Tarlac nodded almost immediately. "How to open up," he said. "Even . . . that I could open up, to love a whole clan and not be ashamed of it."
Kranath nodded. "Yes, and you learned it quickly, despite your human conditioning. I had to learn to be alone, you to be close—even the most minor of gods must know both.
"Someone subject to external limitations, as a Ranger or ruler is, should have no bias. We are limited only by our own feelings, though; everything we do must be tempered by love for our charges."
"External limitations?" Tarlac chuckled. "I'd say I didn't have many!"
"You had the ultimate limitation, Steve. Mortality."
"Huh?" Tarlac found that his coffee had remained at the perfect drinking temperature, and took another swallow.
"You could give almost any order and have it obeyed, granted. But if someone disliked what you did or commanded intensely enough— You have a saying that nobody is safe from a truly determined assassin, not true?"
"I hadn't thought of it like that, but you're right. And you—no, we—can't be killed." Then Tarlac frowned. "Godhome gave you a choice, Kranath. It said you had to be willing—why didn't I get that option?"
"Did you need it?"
"I don't understand."