StarryHorizon93
One year after the Hero fell, Hyrule still bleeds.
Link is dead. Shade has been destroyed. The legends say the war is over-but legends are liars.
As Zelda struggles to hold a wounded kingdom together, an unsettling truth begins to surface: the force that created Shade still endures. An ancient evil, older than Hyrule itself, patient and deliberate, shaping events across centuries-and now stirring once more.
With Hope, Impa, and the four Champions at her side, Zelda embarks on an impossible journey to confront this primordial darkness at its source. Each step forward drags the past into the light: forgotten ruins, broken prophecies, and echoes of a conflict that never truly ended.
Yet as the shadows deepen, signs emerge that the war is being fought on more than one front.
Battles are won where no army marched. Corruption recedes without explanation. Ancient mechanisms awaken as if answering a call no one remembers making. Somewhere beyond Zelda's path, an unseen hand is moving-silent, relentless, and dangerously familiar.
As allies and enemies blur, and the cost of victory grows ever steeper, one truth becomes impossible to ignore:
Hyrule is not as alone as it believes.
And the fate of the kingdom may rest not only on those who march in the open...
...but on one who fights the same war in the dark.
*Story belongs to me, but all the Zelda characters and the setting belong to Nintendo.
All original characters belong to me.
Do not read yet if you haven't read What it Means to be a Hero. Enjoy!*