Duskfire Glacier and suddenly i'm someone that prays

"Do you even know him?"

Arius dug deeper, sinking his teeth into Lane's hypocrisy and tearing it out, forcing it to come to light out here, out in the open. Inwardly, Lane was squirming, her mind racing in its search for some explanation that would satisfy this ruthlessly discerning boy. So far, with her own children she had been able to decree anything she wanted, for any reason, hypocritical or not, and it was never argued because she was the mom. She was realizing too late that this approach would not work on Arius. He was far too astute.

The boy's words did reassure her to some degree, though it was really the pleading that prompted her to overcome fear. To let her own walls down, and reveal a piece of her own vulnerability.

"Okay, Arius. I can teach you what I know, but.." she let out a frustrated sigh. "--it isn't much," she admitted. "You asked why Issorartuyok leads, and I gave you a shitty answer. Let me tell you the truth. He leads because I don't know a thing about leadership. I stepped up to leadership to make sure your legacy is honored and protected, and he stepped up to lead. He knows how, and he wants to." Both were important, as far as Lane was concerned. 

"This isn't me turning you away," she assured him, "...But you might do better apprenticing to Issorartuyok, if it's your desire to be a warrior and a leader. He is both of those, and I am barely one of them." Lane made the suggestion hesitantly, but she made it none the less. It played on all of her fears, the idea that Arius may see Veteran as a rival, and the flames of rivalry would be fanned all the more if they were both apprenticed to Issorartuyok. But Lane still felt she owed something to Tzila, and something to her begging child, and so she reluctantly steered Arius down the very path that may someday put him at a crossroads with Veteran's.