Weight of the World

Chapter Forty-Five

—Crooked Forest—

Everything had fallen apart the moment Lulu disappeared. Mervin wasn't sure what he expected. He certainly hadn't foreseen the King of Bones appearing out of nowhere to physically drag his best friend through a rift, beyond his reach. None of them had even a second to act, but in the aftermath, the cold indifference to it all that Ren had shown struck him as unbelievably cruel. The older man had turned away without so much as an acknowledgement of what had just happened and started their journey anew. So enraged was he that Mervin—having apparently lost all ability to reason—decided to show Ren exactly what he thought of his indifference.

He had been aiming for a blow to the back of the head. It wouldn't really hurt him, he knew, but it would be satisfying to at least see the assured hunter stumble. Instead, all Mervin got for his efforts was a black eye and a broken nose. Ren hadn't even turned in his direction.

And now, Ren was gone. Archbishop Whittle and Varel had stayed with him, the former offering to tend to his wounds, but Mervin waved him off, sitting there in the middle of the forest, utterly defeated. What could he possibly do to save his best friend? He wasn't a powerful mage, couldn't swing a sword to save his life, and though he was relatively good at talking himself out of sticky situations, he imagined he would need an epic shitload of charisma in order to talk the King of Bones out of killing Lulu—that was, if he hadn't already.

In all honesty, he couldn't understand even half the story Lulu had once told him one drunken night cuddled up in bed. That night, when she had asked him back to her room, he had been giddy at the prospect of finally being with who might literally be the woman of his dreams, but the moment the door closed, he wasn't met with the enthusiastic undressing of a woman who wanted a passionate night together. Instead, he was met with a sobbing, hiccupping mess that had nearly collapsed in his arms. When he hugged her, the crying had only gotten worse, but even though he was panicked by such a reaction, he knew he couldn't just leave her. And so, he had finally managed to maneuver her onto the bed, where he had let her cry herself to sleep.

By the time she woke, however, she was still tipsy from the amount of alcohol she had consumed, and with very little prodding, he had managed to finally get her to talk to him. She told him everything, about her past, her fathers, Idelle, Ori, the King of Bones, the Creator, Virmira Tanadall. Every detail came spilling from her mouth as though she had been waiting to share it with someone, anyone.

She had confessed a great many things, but none had been so heartbreaking for him as to learn that she believed she was responsible for both Idelle's and the Savior's deaths, and that because of her actions, no one had so much as touched her since the day she had gone to Tregaar to retrieve the Savior's body. Touch-starved, it made sense why finally she had succumbed to her desire to seek him out. It was not the way he wanted, but it was what she needed. And so, Mervin had decided that he would be her leaning board from that moment onward. Lulu had drifted to sleep in his arms, and Mervin had been so very content in that moment until she snuggled in closer and whispered another man's name.

Thancred.

He had never asked her who he was, but the next morning, as she went to bathe, he noticed a pair of soldier's tags sitting on the bedside table. Thancred Ostergaard had been stamped into the metal. Not a lover, he assumed, given her inclination toward women, but still someone profoundly important to her that she wore his tags.

Little details like that, losing someone precious to you, those were things Mervin could understand. But the rest of it—Sorceresses from other worlds, the Creator Himself, evil beings that sought to destroy the universe itself—none of that made sense to a regular guy like him. And so, part of him, a rather large part he supposed, believed, on some level, that Lulu had simply made it up. No, not that she had made it up. That made it sound like he believed Lulu to be a liar. She was, certainly, but never when it came to something like that. No, he knew she told the truth, but Mervin could simply not comprehend of a world in which those things, those galactic, terrifying things, could be true, and so, he had pushed most of it from his mind.