Hovan smiled widely. "So you us life in honor bring. That good is."
"If I live." Tarlac frowned. "Hovan … I don't think I will live. I haven't thought so since I boarded your ship, and since the fight, I've been certain of it. This Ordeal's going to kill me." He paused and shrugged, wondering at his own calm. "Oh, that won't keep me from trying. Maybe just trying will be enough to do what the First Speaker said, I don't know. Hell, I don't even know how I'm supposed to bring peace if I do live!"
"Since the Lords this asked," Hovan said calmly, "you should not so many doubts have. They nothing ask unless it possible is. And after you the fight won, I certain am that they intend not for you to fail."
"I won the fight by a trick," Tarlac said bleakly. "I won't live through the Ordeal by a trick."
Hovan stopped and took Steve by the shoulders. "Why did you not all this say when it first you troubled? I your sponsor am."
"I couldn't. It was something I had to come to terms with by myself." Tarlac found himself suddenly wishing he had mentioned it that night, had given in to his urge to seek comfort. "I … I've been a Ranger for fifteen years, Hovan. Almost half my life. I just … I couldn't—"
Hovan shook him with controlled ease, just enough to silence him. "You of Ch'kara now are, Steve, and in-clan. Yourself be, not another's image. That not a weakness is."
"What? I—"
"To me listen, ruhar. Everyone help needs, sometimes. That does not weakness show, or shame bring." Hovan released Steve's shoulders, and put his arms around the man instead, giving Tarlac the feeling of being held by something with the weight and patient strength of an oak tree. "Let me your troubles ease, as my sponsor mine eased."
Feeling himself part of a family for the first time since adolescence, Steve Tarlac gave in, letting loneliness and detachment melt out of him in long-delayed tears. When he couldn't push the fear aside any longer and it took over, he shook in Hovan's embrace with terror of a failure that would cost more than any mortal should be asked to bear.