he approached. But he must have misplaced the gesture for 'Voice', because his own voice rattled from the throat of the illusion, broken and boyish.

The bokoblin's ears stiffened. It spun around and twitched its pig snout, sniffing.

Ravi shuffled up to the creature. He grunted and beckoned for the rope, mimicking the bokoblin's rough language, which he'd studied in the Depths. The brown bokoblin sniffed closer, yellow eyes narrowed. Ravi stamped his foot and thrust with his horn, asserting his rank, and the lower creature flinched. It dropped the rope and bowed its head, backing away.

Yes! Ravi felt Link watching, fifty yards behind him. I'm not a mistake. He swiped the rope from the ground with a motion too fluid for a monster.

The bokoblin howled. Sadee reared and bolted from the edge of the cliff. The threads of Ravi's illusion shook and split apart, and the bokoblin charged. It barreled toward Ravi head-first, aiming to spear him with its jagged horn. Ravi dropped the rope, slammed his palms together, and vanished in a puff of smoke, then reappeared at the edge of the cliff. His heels dropped onto the rocky edge and he glanced over his shoulder at the long, steep slope to a road below. The bokoblin pivoted, snatched up the rope, and charged again.

Ravi braced himself.

Just before the horn collided with his belly, he vanished. The bokoblin charged through his smoke. Ravi blinked back in mid-air behind the creature, just as the monster's momentum plunged him over the side of the cliff.

Stalling in the air, mid-jump, Ravi smiled.

The rope shot over the side of the cliff and looped around his ankle. It jerked him to the ground, and he smacked the rock on his hip, then it dragged him toward the edge of the cliff. He struck his palms again, evaporating out of the noose, and fell to the ground a second later.

The monster howled as it tumbled down the cliff, then the sound choked short.

Ravi trembled where he'd fallen, half on his side. His vision blurred and stars danced behind his eyes. He fumbled with his skewed goggles, readjusting them. Three jumps in less than a minute. He gasped for air, commanding his lungs to breathe as the threads of interrupted light resettled around him. He pressed his palms to the stone, telling his body this was real, and pushed himself to his feet. Cautiously, he leaned over the edge of the cliff.

The bokoblin lay crumpled at the edge of the road below, bent around a rock, spine snapped. As he watched, the body dissolved into wisps of red malice, leaving its broken skeleton with the sword-like horn still fixed to its skull.

Link appeared at Ravi's shoulder, gazing down the cliff. "Fetch me its horn."

Ravi leaped from the cliff.

Twenty minutes later, he dragged himself, panting, hands raw from climbing, over the edge of the cliff.

The swordsman waited for him, yellow hair waving in the wind, a small smile growing on his face as Ravi limped up and extended the monster's horn. Link took it and nodded.

Ravi broadened his shoulders. He shivered as the wind snuck into his sweaty doublet.

"Give me your sword," Link said, and Ravi handed it over.

Grasping the broken hilt in his right hand, Link held the bokoblin horn in his left. His right arm glowed with blue magic and a flash of light snapped around the broken blade. Ravi flinched. He opened his eyes to a new weapon. The sharp, jagged bokoblin horn replaced the broken blade.

Link extended the bokoblin sword hilt-first. "Well done."

The sword was lighter than it looked; horn weighed less than steel. Ravi gave it a test swing. The horn hissed as it sliced the air.

"Try not to break it right away." Link grinned. From his pouch, he withdrew a rice ball wrapped in leaves and handed it to the boy.

Ravi sank his teeth into the salty rice ball, briefly tasting the mushrooms before they vanished down his throat. Link whistled for Aurora. She trotted to his side, and Ravi licked the wrapper leaves clean as he followed them into the shadow of the pines. The last of the snow vanished underfoot, and Aurora's hooves squelched through mud.

Ravi tossed the leaves aside. "What's next? Teach me something else. I'm ready." Energy snapped through his limbs. His legs felt restless. Broken free of the cage, they wanted to run and run.

"Where's your horse?" Link said.

Ravi spun around. His face fell, and Link laughed. The boy sprinted up the road, but after twenty paces, came racing back. "Where will I find you?"

"There's a stable… newspaper office at the end of this road."

Ravi nodded, then he dashed into the forest.