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Urbosa left her soldiers sleeping and wandered the halls of Hyrule Castle, heedless of where her feet took her. She felt as though she stood in the heart of a sandstorm, her mind filled with a wordless roar that threatened to shake her to pieces if she stood still too long.
Occasionally, Rhoam’s voice would come from the wordless noise, his hateful face before Urbosa’s eyes even in the darkness.
She is no child of yours.
Her fierce golden Queen had been in her grave less than a day, and already her husband dishonored her memory. The rage that had driven Urbosa from Rhoam’s private study hours ago had left her now, and she was stunned and helpless with the lack of it.
She is no child of yours.
Imelda’s will, gone into the fireplace, and with it Urbosa’s hopes of fostering her heart’s daughter in Gerudo Town.
She will remain, and assume her duties. Nothing can distract from that.
She is no child of yours.
Urbosa lost herself for a long while, and when she came back to herself it was with her hand around the knob of Zelda’s bedroom, lightheaded and trembling. She opened the door and stepped into a room flooded with silvery light, the moon huge and watchful at the window. The ridiculous canopied bed that had held generations of royal daughters dominated the room, with Zelda curled into a tiny ball at the head of it, nearly lost amid the bedclothes. Urbosa looked at her for a long time before she approached, seeing again the tiny baby Imelda had carried across the desert to see her, remembering how it had felt to look down into the sweet little face and see Imelda’s own smile there.
On that day Urbosa had fallen so violently into love she had yet to recover, even seven years later.
Urbosa needed to see her child, to hold her close and know that she was well and whole, that something had not happened to her since she had been sent to bed. The assassin had fled, but there could be others; one did not poison a queen alone. The thought of the same fate befalling Zelda made Urbosa’s stomach heave with fear and grief, and she forced the thought aside.
Careful to avoid the scattering of toys on the floor, Urbosa crossed the room and sat beside Zelda’s huddled form, gently laid her hand over her to feel the rise and fall of her breathing. Now that she was near, Urbosa could see that Zelda’s eyes were reddened and her cheeks were still wet with tears.
She had cried herself to sleep, alone.
This was her future, Urbosa realized with crawling horror. Days filled with ritual and isolation, with Zelda struggling to step into Imelda’s place and forever falling short, as though a child could be expected to do a woman’s work. Nights spent alone, weeping without comfort until she had to rise and do it all again. This was the inheritance Rhoam wanted for her.
“Wake up, little bird .”
Zelda made a sleepy sound and stirred under Urbosa’s hand, yawning hugely as she sat up and blinked at Urbosa in the moonlight. Urbosa’s throat grew tight at the sight of her girl, tiny and tousled and infinitely precious, and unbidden Rhoam’s voice came again.
You share no blood, and have no claim. She is no child of yours.
“ Mata ?”
Zelda crawled into Urbosa’s lap and curled close, fisting her hands in Urbosa’s mourning gown like she used to do as a baby. Urbosa wrapped her arms around her chosen daughter and held her for a moment, unable to speak. Zelda went limp against her, too tired to keep her eyes open; her day had begun with a storm of tears and had gone on and on, an endless stretch of lamentations and processions and rituals that must have seemed so strange to one so young.
The whole castle was a tomb, with Imeda dead. No matter where Urbosa went in this accursed place, high or low, there was only ringing silence and an emptiness that threatened to swallow her whole. Urbosa rested her cheek on Zelda’s hair and drew a steadying breath.
“Little bird, do you want to go on a mission with me ?” she asked, keeping her voice low and light. Zelda stirred, hiding her face in the curve of Urbosa’ neck and mumbling.
“S’dark outside, though.”
“It’s a special sneaky mission, vehvi . To Gerudo Town.” Urbosa said, shifting Zelda away from her body so she could face her. Zelda blinked and scrubbed at her eyes with her pudgy hands, screwing up her face against the bright moonlight pouring in through her window. It was an expression Urbosa had seen on Imelda’s face a thousand times, and it tore her heart to see it now.
“To see Lady Prettypaws?” Zelda asked hopefully, and Urbosa laughed, hollow and a little frantic. She stopped herself, for fear of opening a gate that could not be closed. It would scare Zelda, and she had endured enough today.
“Yes, little bird, you can see Lady Prettypaws and all the other seals. We can get you your own seal, if you wish.” she told her, and Zelda seemed cheered by the idea, offering a tiny smile and throwing her arms around Urbosa’s neck.
“Thank you , Mata !”
Urbosa grit her teeth together and fought hard to keep tears from welling up. She quickly bundled Zelda in her quilt and gathered her up, tucking Zelda’s face into the crook of her neck as she carefully eased open the door of the bedchamber.
The guards outside the room were sprawled on the flagstones, as still and silent as the statues down in the crypt. Urbosa stared at them for a moment, unable to remember knocking them unconscious. She must have done, they would not have allowed her in otherwise. More orders from Rhoam.
“Are they sleepy?”
“ Shh, baby. The mission has started, and we must be very quiet or else we will fail. Do you understand ?”
“ Yes, Mata. ” Zelda whispered, quite loudly, and put her hands over her mouth to show how dedicated she would be. Urbosa smiled and rested her forehead against Zelda's for a moment, then settled the girl against her shoulder and began making her way through the labyrinth of Hyrule Castle’s halls.
Fourteen years of clandestine meetings with Imelda had given Urbosa an intimate knowledge of the inner keep, it’s forgotten rooms and hidden turnings. She took a long and winding route, stopping to hide several times in deep pools of shadow or in the folds of moth-eaten draperies. The castle was an old thing, sprawling and resentful of change, and huge sections went neglected; she relied on that now as she carried her daughter out of its innards.
Zelda was a good girl, keeping silent inside her quilt, gradually growing heavier and heavier as she grew sleepy again. Snuggled against Urbosa in absolute trust, her hand knotted in Urbosa’s fraying braid, the princess of Hyrule eventually drifted off. Urbosa would do all in her power to be worthy of such absolute trust; her life was Zelda’s, come what may.
It took a long time to reach the door that led out into the stableyard, or so it seemed. Urbosa paused long enough to check that Zelda was safely bundled against the cold night air, then carefully opened the door and looked out. Her heart sank when she saw that the yard was occupied by a group of six voe, old and young Hylian guards gathered over a game of dice. They were subdued after the day’s events, but alert enough, with their weapons near to hand.
As quietly as she could, Urbosa stepped back away from the door until her back touched stone. She stood staring out through the doorway, staring at the voe and thinking. Properly prepared, Urbosa could easily defeat these voe, who were unaware of her. She could perhaps even do it without raising the alarm. But Urbosa had left her sword and shield in her chambers, wore the long skirts of a Hylian widow, and carried a helpless child in her arms.
She is no child of yours.
Urbosa’s hand dropped away from the quilt and flexed instinctively at her side, sparks of electricity gathering at her fingertips. She let the power build there in the dim little space, the storm-light throwing eerie shadows on the walls as it grew brighter and brighter.
The guards continued to talk quietly around their brazier, armor-clad and unaware. Power thrumming through her bones, Urbosa stepped away from the wall and raised her hand overhead.
“ Sister, what are you doing?”
Urbosa froze, her heart seizing with sudden fear in her chest. She turned her head, enough to see Arakna emerging from the shadows of the narrow staircase. The lightning crackled around Urbosa’s hand, a hunting hound ready to slip its lead, and for a long time that was the only sound as she and her sworn-sister stared at one another.
“ How did you find me?”
“ I know you.” Arakna said, taking two more steps down and drawing her shawl more tightly around herself. “ You would be nowhere else but with your girl, on this night of all nights. I simply waited outside her room until you slipped out again.”
Arakna spoke softly, without her usual wry tone, and she seemed very tired without her armor of lip paint and eye-shadow. Urbosa lowered her hand, let the lighting die out; she wrapped both arms around Zelda again and held her tightly, one hand cupping the back of her delicate head. She was breathing very fast, she realized, her heart galloping after it’s momentary pause. Bile rose in the back of her throat.
“ He burned Imelda’s will. I will not be able foster her...I will not...Arakna, he is going to take her from me.”
Her breath hitched once, again, and the gates burst open at last, the flood of grief and fear that she had tried to hold in check now running wild. Urbosa gasped and the tears came boiling out of her in a great shameful sob, her body rocking forward. She made a low sound in the back of her throat, the noise of a dying thing, and slowly sank to the floor as her legs finally gave out. She heard the rustle of cloth, felt Arakna rest her head against hers, heard her low voice in her ear.
“ I know, sister. And I am with you, no matter the road.”
Urbosa pressed cheek against the crown of Zelda’s head and wept as silently as she could, her whole body wracked with it. Zelda whimpered in her sleep, burrowed closer to Urbosa’s body; Arakna reached out to rub the girl’s back through the blanket, murmuring soothing nonsense.
“We will take the baby home; I know a few ways out no one would suspect. We’ll go on foot, we three, and hopefully we can get some horses. We might get to town before Rhoam’s cronies do.”
Urbosa heard her as if from a great distance, her voice far-off and strange. But the thought of soldiers--the entire Hylian army --marching on Gerudo Town lanced through Urbosa’s grief like a blade.
Rhoam would know it was her, of course he would. Even he was not enough of a fool to think otherwise. And for all his faults, for all his vindictiveness and pride, he loved Zelda, as fiercely as Urbosa did. He would come for her, with the full might of the Hylian army behind him.
“ We will dig in, gather the clans. One Gerudo woman fights like thrice-seven of these Hylians, so Rhoam’s numbers will not matter. We’ll give them a fight to remember.”
“Be silent, Arakna!”
Urbosa wrenched herself away from her sister and staggered to her feet, blind with tears and caught in the teeth of her own rage. She wanted to hurt Arakna, for her calm and cruel honesty and because she could not hurt Rhoam. Electricity flew from her fingertips once more, sparks shooting off into the dark like errant stars, every hair of her body standing on end. Arakna gracefully rose to her feet and looked calmly into Urbosa’s eyes, serene in the face of Urbosa’s fury.
“I am with you, but I need to ask if you are willing to pay for your daughter with our peoples’ lives. He will wipe us out to get to her, Urbosa, and you know this.” Arakna said, her voice soft in the darkness between them. Urbosa struggled to reign in her heart, to steady her erratic breathing and think . She felt as though she stood balanced on a precipice, one false step from madness and ruin.
Had her own mother felt this way, when her sister had died? Could she follow Rana’s path and throw away countless Gerudo lives?
“ I will never see her again.” Urbosa whispered at last. Arakna’s face went sharp, and fire kindled in her eyes.
“Of course you will. Rhoam needs the Gerudo, much as he hates to admit it. Hold the trade deal hostage until he agrees to let you spend time with her; Hylians always feel it in the purse first.”
Urbosa gave a hysterical little laugh, then snapped her teeth shut around it. Arakna quickly crossed to the door and shut it silently. She felt rather than saw Arakna reach for her, and Urbosa took her sworn-sister’s hand in the darkness. She could feel the tears still falling, leaving stinging trails down her cheeks. It would be pointless to try and regain control now, and so Urbosa let them fall. She drew a shuddering breath.
“Come. She needs to be put to bed again.”
In the morning, mere hours after returning her heart’s child to her bed and her fate, Urbosa rebraided her long hair and shore it off with a sharp knife, as close to the scalp as she could manage. She went down to the crypt where Hyrule’s dead chieftains lay entombed in cold stone, walked the long path of the dead down to the new sarcophagus that held what was left of her love.
“ I will keep my promise, my fierce desert hawk. Zelda will grow up safe, and she will grow up loved. May my own life be forfeit if I fail.”
Urbosa laid the flaming coil of her hair over the carved stone hands of Imelda’s tomb, and turned from the stern face of the stone queen before the grief came upon her again. She climbed the stairs out of the crypt and went to meet her soldiers where they had gathered with their horses. They bowed their heads and touched their hearts in the sign of shared sorrow, and Urbosa did not think she could bear this any longer.
“ Are you ready, my Lady?”
It was Arakna--it would forever be Arakna-- standing patiently a little behind her, waiting. Urbosa raised her head, curiously light, curiously bare, and looked to the rising sun. She was not ready to leave Zelda, nor ready to live a life that was empty of Imelda. She was not ready to rule her people when all she wanted to do was lie down and not rise again. She was not ready, but that did not matter.
“ Yes. The sooner we leave, the sooner we are home.”
With thoughts of her little bird in her mind, Urbosa mounted her horse and led her people away from Hyrule Castle without looking back.