Lorik The Protector (Lorik Trilogy) by Toby Neighbors Page B

“I’m glad to see you, too,” he said.
    “And I don’t blame you for what happened. We knew what we were getting into with that outlaw. It wasn’t a good situation, but under the circumstances it made sense. If you hadn’t beaten Liam, someone else would have eventually, or we would have had to try and sneak away. Tobiah wasn’t the sort of man to let Liam just leave, not when he was earning the outlaws so much coin. At least we had you there to help us escape.”
    “I just wish we could have all made it,” Lorik said. “Selber was a good man. I keep thinking, if only I had done this or that, perhaps he wouldn’t be dead.”
    “You can’t think that way. It wasn’t you who beat him, or held him out a window, or gave the order to drop him,” she said tenderly.
    “No, but I couldn’t save him, either.”
    “That’s your problem right there. You have to feel like you’re saving people to be happy. First it was me, then Liam, now the whole kingdom.”
    “I don’t have to save everyone,” Lorik said.
    “No, just everyone you can,” she said gently. “But the truth is, saving people isn’t your responsibility. You have to learn to be happy with your life, Lorik.”
    “I don’t know how,” he said. “I should have been happy. I had a home, I had friends, I even had you for a while. But none of that seemed to make me happy.”
    “Things or circumstances can’t make you happy, Lorik. You have to choose to be happy.”
    “I can’t decide to be something I’m not,” he said.
    “And why aren’t you happy?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Have you ever been happy?” she asked.
    “Yes, I was happy with you.”
    “Were you really happy? You didn’t love me. You didn’t want to marry me. You just wanted to save me.”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lorik said in frustration. “You didn’t need saving.”
    “No, I didn’t,” she said. “I told you that many times. And yet you say you were happy with me. So what happened? What changed? I found what I thought was impossible for me. I fell in love and left the Marshlands. What sent you spiraling out of control when that happened?”
    “I wasn’t out of control,” Lorik said.
    “Yulver tells a different story. He said you came back and you were brooding and introspective. That you jumped at the chance to sail north to fight the Norsik, but even then you were moody and short-tempered.”
    “Yulver’s talking out of his ass,” Lorik said, his temper rising. “He doesn’t even know me that well.”
    “He said that Chancy was worried about you. Now who knows you better than Chancy? Anyone?”
    “Just you,” Lorik said, the words coming out like a sigh of resignation.
    “Exactly, but you won’t open your eyes and see what is happening.”
    “What do you mean?” he asked.
    “I mean your need to help people is keeping you from being happy.”
    “That doesn’t make sense. Shouldn’t helping people make me happy?”
    “No,” Vera said, gazing out to sea. “Helping people is a good thing, but for you it’s like a barrier to your own happiness.”
    “Maybe happiness isn’t all that important,” Lorik complained. “I don’t think that my own happiness should be found someplace other than helping people.”
    “Oh, you’re hopeless,” Vera said, the edge returning to her voice. “And stubborn, too.”
    “Thanks for that vote of confidence,” he said playfully.
    “Does driving everyone around you mad make you happy?”
    “No,” Lorik said.
    “Well, that’s something at least. Quit brooding back here and figure out what you’re going to do once you reach the Wilderlands. If you’re determined to throw your life away fighting someone else’s battles, at least make it count.”
    She stalked away. Lorik’s forehead wrinkled in consternation. He didn’t understand Vera’s wild mood swings. One moment she was tender and compassionate, the next she was furious. He had never known her to be so temperamental