“Link…” she murmured uncertainly.
“I am here… all is well,” he told her.
“I have… failed, haven’t I?” she whispered. Her gaze was lost.
“You fainted…” he replied, his hold firm yet measured.
“I thought I had felt something… I truly thought I had.” Zelda gave a bitter little smile, looking away in shame. “You think I am… pathetic… don’t you?”
Those words gripped the knight’s heart in a painful vice. No. The Sacred Princess was the strongest and most steadfast person he had ever had the privilege of knowing.
“Not at all, Your Highness… I think you are strong.”
He answered on instinct and tightened his hold, keeping her from sinking back into the abyss of her own mind.
Zelda was left speechless: she drowned in the blue of those sincere eyes, kindled by the glow of the flames. Nothing remained but the crackle of the fire and their breathing to fill a silence that had gone on too long.
Link had never before dared to look at her from such close proximity, and he noticed every forbidden detail: the warm green of her irises, her parted lips beneath her uncertain breath, her skin pearled with water and lit by warm reflections.
His breath caught.
Light of the Sacred — Chapter Five: Fire and Storm is out on AO3
here