There’s something confirmed in that brief moment of deference, built up piece by piece between shared instances: flickering admissions of concern, a willingness to bleed for those held dear— how fervently she safeguards the son of a magister, a man that smells of fletching and the dirt beneath his nails, a former prisoner whose rough hands know far too much pain. Though it lies at odds with the image she works so ceaselessly to otherwise paint, she is, in all respects, a good woman.

And was it not Gabranth who had told her such things could make a man as worthy as any King or Judge.

“...say it, then.”

His voice is low. A hushed thing, reverberating in the silence of his own helm, though the meaning held in that demand remains unclear.