In his last moments, Auron noticed the archer among the dormers of a nearby rooftop, and his normally calm, lilting cadence stuttered to a halt. The thoughts of his prepared speech faded away quickly, as his eyes flicked from his assassin’s form to the motion of the nocked arrow being set loose.

The arrow made an exhalation of sound as it left the bowstring – its flight was the hushed scratch of a fingernail on a table, a quick, sharp wisp of air that flew over the assembled crowd watching the speech.

The people waited expectantly for Auron to continue, momentarily perplexed and assuming the otherwise put-together Deity was gathering his thoughts.

This silent anticipation was interrupted by the wet thump of the arrow into his sternum, silken haori and elegant clothing providing no resistance to the metal broadhead. The force of the blow cracked several ribs and the cutting edge of the arrow sliced through his heart and lung, toppling Auron backward behind the lectern.

As the Deity of Light was felled, the crowd mirrored Auron’s silent acceptance of his death. Frozen, suspended indefinitely in the prior moments of calm. Was it a conscious decision, or did Auron simply radiate tranquility with his presence?

Whether or not the crowd was shocked or unable to process what was happening, it was clear no voices rose while Auron’s body settled on the stone dais, the unnatural angle of his limbs hidden by clothing. Fabrics of blue ocean and pale sky pooled around the dying being; the white silk at his chest seeped a telling red from the shaft of the arrow.

Death was never painless. That was a kind lie the living told each other to make the inevitability seem less threatening. It was always painful. You could only hope for something quick and immediately fatal, not long-suffering.

Auron received that blessing of a quick death. He closed his eyes and his mind wandered away from the sharpness of his breath to thoughts of his divine partner – light needs dark, light always needs dark. The dying entity was reassured by the idea that the Dark deity was somewhere beyond his current perception, seeing to it that Auron passed as easily as possible.

He could almost feel the Dark’s presence near him, that wavering, warm aura. A phantom hand at his cheek, comforting him, murmuring that this would pass soon. Perhaps, in the In-Between that awaited Auron, the Deity of Light would be able to reunite with his partner once more.

This was his final thought in his human form; his last ragged breath was exhaled out in a sigh as the pain slipped away into a numb nothingness.

Neither the Seats of Power nor the crowd moved until shouting from the city guards broke the stillness, as they chased the archer across rooftops, marking his motions from the streets below. The loud struggle was the moment in which vulgar reality returned and the terror of what happened struck the onlookers.

That was Auron, on the ground. An arrow from an assassin struck Auron. He was bleeding out, dying, dead.

Someone killed the Deity of Light.

The silence died too, as if the air had rushed back into lungs of all who were present, as if that moment of the deity’s passing had been marked on their internal clock. Some screamed and shouted, though there were shocked conversations filtering up from the crowd to the Seats of Power who stood still on the stage. The panicking people were watching them now, waiting for answers, directions, for one of them to at least act.

Gwenllian was the first to move. The Seat of Water. She was the calm within the storm. Her soft, flat-heeled shoes tapped frantically as she crossed the dais and knelt at the side of her god. She hesitated only a moment, but that was a sign of her bravery and resolve.

The Deity of Light had been alive in this same form for centuries, and there were no records of any deaths or assassinations happening within the last… five-hundred years, possibly more. Gwenllian pressed her fingertips against the neck of her god, unsure which outcome she prayed for most, or who she was even praying to in this moment.

If he yet lived, he was suffering with that arrow embedded in him. If Auron was dead, then what did that mean for the Guild? For the world?

Gwenllian knew before she touched the still-warm neck of the entity that Auron was dead. His chest was still, no breath left in him, and his face was unnaturally relaxed. Peaceful, like sleeping. That’s what people said, right? Gwenllian felt unsettled in a way she’d never experienced before. She was a healer, in charge of mundane and magical healing at the Guild. Death was known to her, regrettably. She could not save everyone, even if she wished to.

But Auron’s death was… cold. Cold like ice drawing the last bit of warmth from her veins. Cold, as in an absence of feeling. In death, the Light Deity no longer emitted his aura of hope and wonder, bright things that illuminated this world. Gwenllian, and the other Seats, and the crowd… they could all feel this void, this absence of Light.

She stood slowly, intentionally regulating her emotions with steady, calm breaths. Gwenllian could express sadness at the passing of her god later, when there weren’t hundreds of eyes watching her every motion, waiting for answers. Straightening her saree, she turned to face the Seats of Power – her best friends and companions, the council of the Guild – who surely knew better than she did and could tell her what to do next. Someone had to know what to do next.

Gwenllian shook her head gently, trying not to alert the crowd behind her. The gesture was vague but understood; Auron’s death was confirmed.

The onlookers to this tragedy were transfixed by the corpse of the god before them. The roiling clouds in the sky above the dais went nearly unnoticed, until an alarming rumble of thunder shook the earth. The sky was unnatural.

Prior to this incident, the day had been bright, if occasionally overcast. Now a host of clouds loomed directly above Auron’s body, dark and wicked, lightning sparking along the shapes that churned like a tempestuous sea. It went beyond magical into arcane, the difference being a stark fear of the unknown, of the unexpected veering suddenly into chaotic.

Gwenllian flinched and her resolve cracked as she looked upwards at the impending catastrophe. That’s all it could be, in this moment. Her face bore a mix of fear and awe at the churning darkness above her. She didn’t know what to do. How could she know what was expected of her? Looking down, she caught the eye of Elias, the Seat of Lightning. This was his element. He would know what to do. Yet, the youthful man’s face was as terrified as hers surely looked.

They stared at each other for an uncomfortable eternity until Gwenllian shivered. It felt like her body was shaking, vibrating, but it was the magical energy nearby permeating her nervous system. That was Gwenllian’s informed assumption. She knew stray magic could cause involuntary reactions from the body. Shivering was merely one.

She turned her head from side to side, trying to track the nearby source of this magical swell, as if her mind wouldn’t let her turn to the obvious answer, to the storm above. Someone must be responsible. Again, she looked to the Seats for answers.

Cas was distraught and refused to look towards Auron’s body, standing with xir arms crossed and a touch of blood at xir pale lips from biting the skin in nervousness. The scholar hated conflict, hated the sight of blood more than anything. It was all xie could to do stay on the dais and be present, as one of the Seats.

Kian was able to watch the proceedings, but she was only pretending not to be unnerved. Her eyes flicked between the guards apprehending the assassin and Gwenllian.

Kian was falling back on her duties, the processes she understood, could do without thought. Defenses, guard-work. If she put herself in charge of ensuring the guards caught the assassin, then she could assume someone else had taken up the task of dealing with the death itself.

It looked like Neous too had a vested interest in the capture of the assassin as he watched the city guards scramble across a rooftop. It was a facade, however. His usual hubris was almost toned down in the face of death. It was hard to exude arrogance while the others were having genuine emotional responses. Neous was too, but he masked his fear with disinterest, paying too close of attention to the guards and their machinations.

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Behind Elias hovered Itto, the husbands finding comfort being near each other, even if neither of the men could bear to do anything but watch this scene unfold. While Itto paid more attention to the stability of those standing closest to him, Elias kept glancing upward to the dark clouds. He seemed twitchy, more than simply unnerved.

There was a pulse of magic around her, static and metallic, and Gwenllian saw her friend’s eyes widen in realization. She tilted her head to question it, slow to react as Elias leapt towards her and used his full weight to haul Gwenllian away from Auron’s body.

A crash of lightning struck behind her and for just a moment, the world went silent and bright.

The crowd was left stunned, ears ringing with a painful whine and a splotch of white in their eyes from the sudden flash. When they’d barely recovered, there was something to witness.

Kneeling over Auron’s body was a figure, hands clutching desperately at the hood of their roughhewn cloak to secure it over their face. Reverberations of lightning arced over their back, even as they bent forward with strange convulsions. A hand weighed down the hood while the other clenched the piles of fabric on the ground, trying to balance throughout the shuddering motions. It looked like they were coughing, but the onlookers were too impaired to determine anything useful. Even the Seats stared on in disbelief, unsure what or who they were seeing.

The figure gained their composure in the few precious seconds they had with a still-impaired audience. Their cloak hid their face and form well, the shadows of the arcane clouds hiding any features that might slip into vision. As they sat upright, their hands loosened on the fabric, falling from their hood, relinquishing the silks below them. In a moment of paralysis, it seemed to strike them where they were and who was beneath them.

With a faltering motion, the figure smoothed out the silks they’d rumpled in respectful apology. Their hand slid from Auron’s side to his chest, fingers trailing around the fatal wound as if touch was the only thing that could verify this surreal death. The stranger passed their thumb over the protruding arrow before gripping it tightly and pulling it out.

A gasp rose from a few of the Seats, horrified at the juxtaposition of intimate care and stark brutality. Should they do something? Should they stop this stranger? There was no resolution, no action taken. They watched in painful curiosity. Frozen wasn’t the word, not this time. They’d been frozen when Auron died, frozen in the absence of Light, in the loss of hope and wonder. Frozen suited the Deity who reigned over water, anyways.

They were shocked now. Shocked was right for this stranger. Shocked suited the lightning, suited how they touched the Deity of Light as if they knew them intimately, suited how utterly foreign this scene was.

Shocked. That fit the Dark, didn’t it?

Itto was the first to connect the dots, his look of horror melting into sorrow, into grief. If this was the Deity of Darkness, it was truly a day to show mercy and kindness. The Dark God had been absent for more than five-hundred years, simply vanished from the face of the world. Auron implied that there was a reason, but never gave more than a few words of explanation. He always believed that the Dark would return, someday. Always believed but could never say how.

Itto remembered a conversation that sent pangs of sorrow through his heart, sympathy pains for the two figures at the center of the dais, being watched by all. Years ago, Auron pulled both Itto and Kian aside to give the pair cryptic instructions. If there was ever a moment where the Light God might die, and either Itto or Kian could prevent it as the more combat-versed Seats, they had strict orders to do nothing. To not act, at all. To let Auron, the Deity of Light, die.

Maybe his assumptions were contrived, but in his grief, Itto drew lines between that morbid request and the events of today. The Deity of Light died; the Deity of Dark miraculously returned. They had to be connected. It was the only thing that made sense of all this. Itto glanced at Kian, who was too distracted to return his eye contact. Had she thought of this yet? Later, later Itto would tell her. They didn’t have to keep this a secret anymore, now that the outcome that Auron desired had come to fruition.

The arrow dropped noiselessly onto the fabrics pooled around Auron’s body. The hooded figure was indifferent to the gasps of shock and murmuring of the crowd, ignoring everything but their task at hand. They pulled the edges of the haori into their proper place, as if dressing the corpse for a funeral. Auron had to look as if he was sleeping, resting, as if he would wake up any moment.

Then, the Dark Deity placed their hand onto Auron’s cheek with the reverence of a lover, their own pale hand contrasting with brown skin underneath. They visibly sighed and their head dipped lower, a sign of grief-stricken acceptance of this reality. To the observers, this was too intimate, too personal to bear. It felt like an eternity before the hooded figure moved again, drawing their hand down Auron’s cheek and neck.

The effects were immediate. The Dark had domain over death, over the physical, tangible things in this world. The corpse of Auron, the Deity of Light, began to decay rapidly starting at his caressed cheek. It was horrifying to witness, but it was mercifully quick, almost too quick for the eye to process. Soft flesh didn’t have time to rot but instead crumbled and turned to powder. The bones were slower to dissolve, but only the skull was visible, the rest graciously hidden by the waves of fabric and silk. The haori collapsed into a flat pile on the stone dais once Auron was rendered into nothing but dust, and then that too decayed with a careful touch from the Dark Deity.

The rapid decay drew sudden reactions out of the Seats who were barely managing to maintain self-control. Cas shrieked involuntarily and stumbled backwards, landing on xir rear and scuttling away in terror. Kian began to speak in a fury, tears streaming from the corner of her eyes, but she could only blurt out half-formed words. Gwenllian was crying now too, but her grief was hidden by her hand covering most of her face.

The Dark held up a hand toward the Seats, acknowledging them for the first time. The gesture said to wait, to steady themselves and seek out calm. Then, they brought a finger up towards their own face. Quiet, it meant. It was not an order, but a plea. Please, don’t make this harder than it already is. As if bearing a profound weight, the hooded figure stood and chose a Seat to approach.

It was Gwenllian, sprawled out on the ground where she’d fallen after Elias saved her. The Dark Deity’s hand reached out to help her to her feet. She took the hand – it was warm, almost hot – without hesitation but with tension settling in her chest. This wasn’t her god, but the god of the others, of Itto and Elias and Neous. Why did they choose her?

The Dark leaned over and spoke to her, in a calm, efficient tone laced with a heavy accent reminiscent of high mountain ranges and moorlands. It took only a few seconds to relay the information that she and the Seats needed to know. Then, the Dark was gone. They grasped at their hood once more to secure it and strode off the dais and towards an exit. No one stopped them. A guard shifted, as if thinking about doing something, but they didn’t dare risk the wrath of this magical stranger.

All eyes turned to Gwenllian now. She stared at the arch of the garden wall through which the hooded figure exited, thoughts momentarily failing to reconcile. Then, her duty became the priority. She cleared her throat and used the base of her palm to wipe away the tears from her eyes.

“Elias,” the Seat of Water spoke quietly but firmly, making a simple gesture towards her mouth. The man trembled as the shock set in, but he complied. A small disc of magic appeared before the woman’s face, a pale yellow-white glow emanating from it. The specialty of lightning magic was sound. She cleared her throat again, the rough noise reverberating through the sound-disc which cast her voice loudly to the crowd.

“The Deity of Light, Auron, has been assassinated. However, his death is not permanent.”

It was not well known that the deities in their human form could be resurrected, as Auron had been the only deity in the world for hundreds of years, with no deaths to speak of. A lot of the Guild members were in attendance today, but not all of them were as intimately familiar with Auron and the quirks of his divine nature.

“I have been advised that Auron will return in a few days, or at the longest, a week. The Guild will update the city when this occurs, and we expect the city guard will handle the assassin.”

Gwenllian paused to still her pounding heart. The sounds of crying and startled conversations came from all around her, from the crowd and some of the Seats themselves. At once, she knew why the Dark Deity chose to speak to her. She was the only Seat who could put aside her grief and handle this announcement with tact. She had to press on, for the Guild and for her companions.

“While we are relieved that Auron will be returning, we – the Guild – ask that you do not approach our headquarters or our members with questions until the Deity of Light has been revived. We know as much as you do, at the moment. What we have all collectively witnessed is the common knowledge.”

“As for the… hooded figure that appeared, we do not suspect they were involved with the assassination attempt–” Gwenllian had to clarify this, as the crowd’s view of the stranger’s intimate contact with Auron had been blocked. “–but we will be investigating. I do not believe there is any reason to panic about their presence, whomever they are.”

Although Gwenllian primarily practiced healing, she also specialized in communication, both telepathic and emotional. The figure, the Dark Deity, gave off a warmth and a sense of protection. There were other emotional signals only Gwenllian could have perceived, but she didn’t have time to think too deeply about the anxiety and distress hidden beneath that warm presence.

“Thank you for understanding and giving us the space we need.” Those words were delivered with a finality and sternness that firmly drew a line in the sand, one that people would undoubtedly cross but that was placed there for a reason.

She caught Kian’s eye who nodded and stepped forwards to the front of the dais. Gwenllian could relax and stop being the public face now. Questions were shouted from the crowd as the Seat of Water left the stage with her arms around Cas, who was shaking with sobs. Gwenllian could hear Kian intercept the crowd’s demands, ordering them to disperse, and she could hear Itto start to gather up Elias and the guild members to leave and take refuge out of the public gaze.

They could breathe, for a moment. She only hoped that the Dark Deity, wherever they were, was doing the same.