Archive of Our Own

Branded

Zelda would see him at the tavern sometimes, sitting at the back beside the fire, or cross paths with him at the wharf. He didn't acknowledge her at first—at which she took no offense, for he rarely acknowledged anyone. But as the weeks passed they slipped into a kind of familiarity—at first with a deliberate, fleeting eye contact when they passed each other in the street, and then eventually, when she had earned it by minding her own business, he would tilt his head in a sort of taciturn greeting. And she suspected that was as close as he got to friendliness with anyone.

He was quiet—and that was quite the understatement. The truth of the matter was that most had never heard him speak at all, to the point where many suspected he was mute. But he was a runner, as they all were—hiding from a tyrannical government and trying to cobble together a routine that resembled a life more than it did a struggle for survival—and no doubt had his own reasons for his silence. But while those reasons likely included affording himself privacy, it was having quite the opposite effect.

"So why do you think he does it, Zel?" Groose asked her once as she refilled their tankards.

"Why do I think who does what?"

"Him," he growled, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder towards the fireplace, and she scoffed.

"Link?"

"Are you even sure that's his name?"

"I heard it from a reliable source."

"So he didn't tell you himself," he scoffed. "Someone who speaks so little can only be hiding something."

"You only think so because you speak so much," she smirked, and his companions chuckled.

"He's not just quiet. He's downright unfriendly. Who treats people like that? What reason could he possibly have?"

"Maybe he just wants to be left alone," she shrugged. "Maybe he's branded."

"With what?" Groose passed her a wide, lazy grin. "A rose? He's not pretty enough for that, Zel."

"Is that why he scares you?" she teased. "Are you worried for your virtue?"

But he took her wrist before she could turn to go, his face suddenly all seriousness. "I'm telling you he's hiding something."

She leaned closer so she could lower her voice, patting his shoulder reassuringly. "Aren't we all?"

He let her go when her hand threatened to ruffle his hair, shooing her away; and with a few butterflies in her stomach she turned, carrying her pitcher to the back table.

Link didn't look up as she approached. He had already tilted his head at her when he came in, and he wasn't in the habit of saying hello twice. She went to top off his ale, though by the look of things he hadn't touched it all night.

"They're talking about you," she murmured, daring to pass him a small smile. His eyes met hers, the same cutting blue in that dim corner of the tavern as they were in the asperous light of the wharf. "They say you're too quiet. What on earth gave them that idea?"

His tankard had already been nearly brimming when she walked over, and the slight encouragement poured from her pitcher was turning the situation precarious. And he was barely humoring her anyway, his lips eversealed and devoid of expression. She sighed, kicking herself for walking over in the first place.

"Take care of yourself," she warned him, cradling the pitcher to her chest, and smiled grimly. "They hate you for not giving them a reason to hate you."

She turned and made for the counter, snatching a rag and busying herself with whatever idle task she could find. But when she dared look across the room again, he was watching her through the tavern gloom, and she wondered at the rare and bizarre honor of meeting his eyes thrice in one night.

~:o•O•o:~

Autumn was harsh that year, slipping into frosty nights too early and ripping the leaves from the trees before they could put on much of a show at all. It sent everyone shivering towards the promise of warmth and food—especially those with no wife in their beds or their kitchens to provide either or both at home. And worse than the weather, reports of activity in the north had everyone on edge—that troops had been stationed on the south shores of Lake Hylia for weeks, and their numbers were growing. Some said the village was bound to be discovered soon. That a safe haven for runners like the lot of them couldn't possibly last. That the Dark Lord and his armies would carve through Faron or else blast their way through East Necluda, and there would be nowhere to run but headlong into treacherous winter seas.

Many had moved on, scattering up into the Zora territories headed for the wilds beyond, or taking their chances through the grasslands, praying they could reach the Tabantha Frontier before the first snow. They took their businesses with them, and the unusually cold waters had dried up much of the rest. Work was hard to come by.

It made the men restless. Some nights were violent. Almost all were brutally loud. But something in the air, like the promise of frost or the threat of an early, devastating winter, was making the tavern vibrate with a portent of something worse.

Groose had drunk himself into a stupor—a very loud, irate stupor—and was gesturing so massively while carrying on that he had knocked his tankard clean over and spilled beer over half the counter and three cantankerous patrons.

"This place stinks, it stinks of dead fish and dead men, and the wharf is dead. And do you know why? Because of people like him."

Zelda bothered to look at the back of the room, where Groose's flailing was drawing too much unwelcome attention, as she sopped up the mess and gave the men sitting too close fresh pints for their trouble. She mustered her usual, teasing smile, though something uncomfortable and thick was sticking in her throat.

"You can't blame one man for the bad weather, Groose."

"I don't mean the weather. I mean those troops that are barricading the roads up into Hylia. They'll be here before winter's through and gut us all like a basket full of porgies!" He swiped his neighbor's pint and took a long, messy swig, and she sighed and poured another. "Who do you think they're looking for? You? Me? We're not worth the gunpowder they stuff their cannons with. They wouldn't bother coming all this way for the likes of us. They're looking for other people. People with secrets."

Zelda slammed the fresh tankard on the counter, startling him out of his fuming, and asked flatly, "Do you want supper?"

He frowned. "I haven't got money for supper."

"Then promise me you'll sit here, and don't cause any more trouble, and you can have half of mine," she growled, dunking the toppled tankards into the wash basin and tossing her beer-soaked rag into the laundry bin, and plowed out from behind the counter and into the crowd.

Her heart was pounding in her throat as she squeezed through the crush, heading for that dim flicker of fire where she knew he'd be. She felt silly for approaching him like this, and more than a little nervous that he wouldn't like what she was about to ask of him, but more than that she felt that wet, thick something sticking in her throat, and it spurred her to get on with it.

She found him at his usual spot in the corner. He didn't look up. And she wished for once he would just look up, just acknowledge the courage it took to come and speak with him when no one else would, when no one else dared, and at least appreciate her stubbornness if he could not appreciate her friendship.

"You should go, Link," she told him, setting her jaw when he failed to respond at all. "Groose is angry, and drunk, and he wants someone to blame. And I know he's always loud, but something isn't right. He's scared and stir-crazy like we all are, but the way he's carrying on…"

He did look up at her then, his expression unreadable. It made her fidget. It made her unaccountably want to burst into tears. She clutched at her apron, doubting herself, wondering if he had an ego to bruise or to goad.

She whispered, "Please go."

He studied her for a long time, long enough that she was starting to feel trapped and powerless and foolish for trying to help him. She almost whirled, almost balled her hands into fists and stormed off to let him fend for himself in that goddess-forsaken place.

And then he stood.

It left her dumbstruck and breathless, but when he brushed past her to make for the door she had her wits about her enough to follow. She stayed close at his heels, ready to defuse any confrontations he might encounter on his way out, and reached to grab his elbow when they reached a chokepoint in the crush. He held his arm closer so he wouldn't lose her, leading her through the crowd, and didn't let go until her grip loosened near the exit. He swung the door open and stepped out, and she hugged her arms against the chill.

"I'm sorry to ask this of you," she said, standing at the threshold, and he turned. His breath misted in the lantern light and the frigid night air. She realized that she didn't even know if he had anywhere else to go. "He's normally harmless, but… I just had a bad feeling. I just wanted you to be safe. I promised him half my supper to behave himself, but he's so roaring drunk he's probably forgotten already."

He didn't say anything, lingering, waiting, listening, eyes locked too intently with hers. It made her blood pound hotter, and suddenly she was glad for the unseasonable cold.

She cleared her throat, feeling precariously close to the fringes of her dignity, and told him, "Just try to stay out of his way, all right?"

She closed the door slowly, pressing her ear to the wood once it was shut to listen for his footfalls as he retreated. But she couldn't hear a thing. And then she felt silly, because she couldn't possibly have heard something as quiet as footsteps with the ruckus of the tavern behind her.

Either that, or he had been lingering all that time outside her door, and wasn't that a ridiculous thought?

~:o•O•o:~

Zelda saw him less after that. He would come to the tavern some nights when it was especially cold, and they would still pass by each other randomly on the wharf—though he wasn't weighed down with ropes and nets and hooks as he usually was, and she guessed he had lost work with the autumn's mass exodus and the onset of inclement weather like the rest of them. Sometimes she wished he would stay, be that constant presence in the corner like he used to be, or else hold her eyes in that lingering way that made her heart sprint instead of reverting to fleeting glances and gentle tips of his head.

Soon autumn was over, gusty, overcast days giving way to something less dramatic but much more biting, and even though they hadn't had a snowfall, there was no doubt that they had stepped irreversibly into winter.

She slept in that morning. The sun had decided to grace Lurelin with its strange and glorious presence, and was pouring through the window across her bed, and she couldn't bring herself to leave it. It was the reason she had missed most of the commotion.

Someone shot and killed an imperial scout near the Floria Bridge.

The village was in an uproar over the news. Some of the more pragmatic men had gone out to disguise the murder as an accident—splinter some of the weaker boards on the bridge, batter the body, and drop it through the planks to make it seem like he had fallen to his death during the crossing and been carried downriver. And the more worthless men stayed behind, causing trouble and taking out their fears and frustrations at home.

She was walking into the village square for supplies when she heard the hissing crowd huddled near the fountain. She dropped her things with a sigh and headed toward the commotion to see if she couldn't talk some sense into whoever was causing the disturbance—working at the tavern for most of the year saddled her with the unhappy burden of knowing everyone, and she found herself peculiarly depended upon to settle disputes, even on rare, glorious, sunny winter days—but the sight before her as she shouldered her way into the crowd made her blood run cold in spite of the unseasonable warmth.

Groose was in the center of the ring the crowd had formed, shouting the tail-end of his accusatory speech against the other fool in the ring with him: Link. How had he let himself get dragged into this?

He peeled off his shirt in the traditional challenge, demonstrating the lack of armor necessary for an honorable duel, and drew a knife from his belt. Link made no move to do the same, his mouth pulled taut into a frown. Groose circled and taunted and shoved, and when Link stumbled too close to the crowd they would shove him back. He tried to force a knife into his hand, tried to goad him into fighting back, but the only resistance he offered was wrenching his wrist away when they tried to give him a weapon.

The crowd was shouting and hollering, and Groose was out of patience. He launched himself at him with a roar, twisting and swiping his blade, and drew blood in a long line down his left cheek. The onlookers cheered and stepped in closer, hungry for violence that didn't involve getting themselves skewered by imperial armies. Groose landed blows to his stomach and across his brow, doubling him over and then bringing him to one knee. And then he leapt for him again, sending them both sprawling to the ground, and sank the short blade of his knife into Link's shoulder.

Her breath knocked out of her as though she had been the one plowed into. Because so many things had been taken from her, stolen from her, and now the first time she'd gotten to hear his voice it was a cry of pain. And somehow that felt like the cruelest theft of them all.

She stumbled out of the crush into the ring, shouting, as Groose pummeled his face again and again, much to the delight of the crowd. Before she could even get close enough to touch him she could smell the stench of alcohol, and it made her stomach clench. It wasn't even noon, and he was beyond sense.

"Groose, that's enough!" she barked, wrapping her hands around his arm. "Let him go!"

But he was in no mood. He wrenched his arm free and spun on her, landing a clumsy blow to her cheekbone. She hit the dirt with a hiss, cradling it. It wasn't the first time she'd been punched in the face by a drunk she'd angered by being uncooperative, but for all of Groose's idiocy, she had expected better of him. She had thought of him as a friend. And the bitter truth that he would just as easily treat her as so many had before him stung.

But when she looked over, Link's eyes were on her, wide and furious, and before she could even register the change the tide of battle had turned.

His knee lifted from where it seemed Groose had him pinned, cracking against his chin, and then his elbow struck noisily against his jaw. Groose rolled and stumbled, his head still spinning from the blow, and Link stood, drawing his knife and pulling his shirt over his head to face him properly. And the crowd went silent, because in the glare of the sun the puckered brand between his shoulder blades shone like an omen from the gods.

The brand of the Dagger.

Link moved like death, sure and solid as he stepped in, staying low and landing strike after strike so as to cripple him. A fist to the ribs, the hilt of his knife to the underside of his chin, an elbow to his other side, keeping him upright and stumbling back in a straight line until his calves knocked against the rim of the fountain. He splashed into the water, forcing him back against the centerpiece and lifting him off the ground with an arm across his shoulders, and poised his blade across his neck, drawing a line of red with calculated, deliberate pressure.

He looked feral, holding Groose aloft by the throat as the fountain water soaked them through and rinsed oozing red off of them both. Groose just looked terrified. And maybe that was why Link let him go: because he was a fool and a coward, and there was no pleasure or glory in gutting someone like that. Although he still looked like he wanted to.

He dropped him and sliced the dagger across his face in the same motion, drawing a line down his face to mirror the one he had given him at the beginning of their fight, and Groose yelped, cowering in the freezing fountain water as Link turned, sheathing his knife and retrieving his shirt from the mud.

His expression was calloused. They had all seen the brand, and he would only be met by fear now, no matter where he went. He seemed used to the idea.

Zelda shook herself out of her stupor, breathless, and got up to follow where the crowd had parted for him. She picked up her things—her basket was still empty, but shopping could wait—and had to trot several paces before she caught up to him.

"You're bleeding," she panted, but he didn't acknowledge her, or slacken his pace. She huffed impatiently, speed walking to keep up. "You need someone to treat that wound. He guts porgies with that knife, you know. You'll get an infection." And when she was still getting no reaction from him, she raised her voice and demanded, "Where will you go?"

He whipped around to glower, trying to startle her when she showed no signs of letting up; and she was ashamed to say he had startled her, and she had let it show.

"Don't be like that," she sighed, taking his hand and pulling him towards her house, and added for good measure, "It's not like you're the first Dagger I've ever met."

He blinked at that, letting himself be dragged a few steps in his surprise, and then following grudgingly as she wound through the neighborhood, down one cobblestone road and then another. At her front steps, he resisted, planting his feet and not letting himself be moved while she pulled almost comically hard at his arm.

"It's like wrestling with a mule," she gritted out, refusing to let up when she had already gotten him as far as her door, and stomped her foot. "What's the matter with you? Don't tell me it's something stupid, like fear for my reputation."

He didn't say. He just frowned harder.

"Well, fine," she huffed, throwing his hand back at him and crossing her arms. "If you want to be a stubborn, ungrateful wharf rat, then stay out here for all I care."

She spun, growling at his obstinance, and went to put the kettle over the fire, just in case he decided to be practical. The front door was still wide open, the threshold empty save for a shaft of sunlight. But then she heard the thump of his boots as he climbed the stairs and stepped inside, and waited until he clicked the door shut before she deigned to acknowledge him. He was still frowning, but it looked more like a pout than a scowl.

"Sit down, then," she sighed, fetching a bowl and some cloth from the cupboards and then rummaging for some wild indigo. She set everything on the corner of the table and pulled the kettle of the fire, ordering as she poured, "Shirt off."

His frown pulled deeper as he obeyed, revealing the fresh injury in his shoulder, the brand on his back, and a chest and torso riddled with scars. She wrung out the cloth, pressing the warmth into the wound, eyeing him, looking for signs of discomfort, but he didn't react. His eyes were glued to his tunic in his hands.

The red was seeping through the cloth. Zelda dunked and wrung it out again, cleaned as much of the blood as she reasonably could, and administered the indigo, applying pressure again to urge absorption; but he didn't flinch until her steadying hand slipped too far down his shoulder, fingertips brushing against the raised mark.

"Hold this," she ordered again, pressing his hand into the cloth to demonstrate how much pressure to apply, and turned to find something suitable to dress the injury.

She wasn't exactly equipped for dealing with stab wounds, but she had enough spare fabric to fashion something rudimentary: a large square she could fold into the right shape, and several longer pieces she could wrap under his arm to keep it in place. He still wasn't making eye contact, and it was starting to grate. Not that she was so bold as to expect something so extravagant as a thank you out of him, but neither did she appreciate being invisible.

When she was done wrapping his arm, she moved on to his bludgeoned face, letting the cloth cool before she wiped the blood away. She knew from experience that heat on fresh bruises didn't feel very pleasant. And now, of all times, he chose to watch her: blue eyes cutting through the lattice of her fingers as she brushed his bangs aside, as she tilted his head this way or that to better reach the slice on his cheek or his split lip.

"These will close up on their own," she murmured, adding a few drops of indigo to his cheek just in case and trying to ignore her climbing heart rate. But he just wouldn't look away.

She met his eyes when there was nothing left to nurse, and it lasted much too long. Longer than it ever had at the wharf, longer than that night she urged him to go at the tavern. It was like he was speaking to her, whispering a string of words and phrases too foreign and too fast to process, and suddenly it was hard to swallow. She snatched his shirt from his hands when she needed to escape, refilling the bowl from the kettle and washing off the blood, and when it was wrung out she fetched a needle and some thread and set about mending the tear the knife had made.

She set her chair in front of the hearth to do her work, gesturing him over. They sat in silence as she threaded the needle, as she pierced the fabric, as she found that gentle rhythm that still came slowly and fumblingly, basking in the heat.

"I'm not much of a seamstress," she admitted, frowning at the way the tunic puckered under her stitches, and sighed quietly when he didn't contradict her. Not that she expected him to, but it would have been nice. "I'm not much of a nurse, either. Go to the doctor if it doesn't look better in a day or two." Then she broke the thread with her teeth and said, "Try this on."

She helped him get the tunic back over his head, trying and failing to make the section she had mended lay flat. She shrugged it off when he noticed her doting, smirking to mask her discontent.

"There. You would hardly guess you had been stabbed this morning at all."

His lips twitched softly, though whether they meant to pull up or down she couldn't guess. Another spell of silence descended over the little room like twilight; and then, so quietly and gingerly she couldn't find the words to object, he stood and moved for the door.

She followed blinkingly, lips shaping uselessly around half-formed words. But what else was there to say? Don't go? Stay, and I'll feed you the lunch I forgot to buy this morning? He wasn't much for words anyway. He probably thought she was a blabbermouth as it was.

He opened the door and stepped down onto the top stair as she watched from the threshold; and then he hesitated, his head bowing. If she didn't know any better, she might have thought it was contrition. He turned slowly to face her again, meeting her eyes.

He said, "Thank you, Zelda."

And his voice was low and worn and warm, like hot sand on her skin after a cold swim in the ocean, strong and soothing enough to ease the tremors. She wanted to wrap herself in his voice like a blanket, wanted to drag him back into the house and coerce more of it out of him, wanted to tell him that if he would wait ten minutes she really could run to the market and back and have hot food on the table in short order.

Instead, she said, "You're welcome."

He turned down the cobblestone street and out of sight without another word.

~:o•O•o:~

The business with the imperial scout on the bridge made reaching the rendezvous point slightly more tedious, but he still arrived on time, settling into the shadow of the ruins to wait. The fresh stab wound in his shoulder was still throbbing, and screamed in protest every time he used his left arm for anything, but it couldn't be helped. He was thankful Zelda had taken care to dress it well; Faron was a cesspool of standing water and humidity and bugs, even this late in the year, and the last place he would've wanted to leave a wound untreated.

He was… thankful to Zelda for a lot of things.

The sun was well into its descent by the time the others arrived: a fearsome Sheikah woman with a dainty Hylian and a baby in tow. Link frowned. They looked like they had been to hell and back, and they had a couple hours of daylight left at most. It was going to be a long journey.

"Sorry we're late," the Sheikah said, taking the canteen off her belt so the woman with her could finish it before being handed off and unloading the luggage she was carrying. "The Bridge of Hylia is barricaded. We had to go around."

He didn't answer. What he really wanted to do was scold her for putting this woman in such a precarious position, and carrying an infant no less; but that was his problem, now.

"He'll see you to the next waypoint," the Sheikah said, smiling softly, and then, as Sheikah were so often wont to do, she took three steps back and disappeared into the barest slip of shadow.

Link looked her over. She was young, her eyes wide and dull from too much crying and her chocolate hair an unruly mess. The baby in her arms was too quiet and still, no doubt shell shocked from whatever it had seen when they had fled. There was a bag for the mother, a smaller one for her child—and a third, filled with gentleman's clothes he was willing to wager, with the way her thumb stroked the band on her left hand like a nervous twitch. It wasn't hard to guess the rest.

More than anything, she looked like she needed a good night's sleep. But this wasn't the place for it. Faron was going to be crawling with imperials, and the sooner they could get out, the better.

He hefted the two larger bags onto his shoulders and turned for the mountains.

It was slow going. The woman was exhausted, and the terrain was unforgiving. He took the child into his arms when the grade got too steep, and the little thing didn't cry. She must have been used to being carted around by strangers by now. They made it into the shadow of Mount Floria before the darkness made it too dangerous to go on, and he made a tiny spot for them to sleep against the cliffs.

She was asleep before he even sat down, the baby nestled in her neck. The whispering roar of the falls beneath them tempted him to follow, but it wasn't safe. He spent the night awake, ears trained on the rustle of palm fronds and noisemakers—but in the moonless dark, with nothing else to busy his eyes, he let them drift, staring through sparks and spangles set off by touch, by skin on skin, looking for green eyes and golden hair and a soft brow furrowed in concentration.

They set off again at dawn, carving a plodding trail through the steppe and Taran Pass. They turned east at Marblod Plain, following the old road up into hills where the old Hateno settlement used to be before the imperials burned it to the ground. Link let them stop to rest, frowning at the path ahead of them. He could see the worry in the woman's eyes, the way she tried to fathom where he could possibly be leading her when it was well known that there was no safe passage into Lanayru this far east, scanning the forbidding mountain range that kept them from their destination.

He dug through their bags while they ate a little, trying to find something more suitable for them to wear. The mountains were frosted and shrouded in haze, and he doubted the weather was going to miraculously clear for them. There would be snow.

He handed her the warmest things he could find, watching as she accepted the bundle with wide eyes, the way her hands shook and her throat bobbed as she dressed her baby in a tiny wool sweater and thicker socks, the lingering kiss she pressed to her forehead and she pulled a little hat over her ears. Then she turned around, trembling, and peeled the thin dress off her shoulders, dragging her arms and legs into a patchwork of socks and leggings, a long tunic, a sweater and cloak, and her late husband's trousers.

They set off into the foothills. The child spent most of the time in Link's arms, the grade too steep and the footing too uncertain for the woman to carry her into the mountains herself. They hiked up the range between Walnot and Medorna, fingers gripping stone laced with frost and bare, brittle trees as they climbed. By the time they could see the Snowfield, they were trudging headlong into stinging ice crystals and whipping winds.

They had to stop much earlier than he would have liked, the low visibility and fresh snowfall making it too dangerous to go on. He found them a place in the shadow of Mount Lanayru, taking her cloak from off her to wrap around her baby, and pulling her husband's cloak out of his bag to wrap around her. Then he pulled her into his arms for warmth and pressed them all into the shelter of the cliff, and she silently cried herself to sleep in his throat.

In the morning he dared to light a fire, letting her warm herself and her baby by the flames and rationing out the dried meat from his pack. She had barely picked at her food the day before, but the gravity of their situation seemed to have finally hit her. She ate like that meal may have been her last, which was a good thing. She was going to need the energy.

The weather had cleared up overnight. The snow was blinding and deceitful, making the path arduous. But they made it along the ridge of the Snowfield, up into the Heights and down Trotter's Downfall into the plains. When she saw the Rutala Dam rising out of the mist, she wept.

They settled alongside the river to wait. The woman had nodded off with her head on his shoulder, and the child was in his arms. He had to jostle her awake when he spied the ripples in the water, had to point to the glistening curve in the water one might easily have mistaken for a stone or a turtle shell or a trick of the light. The Zora stayed mostly invisible until it reached the shallows, when it suddenly drew itself up out of the water to its startling height.

"We'll take them from here," the creature said, sharp eyes and pulsating gills and flexing fins making the baby shrink in his arms. She had obviously never seen a Zora before. But then, not many had. It turned, the thin line on his face that constituted a smile stretching. "You'll be safe with us."

The woman turned, flustered, for her things. He guessed it must have been disconcerting, being handed off from one frightening caretaker to the next; no sooner had they gotten used to him then he was passing them on to someone else. When he tried to hand the baby off to her mother, she clung to his tunic and murmured a tiny protest—the first sound she had made the entire trip.

"You'll have to forgive her," the woman apologized quietly, prying her away and tucking her beneath her chin. "I think you remind her of her father. You look a lot like him."

Then the Zora handed him a slip of paper, ushered her to shore, and disappeared with them beneath the surface.

He unfolded the message as he turned back the way he had come, envisioning the phase of the moon so he could decipher the dates and coordinates hidden amidst dozens of false numbers.

It was in a month's time. No cargo, no escort, no handoff. And the location was deep in Zora territory. Things were moving forward. He burned the message into his memory, and then lit a small fire and burned it to ash. He just needed to lie low for a few weeks, maybe gather some intel and supplies in Lurelin while he waited. Try to keep himself busy so he wouldn't do something stupid, like wander back into that tavern every night just so he could thrill at meeting her eyes.

He tried to shake off the thought, the image, the feeling. But it was already stuck on him like a bur.

It stayed stuck all the way back through Necluda and into the Atun Valley.

~:o•O•o:~

Link ghosted back into Lurelin after dusk on the second day, following a trail of shadows to his usual stop to restock supplies. Rime was sticking up from between the cobblestones, mottled with mud and shoe tread, and snow nestled in corners and against walls in tiny drifts. The village felt much colder than it had when he left.

"What in Din's name are you doing here?" the shopkeeper hissed when he spotted him, scrambling, red-faced, to put together his standing order. "You know half the village is looking for you? And the other half is determined not to get in their way once they find you?"

Link didn't answer, studying the woodgrain in the countertop with a frown. He was hoping the brand would have warded off any more trouble. It usually intimidated people with any sense out of bothering him. But sometimes this town seemed very short on sense.

"Well, don't say I didn't warn you," he said, bundling more dried meats and a bit of cheese and bread, some beeswax, soap, and ink and paper. "They probably saw you come in."

He took out the money he owed and left it on the counter, shuffled the bundle wordlessly into his pack, and made for the street.

There was a chance he would have to leave town, inconvenient as that would be. He didn't much care for the idea of braving the wilderness for a month with winter descending, but he couldn't afford to miss that rendezvous if the villagers decided to be troublesome. There was too much imperial activity in Faron. He would have to go to Necluda. There was game in Retsam Forest, and shelter enough in the old settlement. He would make do.

Of course, the entire mess could have been avoided if he hadn't let his temper get the best of him.

He sighed, berating himself again. Someone with a brand like his had no business getting so attached to a nice girl like her. Even if her eyes were the color of the Grasslands in spring, and her laughter was like summer wind, and her touch on his bare shoulder made him see fairylights. He remembered with remorse the first time he saw her on the wharf, tossing crumbs onto the rolling sea for the gulls, and how his head had snapped her way a second time, eyes too wide. Remorse, and a bit of a smile.

He frowned at the thought of leaving without seeing her again. But… maybe that was for the best.

He turned the corner to the square and someone plowed hard into his injured shoulder.

"Watch it," the figure hissed, disappearing behind him, but Link knew better than to assume it had only been a callous reply to a misunderstanding.

The way he had dropped his shoulder and charged into him was the sort of deliberate gesture that preceded trouble.

He paused, wondering if he should just turn and go back the way he had come, take the long way around rather than cross through the square. But when he glanced over his shoulder there were five shadows standing at the edge of the lantern light, trailing from a distance. Which he would have noticed earlier if he hadn't been daydreaming. He growled at himself, plowing ahead into the square.

He didn't want to hurt anyone. But as another handful of shadows moved from the other side of the square to meet him, he realized he might not have a choice.

He stopped, dropping his pack on the cobblestones to face his assailants, listening, observing, cataloguing. There were twelve altogether. The one approaching over his right shoulder favored his left leg as he walked. Another closer to the fountain was left-handed. Most were substantially larger than he was, and probably less agile. All of them were armed.

The first strike came from behind. Link heard it coming: the hollow whistle of cloth, the grind of his boot on rime and cobblestone as he put too much weight into the blow, and he ducked out of the way, landing an elbow to his ribs. Another came headlong at him as the other doubled over with a grunt, angry and afraid and hardly thinking. But they weren't the ones that worried him. They were impatient, and too eager, and always threw too much of themselves into a single punch. It was the few who hadn't stepped forward, the ones who kept their cool and waited for an opening, lingering just out of reach, that raised alarm bells in his mind.

They were older. They had seen war. They knew that if they just kept blocking his escape, if they just kept throwing blows, if they just kept forcing him to counter, he would tire. There would be a lapse. There would be room to punish.

It came too soon. Because instead of focusing on the fist headed for his face, he was picturing hers when she found him bled out in the square the next morning.

The moment he was off balance the others crowded in, hooking him at the throat and at the arms, and made quick work of the rest. They weren't interested in making a point, or pontificating for the sake of their own egos. They just wanted him gone, whether that would actually solve their problems or not. It was… rather a credit to their intelligence, he thought.

His mouth dropped open in a voiceless gasp as one stepped forward and drove a curved blade into his gut to the hilt, body trembling as he recognized its serrated edge.

"We'll throw you downriver with the scout," the assailant panted, almost pensive. "They might think you killed him. Or, at the very least, that whoever did isn't harboring traitors."

A small commotion pulled at their attention—light, and a muddled cry or stretch of words. It was hard to be sure through the ocean bearing down on his ears. The blade pulled back, tearing as it went, and they dropped it beside him as he fell into the snow.

He tried to keep his eyes in focus as they fled, as the gaping hole in his abdomen stained everything black and red, as the backward teeth of the blade near his eyes glinted darkly in a sudden spill of lantern light. It was an assassin's weapon. Not that any of them could have rightfully owned such a thing. They had probably plucked it off a Dagger's corpse in the war and thought using it to finish him constituted some sort of poetic justice.

Maybe they were right, he thought to himself, as the snow and the cobblestone blurred and melted. Maybe this was justice.

~:o•O•o:~

Link came back to himself slowly, blinking in so much unfiltered light. The room was unfamiliar, and much too white: white curtains, white sheets, white sunlight. He craned his neck to look at himself, and every muscle in his body protested at once. He loosed a rigid breath, letting his head fall back on the pillows. His middle, still too sore for words, was wrapped in white, too, though he suspected that if he probed far enough beneath the blankets, he would finally find some stains.

He wasn't curious enough to bother.

After a while—maybe two minutes, maybe two hours—the door opened. A young man stepped through, chocolate-haired and clean-shaven. The gentle eyes beneath his puckered brow were rimmed in thick glasses, and drawn with lines that said he hadn't slept. His lips pulled as if to smile, but didn't quite.

"You're awake," he said, heaving a soft breath. "That's good."

Link recognized him. The young doctor who found his way down to Lurelin last spring. He was a slender thing, with uncalloused hands and a forehead perpetually creased with concern. He pulled up a chair to his bedside and sat, his thumb working at his palm, but it was hard to be sure if he wrung his hands because they were sore or because he was anxious.

"I found you in the square the other night. You had been attacked. Do you remember?"

The doctor turned when he seemed disinclined to answer, pouring him a glass of water from a pitcher and easing his head up to drink. Link was half-convinced the water would go right through him, gushing out of his wound and staining the sheets pink. But what he managed to get down stayed inside him.

"I thought it best not to bring you to the hospital, given the circumstances. Hopefully no one will think to look for you here—or if they do, think twice about slighting the only doctor in the village by breaking down his front door. May I?"

He deftly rolled the sheets down to his hips and went after the bandages around his midsection with a pristine pair of scissors. The gauze tugged and shifted on his skin as it eased off the wound, and he swallowed a groan. It was a hideous thing, all torn flesh and bruises and loops of thread where the doctor had done his best to sew him back together. He turned to an array of swabs and vials on the nightstand, beginning what Link gathered was something of a routine at this point.

"That's a horrible weapon they stabbed you with," he said grimly, thoughtfully. "You lost a lot of blood. You're lucky it went in the way it did. Very lucky. This will feel cold."

He hissed as the sensation spread, the throbbing radiating from the wound dulling beneath an icy tingling. He stared at the vial when the doctor put it back, analyzing. Cool safflina extract, maybe. That couldn't have been easy to come by. It made him frown. Not that he wasn't grateful. It just… seemed like a waste.

"It's actually looking much better, if you can believe that," he breathed, leaning in to gingerly apply the contents of another vial. "My father always said I didn't have the constitution for war. And he was right. But I think he meant it more as a challenge: like I couldn't handle the horrors. But I've seen more than my fair share of amputations and rot and death."

Satisfied, he put his medications aside and set about redressing the wound. He frowned as he worked, his hands deft and his eyes focused.

"It is horrific sometimes. I can't say that I would recommend it to anyone. But it's my calling. I was meant to heal," he mused, and then frowned deeper, avoiding his gaze. "I can't imagine wilfully hurting people."

Link didn't imagine that he could. He didn't imagine that he knew what it was to have a weapon shoved into his tiny hands at four years old and be beaten upside the head until he fought back, what it did to your mind when drawing blood meant going to bed with a full belly and showing kindness meant going to bed hungry. Didn't imagine he knew what it was to do good, not because it was his calling, but because he had so much to atone for.

"That should do it," he sighed. "I have a housekeeper, Agitha—she'll bring you something to eat, and I'll be back to check on you in a few hours. Let her know if you need anything else. You should be on your feet again in a few weeks."

Link's hand flew out as he made to stand, grabbing him by the wrist.

"How long?" he rasped. "How many weeks?"

"Hard to say. Maybe four? Six?"

Link let him go, dropping his head back on the pillows. He didn't have that much time.

But for the moment, he didn't really have much of a choice but to lie there.

~:o•O•o:~

The days dragged by slowly. He had daily checkups from the doctor and even more frequent visits from poor Agitha, who wasn't so much as a housekeeper as she was one of the fisherman's daughters who had fallen into the doctor's good graces, doing her best to cook and clean to make her family a little extra money, and who was absolutely terrified of the branded man sleeping in the extra bedroom.

After a week he could sit up on his own with a great deal of teeth grinding (and scolding from both the doctor and Agitha, who didn't so much scold as she did squeak protests while she half-hid behind the furniture). By two weeks he was sneaking out of bed to hobble to the window, and rolling his eyes at himself as he envisioned hobbling through the backcountry. A week after that, he could stand without biting back a scream. But it wasn't nearly the miraculous recovery he had been hoping for.

The weather wasn't getting any better either. He had stayed cooped up through no less than three blizzards in as many weeks, which was just a glimmer of what would be waiting for him near Mount Lanayru. But he didn't have a choice. The door into the Domain rarely opened, and they needed all the help they could get—now more than ever. There wouldn't be another opportunity.

He would have to leave Lurelin—tonight, if possible. There was no telling how long it would take him to reach the waypoint in his condition. And he would need supplies, and something warmer for travel. Maybe he could scare Agitha into helping him escape.

And then, as though summoned, he heard footsteps pattering down the hall. But they were too heavy to be tiny Agitha's, and too urgent to be the doctor's.

Before he could sort it out, Zelda blew into the room like a squall.

She was red-faced, her eyes glassy and puffy and her hands balled into fists as she took in the sight of him. He sat up—too quickly, his middle shouted, but he resisted the urge to fall back into the cushions—and labored through a silent, uncomfortable moment. Zelda was gasping from running down the hall—and possibly across the square, or across town. Then she shook her head and barreled closer, and it took everything he had not to flinch.

"He said you've been here three weeks. Three weeks. And you didn't think to ask him to send me a message? Do you have any idea how worried I've been? They bragged at the tavern about what they did to you, do you know that? But no one knew what had happened to you, if you'd died in the square or been handed over to imperialists or—"

One of her fists tangled against her forehead as she drew a breath and held it, going too still, too quiet, and he quelled the urge to reach for her, to hold her in his arms while she cried as he had held that woman in the mountains.

"You don't owe me anything," she finally spat, "but you could have spared me this. You could have asked him to lie for you, to tell me you were dead. It would have been better than not knowing."

Then she spun and stormed out before he could conjure excuses, much less muster the courage to say them. The front door slammed so hard it rattled the house.

The room was stifling and thick in her wake. In her absence. And all at once he couldn't stand to lie in that bed for one more minute.

He whipped the blankets off and shouted for Agitha at the top of his lungs.

~:o•O•o:~

Zelda tore through the square towards her quarter, shawl tucked into her arms and her arms tucked into each other, shivering. Angry that she could have been spared all that worry. Angry that she was crying. Angry that she had let him see her crying.

"Why do you keep asking?" the doctor had asked that morning, when they crossed paths again in the market. "What is he to you?"

"We were friends," she lied, and then wondered if it was a lie or not.

"I didn't think he had any friends."

"Maybe he didn't. But I think I was as close to one as he ever had."

Then he'd pursed his lips and pulled her away from the stalls to tell her the secret he'd been keeping for three weeks; that he hadn't been sure who could be trusted; that she could come and see him for herself, so long as she came alone.

And then she'd bowled over the fisherman's daughter and found him in the doctor's house, bandaged and bedridden, but clean, and healthy, and staring at her with that blank, whispering stare, asking a question she should have been asking herself and that made her feel a fool: What are you doing here?

Her house was cold as she kicked off her snow-crusted boots and ripped away her gloves and threw her shawl, the fire all but dead in the hearth and the walls doing little to keep out the biting winter. She gathered the embers and fed them kindling and logs, and then grabbed at squash and potatoes and carrots and onions. It was nowhere near suppertime, but she had nothing better to do. And she had to do something.

She put all the vegetables in the pot with some flour and butter and poured bone broth over the roux, and then stood in front of the hearth waiting for it to simmer, scowling. She was so angry. And so insulted. And so relieved she could cry. And she couldn't say what on earth for.

The doctor's question rang between her ears again. What is he to you?

Groose had been more of a friend to her than he ever had in every measurable sense—big, stupid, clumsy Groose, who had apologized so profusely when he came to his senses the next day, and then just about shriveled up to nothing when he saw that, though she accepted his apology, she hadn't forgiven him.

So why had she blown across town like a storm just to yell at him?

She plucked dried herbs from the kitchen rack in a fury and pinched the leaves off the stems, for the satisfaction of destroying something just as much as for the flavor. And when she was convinced there was nothing left in the house to add to the stew, she cleaned up her shawl and her gloves and brushed snow and mud off her boots, and then swept.

Then she sat at the table, bereft of distraction, and took a sharp, shaking breath.

There was a knock at the door. She swallowed down the rush of tears that had nearly come gushing out, dabbing her eyes dry and straightening her clothes as she made to answer.

And there he was, standing on her step in the snow, one arm braced unsteadily on the doorframe.

"You should be in bed," she frowned.

He ignored that. "Can I come in?"

And there it was again, that voice, that sensation of hot sand on skin, and it melted all her frosty intentions. She realized there was probably very little she wouldn't do if he asked in that voice, and the thought made her frown deepen as she stepped aside.

He moved too slowly—not quite limping along, but clearly favoring one side. He set down his pack beside the door and gravitated toward the chair he had used the last time he visited, not waiting for an invitation to sit. Not that she blamed him. He looked miserable.

"You should be in bed," she said again.

"I've been in bed for three weeks," he scoffed, but the gravel in his voice said she was right.

"The doctor doesn't even know you've left, does he? Well, you can't hide here."

"I'm not here to hide."

"Then what are you doing here?"

"I'm leaving," he said quietly. "I've come to say goodbye."

Suddenly that little room felt very small. She breathed, "Oh."

She couldn't think of a thing to say. The wind gusted outside and the house creaked. Bits of ice pelted the window. A foolish, selfish part of her wanted to tell him not to go. But how could he stay after what had happened? She half expected him to pipe up, Well, goodbye! and be on his merry way. But he couldn't seem to think of what he wanted to say either. His hand fisted on the table.

Zelda cleared her throat. "Where will you go?"

"I can't tell you."

Well, that was insulting. "Are you hungry?" she asked instead of dwelling.

"No."

And why should he be? What was it, half past two in the afternoon? She got up and ladled him a bowl of stew anyway. And as she wandered back, food steaming between her hands, she thought that this was where he felt most familiar: when she was standing beside his table, his eyes glued to her hands as she set out food and a spoon for him, and then slowly, finally, lifting to meet hers. It made something thick stick in her throat.

The only unfamiliar thing about it was the line running down his cheek from his fight with Groose, healed weeks ago into a thin scar. She scowled, unconsciously lifting her hand to thumb at it. He stilled, watching her as she traced it with her nail, as she memorized the harsh ridge of it. It reminded her of a fish bone. It reminded her of the wharf. It reminded her of warmer days, and the gleam of his eyes when the sun glitter splashed on his face. His hand closed around her wrist, keeping her close as he turned into her touch, as he lingered when her fingertips feathered his cheekbone, his eyelids, the bridge of his nose; and then he breathed the scent of thyme and rosemary and who knew what else, cradling her hand in his, and pressed his lips against her palm.

She sat down so quickly it made the cutlery on the table rattle. He still had her by the wrist, staring at her curiously through the lattice of her fingertips. Slowly, too slowly, his grip slackened, their hands drifting apart like ice floes at sea, and suddenly she wasn't entirely sure if his chaste kiss hadn't been an extension of her imaginary quay. Then she realized her arm was still lying acrossing the table and pulled her hand back into her lap. Her palm still tingled like it was frostnipped.

He picked up the spoon when the silence dragged on and speared a potato, carving a moon out of it and rearranging it amongst the other vegetables. He took a bite, put his spoon down while he chewed. Stirred it a bit before he tasted it again. She had never seen him eat so slowly.

He was waiting, she realized, watching him separate the layers of an onion wedge with unnecessary care, though she couldn't say what for. He poked and prodded and ate, and her palm prickled like it was full of sun glitter. A few minutes later, despite his apparent lack of appetite, the bowl was empty. He glanced at the door.

"I should go," he said, though he didn't move.

"You wouldn't have come to say goodbye if I hadn't cornered the doctor this morning," she breathed, trying not to sound as hurt as she felt, "would you?"

He frowned. "I would have tried harder not to."

"That's not fair."

"I know. I'm sorry."

The silence stretched again, the house groaning under the weight of its own roof and the fire shivering and murmuring like something alive. Everything was turning cold, like someone had left the window open and the heat was sucking right out. And on that sour note, he stood. And she rose to meet him, capturing his mouth in hers before either of them could think better of it.

Her fingers snarled in his collar and her eyes pinched shut as she drank his surprise and the warmth from his lips. He still tasted a bit like rosemary; but it was mostly something else, something wild and far from Lurelin, like pine and hawthorn in the snow. She let him go and opened her eyes, lingering too long, too close, so their breath mingled invitingly on cold, bereft lips.

"I didn't know if I would ever have another chance," she said softly, weakly, and he nodded, like that was the most reasonable thing he'd ever heard.

He kissed her again, hands finding her waist and pulling her flush against him where she had been too worried about jostling his injury to press in close before. She held his face, stroked his jaw, traced his scar, gently leading him deeper into the house by the mouth, and for a while he followed, like he was drunk on the taste of it.

He resisted when sense started to creep back in, one hand resting rigidly on the partition, and she whispered against his mouth, "Stay."

"I can't."

She dropped her face, fingers still gnarled on his neck, not quite willing to let him go. Not quite brave enough. She murmured hopelessly, "Then let me follow you."

He scoffed. "If Lurelin was all that was keeping you from me, do you honestly think I would let it get in my way?"

"Then what is it?"

"Where I'm going isn't safe. Not yet. But you know I have other reasons," he frowned, slowly, gingerly covering her hands with his and working them free of his shirt. "You've seen my brand."

Her jaw set as she mirrored his frown, as she scoured his eyes with hers, looking for weakness. She whispered, eyes darkening in resolve, "But have you seen mine?"

She turned, drawing her hair aside with trembling hands, and lifted the bodice of her dress. The fabric in the back fell loose, revealing the perfect, pale imprint etched between her shoulder blades. A cockled, thornless rose. She shivered when he touched it, fingers passing over numb shapes burned into her skin, and then spreading so his palm was flat against it.

She turned again when she thought he could feel her shaking, when fear and doubt and a sudden flare of shame got the best of her, and mustered the courage to meet his eyes.

"We all have secrets," she said, so much more weakly than she meant to. "I think I had about as much choice as you."

"Maybe less," he whispered, swallowing something feral she had only seen cross his eyes once before. It made his voice husky. "It doesn't change anything. You deserve better."

"Let's not talk about what either of us deserve," she sighed. "I'm so tired of it. I'm tired of punishing myself or pitying myself for something I can't change and was too young to control." His eyes darkened again and she stepped closer, craving their usual light, and whispered, "Let's talk about what we want."

His lips twisted, eyes roving in thought, before he decided, "I want to stop them from hurting anyone else."

Her heart fell a little. Not that she dared hope he would really say he wanted her, especially now that he knew what she was. But that kind of talk was dangerous, and purposeful, and foolish… and she really should have expected it of him.

"You're a Resistance fighter," she whispered, the pieces falling neatly and horribly into place.

His lips pressed into a grim line, his finger curling under her chin to tip it up just so, to harness her eyes with a gaze that shone like the sea under moonlight, daring to push her towards hope. "We all resist. We all fight."

She trembled. Her voice was barely a voice at all, tempered by fear and no little amount of despair. "I've seen what the Empire does to those men. I've seen the way they cut them down."

"I know," he said, frowning as he took her face in his hands, as his thumbs swept soothing lines over her cheekbones. "I've been the one doing the cutting."

She knew there was no talking him out of it. He was consumed, like so many men before him marching feverishly toward death: consumed with guilt, or thoughts of vengeance, or the twisted and bizarre notion that he could somehow make a difference. She closed her eyes and dropped her head on his shoulder, trying to block out the sudden flurry of grisly images as his arms encircled her, of men drained and dismembered and strung up, all wearing his face.

"To think I was worried about convincing you to come back for me," she whispered, her eyes suddenly, infuriatingly wet. "Now I'm only worried about convincing you to stay alive."

"I'll stay alive."

"You almost died three weeks ago."

He puffed a laugh against her hair, dropped his cheek on it. "Yes. That was clumsy of me."

But then he was silent, trying to stretch the moment, and she breathed pine and snow mingling with the sea. Her fingers snarled in the shirt on his back, like she could somehow hold him there by it.

"I'll come back," he finally promised, like it was something secret, like it was something inevitable, "to ask you to marry me."

She drew back to meet his eyes, bemused. They were soft and exhausted, and startlingly honest. It made her brow wrinkle and her breath catch. It made something wondrous and awful flutter in her stomach. She managed, just barely, "Don't tease. Not like this."

"I'm not," he murmured, frowning, like he was even less happy about it than she was. "I can't come back until after the thaw. That should give you enough time to think on how you'll answer."

She smiled, slow and soft, and wide enough that it made her eyes crinkle. She couldn't help it. "I don't need all winter. I don't need a day."

"Yes, you do. A life with me wouldn't be easy. Always on the move, always looking over your shoulder. I won't let you give up everything you've built here for someone you might forget all about come spring."

"Oh yes," she bubbled, not quite able to keep from touching his throat, his face. "My seaside palace in Lurelin for the life of a runner. You must think me very fickle."

"No. Never that."

"Then what makes you think anything could make me so easily forget the man who saw my brand and wanted me anyway?"

"You saw mine."

She forced her smile to stay in place. "A dagger merely instills fear. It's the rose that smothers affection."

He took her fingertips from where they were tracing his mouth, shutting his eyes and pressing a kiss to her knuckles. "If they don't want you when they learn they aren't the first, then they must not have wanted you enough in the first place."

That made tears bud in her eyes again, and this time she couldn't stop a few from spilling out.

"I'll never forgive you if you die," she hissed, clinging to as much anger as she could muster. "Sweeping through my life, making me love you. Making me promises."

"I'll keep them," he swore quietly, eyes fixed on hers. A promise on a promise. It made her cry harder.

"What I wouldn't give you," she whispered, and he smirked softly.

"All I've ever done is take. I take your smiles. I take those glimmers of kindness you show me when I've done nothing to deserve it. I take your food. Let me give you something for once."

"Empty promises and a broken heart?" she frowned, determined to be bitter, but his smile only grew. He took her hand and pressed another kiss to the back of it.

"Hope."

He drifted slowly backward, making for the door, and she trailed petulantly after him. He led her to the threshold, reaching gingerly for his pack and slinging it over his shoulder.

"I'll come back," he told her again, "after the thaw."

"With the crocuses?"

"No. After."

She nodded, crossing her arms against the chill as he opened the door and dropped his boot onto the first step. He turned back, his eyes on her mouth, and then meeting hers. Asking a question. Making a request. Waiting for permission. Because of course he would be patient and perfect and sweet where everyone else had been selfish and entitled. Of course he would find a way to make all the flutterings in her stomach grow tenfold without so much as a word.

She reached for him and he met her halfway, drawing her into a kiss that was slower and more rigid than the others had been. It tasted fleeting and unfair and unmistakably bitter. It tasted like a goodbye. But as unpleasant as that was, she couldn't bring herself to stop.

He had more willpower than she did, finally drawing back, both after a borrowed age and yet much too soon. He dropped his temple against the doorframe and closed his eyes, savoring the memory of her, and when he opened them again she could see him warring with himself, restraining words he thought he shouldn't say but that he desperately wanted to. She waited for them with baited breath; but then he swallowed them back down, locked them away, and turned to abandon her doorstep.

He didn't say goodbye. He just met her eyes in that deliberate, fleeting way that was theirs, and then walked out of her life like a passing storm.

~:o•O•o:~

Winter was the great equalizer. Everyone was cold, everyone was miserable, everyone found their lives ground to an unceremonious halt. Even the great imperial war machine seemed to hibernate, breathing whorls of smoke and fire where it had driven down stakes to wait for better weather but eerily quiet otherwise. It also made news of the outside world scarce and unreliable.

Rumors blew in with random travelers, forced onto the road by ill-fortune or ill-planning, all of it contradictory and none of it good. Some said the empire had attacked Zora's Domain, striking while their waterways were glutted with ice and their soldiers were easy to trap. Others said the winter had been so harsh the Goron forges had frozen over, and the Dark Lord had marched on the mountain, shattering his notoriously unbreakable enemies now turned brittle by the cold. Others said the war machine slept on as it always had, but now and again explosions or sudden fires or rockslides would poke and prod the beast, tempting retaliation, and those were the reports that scared her the most.

There was nothing for her to do except carry on at the tavern. It was quieter in deep winter, but no less crowded, as though the season had wrapped bony fingers around everyone's throats and pulled most of the life out of them. Other than that, very little had changed—Groose had taken to calling her "Miss Zelda," perhaps because he meant to show her more respect, or because he recognized that the boundary he had crossed in his drunken bout at the fountain would not easily be retreated over again. Either way, their once friendly relationship was not what it was, and she was not inclined to rekindle it.

As it turned out, winter was not a particularly suitable season for making new friends, what, with the frigid weather encouraging people to stay indoors, and the perpetual gloom encouraging gloomy thoughts. Thoughts of broken promises, of blue eyes frosted over and lifeless, of minds so bent and twisted up with revenge that they stumbled doggedly from one foolish inclination to another.

It was a lonely winter that year.

Time crawled towards spring. The ground softened, even though the piers were still laden with ice. The sun dripped puddles coated with sheet ice from the roofs, and the shrinking, lumpen snowdrifts nestled stubbornly against shopfronts and doorsteps gradually stained with mud. It wasn't until the tiny, unobtrusive blades of crocuses sprouted up from beneath the last, late, unrelenting crust of snow that Zelda finally felt her heart speed, finally felt something besides cold and worried and agitated.

News trickled in like melted water trickling off the rooftops. Zora's Domain hadn't fallen after all, though the thaw was slow in getting to them this year. A new settlement was being established on the shores of Akkala, with a harbor and wharf half-finished for the start of the season. The imperials were on the move, as well, closing in, mowing Faron down with a vengeance as they went. But that wasn't much of a surprise, given the dicey situation with the scout last autumn and the vandalism that had tormented them all winter.

A safe haven like Lurelin was bound to be discovered eventually. The threat of it was just looming much sooner than anyone had anticipated.

The crocuses hadn't quite died off when a vibration rattled the house down to its foundation and the earth quaked beneath her feet.

Zelda hurried to the window, her heart dropping when she spied the great plume of black smoke rising from the west end of town. Another explosion boomed a low bass note that thrummed through the cobblestones and the floorboards, rattling the shutters and the cupboards. Another, closer to the town square. She listened to the eerie strain of silence that followed, breath held, eyes dancing over the rooftops. It took the cannons firing again to break her from her stupor.

She dove to the back of the house, trembling all over, snatching warm clothes and stuffing them into a satchel, and then stuffing her feet into her boots. She paused at the door, her hand lingering at the doorknob as the taste of gunpowder and flint and vacuum dusted her tongue. Then the house across the way from hers burst apart, full of fire and glass and splintered wood, and the force of it ripped her wall apart at the seams and knocked her off her feet.

Her ears rang. The rafters above her head were cracked and sagging, and the ceiling was peppered with chunks of sky. Something sounded from far away, from beneath an ocean, from across the continent, and then it roared through her again, quaking down her spine so jarringly she couldn't help the surprised shout that shot from her mouth. The beams over her head bowed and trembled, and she rolled to her feet, running towards the street, and then towards the sea.

Explosions tore through Lurelin like harpoons through water. Women screamed, men cowered, children stared at the chaos in wide-eyed, stunned silence. She didn't look back, didn't dare stare at the carnage. She knew she would be as helpless as the rest of them if she did. She just ran, breathless and aching, as heat and earthquakes nipped at her heels.

She made it to the wharf, still slick with ice, and stared at the restless ocean. All the boats were stored ashore, and she didn't know a jib from a rudder anyway. The mountains loomed at her back, and the cape stretched beside her to nowhere. The screams were getting closer. She could hear the rattling footsteps of the soldiers, the cries of the apprehended and the tear of fabric as they checked for brands.

Her knees were weak. She didn't feel it when she fell on them, watching that endless horizon she had come to love, the unhurried glide of puffed clouds drifting over the bay, picturing Link's face full of sun glitter. She didn't feel it when they ripped the back seam of her dress apart, popping buttons and exposing numb skin to the frigid air. But she felt the tingle in her scalp when a soldier fisted a hand in her hair and heaved her to her feet, grinding her teeth against the sting; felt it like a stone in her gut when he growled in her ear, "The king thanks you for your service."

They turned to lead her off the wharf and back into Lurelin, and then back into the life she had given everything to escape. Her eyes snagged on the crocuses, trodden down but still blooming, speckling the awful path sprawled at her feet as the soldiers drove her forward.

Only the empire would have the precision and the forethought to carve the hope from her chest mere days too soon.

They were nearly off the slippery wooden planks, nearly back on the cobblestones, when the reality of it started bleeding through. It was too soon. Link wasn't coming. They were going to take her back to the empire, force her back into a life that wasn't life at all. They would rebreak her, rebrand her. Press the iron to her skin too long, hold it there until she screamed and sobbed, use it to punish her as much as to mark her. They would put thorns on her hands and her cheekbones so she could never taste freedom again.

She couldn't breathe. Her hands balled into trembling fists, her arms twisting and her feet dragging as she struggled, as the shadow of the burning village made to swallow them. Her heart pounded in her ears. If she could pry herself free, if she could throw herself into the ocean—gods, why hadn't she thrown herself in when she had the chance?

Suddenly the harsh bite of one guard's hand on her arm was gone, and then the other. She didn't stop to wonder why they had let her go, how she had managed to wriggle loose. She just turned towards the water and ran.

She dashed down the pier, her feet light and quick over the ice. Boots rattled the planks behind her. She was almost at the end, almost to the sea. She braced herself for the shock of frigid water, for the sting of salty spray and the cramp in her chest as she plunged deeper, deeper, into a darkness that wouldn't let her go. But then arms wrapped around her shoulders, pulling a broken shout from her mouth, and they slid to the edge of the pier on their knees—and when he spoke, in that warm voice that was hot sand on skin, she felt it everywhere.

"You're all right," he breathed against her neck, panting. "I've got you."

She loosed a breath, shuddering, and bowed her mouth against his arm. Behind them, Lurelin was full of cannon fire and clashing weapons, the sounds of shouting soldiers and the battlecries of rebels. She turned in his arms so he could hold her properly as she dove into his neck and burst into tears. But Link only soothed her for a moment, a precious, quiet moment on that frozen pier, before he was drawing her to her feet again, thumbing cold tears from her face, and retreating with her into the mountains.

~:o•O•o:~

They ran for what felt like hours. Link led them over the Dunsel Plateau, and then snaked with an old road beneath the shadow of Ebon Mountain toward the ruins of a burned out settlement. Zelda trembled and stumbled behind him, clinging to his hand like she was clinging to life; but night was falling, and if they didn't make it to the waypoint before dark, they would never catch the messenger before word went back to shut up the Domain again.

They followed the road until it slipped into a swathe of forest, shrouded in dusk, and no sooner had they stepped over the treeline than Link stiffened, a gleam of cold metal pressed against his throat. His assailant held a polished chunk of luminous stone to his face and then let him go with a hiss, his gills flaring with irritation.

"Where in Hylia's name have you been? I almost left without you!"

"The imperials reached Lurelin before we did. We had to improvise." He turned, easing her off her feet, and knelt to search her eyes while the Zora dug some food and water out of his pack. "Any word from the others?"

He shook his head as he produced a canteen and some dried fish and tossed him a bit of luminous stone. "Nothing yet. Go check."

His mouth twisted just a little as he stood, like he didn't want to let her out of his sight. But surely they were safe enough here. He went to the treeline, the stone clenched in his hand, and pulsed his fingers open and closed. To an onlooker, it might have looked like the glow of a sunset firefly or a trick of the starlight. From the Cliffs of Quince, a faint glow pulsed back.

The Zora handed her the canteen and stockfish, and she managed a grateful smile. "Thank you."

"I'm Rivan," he said. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you."

Her lip quirked. "Finally?"

"Sure," he breathed, mirroring her teasing expression. "You're all Link talks about."

She took a long swig from the canteen, watching him clandestinely from the corner of her eye; she could have sworn his profile twitched sideways, like he wanted to glare. But he kept his eyes fixed on the cliffs, watching the answering glow pulse out of the north.

"That doesn't sound like him," she mused quietly, tasting a bit of the jerky. She couldn't tell if it was because she was still drowning in adrenaline and exhausted, or if it was because the Zoras knew seafood better than anyone, but she thought it was the best fish she'd ever had. "Back in Lurelin, he rarely spoke at all."

"Is that so? Sounds like a blessing in disguise if you ask me. You should hear the sonnets he spouts when you're not around."

They shared a covert smile while Link deciphered the signals and sent another reply. When he turned to join them again his expression was disgruntled; but then he met her eyes, lingered in them a bit, and soon he seemed won over.

"Everyone's accounted for," he murmured, lowering himself to the ground beside her and tipping his head back against a tree trunk. He shut his eyes, and all at once he seemed even more exhausted than she was. "They're heading downriver."

"Good. Then I'll take care of my happy task here and be on my way to join them." But Link didn't answer, his jaw clenching imperceptibly where he otherwise looked so peaceful, and Rivan's eyes widened. "Unless… gods, did she say no?"

"I haven't asked her."

"Are you serious?"

"We've been busy running for our lives," he sighed, frowning. And then he opened his eyes again, his frown deepening when Rivan lingered, and chucked the stone at him. "Go for a walk."

He caught it, muttering something in Zoran, his smirk too wry, as he got to his feet and wandered off. Link slipped his hand back into hers when they were alone, but it was nothing like the death grip they had on each other through the mountains. It was soft, his calloused thumb running soothing circles over hers. Her body sagged. Not just because it was finally setting in that they were safe, not just because they had made it out of Lurelin with their lives. But because this is what she had been craving all winter.

"Sorry about Rivan. He's an idiot."

She dropped her head onto his shoulder. "I like him."

"He's going with the others to Lake Hylia. The imperials blockaded the bridge months ago. The plan is to bomb the underside. Cut off the supply lines into Faron and strand the troops."

"You aren't going with them?"

He turned so his mouth was on her hair, held her hand a little tighter. "No."

She waited, heart fluttering just a bit behind her ribs and in her throat. Part of her wanted to bounce and tell him to get on with it. But she was too anxious to bounce, and too afraid of being disappointed to rush forward. The silence stretched. His breathing deepened, his shoulders went lax. He was quiet for so long that she wondered if he'd succumbed and fallen asleep; but then his hand squeezed hers gently, and he sighed.

"I have something I need to ask you."

A smile crept over her mouth. "I know."

"I've been meaning to. I just keep losing my nerve."

"Afraid I'll say no?"

"Afraid you'll say yes," he countered, "and then regret it."

She scowled, turning her mouth into his shoulder. She was too exhausted to argue with him. She murmured instead, "You promised."

"You have options. There are safe havens in Akkala. You don't need to be stuck with me. You have time—"

"Link." She pressed her face deeper into his arm, swallowing a yawn. Her exhaustion was making her irritable. "I don't need time. I made my decision weeks ago, and I waited all winter for you. Don't make me wait any longer."

He sighed again. At her, at himself. Trying to find the will to argue. If she had the energy she would have laughed at them: collapsed on each other, still trying to push and pull their way through an argument that shouldn't have been an argument at all. What an awful proposal.

"Then," he finally said, "will you—"

"Yes."

The word dropped, settled. Nestled its way between them like the immovable thing it was. She held his arm a little tighter, as though to ward off any lingering ideas of separating them, and felt his mouth tug towards a smile. "Is it always going to be like this?"

"I should hope so."

She meant to be obstinate, but she couldn't help but glance up at him—and their eyes grazed each other, all charged and glittering, and his finger tipped her chin higher so he could reach her lips. All stubborn intentions were devastated then, her eyes closing and her spine going slack as his mouth softly found hers. His fingers feathered the long line of her ear, brushed loose strands of hair back into place. And for a gentle, breathless moment, there was nothing in the world but him.

He tipped his forehead against hers while he breathed, whispered, "I missed you."

Then cannon fire sounded again in the south, echoing over the ridge into the valley with startling suddenness, and she would have jumped right out of his arms if he hadn't clutched her closer to him. Their eyes snapped up to the dark, craggy divide that blotted out the Faron horizon, watching blooms of fire ring the mountainside in light. They were still out of reach, for now, but it was a sobering reminder that their journey was far from over.

Rivan trotted back to their spot in the woods from wherever he had been meandering, dropping to one knee in the dark.

"Sounds like they're still on the move. So if it's all the same to you…?"

Zelda passed Link a quizzical glance, and his mouth twisted a bit. Clearly, this was not going the way he had planned.

"Rivan is a Healing Order cleric," he murmured, and when her brow only furrowed deeper he sighed, frowning harder, and clarified, "He can marry us."

She had to bite her lip to keep from kissing that dissatisfied expression from off his face.

Rivan married them in the valley between Faron and Lanayru, veiled by the trees, cannons and fire on one side of them and the unforgiving borderlands on the other. He disappeared into the Fir River, and they scraped together what energy they had left and made for the foothills of Madorna Mountain.

~:o•O•o:~

After two grueling days and nights—climbing mountains, traipsing through mud and snowfields, sleeping huddled against cliff faces and snowdrifts—they finally reached the great Rutala, and from there slipped into the secret, submerged entrances to the cavern network that ran beneath Ruto Mountain all the way into Upland Zorana. The caves were riddled with veins of luminous stone, lighting their way as Link led them, wet and shivering, through the purposefully disorienting labyrinth.

The men that met them at the end of the maze were armed. But then the glow caught on the cutting lines of Link's face, and on the shivering mess of a girl whose hand he was holding, and the guards ushered them through.

He turned towards lower levels, abandoning thoughts of the impressive views of the Domain on the upper tiers in favor of weaving down in the direction of the hot springs, driven by her chattering teeth and the precarious shade of blue on her lips that he wasn't convinced was entirely the fault of the luminous stone. They separated where the cavern split to divide the baths, and he snagged a familiar face on her way out to ask after getting Zelda some fresh clothes.

The springs were empty. He stripped and sank into the milky water, dunking his head under and setting about scrubbing nearly a week's worth of grime from his scalp, methodically working his way down to the soles of his feet. He tipped his head back against the stone once he was clean, letting the heat loosen muscles pulled so taut they threatened to snap. It was the first time in recent memory he didn't have some mission or other on his mind to distract him from the latent dread of the last few months.

Winter had been nothing but an exhausting, repetitious cycle of raids, ambushes, sabotage, and combat training. It ran him ragged, kept him too numb and tired to think of anything else. But he still dreamt of the wharf, of gulls plucking bread off the cresting waves and the windswept furl of golden hair catching sunlight like a mainsail; and there was no numbness strong enough to keep the terror from bleeding through when the reports that the imperials were marching towards Lurelin came in.

He had found solace then in spearheading the efforts to get an intercept mission off the ground. The Resistance nearly hadn't sent anyone, nearly decided they couldn't mobilize a strikeforce quickly enough. He fought them tooth and nail for it, and by some miracle he got the men he needed.

But now, with no imperials to outrun or harsh wilds to survive, there was nothing to think of but how close he'd come to losing her; the clench in his heart and his gut when he'd found her home in ruins; the fear and fury when he'd found her in the hands of imperials.

How hopelessly she had run. How close she had come to flinging herself into the sea. How his stupid bid to keep her safe by leaving her behind nearly cost her her life.

He pinched his eyes closed. But there was no blocking out the afterimages, or the regrets. The residual anxiety was swirling in his head and making him nauseous, like too much steam. It wasn't long before he climbed out of the water, threw his half-dried clothes back on, and wandered out into the caverns to wait for her.

He lingered outside the corridor that led to the women's bath, feeling pointless. When she finally emerged, Zelda's arms were full of fresh clothes and she was wearing a new dress, the dirt and pine needles rinsed from her hair and the soot and ash scrubbed from her face. The sight of her—tired, dragging, but safe, the evidence of their narrow escape washed away—did more to soothe his overtaxed muscles than a soak in the hot springs ever could.

He resisted the urge to cup her cheek and brush an indulgent line across her cheekbone. Just barely.

She was quiet as he tangled his fingers back in hers, leading them back through the labyrinth. They wandered through a few common areas, brimming with people and commotion, but they kept to the fringes of the noise, following the cave walls through the maze, and either went unnoticed or were left alone—and Zelda was either too exhausted to take it in or thoroughly distracted by something else. She barely looked up from her feet as they weaved through the glowing honeycomb of the cave network, her usual curiosity visibly doused.

It made him frown. But he couldn't bring himself to break her silence.

They retreated into the living quarters, and it was several more twists and turns before they reached their room. He stepped inside, parting the thick curtains over the opening that was as much privacy as anyone got in those caverns. It wasn't much: a place to sleep and keep their scant belongings, to get away from the bustle of the commons and the war rooms. But it was a place the Dark Lord would never find her again, and that was all he could really hope to give her.

She didn't comment as she followed him in, gravitating toward their small table to set down her bundle of clothes. She fingered the fabric, staring through the table, seeing nothing. He tore himself away, feeling like he was seeing too much.

He crossed the room and added a few more riverstones to the ruby-studded brazier, encouraging the heat into the air, and sat on the edge of the mattress to peel off his boots and damp tunic. He paused when she sat on the opposite side, her eyes still elusive and her fingers quick on the laces of her boots. Though they had technically been married for the better part of three days and he had slept with his arms around her, they had yet to be intimate, and the symbolism of his empty bed stretched between them wasn't lost on him. He wondered if that was the source of her sudden reticence: if she thought he might be cruel or demanding as others had been.

But then she drew her hair aside, asked quietly, "Would you unfasten my dress?"

There were a needless number of buttons running from her neck to her waist. He leaned closer, working the top clasps free with deliberately steady hands and stealing fleeting glances at pale, inviting skin. But he wasn't about to rush anything, even if his brain was fogging with the promise of green eyes piercing him through over a bare shoulder.

Before he could get much farther than the ridge of her spine, she whispered, "Thanks," swiveling to undo the rest herself, and it suddenly occurred to him that he might have misread her.

She turned to show him her profile, letting her hair tumble down as she fiddled with the buttons and the bodice slipped loose, and he stared after her a quiet moment. If she had been reluctant or shy, she would have turned her back to him. But she had turned to shield it. Less worried about hiding her body than she was about hiding the mark burned into it.

It made something unpleasant drop and settle in his stomach.

He stilled her hands, gently prying them from the clasps. Her fingers flinched, and then tangled in her hair at the nape and drew it uneasily aside as he slid closer and set to work on the seam of her dress. His brow furrowed and his heart jammed in his throat as he made his way down her back, slow and measured. She was perfectly still as he slipped his fingers under the fabric, parting it, coaxing it down off her shoulders. And then he leaned down and kissed the thornless rose etched between her shoulder blades, and she dropped her face in her hands.

"Zelda," he whispered, tracing the puckered ridges and lines of the rose head, the soft contours of the stem. Memorizing it, like he had memorized the exact shade of her eyes or the gentle sound of her laugh. "You don't have to hide from me."

"I know," she said, her voice much too small. "I know it's stupid. I know you know it's there. But I just—"

She pressed the side of her hand to her mouth, stifling whatever wanted to come out, and he dropped his forehead to her spine, waiting. He knew the kind of ostracism that followed her brand, how quickly people's good favor and kindness were wrested away by it. The words they used when they tossed girls marked as she was out into the streets, when they spit on them. Collaborator. Whore. He bristled, not daring to imagine how many times she had had to move on and start again, covering her past and herself more and more until there was hardly any of her left.

"I love you," he murmured, frowning at how pitifully inadequate he was. Knowing that couldn't possibly be enough, but that it was all he had to give. "All of you. Even the parts you would rather I not see."

Her hair had spilled around her face like a curtain. When she turned to meet his eyes, splashed in the ruby-glow of the brazier and luminous stone, her eyes glistening like the waters of Cape Cresia, she looked so beautiful he had to swallow down a tide of unworthiness stuck in his throat.

Her lip quirked just the tiniest bit, and he took heart. "You've never said that to me before."

"What?"

"That you love me."

He wrapped his arms gently about her waist, pressed his lips to her shoulder. "Did you doubt it?"

"No. But it's nice to hear it all the same."

"I love you," he whispered again, confessed again, promised again. "I've loved you since that day you turned my head on the wharf and caught me staring."

She sniffled, smiling through her tears. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I can't stop crying. I'm just…"

She grasped uselessly at words, and he felt her shiver.

"You're just exhausted and miserable, and I've brought you to live in a cave," he murmured against her skin, dropping another kiss on her neck and standing to add more riverstones to the brazier.

He put in a few more until the heap peaked over the rim, feeling irritated with himself for not thinking to ask someone to come by and stoke it earlier. Or maybe he had thought of it, and decided against it because he was still trying to convince himself to urge her to deny him. He couldn't remember.

How futile that had been, anyway. She was easily as stubborn as he was, if not worse. And the day he had seen her mark he was lost. It had been the final thread that made his resolve to do what was best for her unravel, that had pushed him toward selfishness, that had seen him promising her things she didn't need and fighting with himself at her doorstep, longing to beg her, wait for me. And now she was his wife, and she was in his bed, and she was worried that she was somehow a disappointment to him.

If only she knew how ridiculous that was. As though someone with a mark like his could possibly judge her.

He turned. She was nestled under the blankets, and her dress was on the floor. Her eyes were too bright in that dim cavern, too green in the dusky glow of rubies and luminous stone. He moved toward their light like a moth drawn toward flame.

He slipped into bed beside her, his arm snaking easily around her back and her head resting perfectly on his shoulder. He swallowed another unworthy lump in his throat, trailing fingers down to the dip in her waist. Marvelling at how incredibly soft she was.

"I'm not miserable," she whispered, absently tracing the hollow of his throat, following a spattering of marks and indents to a pale, jagged scar that ran along his breast. "I'm happy. I'm happier than I've ever been. And I'll stay that way so long as you don't get yourself killed."

He held her a little tighter, let his eyes fall shut while he savored the gentle electricity of her fingertips ghosting over places he had long thought numb.

"Then I won't get myself killed."

"There you go, making ridiculous promises again."

"What's ridiculous about that?"

She rolled closer, arching a tired brow at him. She traced the thin scar on his cheek he had earned at the fountain, the edge of his mouth. "All it takes is a stray arrow. A bomb set off too soon. A bit of shrapnel. I'll be a wreck every time you leave."

He closed his hand around hers, brow furrowed, pressing a kiss to her palm like he had last winter. "I'll always come back for you," he told her. "Always."

She frowned at him. "I hate it when you make me promises. No one's ever kept them before."

He tucked their hands over his chest, just where she might feel his heart, and wore a lazy smirk at her. "You'll get used to it."

"So you bomb the bridge," she sighed, only changing the subject, he suspected, because she felt her scowl softening just a little. "Isn't that a bit like poking the grizzlemaw? Then what will you do?"

"There's supposedly a powerful weapon in the Great Hyrule Forest," he mused, his thumb running absent, soothing circles over the back of her hand. "But every scout we've sent to look for it hasn't come back. I might go trying to find it."

"That's not reassuring."

"I will always come back for you," he told her again, slowly, as though to make the point sink in better.

Her scowl was nearly gone.

"And then?"

"Kill Ganondorf," he said. "Put someone on the throne who'll be fair and kind and just."

The beginning of a smirk pulled at her mouth. "You?"

He laughed quietly. "Gods, no. But someone. The Zora say there's a bloodline out there blessed with gifts from the goddesses, and that those belonging to it are beautiful and perfect and born to rule. But I'm not sure I believe that."

"Oh, I don't know. Sounds reasonable to me."

He scoffed. "Who in all the world could be more beautiful and perfect than you?"

That won her over, a smile finally blooming over her mouth that made her eyes crinkle, and she kissed him before he could look too self-satisfied. Not that he minded in the slightest. He let her set the pace, following her lead as their exchange grew warmer, slower, gradually shifting from impulse to intent. He eased up on his arms, and then back against the cavern wall so he could use his hands. And when she followed, caging his ribs between her arms, he felt his resolve to be pliant unravel all at once.

"Don't be stupid," she chided him, breathless, as his hands found her neck to angle her the way he liked.

"I'm not," he said, his voice more raw than he intended. He pulled her closer, hooking the knee that had drifted to his hip across his lap, and drew the blankets higher around her bare shoulders, dropping honeyed kisses on her throat. "Since when is calling your wife beautiful being stupid?"

Her mouth pressed into a tight line and her brow creased, eyes shining again in the dark, and she tipped her forehead against his. He couldn't help the small smile on his lips as he pressed them to her cheek, tasting salt.

"Crying again, wife?" he breathed.

"I can't help it," she hissed, in a way that he read to mean it was entirely his fault.

He was fine with taking the blame for that.

He whispered sweet assurances in her ear, told her as many times as she could stand, I love you. He ran reverent fingers through the golden mainsail of her hair, and trembled when she traced a lazy path with her nail down the blade burned into his back. He made as many ridiculous promises as he could conjure, swearing to himself and whatever gods would listen that he would keep them all.

He swore to love her forever, feverishly and without fear, utterly engulfed in her. In the way she erased shame, and made unerasable guilt feel less unforgivable. She was the branding iron, leaving marks he only wished the world could see.

And that was a brand he wouldn't mind wearing for the rest of his life.