Callum hated his Oath.

  In truth, ‘hate’ was probably too strong a word. For the sake of more precision, Callum didn’t like his Oath. Left with the choice of another Oath, he would take it in a heartbeat. But no such choice had ever been offered to him. No other choice would ever be offered to him.

  Also, as much as he would rather have another Oath than Pain, there was no denying that his Oath had helped him. It had come to him in a time when he had been nothing but a broken man. A Delver simply waiting for that one last Delve to end his life.

  Pain, as his therapist back in his time before Oath-hood liked to tell him, manifested itself in different ways. It was not just in his constantly rotting lung and liver. It was not just in the trauma that with the survivor’s guilt of being the only one to come out alive after facing a poisonous dragon. It was there in the loss.

  From the day of his birth, Callum had only known loss. Childbirth had claimed his mother. At seven years of age, his father had found love in another woman. Callum remembered passing this information on to his therapist only to find the man hold a touch of sadness at the news. That was when Callum had truly understood the dislike turned towards stepmothers. He wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t seem to care. Other mothers were not his stepmother.

  And he made sure his therapist had been aware of it.

  She had been kind, and loving, and beautiful. She had been a mother. She had given his father a daughter, then another son. Thanks to her, Callum had learnt the love of siblings. At eleven his sister died, drowned during swimming lessons. How? No one truly knew. Her instructor was held accountable for it, but Callum never bothered to find out what became of the woman. All he knew was the crushing pain of loss.

  His sister, in her beauty and innocence, had not grown to see what life had to offer. Even at eleven, he had understood that.

  At sixteen, he’d lost his younger brother to a car accident. His stepmother had been driving. It was all Callum knew of what had happened. There was more to the story, enough for his father constantly offering reassurances to his stepmother during her recovery days in the hospital.

  It’s not your fault.

  Callum couldn’t count how many times he’d heard those words uttered. Time and time again. Until they’d plagued his dreams. It was not her fault. His father may or may not have been right about that. The one thing he was right about, however, was that no one had been blaming her.

  His stepmother had not seen it that way, though. As time passed, her love waned until it was nothing but a shadow of what it had once been. She made meals not because she was taking care of the people she loved but because it was her duty. Her smiles were always polite, false. She was present for conversations but not an active part of them.

  “What do we do?” Callum had asked his father once on the emptiness of his stepmother.

  His father’s response had been a defeated shake of his head. A telling sign of a man who had given up, a man who did not know what to do.

  “She doesn’t want to be saved, Cal,” his father had said in the end, eyes red and rheumy with no falling tears. “She doesn’t want to be saved.”

  Within a year of his brother’s passing, Callum had woken up one day to find his father seated at the dining table. He’d looked his father in the eye and known without being told that his stepmother was gone. She had woken up that morning, written a note, and simply disappeared. She hadn’t even taken anything with her. Just herself and the clothes on her back.

  When Callum became Gifted, he’d been more than happy to go off into a Gifted school. In the United States, they had the big five. In Scotland they had the big three. Callum, in his time in his Gifted school, had singlehandedly raised it to becoming one of the big three. He’d led them to victory in the country school tournaments, the continental school tournament, and had led them to fourth place in the world tournament. Fourth place didn’t sound like a big deal until you thought about the fact that the school had never even qualified for the continental tournament since its creation.

  Sometimes Callum missed his school days. There had been little pain during those times.

  Little politics, too, he thought, sitting among the other Oaths.

  “What the hell is an Oath of Humanity?” Language asked, addressing Life’s most recent words.

  Pain didn’t like Life. He was an old man that talked far too much and liked to think of himself as cryptic when he was more of a rambler who simply knew too much.

  “Is there even such a thing?” Fear, another of the new Oaths, asked. “You’d think there wouldn’t be.”

  Life looked as smug as he always did, grinning like an old man who refused to accept that he was old. “The Oath of Humanity exists. A rare Oath, if I must say so myself. In the six generations he’s only turned up once. This one would be the second.”

  Inevitability had one of his calculating frowns on his face. Cooking up something was his task, and Callum could bet a small percentage of his pain that the Oath was about to serve whatever he was cooking up.

  “If he’s anything like us, I doubt it will matter,” Inevitability said finally.

  “He’s not,” Life added in a hurry. “I already told you that.”

  “And what makes you so sure?” Shield asked. “Why should we take your word for it?”

  Life shrugged, nonchalant. “Because he’s an Oath?”

  Desolation looked around. “I cannot say I get it.” When everyone looked at him, he hurried to add: “Not completely. I mean, I get it, but I feel like I’m missing something.”

  Life gestured to him. “You are the Oath of Desolation. You find yourself leaning in the direction of desolation. It is who you are, how you are. You are not evil, and you do not mean bad, but you see the necessity of desolation. As such, your behavior will be more prone towards the concept of desolation. Mostly towards acts of desolation.”

  “What do you mean I’ll lean towards desolation?” Desolation asked, confused.

  New Oaths, Callum almost laughed. The pain in his lung didn’t allow him, though. Always so confused when they find out what they really are.

  Callum remembered what that had felt like. Becoming the Oath of Pain had been… worrying. Waking up one morning and suddenly understanding and accepting how the pain of his stepmother had led her to abandon him and his father had been a difficult thing to come to terms with. Understanding how every girl he’d ever loved had left him because they were not able to live with the pain of a partner that was never emotionally available, a partner who treated them like a loss waiting to happen.

  It was tough coming to terms with the latter, understanding that by no intentions of his own he was the bad guy in all his relationships. The toxic one.

  “It’s the thing with becoming an Oath,” Inevitability said, explaining Life’s words to Desolation. “You only become an Oath after embodying a certain concept. You are desolation. If I’m not mistaken, you’ve had a lot of utter death and destruction in your life. Possibly with you as the destroyer.”

  “Oh, no.” Life interrupted him with a raised hand. “That’s Destruction, not to be mistaken for Desolation. Similar, but not the same. It’s a common misconception. There doesn’t always have to be wanton destruction for there to be desolation.” He turned to Desolation. “Isn’t that right, young man?”

  Desolation didn’t seem to be paying him much attention. Instead, he looked lost in his thoughts.

  “I always killed all the monsters I could find in the portals,” he said after a while as if it was completely normal. “Isn’t that what everyone does?”

  “Not really,” Inevitability said, shaking his head along with everyone present.

  Pain certainly didn’t go around killing all the monsters he could find. That would just risk the life of his teammates unnecessarily.

  “Were you one of those solo Delvers?” Pain asked.

  Desolation shook his head. “I was a part of a team.”

  “What company?”

  “Tarantula Inc,” Desolation answered.

  “Where’s that?”

  “Australia.”

  That was surprising. Callum couldn’t find an accent on the man. “You don’t sound Australian.”

  An angry line appeared on Desolation’s forehead. “And you’d sound Scottish if you didn’t sound like someone had a hand up your ass.”

  Callum would’ve taken offense if he didn’t know exactly how he sounded. He sounded like a man in excruciating pain. He always sounded like a man in excruciating pain because he was a man in excruciating pain.

  “The point I’m trying to make.” Life waved a hand frantically at the both of them to gain their attention and their silence. “Is that Oaths are an embodiment of their Oaths. You, Desolation, are an embodiment of desolation, ergo, the Oath of humanity is an embodiment of what it means to be human. You can’t find a human more human than the Oath of Humanity. Conceptually speaking, that is.”

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  That was a bad idea to Callum. Humans were naturally a mess. The most human being alive would be naturally a mess.

  He could see Aurora working the pieces in her head. Rejection was on the horizon, working its way from her brain to her lips. That was what people did not understand about her. Aurora did not bargain. War bargained. But not Aurora.

  Aurora was a selfish prick who cared nothing for anything or anyone but herself and hers. That was the reason Pain did not like her. He had nothing against the Oath of War. It was Aurora that was his problem.

  Anytime he was near her, he could feel her pain. She was—he hated to say it—eerily like him. People had let Callum down in their own ways and he had grown from it, accepted his pain and…

  Once more, not for the first time, realization touched him. It was a gentle caress against his mind, a lover’s attention given to a broken spouse who kept lashing out at the world.

  As expected, Aurora shook her head. “Humans aren’t good.”

  “For the love of God!” Shield snapped. “You’re not even trying to bargain here. Give us an out!”

  Aurora lifted a very slow brow at Shield. She pointed a nasty finger at her. “Give you an out?” There was venom in her voice.

  Callum felt a flash of pain from her. The kind of pain that came with fear and very close regret. The pain of almost losing because you weren’t there.

  Being the Oath of Pain gave him access to all the pain. It didn’t matter what kind it was. He felt it all. He took a deep calming breath, allowed the pain wash through him because it never washed over him.

  “And why should I give you an out, Ruth?” Aurora continued. “Why should I make anything easy for you?”

  “Not her,” Inevitability said, stepping in quickly to diffuse the situation. He gestured at everyone in the room. “Give us an out. Give the world a chance to survive whatever is to come.”

  Life moved very slowly. He did not get up. He tried not to make a sound. Gently, as if walking on glass, he inched his way onto another seat—the one next to him. Madness raised his head to look at him and he gave the Oath a sheepish smile.

  Madness’ attention returned to his console and Life moved another seat over.

  “And why would I give all of you a chance?” Aurora asked, focusing her attention on Inevitability.

  Callum winced as her pain flared. He could sense it, feel it. The nature of it was very close to his. Aurora had spent years living a life of pain, then she’d buried it all, stuffed it all under whatever sense of joy and love she had attained. She hadn’t dealt with her pain or let it go, she’d simply suppressed it.

  Now it was flaring out. It was the kind of pain accumulated from others. Someone or some people had hurt her deeply. They had let her down so bad that she could not find a place in her heart to forgive them. It had left her untrusting of others. Except Madness.

  “The world ends if we are not together,” Inevitability said. “You know this.”

  “Yes,” Aurora agreed. “But are we together, Inevitability? Are we?”

  Inevitability was silent for a while before he answered. “We are trying to be, Aurora. Please let us be.”

  Madness’ massive hand settled on Aurora’s back. In his other hand, he tried to navigate his way around whatever game he was playing on his console. He didn’t even look up from it. All the attention he had for his wife was a hand on her back.

  Aurora sucked in a deep breath, then let it out very slowly.

  “I can pretend to understand where you’re coming from, Inevitability,” she said, her voice containing some semblance of calm as the pain Callum felt from her slowly dwindled. “I really can. But the problem here is that no one is trying to understand where I am coming from. Especially you and Shield.”

  “I’m trying to understand where you’re coming from.” Life looked nonchalant and carefree. He was also now four seats away from Madness.

  She gave him a careful look but said nothing. Callum didn’t feel any pain in the look she offered him but anyone with half a brain knew it was a warning that he was getting on her nerves.

  “What happened was an unfortunate—” Inevitability began only to be cut off by her raised hand.

  “Do not dumb it down to unfortunate!” she snapped. “Don’t you dare!”

  There was the pain again. Callum could taste a hint of loss.

  There was pain in some kinds of anger, the pain of being led to a loss of control. The pain of weakness. In his years as an Oath, Callum had learned not to trust a person with no pain in their anger because such people were never in control. Such people rarely ever cared for anything. Such people set the world ablaze just to watch it burn.

  Shield’s expression dimmed slightly. “I’m sorry,” she said in a subdued voice.

  Silence fell over the room once more. Aurora had flipped everything on its head. Now, she watched Shield, stared at her as if looking for something. Callum knew she would find it. Why? Because he had not felt the pain of remorse from Shield. Her apology existed for peace to reign.

  Aurora scoffed. “Are you, though, Shield?”

  There it was. She had seen the absence of remorse. Everyone that knew Shield in the room knew the apology was for peace to reign. In fact, Shield had most likely only apologized because Inevitability had asked her to.

  Shield met Aurora’s gaze. “I did something wrong. I understand that.”

  “But given the chance you would still do it again,” Aurora challenged her.

  “I—”

  “Careful,” Aurora warned. “My husband has not suddenly left the room.”

  The next words to come were from the person Callum had least expected it from. In fact, he doubted anyone expected it from the person.

  “Is that some kind of a threat?” Desolation asked. He looked like a man who had once been a nerd with glasses and curly hair. He’d grown out of the glasses and cut the curly hair into something more mature. But he hadn’t outgrown the rounded face.

  All eyes settled on him.

  “This is not the time, Desolation,” Inevitability said carefully. “The last thing we need is whatever it is you’re trying to do.”

  “Is it not?” Desolation asked.

  There was something off about him. Callum couldn’t sense any pain of anger. In the last meeting he’d been sensing the pain that came with a sense of uselessness from the Oath but he’d been sensing nothing the entirety of this meeting.

  A person only changed that much when faced with the same situation so soon if he had found his purpose. Now, he was challenging Aurora.

  What purpose do you think you’ve found, Desolation?

  Inevitability shot him an angry glare. “Not now, Desolation.”

  “Why?” Desolation flared up, rising from his chair. “Because she’s married to Madness and we are all scared of him?”

  Pain sighed. “I hate her more than you do, but you don’t want to take that route.”

  “We cannot truly say that Inevitability is leading if we’re all scared of Madness, can we?” Desolation turned to address everyone. “You are not a leader if you only lead when everyone is wary of someone else. Everything has a hierarchy.”

  Pain almost laughed. The boy had no idea how ironic it was. He was speaking of hierarchy while inadvertently trying to stage a coup. Funnier was the fact that he was speaking of hierarchy in front of the former Oath of War. No one established hierarchy more than her.

  “The role of being the wife of an Oath does not give her the right to speak like she is our equal!” he finalized, a touch of a growl slipping into his voice.

  Pain looked at him then, really looked at Desolation. That was when he saw it. The pain was there now, new as it was. Desolation had begun with a purpose, calculated and ready to execute.

  Then he let the Oath in him swallow him up. All Oaths knew the feeling. It was that sense of being superior. That sense of being better.

  Aurora gave Desolation the same look a mother gives a child that hits puberty and suddenly begins to think that they are all grown up, that they can now talk back even when they are wrong. He was a boy barking against a mountain and asking it to move.

  He better pray he doesn’t get Madness’ attention.

  “SILENCE!” Inevitability roared. “You will not disrespect a former Oath!”

  Desolation froze where he was standing. Confusion marred his face. He looked from a still seated Aurora to Inevitability. Then he looked at the older Oaths as if seeking confirmation. No one gave him any real expression. Grace had only pity on her face.

  “You’ve messed up, kid,” Life said solemnly. “Should’ve kept your mouth shut.”

  Aurora raised a brow at him in the silence. “Don’t let that stop you, kid. You have a plan. Execute.”

  This time, Callum smiled. It was the Oath in him. Once upon a time, during their battle in Heaven’s Gate, he had found himself in a similar quagmire. Standing against an [Angel] that was quite evidently stronger than him, he had hesitated.

  “Don’t let that stop you, Pain,” she had said to him even in that chaos. “You have a plan. Execute.”

  Then she had backed his play. He hated her, but it did not mean that he did not respect her.

  “I’ve been watching you,” she said. Now she was rising to her feet. “You want something. Come and get it.”

  Inevitability shook his head. “Aurora please don’t. You know what it means to be an Oath.”

  “I also know what it means to be a [Dreadnaught].”

  “[Dreadnaughts],” Desolation snorted, stepping onto the table and down into the space at its center. “You always think you are unique. The strongest class. Always thinking that you are the only one.”

  Aurora’s expression didn’t change. Her challenge stood, yet Callum could see that she wasn’t going to take the boy seriously. But while he believed that she could hold her own, he found himself wondering if she really could.

  She was no longer an Oath, after all. And as new as Desolation was to being an Oath, he was still an Oath. Oaths were powerful, very much so. There was no known rank above an Oath. And her enemy was the Oath of Desolation.

  Still standing on the other side of the table, Aurora waited.

  “A former Oath is no longer an Oath,” Desolation said. “You do not belong here.”

  Aurora wasn’t the slightest bit bothered. “Then remove me from the premises.”

  “Aurora, please, no,” Inevitability said. “Not now.”

  Aurora chuckled in good faith, as if to say she wasn’t going to go too far. “Don’t worry, Inevitability. I’ll be gen—”

  Desolation held his hand out and a blast of fire like a fired cannon shot out of thin air. It was four feet tall and almost as wide.

  Pain’s eyes widened as he realized what was happening. Desolation was already charging forward, following right behind the fireball. He’d taken advantage of Aurora’s decision and attacked first.

  But she wasn’t his target. He was going after the oblivious Oath of Madness.

  Callum only had one response to that.

  What a fool.

  What happened next happened in the blink of an eye. The ball of fire exploded against the ceiling to the east side of the room and Aurora stood at the center of the table with fire in her eyes. Held up by the neck, Desolation dangled from her grip.

  “How dare you?” she hissed, rage morphing every word.

  In his defense, Desolation showed no fear. The fact that Aurora had smacked his ball of fire aside, leapt over the table and snatched him up by the neck, did not seem to daunt him. Instead, he threw his legs forward, snatching Aurora in an attempt to execute an armbar.

  His arms locked in but he failed to pull Aurora down to the ground. She held him in place and Desolation arched his body, determined to execute the technique even held in the air.

  When it did not work, he opened his mouth in her direction. Aurora’s eyes widened for the briefest moment in realization, but it was too late.

  Desolation rained fire down on her from his mouth like the flames of a dragon’s breath. The wave of fire engulfed her.

  His skill gained him his freedom and Desolation fell from Aurora’s hold, staggering back. Callum still saw fire in the Oath’s eyes. Desolation did not consider the fight over even with the skills he had used.

  “Elijah, no!” Inevitability called out. He moved to scale the table as well but stopped halfway through the action.

  Aurora stood in front of Desolation, still covered in the flames he’d bathed her in. But there was a problem. Callum didn’t know how many of the Oaths present could tell, but he couldn’t feel any physical pain from Aurora. The little he felt was not worth considering as pain.

  But he could feel the pain of rage within her. Aurora had more than a lot of it to give. It was almost enough to power another Oath of pain. And she was burning it as fuel for what she was about to do.

  But that wasn’t the reason Inevitability hadn’t scaled the table. That reason lay elsewhere.

  In the seat beside the one Aurora had once occupied things were different.

  In the silence of the room and the crackling of flames as the fire died down on Aurora’s body, a single action held the attention of all the Oaths as it happened.

  Desolation had done the one thing the older Oaths had since learned not to do. He had moved the mountain.

  Madness’ eyes settled firmly on Desolation. For the first time since this meeting began, he was ignoring his video game.

  The Oath of Madness gave Desolation his undivided attention.

  Then he stood up.