I came across Thistle while she was behind some bushes, getting dressed.

"Uh, hey," I said, pausing. "I was curious if we could talk."

"Why?" Thistle said, not looking especially concerned about being seen. I caught a glimpse of the fact she was very toned in places that drew attention, like a women's volleyball player or swimmer.

I paused. "Because Larry C.C. Weiss said that if I didn't work to get all of the party members on my side then one of you would betray me and then I would have to kill you."

Thistle paused in mid-dressing and turned to look at me. "That bothers you, doesn't it? The killing, more than the treason."

"Uh, yeah," I said, trying to keep my eyes focused on her ears versus anything else.

"Why?" Thistle asked.

I blinked. "I'm not a big fan of killing people. I've done a lot more of it than I've ever wanted to but I try not to make a habit of it if I can avoid it."

"Ah," Thistle said.

"Plus, I think killing you would especially aggrieve Ania," I said.

"That is a lie," Thistle said, coolly. I was starting to get a sense of where Ania picked up a lot of her personality quirks. "Ania despises the part of her that fell in love with me. She mourned my death but was secretly relieved to be free of me."

"I don't believe that," I said, wondering why I was trying to be nice to my girlfriend's ex. Oh, right, I didn't want her stabbing me in the night.

"Did Ania tell you of the sacrifice?" Thistle asked. "The rite that was the cost of our magic?"

This was an awkward conversation because I'd just learned about what Ania had sacrificed. It had been an intimate moment between us. "Yeah, she told me."

Thistle put on the rest of her clothes, which was a welcome relief. Seriously, Punk girls were my kryptonite. And mean girls. And redheads. Also, goddesses. Monsters. Ugh. Why was I such a geeky stereotype? "The sacrifice Ania made was one she would later come to regret but it was merciful compared to the one I made."

"I doubt she'd see it that way," I said, pausing. "What was your sacrifice?"

Thistle stared at me. It was a cold and haunted gaze. "I had to give up my ability to love."

I blinked. "Your ability to love. By that—"

"I mean my ability to feel the bond between two people where you would care for someone more than yourself even unto death," Thistle said. "The ultimate curse from a love goddess and one that I should have realized was a sign that the Nightbringer had been corrupted."

"I'm sorry," I said.

"You do not understand," Thistle said, looking up into the sky as if searching for the moon that was presently on the other side of the planet. "I am a mother, technically father but let's not get into that, and I could never care for my own children as anything other a fondness. My comrades in arms, those who were supposed to be my sisters, in the Dark Moon were only ever expendable pawns. my lovers--"

"Ania," I said.

Thistle closed her eyes. "That is its own story. Did the magic books from your world, the ones that contain our histories, talk about my origin?"

"Not particularly," I replied.

To be honest, Thistle seemed like she existed to teach Ania how to kill people and provide a lot of steamy girl on girl love scenes before dying horribly. Frankly, it was amazing she had as big a fandom as she did.

"My sister and I are survivors of La Tène," Thistle said. "It was the last elven city and the resettlement of it by her is a bad sign."

"I don't know much of the story," I replied. "The elves are kind of, well, not the focus of the books."

Thistle looked away. "I will make it simple then: Old King Frederick's father destroyed it. The Elfslayer had grown sick of the constant waylaying of the lumber shipments and the harassment of farmers by elvish archers. So he decided to make an example of the city despite the fact, perhaps because of, that it had humans living in peace with the elves. The elves are not that different from humans and our numbers thin. Interbreeding is so much that every elf has some human in them and most Ledzianians have elf, though few would ever admit it. It is the magic of bonding ourselves with a life tree that gives us our extended lifespan as well as pointed ears. Humans who make the pact as adults are called dryads and fauns, which might have been Ania's path if she'd not embraced the warrior way."

"I'm sorry," I said, imagining the massacre.

"My sister, Rhoeas, and I dealt with the agony in different ways," Thistle said. "Rhoeas wanted to rebuild the city and resettle. She believed in peace and reproachment with humans but also despised that the elves continually lost every extended engagement with humans. Anarchy is a poor system for raising and directing armies after all. She believed only by becoming like humans could we maintain our lands."

"And you?" I asked.

"I just wanted to kill people," Thistle said. "My pact with the Nightbringer did not take away my capacity for hate. Ania has killed many people as a Dark Moon assassin but in many ways, she has the least blood on her hands. My arrows and swords are dipped in the ichor of the innocent as well as guilty. Before my death, if I could have killed every human in the Southern Kingdoms, I would have."

"Why didn't you kill Ania?" I asked.

Thistle paused. "I saw the haunted look in her eyes. She, like I, had seen the horrors of having her home taken away. Would you believe that in that moment, I felt a kinship that was the closest thing I felt to love until that moment? For decades?"

"No," I said, blinking. "Not really."

Thistle blinked. "Your wisdom has increased, Aaron. No, I wanted to train her as a weapon against the Royal Family. When we killed Frederick, it was supposed to be the end of the human threat. Instead, it unleashed an immense wave of reprisals against our kind."

"Yes, who could have imagined killing the only royal who actually wanted peace would lead to war," I muttered.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Thistle stared at me. "Yes, in hindsight that may have been a poor choice of actions. But the Dark Moon had the guidance of the goddess."

"Who is actually now corrupted into the Wind Demon and working for Veles, who wants to wipe out all life," I pointed out.

"Are you finished gloating?" Thistle asked.

"More twisting the knife," I said. "Possibly kicking you while you're down."

"Ah," Thistle said. "Interesting, I understand that is not normally your way."

"My sympathy is expansive and deep like the ocean but tends to dry up when people start wars where the little people are swept away."

Thistle nodded. "The Dark Moon elves always thought we would win against humanity if we were harder, nastier, and more ruthless. Instead, it seemed that mankind's own ruthlessness was always able to equal them. There were also always a lot more of them than there were elves."

I nodded. "As you say, elves are just humans with pointy ears and tree magic."

Thistle frowned then let the point go. "In any case, the vengeance against us was not indiscriminate. The Mad Queen played the role of the conciliator. She bided her time and turned the people against us. In the end, she wielded financial power against my sister as First Ranger. Elves need things from humans just as humans need things from elves. Cutting them off, my sister was forced to give up our location to her."

I didn't bother pointing out the inconsistencies of her logic, like the fact she wanted to drive out all humans in one sentence then mention how the two races couldn't survive without the other. Then again, maybe I was asking too much from a Fantasy Poland terrorist.

"This part I know," I replied, feeling sympathy even though she'd brought so much of this down on herself. "Jorg the Bastard Knight led a team of Sorcerer Knights to destroy your base and capture everyone. He tortured you all, sparing only Ania, and then made her watch as he sawed your head off."

Thistle lowered her gaze. "He wanted a confession that we killed his father. The most dishonorable and hated warrior in all of humanity's forces was not what I expected. As much as he was driven by vengeance, he wanted to make sure we were the guilty parties. He refused to allow his men to burn the village we were hiding in and prevented the soldiers from taking any liberties from the prisoners."

I stared at her, disgusted. "I'd say that would be the bare minimum to expect but the bare minimum would include not torturing prisoners."

Thistle snorted. "You must come from a very kindly sort of place, Aaron of Michigan."

"No," I said, remembering the stories Alek had told me. He had tried to do the same as Jorg with some of his companions. For the most part, the armies he'd traveled with had been professional and well-behaved but there had been a few local militias as well as mercenaries who had considered war crimes to be a perk of the job.

"Either way, the Bastard Knight's behavior was practically saintly by Ledzianian standards," Thistle said. "I went to my death with blood on my teeth, a curse on my tongue, and absolute faith I would be rewarded in the afterlife."

"What happened?" I asked.

"I wasn't," Thistle said. "The Underworld is ruled by immutable laws dictated by Triglav at the dawn of time and obeyed by all lords of the afterlife. The good are rewarded, the bad are punished, and most of those in between simply live lives like the ones they had in life. Good is caring for others. Evil is harming them. Nuance is not something that goes very far there. Each night, I would experience the pain of my victims. I would live their final hours before being murdered by an image of myself. It was designed to teach me empathy."

I stared. "Mothersucker."

"Your reaction is strange," Thistle said, keeping her emotionless monotone.

"Like I told Jon, I wasn't very religious before I found out gods were real," I replied. "Part of that was the concept of hell. Good guys don't torture people."

"Even in the evildoer?" Thistle asked.

"A man kills a murderer then the number of murderers doesn't go down," I replied.

"Then kill two," Thistle said. "Either way, parole is possible in the Underworld, even for one such as me. Still, the number of lives I claimed and horror I unleashed on the world meant I would have experienced damnation for thousands of years if not for the deal I made."

"You sold yourself to Veles," I said.

"Yes," Thistle said. "His is the only way to escape the Hells for the corrupt, wicked, and oath breakers. I emerged as one of the undead and was given to task of killing the Pontiff of Mythras."

I stared at her. "You're not really selling yourself here."

"I hope honesty will work better than a transparent lie," Thistle said, cocking her head to one side. "In the end, I broke my oath. I chose not to kill her and if I ever return to Hell then Veles torments of me will be even worse."

I blinked. "Why?"

Thistle paused. "Because, perhaps, I did learn something of empathy. I can never love anyone. Never love even myself. However, I can sympathize."

"Is there any way to break the spell?" I asked, thinking more of Ania than Thistle. I was fine if she didn't want to have kids but the fact that she did make it a problem to solve. Which, yes, is probably arrogant of me but I like to think I'd developed a pretty good track record for doing so.

Blame the debugger in me.

"No," Thistle said. "Only a god could do so. It's divine magic. Only a god could fix it."

I waited for Perun to say something.

Nope, nothing.

Great.

I took a deep breath. "Lady, it's not my place to forgive you for what you did. It's not my kingdom and not my civil war. Still, it sounds like you're making amends as best you can. I believe Ania will want to--"

"Forgive me?" Thistle asked. "Make love to me? Use me as a weapon?"

"I don't know," I said. "But she definitely feels something for you and I hope you'll not make her life worse."

Thistle nodded. "I would definitely have to kill you to get her back."

"Please don't," I said, "Also, that would just make her hate you forever."

Thistle paused. "Yes, I suppose it would. You are her ke'tar. A person who provides balance to her darker qualities. Does she provide a balance to you?"

"I'd be dead many times over if not for her," I said, proudly.

"That's not what I asked," Thistle said. "You have to let love change you. Without it, a person is stuck in place because they can't be changed by it. Embrace the person you will be with Ania rather than just be happy you're with the person you are changing her to be."

I blinked. "I'll bear that in mind."

Thistle nodded. "We can discuss the politics of the realms later. I suspect you are someone inclined to side with my sister, though, over me."

"Which side doesn't result in the elves getting involved in more wars with humanity or siding with the Mad Queen, who is the mother of Veles' baby?"

Thistle smirked. "Practical considerations. Which is a good lead for my next point."

"And that is?" I asked, unsure whether I should pity Thistle, try to help her, or figure out a way to get her far away from this group. She was the "Token Evil" teammate that so many adventuring parties had in their ranks. Which was impressive since we already had Ania, Ivan, and Bloodstorm.

"I need your blood," Thistle said, "and more."

"Uh, what?"

Thistle frowned. "I am a vampire noble with the spirit of a demon of the Second Circle inside me. I have...needs. Ones I must satisfy with either murder or more congenial ways. I will not with a child and if I fed on Ivan, I would kill him given his relationship to Jorg. Therefore, I need a partner to provide."

I looked over my shoulder to see if anyone was looking. "Uh, you're describing blood very different from just tapping a vein."

"You have experienced being fed on. It is a little death."

"Yeah, I know what the French call it," I replied, remembering my encounter with Angelica in the Black Cat. "I'm not the guy you should go to for this. I think Bloodstorm--"

"Ania and Bloodstorm have both refused," Thistle said. "I believe Ania would be willing if not for her fear you would judge her."

"That doesn't give me a reason to do this," I said. "I know that I--"

That was when Thistle transformed. Her skin turned red, and a pair of curved horns stuck out of the top of her head. A pair of bat wings stretched out from behind her. Also, let's just get it out there, certain parts of her anatomy were distinctly larger. Elves were naturally lithe and now Thistle was, uh, well, how Chaos Comics would draw its protagonists in the Nineties. She was the classical image of a succubus and washing over me with the kind of magic that I’d experienced from Mrs. Grub. It seemed less like it was designed to dominate than titillate, though. Consensual mind control. Assuming I bothered to resist at all.

YOU HAVE RESISTED BEING ENTHRALLED.

Okay, now I was pissed. "Listen, lady, my saving throws are much better now. I have divine energy backing up my average WIS!"

Thistle proceeded to kiss me on the lips, biting my lower lip and triggering a jolt of pleasure throughout my body.

YOU HAVE RESISTED BEING ENTHRALLED.

"I really have to get going," I said, but not moving. I needed to confront what I really wanted and it wasn't this.

Thistle moved her head lower.

YOU HAVE BEEN ENTHRALLED.

Okay, I'm going to admit this one was my fault.