ZELINK WEEK 2026

Link, she calls into the roaring wind, unsure whether she’s using her voice or her mind, only that she must reach him.

His lips part. Shock weakens his grasp on the rope. He hears her. He—

A crashing wave sends him to his knees. Lightning splits the sky and bleaches Zelda’s vision. All she can see is the shadow passing overhead, a blunt shape with a broad tailfin engulfing his boat.

When she blinks, the storm has vanished. And so has Link.

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Zelda shoots upright with her heart in her throat. No rain pelts the turrets; no wind rattles the windows. The night coils quietly around her. Her father snores down the hall. Link slipped through her fingers six months ago.

But she can still taste the salt tang of his desperation. And she knows by now to have faith in her dreams.

She swings her legs over the bed and dresses in darkness, stepping into the hall before doubt has a chance to creep in. The guard at her door strikes an imposing figure in the torchlight, toweringly tall in his green armor.

“Good evening, Princess,” he greets.

“Good evening, Sir Brigo. Clearing my head as usual.”

He looks her up and down politely. Normally she takes these midnight walks in slippers and a nightgown, not in the breeches and boots she’s rarely worn since her riding companion left for foreign shores.

“Would you like an escort?” Sir Brigo asks.

For most of her life, he did everything she asked. Boosting her on his shoulders when she was too short to pick apples on her own. Indulging her many questions about his battles and travels. Keeping silent when she dodged lessons or meetings.

The night he broke down her door and dragged her to a dungeon cell, no request, order, or plea could move his deadened eyes. Like everyone else restored by Link’s wish upon the Triforce, he remembers none of it. But Zelda finds herself unable to forget.

“No, thank you,” she replies as she always does, strolling down the hallway until she turns the corner, where she quickens her pace.

A lonely childhood allowed her to memorize the castle’s secret staircases and hidden passages. That knowledge saved her life when she called for a knight to rescue her from Agahnim’s clutches. A boy came instead, eyes full of grief as fresh as the blood on his hands. And that wasn’t the last kindness he did her.

Now Zelda will return the favor.

She creeps from one shadow to another until she’s past the walls and running south to the cottage on the hill. Glancing up at the moon’s position guiltily, Zelda pounds on the door. It takes several tries before the hinges creak open.

Link’s uncle holds up a lantern, orange light flickering across his craggy face. His eyes squint through the doorway, then widen. “Princess? Is there trouble?”

“I apologize for the hour, but yes, I believe so.” He ushers her inside, bustling toward the teakettle, but she stops him with a hand on his arm. “All is well at the castle. Link is the one I fear for. And time is short.”

The blood drains from his face. Instantly, he’s reaching for the sword and shield on the wall, shoving other supplies into a sack while she explains her dream.

“I told him,” he grumbles. “I told him that he’s no sailor, that he should buy passage with an experienced crew. Or better yet, wait for my friends at the harbor to make their next voyage.”

“You have friends at the harbor? Could they help us? My father has been so protective since—he’d never let me go, but I must, Sir Alphon. I’m the only one who can locate Link.”

“Of course you must, Princess.” His voice is gruff and kind, not unlike his nephew’s. “But not alone. Now—it’ll be cold out on the water. Take what you need from that chest. His things will fit you better than mine.”

Zelda left without a cloak, knowing Sir Brigo would never overlook such an obvious sign that she planned to leave the castle. She crosses to the bed no one has used in months and heaves open the chest at its end. Her throat tightens at the smell that wafts out, grass and steel and him. There’s not much here. Some old clothes. A wooden sword for a much younger boy. A rusted lantern, a blue pearl, a flute she’s never heard him play.

But she finds what she’s hoping for. Rough wool, plain and brown and familiar to her hands. When Link unlocked the cell and draped it around her shoulders, Zelda had never been warmer.

He must be cold right now. Cold and alone on the hungry sea.

Not for long, if Zelda has anything to say about it.

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She thanks all three Goddesses that Alphon led a storied life before he retired from knighthood. Not just anyone can go door to door rousing old friends with talk of dreams and storms and have them actually listen. By the time they push off from the dock in a modest trading vessel, dawn lightens Hyrule’s shrinking shape behind them.

Wind catches Zelda’s messy braid as Alphon helps his friends hoist the sail. She stands beside the helmsman, grateful beyond words when he listens patiently to her vague directions. She can’t say how she knows their heading. The dream provided no landmarks to reference. But Link wasn’t far from Hyrule—she senses that clearly, and clings to the hope it inspires, using the ageless thread that binds them as her guide.

She’s never been at sea, never been on any boat but the royal barge that winds along the river for her father’s annual tours of the kingdom. Under different circumstances, Zelda would be enraptured by everything—the surprising speed gifted by a strong wind, the sailors scaling the rigging, the sunrise spreading glorious gold across the horizon.

But fear dulls everything. Late summer in Hyrule is balmy and wonderful, but out here, the wind has teeth. Did Link’s boat survive? If not, how long can a person last in the water? His astounding strength has carried him through so much, but he’s not immune to nature’s wrath.

She remembers the day he left. Standing on the pier, breeze whipping at their clothes while she took his hands and asked whether he really had to go. Link answered with a wavering smile and an apologetic squeeze of her fingers.

He’s not immune to anything. Least of all the memories the two of them carry all alone.

But you promised to return, Zelda thinks, stretching her mind’s power across the endless waves. You had better keep that promise.

Not even a ripple of response along the string that ties them together. Not even the barest hint of his presence. Would she feel it if he went? Or would he slip unnoticed into the maw of the sea?

She catches Alphon’s gaze across the deck. It seems the wind has stripped away the calm veneer he maintained on land. Perhaps they’re both agonizing over the same regret—that they should have stopped Link, kept him safe, convinced him that home would feel like home again someday.

There’s no logic to the thought. A herd of charging Kodongos can’t stop that boy when his mind is set. Yet Zelda can’t shake the worry that she should have tried a great deal harder.

The helmsman stays patient while she casts her power far and wide. The sun is beating down by the time her mind lands upon the vaguest flutter of life. Zelda gasps at the same time a sailor shouts from the crow’s nest.

“Ahoy! Flotsam!”

The crew draws down the sail and heaves out the oars. The hull carves swiftly through the waves, meeting a scattering of detritus. Planks, barrels, the billowing mess of a tattered sail. When a green hat floats past, Zelda staggers across the shifting deck to join Alphon at the railing.

Finally, the man in the crow’s nest tells his mates to pull the oars in. Zelda shades her eyes against the sun, swallowing down sickness until she spots what the lookout did.

“Farore’s wind,” Alphon breathes.

A limp form bobs among the waves, draped over a piece of wreckage with his arms tucked beneath loops of rope. Sodden pink hair plasters his face. He’s so small. So still.

Zelda clutches the rail numbly while two sailors descend in a rowboat to pull him from the waves. Alphon’s broad, rugged hand covers her own. An improper gesture between a knight and a princess, and a lifeline stretched taut between the two people who love Link best.

The sailors heave the deadweight over the rail and into Alphon’s waiting arms. Link lolls there, warmth leeched from his skin, dye faded from his tunic, every inch of him pale and slack and faraway. Alphon lowers him to the deck and presses two fingers under his jaw. Zelda can hardly hear above the pounding of her own pulse.

Alphon looks up at her with tears in his eyes. “He’s alive.”

Her knees buckle and hit the deck. The sailors spring into action, bringing water and blankets and dry clothes. Zelda presses back against the rail to keep out of their way, her eyes pinned to Link's face.

He stirs when Alphon tries to peel off his wet tunic, eyelids fluttering without opening. 

“Link,” his uncle says. “Can you hear me?”

A faint moan is the only response. Link fumbles at his uncle’s hands so weakly that it brings tears to Zelda’s eyes. 

“It’s me, lad. Your princess is here as well.”

Link keeps trying to squirm away. Alphon casts Zelda a helpless look. She shifts closer on her knees.

“Link?” she says softly, touching his icy cheek. When he doesn't react, she reaches out in a different way, into the muddied waters of his mind. Link? You're safe now.

His eyes crack open abruptly, wide and glassy as they wheel between her and his uncle. Breath wheezes out like he’s trying to speak, but it ends in a violent cough that wracks his whole frame.

When he finally catches his breath, his uncle holds a waterskin to his lips. Link drains the whole thing desperately, then slumps back to the deck and offers no further resistance as Alphon starts easing off his wet clothes.

Zelda puts her back to them. The crew has hauled in the rowboat and taken up the oars again. Until the wind changes direction, the journey home will be slow going. Her handmaid has surely discovered her empty bed by now. The note Zelda left probably won’t prevent her father from flying into a frenzy. She can’t regret it, though. Not compared to the unthinkable alternative.

“Princess,” Alphon murmurs. “Will you stay with him a moment? I’ll ask the captain to lend us his bed.”

She turns to see Link staring blearily at the sky and fidgeting with the blankets his uncle has practically buried him in. When Zelda catches his hands and begins rubbing warmth back into them, his unfocused gaze shifts to her.

“Marin?” he croaks.

She doesn’t recognize the name, but aches at the longing in his voice. “I’m sorry, but it’s Zelda.”

“Zelda.” Something sparks in his eyes. His cold fingers twitch in hers. “Zelda. I—”

Another coughing fit interrupts him. She should have recruited a doctor for this voyage. If Link’s ship went down around midnight, he’s been in the water for hours. No wonder he’s trembling so hard under the blankets. Thank Nayru they found him in time.

Alphon returns to kneel on Link’s other side. “Still awake, lad? I’m going to move you somewhere more comfortable. Can you sit up?”

Link squints up at him, making no move to comply. He slurs out, “You were a racoon. You should stop eating mushrooms.”

The old knight exchanges a bewildered glance with Zelda, stroking his bushy mustache.

“My sword,” Link says suddenly, prying his hands from Zelda’s and shoving the blankets away. “My shield.”

“We saw no sign of them,” Alphon says heavily. “I’m sorry.”

“My uncle gave me those. I need them. I—”

He pushes himself upright, a shaky but valiant effort that ends with him listing sideways into Zelda’s arms. He doesn’t fight when she gathers him close. Nor does he relax. And she can’t bear the thready, confused sound of his breathing any more than she can bear the devastation on Alphon’s face.

Link? She touches his mind gently. Your uncle is right here. So am I. You’re ill and confused. Let us help you.

He lifts his head a little, still peering at his uncle with a strange level of suspicion. Then his eyes wander back to Zelda. “Am…am I still dreaming?”

She remembers him battling the ocean alone, lifting his head at the sound of her voice. Perhaps it felt like a dream to him. Is that why he directs this question at her, rather than the man who raised him? Or is there another reason? One forged between them on the night they were both orphaned, when they escaped hand-in-hand into a broken world that no one else remembers?

You’re awake, Zelda promises, extending her mind’s voice to Alphon as well before his heart bursts from worry. We’re on a ship back to Hyrule. Yours was lost in the storm. Do you remember that?

“The storm,” Link whispers. “Koholint.” And then, with utter desolation, “What have I done?”

Nothing that changes how happy we are to see you.

A shiver rattles him from head to toe. One-handed, Zelda pulls the cloak from her shoulders and drapes it over his. Link tucks his hands beneath the fabric and pulls it tighter, mumbling, “It’s warm.”

Just as it was the day you saved me, Zelda replies. This is no dream, Link. We’re taking you home.

When Alphon shifts forward to slide his arms under his nephew’s back and knees, Link doesn’t struggle. He buries his face in his uncle’s shoulder and allows himself to be carried away.

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This is no royal barge; even the captain’s quarters are cramped and utilitarian. Link still sinks onto the narrow bed like it’s the height of luxury. In Alphon’s place, Zelda’s father would be frantic and overbearing, ordering every person onboard to bring her everything she could possibly want. Alphon only brushes his nephew’s damp hair from his face and asks, “Do you need anything?”

Link shakes his head. His uncle, may every Goddess bless him, knows not to hover. But before he can go, a hand shoots out of the blankets to catch his sleeve.

“Thank you,” Link rasps. “I’m sorry.”

Alphon just pats his hand. “Not sure I deserve either one of those. Your Princess is the one who found you. And I don’t see what you have to apologize for.”

Link releases his sleeve. Something worse than disorientation burns behind his eyes. Those flames have licked at Zelda’s skin too. For sixteen years, she lived happily behind her father’s sheltered walls. Now she chafes against his concern and worries every time he comes down with a cold or goes for a stroll unguarded. She and Link stopped needing protection some time ago.

She still needs him, though. And right now, with the way gravity keeps tugging his gaze back to her face, she’s struck by the realization that he needs her too.

Alphon glances between them, grave and quiet—an inherited trait, it seems—and gives Zelda a nod. The door creaks shut behind him. She drags the captain’s desk chair to the bed and settles into it.

“We won’t reach shore for hours.” She watches Link’s eyelids droop. “You can rest.”

“How…how did you find me?” he asks hoarsely.

“I dreamt of you.” The admission warms her cheeks. “In the storm. I called your name. Did you hear me?”

“I…thought I imagined that.”

“No, I was there. For the briefest moment. And I was frightened for you. Because of the storm, of course, and…I saw a shadow pass over you. A whale, I think.” Zelda shakes her head, hearing how ridiculous that sounds. “Whales in the sky. That part must have been typical dream nonsense.”

Link stares at her, the remaining color in his cheeks leeching away. “What else did you see?”

“Nothing. You disappeared, and I woke up.”

He squeezes his eyes shut and releases a slow breath that shakes as much as the rest of him, even with the cloak still tucked around his shoulders and several blankets piled atop him.

“You’re still cold.” Zelda rises from the chair. “I’ll see if I can find more—”

Clammy fingers grab her wrist before she moves away. Link’s grip is so much weaker than it should be, but she knows what he’s asking. The answer comes easily. Zelda kicks off her boots and slips under the blankets. He shifts back to make room, but she pulls him toward her instead, his head on her chest, his legs tangled with hers.

They’ve never been this close. It’s not their way. Long glances across a castle courtyard, long walks in the orchard’s dappled sunshine, long silences that never demand to be filled—that’s their way. But she nearly lost him today. Zelda survived a world without her father, without safety, without any of the foundation her life is built upon. But only because someone else waited on the other end of the thread that guided her here. A world without Link would lose all color, all reason.

Zelda tightens the embrace, breathing in the briny smell of his hair. New muscle hardens his arms and calves. Wherever he was, he’s been making use of his sword. But the boy who vanquished Ganon and restored Hyrule is, in the end, still a boy. Small and shivering and seventeen.

“Will you sleep now?” she asks. “Please?”

“You saw it,” Link mumbles into her shirt. “The Wind Fish.”

At first she assumes this is his delirium talking. Then a vast shadow soars through her memory to swallow his boat whole. “The whale…that was…”

“It was real,” he confirms unsteadily.

“But what is the Wind Fish?”

“A sleeper. A god. We dreamt together. I remember it. And the—the memory makes the dream real. He said so.”

“I’m not sure I’m following.”

“There was an island. And people. And a girl—” His breath comes thicker and faster. “I can’t undo it this time.”

“You can’t undo what, Link?”

“I can’t wish it away. I can’t bring them back. I can’t—”

He rolls away and coughs into his sleeve, his whole body convulsing with the force of it. Zelda rubs his back until it subsides and makes him lift his head to drink some water. Link curls up on his side when he’s done, pulling his limbs close to his body.

“You need to sleep,” she implores.

He drags in a rattling breath. “I don’t want to sleep. I don’t want to dream.”

Zelda doesn’t understand half of what he’s said, but the pain in his voice cuts deeper than her own. So she wades into the maelstrom of Link’s mind, letting the rain drench her clothes and the wind whip at her hair, and reaches for him the same way he reached for her that first night: a lantern piercing the dungeon shadows, a cloak settling over her shoulders, a pair of bloodstained hands pulling her to her feet.

You did everything you could, she says, gathering him into her arms again. I trust that like I trust nothing else.

“Zelda,” he chokes out.

I’m here. I won’t let go. She feels him start to shake in a way that has nothing to do with cold. But it’s okay if you need to.

Link burrows against her like the rabbit he became in the Dark World, gentle at his core and prone to forgetting it. Zelda holds him through the sobs that quake his frame, soundless and tearless due to his tired body hoarding its much-needed water.

Slowly, he goes slack in the embrace. The trembling subsides. His hand, when it finds hers, bleeds warmth again. Still, it’s a long time before Link speaks.

“Koholint was perfect.” His sigh brushes her collarbone. “Too perfect. Like...”

Zelda thinks of spending her days beside the knights who bent to Agahnim’s terrible will and paid with their lives. Of her father’s blindness to his own frailty. Of blue skies that could so easily be swallowed by the red clouds of her world’s dark twin.

“Like Hyrule,” she says, pulling back to see Link’s face—to see the confirmation in his eyes, along with the jagged reflection of grief. She squeezes his fingers. “It’s hard. But it’s home. Is that still true for you too?”

“Yeah. I think…I had to leave to realize that. But yeah.”

“Then I’m glad you’ve made it back.”

“I had to.” Exhaustion stretches his voice thin. “Couldn’t stay on Koholint. Or anywhere else.”

“Why not?”

Waves rock the ship gently. The rough voices of sailors reach through the cabin walls, Alphon’s among them, guiding them to safer shores. Link’s eyes fall shut. She holds her breath for the answer.

“Because you weren’t there,” he whispers, and Zelda holds him close as he slides back into dreams.

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Whispers trailed in his wake. Not because he was the hero; he’d never claimed that title. Hyrule still attributed his deeds to some shadowy figure crafted from rumors, and Link preferred it that way, because there was still shame in his past. But never in the way he kissed her.

And that gave the court plenty to gossip about. A young man of exceptional skill, a key member of the Resistance, who had risen from nowhere to a place at the queen’s side—already, people speculated that Link was the hero. What would happen when the picture grew clearer, the secret undeniable? When he could no longer walk down the street without being recognized and reminded of what fate had demanded from him?

Zelda was so afraid to ask. To hurt him more than he’d already been hurt. To admit that loving him meant entangling him in the web of scrutiny no monarch could escape.

More and more, she dreamed of the day she’d given Link that scar.  The sickening jolt of her puppeted legs, yanking her step by step toward his open throat. The blood dripping from his jaw and her blade. The resignation hardening his eyes into bright, flinty spots of stillness in his pale face.

Upon waking, Zelda remembered that her consciousness had spent the whole ordeal intertwined with Midna’s. Ganondorf had never breached her mind. The dreams were merely dreams; she had no way of knowing how the battle had unfolded.

But her body remembered it in the fractal paths of lightning that scarred her limbs. Link remembered it too.

And she hadn’t stopped hurting him.

It seldom showed. He returned from every mission successful, and from most of them smiling. The world carved out little pockets of time for them to walk the castle grounds, to share a meal, to work together in her office, Link scribbling reports for the Resistance while Zelda slogged through mountains of paperwork. In those quiet moments, it was easy to believe that she was as good for him as he was for her.

But sometimes, Link returned exhausted. Muted. Withdrawn. Shadows bruising his eyes, blood crusting his clothes—not his, though she sometimes wondered if he would prefer it to be. A tender heart still beat beneath those layers of chainmail and steadfast dedication. A heart that would have been content to feed his goats, deliver their kids, and guard them from predators for all his life, had fate not turned him on a different path.

Worst of all was the night when a wolf slipped silently through the window Zelda always left unlocked. Fur bristling, paws trailing mud or worse, he curled into a tight ball by the hearth. She pulled his head into her lap and stroked between his ears until the trembling stopped, until he was ready for her to ease the shadow crystal from his skull.

Link was the predator now. And he was still protecting his herd—but it had grown as large as a kingdom.

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Laughter boomed through her dreams that night, filling every inch of the old throne room. Corruption crawled over her skin. Blood splashed up her skirt. Link kept throwing desperate glances toward the barrier that caged him here, but Midna was a crumpled shape on the wrong side of it. She couldn’t save either of them.

And still, he didn’t fight back. Even when Zelda’s blade sliced his cheek. Even when her lightning crackled through his veins. He only fell to his knees and stared up the length of her blade without lifting his own.

She flinched awake to the sound of his steady breathing on the other side of the bed. Thick shadows blanketed the room. If only Midna still inhabited them. What Zelda wouldn’t give for a glimpse of her grin, a whisper of her voice.

When Link stirred, slurring out a sleepy question, she told him to go back to sleep.

Envelopes piled the breakfast table the next morning: a dozen for her, and one for him. Link’s letter came from all four of the children in Ordon, and though their overlapping scribbles were barely legible, it brought back his smile. The first one Zelda opened was a request from King Ralis for support with a monster problem in Zora’s Domain. She lowered it slowly, wrapping both hands around her coffee cup while Link looked up from his eggs and reached for the parchment.

After a moment, he rubbed his forehead and sighed. “I wish I didn’t have to leave so soon.”

“Then don’t,” Zelda blurted out. “I can deploy the guard.”

Link chuckled. “Can you imagine them getting up the waterfall?”

“What about the Resistance, then? Ashei knows the area well.”

“It’s Ralis. I’m happy to help. I just meant…we’ve barely seen each other lately.”

“Link.” She scoured his face for that harrowed look she’d seen in the wolf’s eyes last night. She didn’t find it, but a simple night of sleep couldn’t wash such things away. “You don’t have to pretend that nothing happened yesterday. And you certainly don’t have to gallop off into more danger.”

He ducked his head, scarfing down the rest of his breakfast before he admitted, “It was a bad fight. But it’s over.”

Zelda knew his tells—the tightening of his mouth, the curling of his fingers—and saw none of them now. There was no reason to keep him here, except for the dreadful pounding of her pulse.

Link peered at her with those crisp, calm eyes that had always pierced her with such frightening clarity. “What’s wrong?”

She stared into her coffee. “I’m not certain I know myself.”

“That’s okay.” His rough fingers brushed the inside of her wrist. “Tell me when you’re ready.”

Within the hour, he was gone again. Zelda threw herself into her work, overseeing meetings with a curtness that seemed to terrify everyone, and searched herself for the explanation she owed Link.

His absences didn’t bother her. Solitude came with many blessings, and countless people helped her run this scarred, stubborn kingdom, some of whom Zelda was lucky enough to consider friends. Nor did she fear he would die or disappear out there. Link was mortal and fallible, of course, but he wouldn’t let some brigand or monster be the end of him. Not after everything else.

What burrowed under her skin was the prospect of him suffering out of some misplaced sense of obligation. Suffering as a result of her title, her duties, her connection to him.

Link loved her; she no longer questioned that. But love hadn’t stopped her family from falling apart. It hadn’t stopped Midna from breaking the Mirror. And she wasn’t sure it would stop her presence in his life from growing heavier than he could bear.

Because in her dreams, Link never rose from his knees. He tipped his head back, allowed his weary eyes to fall shut, and bared his throat to her blade.

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Zelda woke three nights later to the dip of the mattress. Link’s familiar outline filled her vision: broad shoulders, windswept hair, sword leaving his back as he leaned it carefully against the nightstand. There was something stiff in his movements. Especially as he pulled the chainmail off, releasing a faint hiss through gritted teeth.

“Link?” She sat up abruptly. “Are you injured?”

He sighed into the darkness. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“That hardly matters.” Light spilled from the Triforce on the back of Zelda’s hand, falling upon his worn, apologetic face. “Let me see.”

Link struggled one-handed with his undershirt until she shifted closer, working it over his head to reveal the bruises already spreading across his swollen right shoulder.

“Why did you make the journey back?” she demanded. “Why didn’t you stay in Zora’s Domain and rest?”

He tried to shrug, then winced. “I missed you.”

A scream burned its way up Zelda’s gullet. Swallowing it down, she lifted her glowing hand. “May I?”

Link nodded, shifting closer so she could touch the inflamed area and pour cool magic into his skin. He sighed in blissful relief, dropping his forehead to rest on her shoulder. Zelda’s free hand came up to thread through his hair and brush the back of his neck, hot from the exertion of travel, or from carrying pain. That thought made her eyes squeeze shut.

“You’re not going anywhere until this heals,” she whispered. “I’ll raise the drawbridge if I have to.”

He chuckled into her nightgown. “I believe you.”

“Link? I’m ready now. Are you too tired?”

“No. Tell me.”

Zelda concentrated on his shoulder for a moment; the rest might be hopeless, but at least she could ease this one hurt. Then she said quietly, “I’ve been dreaming of the throne room.”

Link lifted his head abruptly, his hand flying to the scar on his cheek.

“And I’ve been…worrying, I suppose. About you.”

“You never have to do that,” he protested.

“I do,” Zelda insisted. “Because you won’t worry about yourself. Because you’ve given so much already.”

“We’ve been through this. It wasn’t my choice then. It is now.”

“But you never say no, Link. To anything.”

“Neither do you.”

She let her hands fall to her lap, studying him in the dim light of her magic. His fierce will had been the first thing Zelda admired about him, about the wolf with blazing eyes and a chained paw who seemed undaunted by the story of their kingdom’s plight. But that was before he’d chipped away at the ice around her heart. Before the slightest hint of his pain became a blade against her own skin.

“I am the one putting you in danger,” she said faintly. “In every sense of the word. Not just the fighting, but my court, the way they speak of you—you know what will happen, don’t you? Your anonymity won’t last. And you deserve to keep it. You deserve so much more.”

“Zelda—”

“I dream that I kill you,” she whispered. “I dream that you let me.”

“Zelda.” He always said her name so clearly, so firmly, when most never used anything but her title. “I didn’t let you. I couldn’t let you.”

She held still as he took her wrist, staring down at the branching marks where he’d turned back the magic and let it splinter through her skin—the only way to keep himself alive, to cut her free from the enemy they’d been born to vanquish.

“It was awful.” His voice was so much gentler than she wanted it to be. “And it was necessary. Just like everything you do. Isn’t that who we are? People with…with strength for anything?”

“I can’t stand it, Link. I can’t stand the burden I place on you.”

“Please. I’d be getting myself into trouble with or without you.” A grin tugged up the corner of his mouth. “It’s not a burden. Just a puzzle I’m pretty sure we can solve. People probably would’ve sniffed me out either way. I mean, most of the Resistance knows.”

Zelda thought of him at seventeen, disgusted by the word hero, disgusted by the assertion that he deserved to be called such. Her voice was small with disbelief. “And you’re all right with that?”

His smile faltered. His voice didn’t. “I’ll find a way to be.”

“Would you tell me if you weren’t? If it grew to be too much?”

“I would. We don’t lie to each other, remember?”

She remembered all of it. The shattered silence Midna had left behind, the terrible truths she and Link had learned together, the sweetness they’d found on the other side. Trust had carried them this far.

“It’s worth it.” His eyes were soft as starlight. “It’s always been worth it.”

Zelda covered his hand with her own, hardly trusting her own voice, but letting it waver out anyway. “I agree. But I won’t let you carry more than your fair share any longer. Promise me you’ll be careful with yourself.”

Link made a face. “Okay. But I’m not the only one who works too much. Do you really have to stay up past midnight drafting bills?”

“An argument for a different night.”

He laughed his quiet, boyish laugh that warmed her tired heart every time she heard it. Then he reached for her wrist, pressing his thumb gently to her pulse. “You don’t know what it means. That you try to protect me. That you always have, even when—even when—”

The words tangled in his throat. She leaned forward to cup his jaw and catch his gaze before it fell. “You’ve done the same for me.”

It was why they’d survived this long. It was why these dreams amounted to nothing. Zelda didn’t remember the choking coil of puppet strings or the agony of lightning. But she remembered Midna burning the corruption away. She remembered returning to herself, finding the wolf’s eyes staring out of a boy’s bloody face, and knowing that he’d fought for her. That she would never stop fighting for him.

Link lifted her wrist to kiss the marks that traced her veins—a small price to pay for freedom. For moments like these, with his scarred cheek cradled in her hand, his breath on her skin, and the certainty that they would survive another night.

.

.

The castle—her home—drew closer. Link expertly navigated the train into Castle Town station. The train expelled a last jet of steam, wheels squeaking. Zelda relished the jolt through her body as the train came to a stop. She leapt out of the cab with a whoop of joy.

Link chuckled as he joined her on the station platform. Zelda grabbed his hand and pulled him into town.

“It’s wonderful to be home!” Zelda said, heedless of any of the townsfolk or guards seeing her out of the castle. She dunked her free hand into the fountain and splashed Link. He gasped and giggled, then splashed her back. Zelda marveled at the refreshing prickles of water droplets on her skin.

Zelda had only ever explored Castle Town as a spirit at Link’s side, but now every sight was a fresh experience. She smiled and waved at the people staring at her, all shyness overpowered by sheer excitement that people could actually see her. She stopped herself from trying to pet the cuccos’ feathers and ran her hands over the wooden fence instead. Even the cuccos smelled stronger than she remembered, or maybe she could appreciate all the sensations of living better.

“Hey, Link!” Zelda said, near bursting with a sudden idea. “Will you teach me the Song of Birds? When we go back to Papuchia Village, I want to try flying with the birds! I bet it would be a lot of fun to fly around in a physical body this time.”

“Didn’t you just get home?” Link teased, but he couldn’t hide the broad smile on his face. “But that does sound like a great idea!”

A familiar shout of surprise sounded over the plaza. “Oh! Princess Zelda! You’re back home!”

“Teacher!” Zelda cried. She ran and threw her arms around him so tightly he gave an oof of surprise. She loved how delightfully solid people felt when she hugged them.

Teacher huffed for a moment before patting Zelda on the back of her head. “My dear, I am so relieved that you are home safe and sound. I was so worried, I searched all of Ferrovia for you!”

Zelda winced as she let go of Teacher. “Right, you did. I’m so sorry for that, but with Link’s help, everything’s ok now!”

“The train engineer boy who said you were a spirit?” Teacher eyed Link with raised brows, but his worn face softened. “Well, no matter, you seem quite alive to me. Now, you simply must tell me where you’ve been!”

Zelda and Link shared a glance. “That’s . . . a very long story.”

The king rewarded the Heroes for their service. He said they would earn more for each monster they killed, so they showed off their monster parts to receive more. The king wanted the forest cleared and wrote up a contract.

Lucky hesitated to sign. He wanted to go home, not hunt monsters in another realm. In the end, he signed because the contract couldn’t hold him if he went through a portal.

The Heroes spent a little time in town, replenishing their supplies. Lucky itched to go back to the forest, thinking that’s where a portal would take him home. Finally, they left the capital.

In the forest, monsters continued to hound them. The Heroes kept an eye out for lost children but found none. Lucky soon gave up home of finding any.

He also wondered if he would ever get home. They spent weeks clearing the forest of monsters and visiting the capital, with no sign of portals. Still, Lucky continued with his nightly ritual of talking with Zelda through the magic mirror.

After a month had gone by, Lucky thought he would never be with her again.

Then, it finally happened. A portal opened in front of the Heroes after a particularly difficult battle.

“Where do you think it goes?” Wind asked.

“My guess is Lucky’s home,” Four joked.

Lucky’s heart leaped. It couldn’t be, could it?

Warriors slapped a hand on Lucky’s shoulder. “Want to find out?”

Lucky nodded enthusiastically.

Wind and Four rushed through the portal, followed by the others. It winked out behind them.

They were crowded in a garden courtyard. Those who went first were talking with a young woman in a royal gown. Lucky recognized her dazzling golden hair.

“Zelda?”

She looked in his direction, and the other Heroes parted to let him through. The two embraced before Lucky even knew he moved.

“Lucky!” Zelda cried, tears falling on his cheek. His hand stroked her hair. “You actually came back!”

Four elbowed Wind and said, “Told ya.”

“Lucky’s a lucky guy,” Time chuckled.

Lucky and Zelda kissed, and the Heroes cheered.

Hooray, he’s home!