The Pathfinder's Oath

A heavy quiet settled over the camp, broken only by the crackle of the low fire and the distant whispers of the Thicket. Aiden, a silent, unmoving silhouette beneath the gnarled tree, was a constant, stark reminder of the crushing truth he had just revealed. In the small, fragile circle of their camp, Sascha, Miriam, Sona, and Lucille lay perfectly still on their bedrolls, feigning sleep, every nerve alight, every word Aiden had spoken seared into their minds.

Arianne, on night watch, her gaze fixed on the distant figure, took a slow, measured breath. Her voice, when it came, was a hushed murmur, barely above a whisper, yet it carried with an undeniable clarity. It was meant only for those pretending to be asleep, a quiet acknowledgment of the devastating knowledge now shared.

"There's no point in pretending now," Arianne's voice was a low. "You heard him, didn't you? The truth about the Rift. About his order. He pushed us to our limits, yes. He almost broke us. But he did it because he genuinely believes it's the only way we stand even a remote chance against what awaits. He's carrying an unimaginable weight for our sakes."

The words he had spoken were not meant for ears beyond Arianne's, yet he sensed them now — the subtle shift in breathing, the tension in limbs too still for true sleep. They were all awake. And the first to move was Sona.

Her blanket rustled softly as she sat up, slow and unsteady. The firelight caught the faint shimmer of tears drying on her cheeks. She didn't speak, didn't look at the others. Her gaze was locked on the lone figure by the tree — the man who had frightened her, who had nearly broken her, and who had saved her with a spell she never knew she bore.

With trembling hands, she gathered her bedroll and rose to her feet. Her steps were hesitant, like those of a child walking across frozen glass, yet there was no fear in her eyes — only a quiet, resolute sadness. The others didn't move, didn't speak. They only watched as Sona crossed the clearing in silence.

Aiden's head shifted ever so slightly — the faintest tilt — surprised by the sound. When she stopped just a few feet from him and laid out her bedroll, the tension in his posture changed. No words passed between them. Sona simply lay, folding her legs, her gaze fixed on the stars above. It was not forgiveness. Not yet. But it was something.

Aiden didn't turn. Didn't speak. But the silence around him softened, like the first thaw of frost beneath a spring wind. Then came the second movement.

Miriam sat up next, rubbing her eyes as if waking from a dream, though she had not slept at all. With a sigh, she pulled her blanket tight around her shoulders and padded barefoot through the moss. She passed Arianne with a faint nod and came to sit cross-legged on the opposite side of Sona. She said nothing — but she was grinning faintly through the exhaustion, in that crooked, mischievous way that only she could. The kind that said: You scared the hell out of us, Aiden. And I'm still mad.

Lucille followed next. No hesitation. She folded her bedding with precision, as if repacking a camp for tactical retreat. Yet when she stood and crossed the clearing, it was with a silent acceptance. She didn't lay near Sona, nor Miriam — instead, she chose to sit against the same tree Aiden leaned upon. Her back pressed against the rough bark just beside his, only inches apart. She didn't look at him, didn't speak.

Then, Sascha. The last to rise, the slowest to move. His face was hard to read in the dark — shadowed, unreadable. He didn't fold his bedroll. He dragged it behind him like a burden, loud against the forest floor. When he reached the gathering, he paused — staring down at Aiden for a long, loaded moment.

Then, without a word, Sascha dropped his roll down directly beside Sona, slumped onto it, and turned his back to Aiden. His sword, Excalibur, lay across his chest like a ward. Not forgiveness. Not yet. But something close. A truce.

And finally, Arianne. She didn't move immediately. She stood for a while, arms crossed, staring at the scene before her as if uncertain whether to follow — or to guard them all from a distance. But as the fire dimmed and the hush deepened, she took a single, quiet breath… and crossed the final steps to the base of the tree.

She knelt. And laid her bedroll last, directly across from Aiden. Not behind him. Not beside him. Across — where she could watch him. Where, if he faltered, she could be the one to stand first. Her faith unspoken, but steadfast.

The, now distance, fire crackled low. The Thicket whispered on. Aiden remained still, silent, visor down. But the scene before him — five bedrolls in a broken circle around his vigil — was something no Pathfinder had seen in a generation. Not loyalty. Not pity.

Faith.

They did not understand the Rift. Not fully. Not yet. But they understood him — in fragments, in glimmers. Enough to move forward, one step at a time.

Arianne didn't speak at first. She simply watched the others as they lay in a loose semicircle around the gnarled tree, each of them pretending to rest but giving themselves away in a dozen tiny ways: Miriam's ears twitching ever so slightly. Lucille's eyes stayed open. Sascha's fingers curled tight around Excalibur's hilt. And Sona... Sona, sitting laying and small and quiet, staring up into the stars like they might blink out under the weight of what they'd learned.

They were all listening. She sighed, turning her gaze back to Aiden, who hadn't moved since donning the helmet again. She couldn't see his face, but something about his stillness was different now — not armored, but hollow.

Arianne took a slow breath. "I thought I understood what duty was."

Aiden didn't respond. She continued anyway. "When I took my Oath, it was everything. Justice. Light. Healing. I believed... I needed to believe that we fought for something brighter. That the blade and the shield were tools to protect those who couldn't defend themselves." Her voice grew softer, almost reverent. "And I've seen terrible things. I've held the dying in my arms. I've watched good people fall."

Still no answer. "But you…" Her voice broke slightly. "You carry something else. Something… deeper. You don't fight for the world, do you? You fight in place of it. So it never has to see what you've seen."

Aiden finally moved. His head tilted, not fully toward her — just a subtle shift. Enough to acknowledge her. Enough to suggest he was listening.

"You said seven seconds," Arianne whispered. "Seven seconds is all a master Pathfinder can last inside the Rift."

"Yes," Aiden replied quietly, his voice filtered through the helmet, but no less raw for it.

"How long did you last?"

There was a pause. A long one. The fire snapped softly, embers collapsing inward. Somewhere in the distance, an owl called once — then fell silent.

"I don't remember," Aiden finally said. "There's a point past counting. Past screaming. Past breaking. I reached it. And I kept moving."

Arianne closed her eyes for a moment. Not in disbelief — but in mourning. "That's why you don't hesitate," she murmured. "That's why every motion is exact. You can't afford hesitation. You've lived so long in that space where hesitation equals death."

Aiden said nothing. But she found all the confirmation she needed. Arianne looked down at her hands, her voice softening further. "We thought we were prepared. That we'd survived horrors. We hadn't. You knew that. You tried to show us, and we—" She shook her head. "We called you monster."

"You were right to," Aiden said, more gently than she expected. "Think that way."

"But not unkind," Arianne replied instantly, looking back up. "You never struck out of malice. You don't even hate the Rift by the way you speak of it. You just... endure it. Alone."

The silence that followed was longer. And heavier. Sascha's fists had relaxed slightly. Miriam had drawn her knees up to her chest, arms wrapped loosely around them. Lucille's hands lay in her lap. Sona lay motionless, but her shoulders trembled — just once.

Then Arianne asked, in a voice so soft it was almost a prayer: "Do you remember the first soul you couldn't save?"

Aiden didn't answer right away. When he did, his voice was lower than she'd ever heard it. "Yes," he whispered. "Her name was Elira. She was younger than Sona. Brighter than Miriam. She sang while we set up camp. Off-key. Always too loud." A pause, brittle. "She was a Pathfinder-in-training. We told her she wasn't ready. She begged to come anyway. She wanted to see the Rift, just once."

Arianne swallowed hard. The others said nothing, breath held tight.

"She died seventeen seconds after stepping across," Aiden said. "No scream. No warning. Her body… it bent in ways bones don't bend. The Rift didn't even notice her."

"Seventeen seconds," Arianne whispered, tears slipping down her cheeks now.

"I lasted two minutes longer," he said.

Then, softly — as if speaking to the air itself — he added, "I swore I'd never let another hopeful voice vanish like hers. Not if I could help it."

A long silence.

Then Arianne, voice trembling with an emotion too complex to name, said, "And that's what you see when you look at us, isn't it? Not soldiers. Not heroes. Hopeful voices."

"…Yes."

"That's why you taught. Why you watched from the shadows. Why you pushed us to the edge and pulled us back."

"Yes."

A pause. Behind them, unseen, unheard, Sascha whispered something only the sword in his arms could hear. "…I'm sorry."

A breath.

Arianne waited for a time, her breath steady. Then her voice came again, quiet, but unwavering. "There's something else," she said. "Something I've been holding onto since the edge of the Thicket. Sona asked you a question back then. She asked where you came from," Arianne continued. "And you told her it wasn't relevant to the mission. But I think it is now," Arianne said gently. "Maybe not tactically. Not even strategically. But for her… it mattered. It still matters."

There was a long pause. And then, to Arianne's quiet surprise, Aiden moved.

He didn't walk away or return to silent watch. Instead, he lowered himself slowly to the ground. His shoulders leaned back against the gnarled tree, one knee bent, the other extended. For a moment, he simply sat. Silent. The faceless helm angled upward, toward the canopy where stars watched through narrow gaps in the leaves.

Then he spoke — and though his voice was quiet, it was clearer than before. Steadier. "I don't have the kind of life you all do," he said.

A beat.

"I read your profiles before we met," Aiden said. "The Order compiled them. Every one of you."

There was a shift in the air now — the others listening more keenly, hearts caught in their throats.

"I know Sascha and Sona grew up in the same village. I know they once carved their initials into the roots of an old tree by a dried-up riverbed. I know Sascha tried to join the militia early and failed the sword test three times, but kept trying until he passed."

A faint, almost indiscernible motion from Sascha beneath his blanket. A soft exhale. The memory hit like an arrow.

"I know Sona studied magic in secret before she was ever accepted into a formal school," Aiden continued. "That she used to hide scraps of parchment under her pillow, practicing incantations by whispering them like lullabies."

Sona's arms curled tighter around herself. Her breath was shaky — but she made no sound.

"Miriam," Aiden said next, voice gentling even more, "was taken from her village when she was ten. Sold twice. Escaped. Tracked through the woods barefoot for three days. She's been smiling ever since — because she swore no one would ever again see her fear."

Miriam stared up at the stars, eyes burning, tail curled tightly around her leg. Not even her usual mischievous mask could hold steady now.

"Lucille," Aiden said, "was the top of her class at the Academy. Chosen for the Strategium at just seventeen. She wrote a thesis on battle-theory that was so complex even her instructors couldn't follow the final chapters. And yet she still visits her mother's grave every year, alone, even if it's in the middle of a war."

Lucille turned her face away, jaw trembling.

"And you, Arianne," Aiden said, and his voice held something different now — not admiration, not sorrow, but reverence.

"You could have become High Paladin of the Everhall. Everyone expected it. You had the accolades, the bloodline, the favor of the Elders. But you turned it down. You said the world didn't need another saint in a citadel. It needed a shield in the dirt."

Arianne blinked, her throat too tight to respond. She stared at him, stunned.

"You all had lives," Aiden said. "Histories. Friends. Dreams. And when you came together… you made something greater." He turned his head slightly.

"But me…" he said at last. His voice lowered, cracked — not from emotion, but from exposure. Wear. Time. "I don't have those stories."

A breath.

"I was never meant to be born," he said, his tone almost reflective, as if the story didn't belong to him, but to someone long dead.

"My mother was a prostitute. Not by choice, I think — but by habit. She made her living clinging to the coattails of warbands and caravans, trading herself for coin, safety, sometimes lies." He let the words drift. "One of those lies got her pregnant."

A brief pause.

"She didn't even know who the father was. Couldn't remember. Just a blur of a dozen names she tried to use as leverage. A child born in a world like that — that wasn't a blessing. I was a bargaining chip. A flesh-made excuse. She tried to sell me before I could walk. Tried again when I could speak. When that failed… she threw me away."

A hollow silence followed. Not from shame, no— but from the echo of long-processed pain.

"I don't remember her name," he added. "Not anymore. I don't know where she went after that. Maybe she died. Maybe she didn't. But she left me in a ditch beside a slaughterhouse. I survived off what the butchers tossed out — scraps of bone, blooded offal. I drank from mud puddles. Slept under carts when I could. Learned how to fight with rocks and lies. Learned how to steal, to bite, to run."

He shifted, shoulders rolling as if to ease the phantom ache of past wounds. "There's a smell to that kind of life. Wet stone. Cold blood. Rotting grain and the breath of drunk men. You wear it like a second skin. You speak in silence. You learn to flinch before the hand raises."

Arianne said nothing.

"I was maybe ten winters old when it happened. I'd just gotten my ribs kicked in by a bigger gang. Was bleeding from the mouth. Lying in an alley, already half-dead." He paused. "And then he found me. He wore no armor. Just a long coat, black as night. He didn't offer me food or warmth. Just one question."

Aiden's voice dropped to a whisper, haunted by memory. "Do you want to die like this… or do you want to die with meaning?"

The silence after that question rang in the ears of everyone lying awake.

"I didn't understand it at first," Aiden continued, eyes unseen beneath the helmet, yet soul laid bare. "I didn't know what 'meaning' even was. But I remember looking into his eyes and realizing — he wasn't lying. He wasn't hoping. He knew what came next." He drew in a breath like a blade being sheathed.

"I said yes." Another pause. A gentle wind stirred the trees. "They took me in. The Order. The real one — the Pathfinders before the world forgot them. They didn't coddle me. They didn't hug me. They trained me. Fed me discipline. Burned away hesitation. For every injury, they gave a lesson. For every failure, a chance to rise. I screamed. I bled. But for the first time in my life... I mattered."

Aiden leaned his head back against the tree trunk, the sound of bark against helm low but grounding.

"They gave me a name. Before that, I had none. Street kids don't get names." His voice softened. "They called me Aiden." He let the name hang in the air. "It means 'little fire.'"

Miriam stirred slightly. Sona gasped — barely audible.

"They said it was because I was small, but wouldn't stop burning. Wouldn't die, even when I should have. So I became a flame," he said, quieter now. "One they could throw into the dark."

Shadows spilled like ink across the mossy floor, pooling beneath the twisted tree where Aiden sat. The hush of wind threading through the Thicket. In that silence, his confession still hung — a terrible, tender weight neither broken nor spoken of again.

Then, the silence shifted.

Sona moved first. She rose with a trembling steadiness, dragging her bedroll across the damp earth. Her limbs were weary, her face still pale from the ordeal, but her eyes were clear — not with certainty, but with choice. Without a word, she placed her roll beside Aiden and sat, knees drawn to her chest, gaze lowered. She didn't look at him. Didn't speak. But her nearness spoke enough. She, the one he nearly broke, had chosen to keep him company in the dark.

Miriam followed with slower steps, the swagger gone from her shoulders. Her usual spark was dimmed, but not extinguished — it flickered now like coals under ash. She stopped beside Sona, glanced briefly at Aiden, then dropped her roll with a soft thud. "Don't think this means I forgive you," she muttered, lying down with her back to him.

Lucille came next, her approach soundless, sharp. She moved like someone calculating every step. Her expression unreadable, her logic frayed but intact. She sat down opposite the others, set her roll with mechanical precision, and lay with her back flat, arms crossed over her chest. She said nothing. But her silence no longer carried judgment — only comprehension.

Then Sascha. He didn't hurry. Just walked, dragging his bedroll with one hand, sword with the other. When he reached Aiden, he dropped the bedroll down with a grunt and sat heavily. "You're still a bastard," he muttered, but the venom was gone, replaced by something quieter.

Aiden didn't reply. He only watched, unmoving — breathing quietly in the dark.

Last was Arianne. She approached with quiet steps. She knelt beside the group, the rhythm of her breath calm, steady — a healer's composure. Wordlessly, she sat just behind the others, her hands resting loosely in her lap. Her eyes didn't seek Aiden's. They remained fixed on the dark trees, watching not for enemies, but for the shape of sorrow in the shadows.

Six now shared the shade of the tree. They didn't huddle, didn't reach for each other. But each had chosen the same thing: to stay. Not out of forgiveness. Not yet. But out of something heavier, holier. Understanding.

And when Aiden finally closed his eyes — head against bark, breath steady — it was not the armor, but the presence of others that shielded him. He did not dream. He simply rested. For the first time in years.