Out-Voiced (BotW fanfic) (on permanent hiatus)

4 - Link

A/N: This is an intense, fast-paced chapter... There are some descriptions of gore, so viewer discretion advised. I don't think it's anything too bad, but just in case, I'm warning you.

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Link caught sight of a suspicious figure in the hallway.

Upon hearing a blood-curdling scream from down the hall, he began chasing after it.

He was about to catch up when he heard a scream coming from Zelda's room.

The princess!

He doubled back, wishing he didn't have to.

He didn't want Katherine to die, but his duty was to protect Zelda...

He flung her bedroom door open, prepared to tackle the person who stood before her.

The hooded figure turned around and smiled at him before running onto and leaping off the balcony and into the water below.

Link ran to the balcony's railing, about to follow until Zelda grabbed his wrist, tears cascading down her cheeks.

"Link... Katherine..."

"Are you hurt?"

Zelda shook her head, "They didn't lay a finger on me. But Katherine might be-"

She didn't finish her thought before she ran out of her room, darting down the hallway to her sister's room.

As Zelda reaches for the doorknob, Link pulled her back, shaking his head.

"Let me check first."

He cautiously opened the door, keeping Zelda back as he entered.

Katherine was resting on her bed, eyes shut, as blood seeped from her wound.

They were too late.

"Princess, don't come in."

Link stared at the lifeless body of the younger princess, feeling bile build up in his throat.

He had seen a lot of blood, a lot of death in his time...

But this...

It was different.

He clenched his jaw as he left Katherine's room, dragging Zelda along as he searched for the knights meant to be guarding Katherine.

As he walked down the hall, he froze upon spotting two knights slumped against the wall, both dead...

"This was an assassin's work..."

Zelda was frozen in terror, hand plastered over her mouth as she cried. Her vision was blurry as she stared at the corpses before her, a strangled sound escaping her lips only to be muffled by her hand.

Link roughly grabbed her hand and walked her back to her room.

"I-I can't believe... And Kate... Link, how is Kate!?"

He refused to meet her gaze, keeping it directed to the floor.

"No," she let out a strangled sob. "No, Kate isn't... She can't be..."

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The castle had been doused in blood.

Blood pooled below the bodies of Katherine's knights as researchers inspected the scene.

Blood.

The smell stung Zelda's nose the moment she entered the hallway, and her stomach felt as though it had been flipped upside down.

"I need to see Kate! I just need to say goodbye!"

The princess had thrown herself into disarray, her hair a mess from anxiously running her hands through it.

She carried none of her belongings on her person as per Link's instruction, who claimed that their priority should be escaping the castle alive.

Zelda felt far away as Link pulled her along, her barren feet sometimes dragging against the floor.

She broke free of his grip, darting towards her sister's room.

She swung the door open to reveal the lifeless body of her sister, blood dripping onto the floor beside her.

She ran to Katherine's bedside in an instant, heart beating incessantly.

"None of this is real," Link heard her mutter. "None of it can be real..."

And Zelda's knees gave out.

Link saw the scarred girl with her eyes shut as she cried, sitting there on her hands and knees.

Her palms were now covered in blood, and her once white dress had been dyed red.

"How...!? Why!? Why kill Katherine and not me!? I'm going to be the heir to the throne, and she... She's-!"

"That's exactly the reason we need to escape... Before her killers come back for you," Link stated, looking at the scene before him with no change in his expression aside from a bit of sadness in his eyes.

Could I have saved her? Was Princess Zelda a distraction or was she the main target?

Zelda slowly rose to her feet again, tears cascading down her cheeks.

"Okay."

Zelda rested her hand on her sister's cheek for a moment as she cried.

"I love you, Kate... I'm sorry I'm so useless... I will avenge you." She whispered the last part before turning to Link with a nod and a deep breath. "L-Let's go..."

"We need to see all the Champions and explain what happened. We'll head to Goron City and visit the rest of the Champions clockwise."

Zelda nodded with an empty look in her eyes, and the two finally started making their way.

Zelda kept glancing back towards Katherine's room with a heavy heart.

"I will avenge you."