Eniera counted herself an excellent reader of faces, difficult to lie to. If anyone could as far as she could reckon, it would have been someone whose profession was based on lies. A whore fit that. So hearing Iris say what she did was cause for immediate skepticism.

‘She did save his life though, maybe. At the very least she risked her own for my son… could she be the same sort of silly he is… unlikely.’ Eniera took a slow breath, her son was already off the stool and going to where the slave knelt, he didn’t embrace her right away, instead he stepped behind her, his feet on either side of her legs, he grabbed the silver collar around the slave’s neck.

“Gottfried?” Eniera was about to ask what he was doing, but before she could, he pulled.

His hands were folded just underneath the little curve in the metal, Iris held her breath, and the strongest godsheir in the world made the metal give in. The silver cracked, broke, and he threw the fragments away to fall with a clatter to the floor. “Mother, she risked her life for me, if you don’t reward someone for that, what do you reward someone for.”

Eniera closed her mouth, and he stepped away from behind Iris, held down a hand, and when Iris took it, he helped her rise to her feet.

“You love him…” Eniera looked at the bloody trail that led to the closed room, at the shattered door and the corpse near her feet, “If this is a con, a trick… I can’t see it.”

“It isn’t!” Iris insisted, “I know where I come from, what that means for me… My Princess… I know what I’ve done for a living, what I’ve done to survive the Emperor’s wrath… what you must think of-”

She cut herself off when Eniera raised a hand to stop her. “You showed a great deal of cunning, resourcefulness, intelligence, and above all… loyalty. I’m not ‘always’ a monster, and it is difficult to accept. Especially given where you’re from, but I’d be a fool to deny the proof before my very eyes. Even proof I would rather not have seen.” She rolled her eyes when her son and his lover both blushed.

“I’ve seen a lot of things in my time, I’ve fought twenty-seven wars great and small since I was younger than Gottfried’s age, I’ve seen grown men in full armor ride away on their warhorses at the first sign of battle. I’ve seen a dying dog defend its dying master, a pig defend her piglets and a king leave his people to die to save his purple ass. Maybe you’re more than your name and the place of your birth. I know that character and courage aren’t always inherited, and one at your side you can trust is worth more than a hundred that you can’t.”

“Mother…?” Gottfried asked, and put an arm around the bare midriff of his lover.

“I could pick a thousand other noble women and throw them at you, and a thousand of them would have run rather than face the danger just endured by a common…” Eniera didn’t add the last word she thought, instead she squeezed the bridge of her nose between two fingers.

“You… Iris. Have him if you want him…” Eniera finally said, and dropped her hand away to look at both of them.

“My Lady… do you mean that?” Iris asked, she would have stepped back in shock had Gottfried not held her as close as he did.

“Gottfried, I tried to warn you.” Eniera said, and glanced at her defiant, stone faced son.

“And maybe I was… wrong.” Eniera managed a fragile, half broken smile. “No mere tool would do that. I told you that you didn’t know what love was, do you remember?”

Gottfried didn’t speak, but he did nod.

“It’s the state when someone else’s life and happiness is vital to your own. If they suffer, you can’t be happy, if they’re dead, your life is incomplete. That happens only a few times in a generation… I count myself blessed to have had that with your father, I didn’t really believe it possible with…” Again Eniera trailed off and then cleared her throat.

“If you want her, I won’t oppose you. But!” She stopped the word dead and leveled a hand at the both of them.

“What lesson have I always hammered into you, my son.” Eniera said with icy calm.

“Actions have consequences.” He recited from memory.

“Yes. You will always be haunted by what you let be inflicted on the woman you love, if you love her. And if you bring her back with you… be prepared for those consequences.” Eniera’s voice became as hollow as an empty grave.

Iris wanted to speak, ‘What does she… how…’ It slowly began to dawn on her, the spark of understanding lit in her gray eyed gaze up at the heir apparent.

The vicious Princess set her eyes on Iris, “My son is the strongest man in the world, not just in the empire, but if you go with him, you will be stepping into a world of intrigue and politics that shapes the fates of nations. You will be subjected to vicious rumors, every word that drops from your lips will be scrutinized for meaning. Men and women will try to seduce you to their side in games at court, spies will seek to tease information from you. You will have to know the ways of the Jabarian royal family as if you were reared in our customs. And there is always the chance you will be killed. You think you were in danger today?” Eniera laughed hard and slapped the bar hard enough to crack it in half.

“That is our daily life!” She hissed.

“Now… are you absolutely sure that you want to stay at his side, and spend your life at risk, ready to be taunted, mocked, struck with words and rumors and lies, ready to sleep knowing you might not wake up because of a knife in the dark?” Eniera asked the question, but for her, looking at the way the woman held her son, it was perfunctory to ask it.

There wasn’t any tremble in the body of the newly freed slave, and when her arm was wrapped around the Prince, Iris was able to look back at the Hammer and Sword of the empire and speak with confidence.

“Princess Eniera Jabara… the most dangerous thing in the world,” Iris smirked a little, “isn’t all those things, not even by half.” She rubbed her hand up and down over the mystikeel armor. It was far smoother to the touch than it should have been, and though she hated that it kept her from his skin, at that very moment it was reassuring of his strength.

Gottfried looked down at her and, as confused as his mother, he had to ask, “Iris… if you don’t think of any of those things as being dangerous, what is?”

She looked up at him with the same teasing little smirk and touched the space around her throat where her collar used to be, ‘I haven’t touched that spot with my fingers since the day it was put around my neck… it’s a little rougher than it used to be.’ She noticed in a detached sort of way.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Iris asked, “It’s having the Mother of Terror as my mother-in-law.”

Gottfried savored the silvery laughter of the woman in his arms, and joined her in it, but a few feet away, Eniera Jabara, though she smiled with them, did not laugh.

“Iris Vansi Valoisin, you will have a noble position, you will have land, you will have status, I will have you trained in every single thing you need to know to thrive… and… as I said to you both, I will permit you to have one another. I won’t get in the way, I will even…” She clenched her jaw for a moment, then added as if it was dragged from her, “help. As much as I am able.”

The pair relaxed next to the cooling body of the assassin, seemingly at ease, “But… I never said my son could marry you.”