Link spent the rest of the day training with the knights, besting them all in archery, swordsmanship, and hand-to-hand. Zelda had always known he was skilled, but she had never realized just how skilled. She also knew his anger had nothing to do with having been held captive and forced to battle, or that she had perceived him as being weak after that imprisonment, and his subsequent journey back to Castletown. No, this was a rage unlike anything she had seen from him before, even when dealing with Ganon himself. She just hoped he'd be willing to tell her the real reason behind it, as she didn't want him to carry more alone than he had to.

After watching him spar for a while, she'd gone back to the library to study the map, wanting to set their route to that forest as quickly as possible. She had also started making a list of the supplies they would need, knowing how long that in itself could take to prepare. Link had made it clear he didn't need more time to rest.

Her trail of thought veered off-course when one of the heavy doors creaked open, and she looked over her shoulder to see Link pushing it closed. The clothing Arik had found for him had been replaced with the uniform worn by students of the knight academy—a dark gray tunic, fitted black pants and short black boots. He'd found a pair of half-finger gloves with attached wrist guards, and had a plain scabbard strapped to his back, the hilt of a sword glinting in the light of a hundred lanterns. The last thing she noticed was a small satchel on his belt, a poor substitute for his mystic sack. He pulled the notebook and pencil from it as he closed the space between them, wrote for a moment, then set them on a table near the map.

'I haven't seen your father since I woke up here. Where is he?'

She bit her lip, pushing aside the small pang of guilt.

"He went to a summit in the Prism Lands," she explained. "He just has another piece of news to share with them now."

She glanced at the notebook again, the map, anything to avoid having to see the look she knew was in his eyes.

"He said he'd try to bring them back with him, and that he hoped you'd stay until then."

She went stiff when he touched her chin, gently tilting her head back, then he wrote something else on the page.

'How long was I asleep?'

She swallowed.

"Four days," she admitted. "I didn't think you were capable of being so worn down."

He brushed the backs of his fingers across her cheek, then pulled his hand away and stepped back. It felt like he was putting more than physical distance between them, he was hiding behind a wall that had never been there before. A wall she hoped she could one day break.

'And how long were you going to wait before telling me this?'

"I meant to tell you as soon as you woke up," she said. "But then you didn't recognize me, and everything else kept happening. I couldn't bring myself to say it when you were already dealing with so much."

She clasped her hands tightly against the front of her gown, not even able to take comfort in the soft fabric, or the delicate scent of the frost iris soap it had been washed with.

"But can you really be so angry with me, Link? I mean, they're—"

He cut her off with a slash of his hand, then snatched the journal again.

'It's not them I have anger for, Zelda, or you, it's him.'

She blinked in confusion.

"You can't mean my father, Link, he's treated you so well!"

He shook his head, his fist clenched so tightly around the pencil that she wondered how it didn't snap.

'Didn't you ever wonder how I ended up with the Kokiri?'

She started.

"Of course I have, but what does that have to do with this?"

He pulled in a long breath through his nose, then slowly blew it out. His face became the coldest she had ever seen it, his eyes shards of burning diamond. His next words were written so quickly that she was amazed she could read them at all.

'I was sent there because my brother tried to kill me.'

Zelda stumbled back from the table, unable to do more than gape at him in shock.

"Your bro—" her gaze snapped from his face, to the page, and back again. His expression didn't change, and she saw his fist trembling at his side. If he'd been anyone else, she was sure he would have punched something by now. "W-Why would he—"

He pulled another journal from his satchel and held it out to her. She hesitated before taking it, her eyes widening when she saw the careful script on the first page.

'I wrote it all in here, take as long as you need.'

She ran her fingers over the words, feeling the tiny indents of every letter, then nodded.

"I can read it tonight," she set it on another part of the table, then turned back to the map. "For now, let's get this taken care of."