Opalina (prime)/The Weight of a Promise

The Weight of a Promise

This is a creative work set in the world of Elanthia, attributed to its original author(s). It does not necessarily represent the official lore of GemStone IV.

Title: The Weight of a Promise

Author: Opalina Jalcon

From the journals of Opalina Jalcon- 2-3-2002

There are moments when the world grows so quiet that you can hear your own heartbeat.

Then there are moments when someone else's heartbeat echoes inside your mind.

Today... it was not my own thoughts keeping me company.

I had slipped into the Temple hoping for answers. Instead I found arguments. Friends spoke against friends. Thurfel's name was tossed about like a blade, while unseen voices whispered from the shadows, each insisting they alone knew the truth.

I stayed hidden as long as I could.

Perhaps I thought if no one saw me, whatever haunted the room would pass me by.

It did not.

The smoke found me as though it had been searching all along.

Cold. Heavy. Alive.

Everyone else saw only black tendrils curling around my feet.

I felt fingers.

Not on my skin...

Inside my thoughts.

"You thought I would forget you so soon?"

No.

I had never believed that.

How could I? Every quiet moment since our bargain had been borrowed.

Everyone asked if I was all right. If the voice was speaking to me.

How could I explain what it is like to hold an entire conversation without moving your lips? To hear threats delivered so gently that no one else could hear them?

They looked at me with concern.

He looked at them as leverage.

Every person I loved suddenly became a weapon that could be turned against me.

Find the staff.

Find the bearer.

Do not fail.

Or they would suffer.

The choice was never truly mine.

Silon wanted to guard me.

Sweet, stubborn Silon.

He believed steel could protect me.

If only monsters fought with blades.

Jestin questioned me, trying to understand why I would even seek the staff.

How could I tell him?

If I searched, I endangered everyone.

If I refused...

I endangered everyone.

Some burdens offer no right answer.

Only different kinds of guilt.

I kept telling the voice that I wanted no deaths.

Not my friends.

Not strangers.

Not even my enemies.

Perhaps that is what amused it most.

Mercy sounds very small beside immortal cruelty.

Then came Jarlstrom.

Dear, impossible Jarlstrom.

Still joking.

Still laughing.

Still refusing to fear things that hid in shadows.

He mocked the unseen.

I begged him to stop.

I remember reaching toward him.

I remember wanting one more second.

Lightning answered before I could.

The sound split the sky.

One heartbeat he was laughing.

The next...

he was lying at my feet.

I have seen death before.

Too many times.

But this one carried my name inside it.

Not because I cast the bolt.

Because I had been warned.

Because I knew what the voice was capable of.

Because it had happened to someone standing beside me.

Then Jestin challenged it.

Another flash.

Another life ended.

The air smelled of ozone and fear.

People screamed.

Friends wept.

I could only whisper...

"Please... no more."

I do not know whether the plea was for the Nine...

or for myself.

The others think I am strong.

Perhaps they see courage where I feel only exhaustion.

They do not hear the bargains whispered into the corners of my thoughts.

They do not wake wondering whether every conversation is overheard.

Whether every smile given to a friend marks another target.

Tonight I held a staff in my hands.

Only a carved thornwood walking staff.

Not the one they sought.

Still...

my hands trembled.

For just a heartbeat I wondered what would happen if it truly had been the Staff.

Would I have the strength to destroy it?

To surrender it?

Or would the voice finally claim what little remained of me?

I still do not know.

But I know this.

If the Nine believe threatening the people I love will make me become like them...

they have misunderstood me completely.

Every life they take hardens my resolve.

Every threat reminds me why they must never succeed.

I am afraid.

Terribly afraid.

But fear is not surrender.

Not yet.

---

2-4-2002

The vision came without warning.

One heartbeat I was standing in Victory Court, surrounded by the familiar sounds of Ta'Vaalor—the distant ring of hammer against anvil, the chatter of guards, the bustle of merchants. The next... everything vanished.

There was only a hand.

A chisel.

A dark object taking shape beneath patient, practiced strokes.

I strained to see what it was, to understand what I had been shown, but the hand moved too quickly. Every answer slipped away before I could grasp it. Then the vision was gone, leaving only the echo of certainty that somehow... it mattered.

Jassrainna listened without judgment.

She never laughed at the fragments I carried. She asked questions I hadn't thought to ask myself. Was it stone? Wood? A gem? A weapon? We wandered through Ta'Vaalor together, searching workshops, weaponries, and storefronts as though one forgotten corner might hold the answer hidden inside my vision.

I wanted so desperately for the clue to mean something.

Anything.

Perhaps that was why he chose that moment.

The air turned cold before I ever saw him.

Burning sulfur filled my lungs.

The dark figure stood before me once more, smoke pouring endlessly from beneath his hood, his skeletal hand hanging at his side. Though no one else could see him, I knew every dreadful detail of his presence.

"Have you retrieved the staff?"

Always the staff.

Always the same impossible demand.

He spoke as though I had merely misplaced a trinket instead of searching for a woman who hid better than shadows themselves. He spoke as though asking politely would make her surrender one of the most dangerous relics in existence.

I tried to explain.

I had searched.

I had failed.

She would never simply hand it over.

But explanations meant nothing to him.

He accused me of surrendering before I had begun.

Of lying.

Of deceiving him.

Each word pressed heavier upon my heart than the last.

Then came the threats.

Not against me.

Never against me.

Against everyone I loved.

He knew exactly where to strike.

I could endure pain.

I could endure fear.

But the thought of my family... my friends... Icemule itself paying the price for my failure left me feeling smaller than I had ever felt.

I whispered to Jassrainna to run.

I begged her.

If she stayed near me, she might die because of me.

She simply smiled.

"I'll help you," she said, "even if it means my death."

Those words hurt more than the lich's threats ever could.

How could anyone be willing to stand beside someone carrying a curse like mine?

How could she still believe in me when I was beginning to lose faith in myself?

The lich mocked my weakness.

He called me a coward.

A puny mortal.

Perhaps he expected those words to wound me.

Instead...

They made me angry.

Not because they were cruel.

Because they were wrong.

I wasn't refusing to take the staff because I lacked courage.

I refused because I would not become a monster to save the world.

If the bearer chose not to surrender it, I could not simply murder her.

What good would saving Icemule be if I lost the very soul I was trying to protect?

Yet every answer I gave only earned another impossible command.

"Retrieve it at any cost."

No.

Not any cost.

There had to be another way.

There had to.

When Jassrainna questioned him too boldly, lightning split the heavens without warning.

The bolt struck her with terrifying force.

For one frozen heartbeat my blood turned to ice.

He hadn't been bluffing.

His power reached far beyond my own thoughts.

I rushed to her, guilt crushing my chest. She laughed despite the pain, brushing off the strike with more courage than I thought anyone could possess.

I wished I had even half of it.

Eventually the dark figure relented.

His smoky form faded.

The pressure inside my mind lifted, leaving behind only silence.

I should have felt relieved.

Instead, the quiet somehow felt heavier.

Jassrainna immediately returned to the mystery.

The vision.

The staff.

The vessels.

The connections hidden between them.

She still searched for hope.

I admired that.

Because somewhere between the vision of the chisel...

The endless search...

The threats...

The lightning...

I had begun to forget what hope felt like.

Still...

Tomorrow I would search again.

Not because the lich demanded it.

Not because he threatened everyone I loved.

But because if there truly was even the smallest chance to save Icemule without surrendering to darkness...

Then I had to believe it was worth finding.

Even if I had to search every road in Elanthia.

Even if I had to carry the weight alone.