Opalina (prime)/The Price of Refusal
The Price of Refusal
Title: The Price of Refusal
Author: Opalina Jalcon
From the journals of Opalina Jalcon- 2002
The river should have been beautiful.
I remember that more than anything.
Locksmehr sang over stone, sunlight danced across the rapids, bears taught their cubs to fish, woodpeckers hammered at dying trees, and wildflowers bent in the breeze as if the world had forgotten there was such a thing as evil.
But I could hear only him.
The smell of sulfur came first, sharp enough to burn the back of my throat. Then the pain bloomed inside my skull like someone driving a hot knife through my thoughts.
"Have you been able to obtain the staff I seek?"
Every step afterward felt stolen.
I tried to laugh. Tried to speak with the others. Tried to pretend the forest was still only a forest.
Instead I whispered the truth.
"The essence is talking to me."
Faces turned.
Some looked worried.
Some tried to comfort me.
None of them ran.
That frightened me more than the voice.
He spoke of the staff as though it already belonged to him.
When I told him I could not get it, he answered with terrifying calm.
"No... I shall not kill you, but your friends may be a different matter."
My blood turned to ice.
Not me.
Them.
He knew exactly where to cut.
I begged.
I promised.
"I'll get the staff... I just need more time."
It was a lie born from desperation.
Lady Middnight urged me to keep lying.
Buy time.
Say whatever I had to.
Rontuu squeezed my hand and promised they would protect me.
Protect me.
How could they protect anyone from a voice inside my own mind?
The ferry drifted across the river while everyone tried to distract me.
The ferryman sang ridiculous songs.
My friends joked.
Someone laughed.
Someone else told me everything would be alright.
But every few moments I felt unseen eyes settle upon me.
Watching.
Waiting.
Judging.
I shouted into the empty air.
"Tell me who you are!"
His answer came like winter settling over warm skin.
"You have no need to know who I am."
No name.
No face.
Only demands.
Only threats.
When we reached the other side I thought perhaps we had escaped.
Perhaps rivers could wash away nightmares.
Then his final promise echoed through my thoughts.
"Look around at your companions now. You have just cost one of them their lives."
My heart stopped.
"No..."
The sky answered.
Lightning split the heavens.
It struck Lady Middnight before anyone could even cry out.
She died instantly.
The world became silent.
Everyone rushed to save her.
Healing magic.
Flasks.
Prayers.
Hands reaching for a life already slipping away.
And all I could do was stare.
He had warned me.
He had kept his word.
I wrapped my arms around Middnight's broken body and sobbed into her shoulder.
"I'm sorry."
The words tasted like ash.
No one blamed me.
That almost hurt more.
Even as they fought to bring her back, even as ogres wandered nearby and danger pressed in from every side, my friends stayed with me.
They chose me.
Knowing what followed me.
Knowing what might come next.
The voice waited until my tears had nearly run dry.
Then, as coldly as before, it returned.
"You shall retrieve the staff for me."
The river had carried us across.
But whatever hunted me...
...had crossed with us.