The city of Selador stopped being bright and sunny the day the Beohur died. Because it was at the Crown of Ascangen, the world tree, Selador was always in the direct path of the sun. When the tree had first been grown from a Realm Seed, this had vexed Anita, the Beohur of the Moon. So she made sure the moon was bright enough to be seen during the daytime, and from then on, Sealdor was constantly sunlit and moonlit.

But during the Second War of the Beohur, Willem, Beohur of Sky, gathered storm clouds and called down rain and lightning. Geffen, Beohur of Sea, summoned giant waves that blocked out the sun. Cynefrith, Beohur of Death, covered the city in poisonous fog. Even Anita darkened the sky as the moon fought the sun for control.

Selador would return to its bright self once the Beohur were finished with their battle, but for an entire day, the city barely saw a single ray of sun.

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It started in the early morning, when most of the Beohur were resting. Being gods, they didn’t need sleep, but they often kept to themselves for a few hours every day communing with the aspects they embodied. The Elvar who served them did sleep for those few hours, so though the sun shone ever brightly still, Selador itself lay in quiet repose. Mostly.

Wymond, Beohur of Health, had been having disturbing visions for the past few weeks. Visions about his death. He saw himself lying on the ground, bleeding, unable to close the wound with his magic no matter how hard he tried. Beohur weren’t unkillable, but only another Beohur could truly slay one. Wymond, being Beohur of Health, was even harder to kill than most. During the First War of the Beohur, back when there were two factions of gods fighting each other, he had even regrown his body from just a head. But that war was long past, and they had all been one tribe for thousands of years.

If Wymond was so hard to kill, why did he keep having these visions? They weren’t dreams--only humans dreamed. Everything the Beohur saw in their mind meant something. It meant something that Wymond kept seeing Hilda and Cynefrith plotting against him. It meant something that Wymond kept seeing the sky dim as his vision faded into nothingness.

Wymond might have been young amongst the Beohur, but he wasn’t that naive. He knew Hilda and Cynefrith had always resented him. Of course the Beohur of War and of Death would want the Beohur of Health out of the way. He could imagine how much easier their work would become if no one healed from wounds or recovered from illness.

Wymond’s work would be much easier without Hilda and Cynefrith, too, but he would never dream of hurting them. They were good and important in their own ways, even if he didn’t always understand those ways. Still, if being Beohur of Health had taught him anything, it was that an ounce of prevention was worth a pound of treatment. He belted on his dagger and walked into the square to call them out.

Selador’s town square took the shape of a huge circle almost half a league across. Rings of brightly colored tile spread from the towering fountain at its center like iridescent ripples in a pond. The fountain itself showed Ryland, Beohur of Wisdom and King of Selador, standing tall and holding his spear, Gritte. Sara, Beohur of Frost, who also ruled over stone and rock, had sculpted the statue in perfect likeness--including Ryland’s thick muscles, wide back, and prominent, wispy eyebrows. It even bore the king’s many scars.

The town square was empty when Wymond arrived, the Elvar who kept the shops on its edges still asleep. Reaching out with his mind for the other Beohur, he found Hilda and Cynefrith together in Hilda’s house. Being together at this hour made it even more likely they were plotting against him. He narrowed his focus to Hilda and sent a mental message.

Meet me in the square, please. Don’t tell anyone. It’s important.

All right. I’ll be there in a few minutes.

Isolation was a form of triage, after all. With only one of them, Wymond would have a better chance if things went badly. Besides, he had always felt like Hilda was a better friend to him than Cynefrith. Calling her here was still a risk, though, as this would be a perfect chance for Hilda to kill Wymond without anyone knowing who did it. But sometimes risks were necessary.

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Hilda arrived soon, stepping into the square from an alley between two buildings. The tall goddess strode toward the center to meet Wymond. She wore no weapons, but that hardly meant anything. Not only could she summon one at a moment’s notice, but she was also an expert at brawling and wrestling. It was a rare situation where Hilda couldn’t be dangerous if she decided to be.

“What can I do for you?” she asked.

Wymond opened his mouth, but the words turned to ash on his tongue. He couldn’t exactly ask are you plotting to kill me? to someone who might be plotting to kill him. She would just deny it and make him out to be troubled. In all fairness, he was troubled, but for good reason.

Hilda glanced back at the street she’d come from, then frowned at Wymond. “Are you all right, Wymond? Is something wrong?”

He finally regained his composure. “Have you seen anything strange lately? Or sensed anything?”

Hilda’s face softened with concern. “Are you talking about the visions you’ve been having?”

“How did...”

“Cynefrith told me that you stopped talking halfway through a conversation,” Hilda said. “She said your face looked just like Ryland’s does when he uses his Sight.”

So Wymond hadn’t passed that off as well as he’d hoped. In his defense, it would have been hard for anyone to pretend to be fine after being decapitated without warning, only to realize that it hadn’t really happened. Still, it was suspicious that Cynefrith and Hilda of all people had been talking about him behind his back.

“So...so you haven’t had any visions?” Wymond asked.

“No. I haven’t.” Hilda stepped forward and rested a hand on Wymond’s shoulder. “Look, why don’t you come back to my home? We can figure this out. I’m sure the three of us will be able to find some kind of answer.”

“I...I don’t...” Wymond forced himself to relax his muscles. He didn’t want Hilda to know he was scared of her. There was no way he was going to be alone with both her and Cynefrith, though. Not after what he’d seen, and certainly not after Hilda had suggested it. She could be getting him someplace more private so she and Cynefrith could kill him.

“Please, Wymond,” Hilda said. “You don’t have to worry. Let us battle these visions together.”

That was exactly what someone who wanted to hurt him would say. It didn’t help that her free hand had disappeared behind her back, as if reaching for a hidden weapon.

Wymond’s hand strayed to the hilt of his dagger.

Hilda’s eyes widened. “Wymond, keep calm. Don’t...” Then her eyes narrowed. “Don’t make me kill you out here where anyone could see.” Her hand reappeared with a wickedly curved dagger, its blade catching the sunlight.

Despite his fear, and despite Hilda being one of the fastest Beohur, Wymond was ready. Her dagger tore into his side as he twisted out of the way. The wound, four knuckles deep and twice as wide, closed almost immediately, with barely any pain and just a few drops of blood on the tile at their feet. That gave Wymond plenty of time to draw his own weapon, which he thrust at Hilda’s heart.

Then Hilda wasn’t holding a weapon at all, and her eyes were wide with shock. The tile was spotless. Hilda hadn’t attacked him at all. It had just been another vision.

But Wymond was still trying to stab her.

Hilda pulled Wymond closer. Her empty hand shot up to catch his wrist. Twisting it, she drove the blade back into his gut.

Pain spread through Wymond’s belly. Too much pain. More pain than he had ever felt, twisting his mind inside out, making every breath and thought too heavy to hold. There was another sensation, too, a wrongness that should never have existed in Selador, a rot that ate away at his insides.

“I’m so sorry, Wymond,” Hilda said from a faraway dream. “It was instinct. But you’re going to live. You can heal, can’t you?”

Wymond fell to his knees, then to his back. He could heal. His magic should have closed the wound by now. Why did it still hurt? Why was his body wet with blood? He looked down at the handle of the dagger, which stuck out of his abdomen, and saw something he’d been too distracted to notice back at home.

The dagger wasn’t his.

Wymond’s dagger was simple and functional, with a silver steel blade and the twin golden serpents of the caduceus forming a hilt and guard. This dagger had a twisted black blade and carved bone handle with no guard.

Hilda knelt next to him. If Wymond could just tell her...but his lungs were full of rotten blood, and all he could do was cough it everywhere.

Then, just as in the visions, Wymond’s sight grew dark, the perpetual sun of Selador fading from his view.

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