He took a drink of his chovas, enjoying the warmth amid his troubled thoughts. He didn't see any alternative to accepting the Lords' reality, like it or not. And he didn't particularly like it. Gods who took an active part in mundane affairs introduced an uncertainty factor that he found unsettling at best. "Why haven't they helped you win the war, though?" he asked.
Daria smiled sadly. Apparently Language hadn't been the only thing the Lords taught him; he was reading her expression easily. "Who can say what motivates a god? We can only hope that their intervention now, through you, will save some of us."
"Yeah." Tarlac sipped again at his chovas. "Look, will you explain something for me?"
"If I can. What is it?"
"What in—" Tarlac hesitated, modified what he was going to say. "What does a Ranger taking the Ordeal have to do with ending the war?"
Daria was silent for a moment, then she smiled again, easily, at the Ranger's almost aggrieved tone. "Ruhar, you must have noticed that all officers and high-status males are n'Cor'naya. There is a reason for that; we have so many that there must be a way to select the most capable, courageous, and honorable. The Ordeal has done that for many millennia, though it changed when Lord Sepol was called to the Circle.
"If the war is to be ended with honor, it must be done by someone who has high status on both sides. As a Ranger, you already have that in the Empire; once you pass the Ordeal, you will also be able to negotiate a peace agreement as a Cor'naya."
Tarlac frowned. "Any agreement that will work can't involve you … surrendering"—he had to use the English word—"since that's something you can't do. With the way your people fight, and with us winning as decisively as we are, that is not going to be easy. Will the Lords help me there?"
"I cannot tell you," Daria said, frowning in her turn, perhaps at the unfamiliar word. "They have remained unresponsive; I can only pray that they will. But you must not count on it, for they give no more help than they consider essential. If they think there is any possibility you can do it without them, success or failure is up to you. We must learn, they say, by our mistakes."
"It wasn't your mistake that started this war," Tarlac said. "It was the Empire's, but you're the ones paying for it." He had a sudden thought, frowned again. "Fleet-Captain Arjen said the Supreme and First Speaker invited me here. That 'invitation' really came from the Lords, didn't it?"