Princess Zelda: Keeper of Secrets by Jade Gretz

https://www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai/art/Princess-Zelda-Keeper-of-Secrets-1111395872

Throne of Ashen Lilies

At the far edge of Hyrule, where the moonlight lost its courage among black cypress and the wind carried the scent of old stone, Princess Zelda came alone to the royal tombs. No banner followed her. No attendants murmured behind her skirts. Only a lantern of pale glass, a silver key at her throat, and the uneasy certainty that the dead had been waiting for her longer than any living courtier ever had.

The tombs rose from the earth like the knuckles of a buried giant. Their doors were sealed with the crest of the kingdom, though age had worried the carving into a nearly unfamiliar face. Ivy clutched the marble. Moss bruised the stairs. Between the carved lions and the broken wreaths of lilies, there lingered a strange sweetness, as if flowers had bloomed here long ago and been mummified by memory.

Zelda laid her hand upon the cold seal.

“Open,” she said softly.

The stone answered with a sigh like a throat remembering speech. The entrance parted inward, and a breath drifted out that smelled of dust, cedar, and something faintly metallic, as though old blood had been folded into the walls and never entirely forgotten.

She entered.

The passage beyond was a ribcage of ivory stone, lined with funerary niches and tarnished braziers. Her lantern made the gilded names glimmer in passing, each one of them a swallowed spark. Yet as she walked, she sensed she was being measured. Not watched exactly. Measured. As if the tomb itself weighed the sound of her boots and the rhythm of her heartbeat, testing both for weakness.

A voice rose from the dark ahead.

“Who comes to disturb the sleep of kings?”

Zelda stopped. “One who is already known to you.”

From the shadow stepped a woman in a veil of frost-blue fire. Her face was beautiful in the terrible way of masks and statues: ideal, severe, unmarred by time because time had ceased to claim her. A circlet of bone and pearl rested upon her brow. In her hands she held a spear of translucent light.

“I am the First Guardian,” she said. “And you are late.”

Zelda inclined her head. “I was not invited.”

The guardian’s mouth curved. “All heirs are invited. Few deserve the summons.”

The lantern flame trembled. Zelda felt, with a cool astonishment, that the tomb had become a courtroom. The walls seemed to lean closer, the carved kings listening from their niches.

“Then question me,” Zelda said. “That is why I came.”

“Is it?” The First Guardian’s eyes were silver pits. “Or did you come seeking a secret in the bones of your ancestors? They say the living only descend into tombs when they are dissatisfied with the answers in daylight.”

Zelda met her gaze steadily. “I came because the dead have begun to stir.”

At that, the guardian’s expression altered, not with surprise but with recognition.

“Good,” she murmured. “Then perhaps you are less ornamental than the rumors imply.”

“Rumors tend to flatter themselves,” Zelda replied.

The First Guardian gave a thin, approving laugh. “Clever. Very well, Princess. The tomb will examine you. If you fail, it will remember your face forever.”

“Then I had better be memorable.”

The guardian stepped aside, and the corridor beyond opened into a vast chamber where stone coffins stood in rows like silent ships. Each lid was carved with the likeness of a sovereign, hands crossed, eyes shut, mouths secretive. Faded tapestries drooped from the arches overhead. In the center of the chamber, a circular pool reflected no lantern-light at all. It was a dark mirror with its own depth.

Zelda approached it warily. “What is this place?”

“The Hall of Questions,” said the guardian. “Every heir of your blood has stood here. Some by right. Some by desperation. Most by mistake.”

“What must I do?”

“Answer honestly.”

The guardian lifted her spear. The chamber darkened. From the coffins came a rustling sound like dry leaves in a graveyard wind.

“Why do you want the throne?” asked the First Guardian.

Zelda glanced at her reflection in the black water. She saw a woman in a crown that seemed both beautiful and burdensome, as if made of moonlit thorns.

“I do not want it,” she said. “I want the kingdom to endure.”

The water rippled.

A voice rose from it, deeper than the guardian’s, older than any living throat. “Easy words.”

Zelda did not flinch. “True words are often easy. Lies
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