Ania looked up at me with despairing eyes. "You really don't want to get laid to tonight, do you?"

  "That's only if you assume married people shouldn't have sex," I replied.

  "Most people think that," Ania joked, or at least I hoped she was. "You have this weird habit of mixing it with feelings. It sucks all the passion out of it."

  I rolled my eyes. "You are a very strange girl, Ania."

  "Yeah, I am your Magical Pixie Dream Consort," Ania said. "The Cattie-Imoen."

  "You don't know what any of those words you heard from Jon mean, do you?" I asked.

  "No," Ania said.

  "Let's establish you're about as far from Natalie Portman in Garden State as possible," I replied. "Though I wouldn't mind seeing her play a Goth murder elf."

  Okay, now that was an image in my head.

  "Aaron," Ania said, snapping her fingers in front of me.

  "Goth murder elf!" I said, suddenly.

  Ania snorted. "But why do you want to get married now?"

  "Because I almost died," I said, simply. "It kind of puts things in perspective."

  "You almost die all the time," Ania said. "I would argue that it is the thing you are best at."

  "That's not very reassuring," I said.

  "I, in fact, find it to be incredibly reassuring," Ania said. "Because the emphasis is on the fact that you don't die. You come close to danger very often but always manage to escape from it."

  "I think this is one of those things where our language barrier is showing up, translation spell or not," I said.

  "You've been speaking Ledzianan to me for the past couple of months," Ania said, pausing. "Well, from your perspective. I hate this variable timeline bullshit. I was alone, without you, Aaron, for six months. I did not sleep around on you."

  "Yes, I understand--"

  "Six months," Ania said, emphasizing it. "I had a lot of alone time."

  "Okay, now I have another image in my head," I said, blinking.

  Ania sighed.

  "How much alone time?" I asked. "What were you--"

  Ania lightly slapped me on my face.

  "Right, I'm back," I said.

  "Good boy," Ania said. "The question still remains, though."

  "What question?" I asked, having genuinely forgotten it thanks to all the things I'd been thinking of.

  "Why do you want to get married now?" Ania asked. "Instead of getting naked and having sex in this steam tunnel?"

  "Is it cleaner than the hotel?" I asked.

  Ania sighed. "It's closer."

  I smiled. "I've always wanted to marry you, Ania. Since the moment I met you."

  "Surrounded by dead bodies in my burning hometown?" Ania asked, referring to the circumstances of our meeting. "When I was disgusted with you for being another imposter for Garland?".

  I blinked. "Well, maybe not the first moment, but close to it."

  "You slept with like five women in-between us becoming exclusive," Ania said.

  "It was close this time, Ania," I said, taking a deep breath. "You said you wanted to wait until Veles was defeated."

  "Yes," Ania said. "Because it has to be the focus of everything."

  "But we've come so far," I said, staring at her. "Done so much. I just want--"

  "I don't understand the appeal," Ania said, shaking her head. "Marriage has always been just a bunch of words to me."

  "It's a promise," I said, pausing. "I don't break my promises."

  "Unlike Veles," Ania said.

  I paused. "Yeah, unlike him."

  "You know he used to be the god who punished oathbreakers, right?" Ania asked.

  "Yes, I did."

  "You should also know that not every promise can be honored," Ania said, pausing. "I've seen every nobleman, every marriage, and every knight break their oaths. Parents who promise to love their children and do the most horrible things. Clergy who break every single--"

  "Do you believe I will honor any promise I will make you?" I asked.

  Ania sighed. "I believe you will do everything in your power to fulfill any promise you make, as wildly stupid and inconceivable as they may be."

  "Like killing Veles," I said, frowning.

  "Yes," Ania said, pulling away from me. "You don't get it, Aaron, and I don't think you ever will."

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "You never thought you'd get this far," I said.

  Ania closed her eyes. "No, no I didn't. Hope was not a luxury I ever afforded myself. When I was a member of the Dark Moon elves, I gave up my life to the Nightbringer and ritually buried myself. I became no one."

  Wow, Larry C.C. Weis was an enormous plagariast.

  No, dammit, get out of that mindset.

  "You're not no one," I said. "You're Ania Rose."

  "I know that!" Ania said, looking tormented by the thought that she just couldn't let go of. "But I dedicated myself to this fight knowing it was futile. Hopeless. Garland could never have pulled off what you have, Aaron, and every single champion since him was worse than the last."

  "Francine and Jon were...not terrible," I said, pausing. That was damning with faint praise. "Alek...okay, he was awful, but he was misled."

  Ania gave a half-smile. "We're almost to the finish line. That was one of the few metaphors of Jon that I understood. We used to have races at the Dragon Keep Fair every year. I won them against boys five years older than me. Veles is wounded. His armies are no more. We have divine allies. If you...become a god, we might win."

  That was monumental but it was conditional. "If I become a god."

  "If you do, we have a small chance," Ania said. "I think that's the way Larry C.C. Weis wrote the story to end. You become Perun and you forget about the mortal girl you left behind."

  I stared at her. "I'd rather have you than be a god."

  Ania punched me in the shoulder.

  "Ow!" I said, putting my hand on my shoulder. "What the fuck?"

  "The fact you mean that pisses me off!" Ania said. "This is not about happiness or love!"

  "You're wearing Mokosh's catsuit of protection so maybe it is," I said, rubbing the bruise she'd made. "But maybe that's why I want to marry you. So many if's, and's, but's. Maybe we'll win. Maybe evil will triumph. But I want to make a promise that I will love you in this life and the next, assuming there is one after Veles gets done with this universe. Call it crazy. I want to believe there's a future but it's about the now and honoring what I feel for you."

  "That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard," Ania said, staring.

  I sighed and looked away. "Fine. I'll stop bringing it up. I didn't come here to fight."

  Ania sighed and took my hand. She squeezed it tight. "I promise to love you and cherish you too. Before the gods, before the kings of old, before the kings of the future, and before my word--as broken as it has been so many times. Fine, we're married."

  "What?" I asked.

  "We don't get married before priests in Ledziana," Ania said. "Not if you're a peasant. The priesthood of the Old Gods was them imitating people like Mythras and I never liked it. But yes, do you love me?"

  "Yes, you know I do," I said, very confused.

  "Do you swear blah, blah, blah," Ania said.

  "Sure," I said, not exactly feeling the ceremony.

  "Then we're married," Ania said. "I'm a Paladin of Mokosh even if I don't want to be because Mokosh said so. So, if you want--"

  I kissed her.

  "Finally," Ania said, starting to remove my pants.

  Yeah, I didn't have much to say after that.

  Ania was ferocious and I heard the door open later before quickly closing. I didn't care and we were both exhausted an hour later. Either way, I drifted off to sleep afterward. Unfortunately, what lay beyond me wasn't more time with Ania.

  It was the Oval Office.

  Of Hell.

  Veles was sitting behind the White House desk, his face twisted into a mass of burns and scar tissue that made him look like Peter Stormare and more like Freddy Krueger. His skin was bright red, too, as if he'd been flayed down to the muscle. His white suit burned black in several places. There were Secret Service members present, all of them dead (or undead) as the security guard at the UMC.

  I was naked.

  I covered my privates with my hands. "Crap."

  "Oh for fuck's sake," Veles said, snapping his fingers.

  I was once more covered in the attire of a Dark Undermaster. "I don't need your gifts."

  "It's a dream," Veles said. "You don't have to worry about me killing you. It's why I tried to have Valentin kill you versus doing it myself last time we had one of our conferences. He, at least, had the magic to do it."

  "You're saying you won't kill me here," I said, skeptically. "Forgive me if I'm not exactly trusting you at your word anymore."

  "Believe me, if I could, I would," Veles said. "The fact I am not should indicate that I cannot. As for trusting me at my word, that used to be so important. I would rather have been obliterated both body and soul rather than break a promise. Now? They just sound like empty words to me. In that, I have become more human."

  "Because of the Twisted Ones," I said, once more trying to reach Veles.

  Veles stared. "You keep bringing them up. What do you hope to accomplish? Do you think I'll come back from my so-called madness? I"ll realize that I have become corrupted by their influence? Repent my wicked ways? Let you strike me down so I could be reborn?"

  "I dunno," I said, shrugging. "Maybe. Seems worthwhile to try."

  A lot of people were going to die if this kept on. I was willing to sacrifice justice, assuming such a thing existed, to stop even one more happening.

  Veles snorted through his singed nostrils. "It is futile. I like what the Twisted One's influence has done for me. For years, millennia beyond count, I tempted mortals with the hope that they would resist the lures I placed in front of them. Do you know what I found out? There is no need for me to whisper into the ears of men and women to be their worst selves. They do not even try to be better than their hatred and greed. They find the flimsiest, most ridiculous, and insane justifications to say good is evil and evil is good. That, more than anything, is why I will end this universe."

  "Will there even be a new universe afterward?" I asked.

  "Oh yes," Veles said. "Don't think the Twisted Ones will get that far. Every man, woman, and child will be mine. They won't be humanity as you know them, though. They will each be perfect. Loving, obedient, and happy. Like dogs."

  "And you'll be whipping them," I said.

  Veles narrowed his eyes. "I hate humans not dogs. Do you really want to die defending the people that made me their leader? That has nothing but war, horror, hate-speech, and libel. You? You have hope now. Someone you love. That means you have something to lose. Congratulations on your marriage."

  "You know, I think the reason you keep contacting me is because all of this isn't to convince me," I said, crossing my arms. "It's to convince yourself."

  "Really?" Veles asked.

  "Yeah," I said, shaking my head. "I think there's some part of the original Veles left in you. Don't get me wrong, everything I've heard and seen indicates you were a fucking awful person even before you were infected."

  "Enlighten--"

  "Infected," I said. "But you were someone who had principles. You loved some people. Even when you hated them."

  "Do you not speak to me as if you were my brother, nephew," Veles said, his voice becoming dangerous. "He too thought--"

  "I think you want me to stop you," I said. "That's why you agreed to Larry C.C. Weis' insane quest. That's why you have been dragging your feet the entire time. It's why you keep trying to offer me ways out. It's also why the one time I attacked without the other champion party members, you tore us to shreds. You want to lose but can't bring yourself to admit it to the rest of yourself."

  Veles stared. "That is, in the words of Ms. Rose, the stupidest thing I have ever heard."

  "Is it?" I asked. "Either way, we'll be seeing you."

  Veles smirked. "One week."

  "What?" I asked.

  "You have one week until the end of this world and Mokosh," Veles said. "The worlds will collide and a second Big Bang will begin consuming this universe the way the previous one was consumed. Oh yes, there was one of those as well. Me and the other creator gods are its survivors. Maybe we were once creatures like you. But I will emerge more powerful than Triglav ever was. You think I want to lose? No, Aaron. I have been losing for thousands of years. My stupid brother defeating me every year and the Slavs celebrating it as the end of winter. Now I want to win. Why do I spare you? You think because I feel some kinship with you over the tens of thousands of other bastards and bastardspawn he's created? Because I thought it would be fun. Because I never actually did believe you were a threat. Because it was more fun to dangle the thread of destiny in front of you like a cat."

  "Do you now feel the threat now?" I asked, feeling some shred of truth in his words.

  Veles smiled. "Say goodbye to Ania for me."

  That was when I awoke.