(Zelink) The Legend of Zelda and the Last knight- Swords and Roses

Why we failed One Hundred Years ago pt 32 Taken

Chapter

Why we failed One-Hundred Years ago pt. 32

Taken

At first, Zelda did not comprehend. Surely, this was some sort of jape and in just a moment everything will return to normal.

She stood frozen amid the chaos, her eyes wide yet unseeing as though trapped behind glass. Smoke rose around her like phantom curtains, curling and unfurling into shapes that felt more illusion than real. Somewhere distant, screams rang out, high and discordant, mingling grotesquely with the last notes of the bard's interrupted melody.

But they just played that song... she thought numbly. Her gaze drifted to the soft, drooping banners, lovingly embroidered with golden threads and noble crests. Now those same banners were aflame, dissolving slowly, blackening, then drifting to the grass like fallen petals. The lanterns, once strung with care, burst one by one in sputtering pops, their oil splashing down like rain, droplets of liquid fire.

She could still see faces smiling behind gilded masks. A lady of House Illiastar laughing, the sound like silver bells. Anjuel and Kafei exchanging shy, hopeful glances beneath a crown of woven flowers. A small noble child clinging to her mother's skirt, eyes wide with wonder as fireworks lit the sky in cascading starlight. Zelda's fingers trembled at her sides. Was that child crying now, or laughing? Surely laughing.

It can't be tears. Not here. Not now.

For a moment, she refused to see the blood splashed across white linen. It had to be wine, she thought. She also overlooked the overturned tables, the fallen forms—bodies crumpled like discarded marionettes. The scent of burned sugar and charred velvet filled her lungs, surreal and sickly sweet. Her vision blurred.

No. No, this can't be real.

She turned slightly, her gaze catching sight of a delicate mask trampled beneath running feet, its feathers crushed into the dirt, gold now dulled with soot and ash. Such a pretty mask, she remembered it clearly. It belonged to one of the dancers, twirling beneath the moon, laughter glittering on her lips like crystal—

"Zelda!" Link's voice sliced through the fog in her mind, sharp and urgent as a blade. His hands gripped her shoulders, not harshly, but firm enough to anchor her back to the now.

She blinked. Her eyes refocused on him—on the face now etched in worry and fear, features illuminated by the orange glow of spreading fires.

"We have to move," he said, voice low and urgent. "Now."

Her lips parted, but no words came. She only nodded dumbly, as he grasped her wrist and drew her into motion, weaving quickly through a gauntlet of overturned benches and tangled silk, now stained with blood and spilled wine.

Link muttered something under his breath—barely audible above the distant clang of steel and cries of agony.

"If only I had my poleaxe...or my sword," he murmured, frustration and fear tightening his words. His eyes darted everywhere, taking in the chaos unfolding around them. He desperately wanted to find a knife of any kind as he searched the tables and wreckage. It was then he heard it.

Groans of gears and devilish devices tore the soft earth as a behemoth lay waste to others nearby with pulses of deadly blue beams of light. Instinctively, he ushered Zelda to duck beside him as they leap frogged from overturned table to overturn table. To behind crates or other party supplies that littered the festival grounds.