So, I was losing the Pwiffle match.

I had gotten, perhaps, overconfident in my abilities to win a children's card game (with gratuitous nudity for adults) due to my victory over Veles. I'd forgotten that I hadn't really beaten Veles so much as I'd delayed the match until he'd rage-quit. Here, it was clearly the case that Nightchilde was a lot more patient than her father and familiar with most of my tricks.

Well, one of her fathers.

"You can't win this, Aaron," Nightchilde said, sitting across from me with a notebook that was almost daring me to sneak a peek and an ordinary pencil. She was taking notes with one pair of hands while the other held her cards.

"It's not over until it's over," I said, struggling to concentrate. Nightchilde was putting on her powers to make herself more distracting and I couldn't help but remember the better times we'd had together. Such as they were. She'd also put on a kimono that was especially low cut and showed a lot of leg.

All the rest of the group was elsewhere, and I only had Nightchilde's guarantee they wouldn't kill each other but I'd stupidly agreed to a truce until we settled things. Francine agreed because she wanted to figure out a way to morally justify Nightchilde’s mass murder since it had supposedly united all of the good guys (and not so good guys).

Bluntly, I was more worried about losing my remaining friends to Nightchilde's wrath than I was about losing all the armies that Nightchilde claimed she'd assembled. Still, I wasn't ashamed of putting my friends first. Trying to win this war through the power of RISK and BATTLESHIP was more Francine's thing than mine.

"Isn't it?" Nightchilde asked. "You might as well agree to all of my terms now and we can work out the specifics later."

"Marry you and take over the world," I said, being clear. "The exact terms you gave to Not-Ivan to relay to me."

"You can just call him Ivan," Nightchilde said. "He's a construction of the best elements of both Ivan and Cezary, made perfectly suitable to my needs. It's why I taught the original Cezary the spell to make the transfer. I needed to test how my spell splitting up a corrupted god would go. All the rest of the garbage of both men was transferred to my scapegoat."

"Scapegoat?" I asked.

"The Wind Demon below," Nightchilde answered. "It's weakened right now but will break free from the dungeons in a few days, only to proceed to find itself in the middle of the Mad Queen's, the Empire's, the Elves, and the Dragon Queen's armies. With my power and yours together, we can slay it. Once that is done, we'll sign a permanent treaty between all the factions. Nothing unites a group of feuding forces like a common enemy after all."

I put down a THISTLE card with a ANIA ROSE card. "Yes, because that clearly led to an everlasting peace between the Soviet Union and the other Allies after WW2."

Nightchilde rolled her eyes. "Why are you even invested in this? It's not your world, not your people, and you were kidnapped by the Wise Man."

"I'll tell you what," I said, taking a deep breath. "You tell me the answers to my questions, and I'll answer yours. We'll do it Hannibal Lecter style."

"Am I Clarice or Hannibal in this?" Nightchilde asked, batting her eyelashes.

"I think you know the answer to that," I said.

Nightchilde put down a STEEL ROSE card. Which had a picture of me looking weirdly badass. "Yes, I suppose we do."

"Uh, I don't think that is legal," I said, frowning.

"The new card deck just came out with spoilers for the game," Nightchilde said. "Everyone is already wondering who the hell you are and comparing you to Raiden from Metal Gear 2 or Nero from Devil May Cry 4."

"The substitute no one wanted for the real hero," I said, annoyed with her comparison.

"Yes," Nightchilde said. "Now answer my question and I'll even throw in releasing Ania from her oath."

I stared at her. "You will? And that's not a question."

Nightchilde smirked. "Why not? She's already an oathbreaker. Her honor was the last thing that was binding her, and it was amazing that she chose you over it. I confess, you must have made quite a bit more of an impression on her than you did me."

"Yes, funny how I want to marry her and only consider you to be my evil ex," I said, putting down a second ANIA card then claiming the STEEL ROSE card. Nightchilde had apparently missed that was a weakness of that one.

"You have two Anias?" Nightchilde asked.

"Is that a question?" I asked.

"Sure, but you haven't answered the first one," Nightchilde said. "Why do you care?"

I shrugged. "I don't need a big reason for trying to help these people. If I saw someone on the side of the road and they were badly injured, I'd call an ambulance or try to get them to a hospital. People are always acting like helping others is a terrifyingly rare thing to do. I got the opportunity to help and tried to do it. So, I did. That's not weird."

"That's extremely weird," Nightchilde said. "Even among the champions. Valentin may have been at one end of the spectrum while Francine and you are at the other but it's not like there's not a large middle between you. There's more people like Jon than you'd know who only help so much as it aids those who are their friends."

"Then more people should be friends," I said. "As for why I have two Ania cards, I always save the Ania cards."

Nightchilde frowned. "Very well, ask your question. I should point out that I will be defeating you for good next round with this BORIS POPPY (DRAGON) card."

She set down a red dragon card.

"I don't think so," I said, pointing to Thistle as I memorized the back description of the STEEL ROSE card. "Thistle gets an upgrade when the STEEL ROSE is in play. That puts me over Boris Poppy by one point."

Nightchilde looked down. "You've got to be shitting me. This card is way overpowered."

"I think you were playing it wrong," I said. "It's a command style card rather directly dangerous. It enhances--"

"Shut up," Nightchilde said, crossing all her arms. "Ask your damned question."

"Could you explain how this whole murder-the-dragon-queen-and-replace-her thing happened?" I asked, staring at her. "Because I'm not clear on a lot of details. I thought the Wise Man was responsible for that and one of his agents."

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"You wouldn't be wrong," Nightchilde said. "The answer is that the video game style plot that you've been experiencing between Veles and the Wise Man has been breaking down for some time. It's amazing that it lasted for fifteen cycles. The simple fact is that Veles and the Wise Man only have each other's consent to treat me and my siblings as bosses to be slain. Svarog, Mokosh, Mythras, and even the Aesir never agreed to settling it between them. It is actually the height of arrogance that everyone else would be left out of the struggle."

"Mokosh and Zorya Dawnbringer seemed willing to help," I said.

"Because you're the only game in town," Nightchilde said. "Even then, she saw you were willing to do it your way. My sister and I managed to get free of our Twisted One corruption thanks to the disruption in Veles' enchantment of it by previous champions. I was more successful than her because I am the goddess of magic while she was just the goddess of war."

I wasn’t sure that boast was the flex she thought it was since Zorya Dawnbringer had slain her Elemental Demon completely while Nightbringer’s was in the basement. Still, it seemed Nightbringer had been free for years.

Somehow.

I nodded. "Okay, I'm with you so far. You and Dawnbringer planned to free yourself of your corrupted avatars. She decided to make Rachel with me for that. You, however, projected yourself into my world."

"Good guess," Nightchilde said. "I sought help from the gods there just as Larry C.C. Weis sought help from the divine descendants of Perun that hadn't been hunted down by Veles like they had on this world."

I grimaced. That explained why Weis hadn't sought help closer to home. "But there was still a Wind Demon on this world. An Old God."

"Is that a question?" Nightchilde asked.

"Sure."

"Yes," Nightchilde said. "I split myself in half rather than fully purified myself like Dawnbringer did. To put an end to the corruption of the Wind Demon, the Wind Demon must die, and I didn't have the juice for it as you would say. In the end, I had to return to Mokosh empty-handed. None of Earth's gods were willing to assist me without Svarog or Mythras' help. Veles was too powerful, and I was too untrustworthy."

"Can't imagine why," I said. "So how did that get to murdering the slave-liberating dragon queen? Because I really hated that plot twist in the show."

Nightchilde shook her head. "My question now. Do you love Ania?"

"Yes," I said, not hesitating.

"Could you possibly love someone else in addition to her?" Nightchilde asked, starting a new round of Pwiffle.

"That's another question," I pointed out.

"Yes," Nightchilde said.

"I don't know," I said. "I've been attracted to other people as well as built strong emotions regarding them but that doesn't compare to Ania. I don't know."

"She's not really your daughter since she was made from magic and fire."

"I meant Zorya Dawnbringer! Who is not Rachel."

"Sure, sure."

I wondered what it would take to stop the incest jokes. Did it require killing everyone in my group? Because, honestly, we were getting to that point. "Tell me how you ended up becoming the Dragon Queen."

Nightchilde smiled as she dealt out the cards. "The truth is that Weis' plan to save the Two Worlds wasn't even the most effective one. A fact that must have galled the old wizard. He had, after all, sacrificed far too much to allow anyone else to save the world."

"That's not exactly clear," I said, not exactly asking for clarification but implying it.

"Svarog and the Dragon Queen went off script to defeat Veles," Nightchilde said. "You've probably heard some of the details but it would involve binding the Old Gods rather than attempting to slay them, so they reincarnate without the Twisted One's taint. We would sleep for thousands of years but the taint would gradually fade."

"I take it you weren't down with that plan," I said. "Which is a statement not a question."

"No," Nightchilde said. "Nor was the Wise Man. It would mean a fading of our power as gods for all time. We would still exist but what little power we held over humanity, preserved so judiciously in Mokosh, would vanish forever. Svarog might be strong enough to endure it but I would be just a memory in a history book, if that. The Dragon Queen had her sister's might, though, and planned to conduct the ritual without any of Weis' champions."

"So, you allied with him and assassinated her," I said.

"Not quite," Nightchilde said. "Did you ever love me?"

I paused. "I was devoted to you. I don't think you can love someone who doesn't love you back, though. It just becomes twisted."

Nightchilde nodded, smiling. "Go ahead and ask your next question."

"What happened then?" I asked, checking my cards.

They were awful. Almost all ratkin, except for a Garland.

"Do you know how easy it is to manipulate a person when they have a vested interest in being good or being considered good?"

"Is that a question?"

"No," Nightchilde said. "The answer is easily. The Dragon Queen was at war with the Mad Queen and there is no war without atrocities or innocents killed. It was not difficult to convince a woman who was certain it was her job to be a hero to kill a dragon that was rampaging through enemy forces. Even if that rampage would have brought an end to the Mad Queen's reign."

"Francine," I said, taking a deep breath. "She's a good person."

"I know," Nightchilde said. "But people pushed to the limit of trying to do the right thing to make mistakes, especially during wartime. Like, say, blowing the head off of a prisoner and raising him from the dead."

"What would have happened if I hadn't done that?" I asked. "And yes, that's a question."

"Francine would have killed him," Nightchilde said. "Or Jorg or even Ania. You read the others demanding a pound of flesh and gave it to them. That doesn't mean what you did wasn't dramatically out of character and morally wrong. It's just a sign you were trying to make the best of a bad situation."

"Francine killed the Dragon Queen and you took her place," I said.

"I reanimated her body," Nightchilde said. "My previous avatar was burning up its human vessel but a royal of draconic blood would be able to hold me just fine. Weis allowed me to slip into her frame and I became the new Dragon Queen. From there, I could feed on the deaths of the war and grow strong enough to permanently bind my corrupted self to Prince Cezary. Once he's destroyed, I'll be able to join forces with Weis' remaining champions to defeat Veles. From there, we will restore the faith of the Ledzianian pantheon as well as raise a new Empire on the ashes of the old."

I started to speak. "You can't--"

"Tut, tut, Aaron," Nightchilde said. "You asked two questions. I get to ask two questions."

I sighed. "Go ahead."

"Do you feel that Ledziania is making you a better person or worse?" Nightchilde asked, tapping out her cards.

They were very good.

"Yes," I answered truthfully. "Veles said that this world was a place that brought out the worst in people and there were no good answers. Sometimes I do extreme things to try to make things balanced. On the other hand, I think I've done real good here too. But I'm afraid the more powerful I become, the more my potential to hurt people rather than help them will grow. It doesn't help that I think your father is an insane barbarian."

Hey! Perun said.

Nightchilde smiled. "Finally, I have one more question: just what would you be willing to do to save this kingdom? How much would you be willing to sacrifice?"

"That's two questions," I said.

"They're just an extension of the first," Nightchilde said.

I closed my eyes. "I don't know. I don't want to become Alek and forget that I'm here to help people. If you're the Dragon Queen, then you're lying to him and Joan about resurrecting her. Because she's not dead. the same as Jon's not dead because he's a raven."

"A dragon now but yes," Nightchilde said. "I've managed to win over Jorge by holding his sister's resurrection hostage. I would never bring back her, though, because she is a potential enemy sorceress that would never forgive what I've done to her son."

I stared at her. "Then you don't need my coin at all."

I threw away my Garland card despite being my best one and hoped for a flush of ratkin. Instead, I got a MASTER ROGUE DARK UNDERMASTER card. It had an image of Ania on it, which seemed to be my lucky card.

Nightchilde smirked. "Of course I do. Otherwise, you might use it or reveal it can't be used. It's time to call: CHERNABOG, ZORYA DAWNBRINGER, ZORYA NIGHTBRINGER, and BELOBOG. There's also a GOBLIN TROOPER but I'm throwing that away. Oh, look, I have a CRAZY BARRY. I don't think I'll need that with a four Old Gods spread. All I'd need is a Veles for a Royal Divine Hand."

"I'll take that CRAZY BARRY please," I said.

"What?" Nightchilde asked.

"Master Rogues can steal one card from the other side," I said, pointing to the description. "Which gives he's a ratkin means that's a flush."

Nightchilde said. "A flush does not beat...ah crap."

I nodded. "Yes, CRAZY BARRY means that all ratkin cards have double their value, which means that a flush becomes a double flush or ratpocalypse in this respect."

“You made that word up.”

“Yes.”

"We're tied now." Nightchilde muttered. "What are your terms for the tiebreaker?"

"I swear allegiance to you if you win. If I win, you support me defeating Veles and leave the Dragon Queen's body," I said.

"If you win, you marry me," Nightchilde said. "Believe me, I'd rather marry just about anyone else."

I didn't want to agree but was about to when the entire palace shook. Screams could be heard outside of the throne room.

"We'll have to pause the game," Nightchilde said. "It seems the Wind Demon has broken out early."