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Dropping his own sword, Ber caught Tes against him. She slumped in his arms, and his blood ran cold. She couldn’t die, not after they’d just won. He sent a mental call to his wife’s favorite healer. But he couldn’t remain idle until she arrived.

“Cover us,” he shouted to Selesta, though there weren’t many enemies surrounding them now. With the king bleeding out on the throne room floor, most had given up, but the duchess lifted her sword to guard them, anyway. He wouldn’t forget it.

Carefully, Ber stretched Tes out on the stone floor and studied the injury. The breastplate she wore was metal, and there was a padded lining between the leather armor, her dress, and the breastplate that should have blunted the blow. Could it be a surface scratch from the knife tip? He searched for a telltaleblotch of red spreading from the area and saw nothing. Still, she whimpered.

“It burns,” Tes said.

He frowned down at the knife. “Not a stabbing pain?”

Instead of responding, she wrapped her hand around the hilt and pulled.

“No!” he cried. Didn’t she know to wait for a healer before removing the blade?

But the knife didn’t budge. Instead, the breastplate moved with it. Had the two fused? What…?

“Help me get this off,” Tes muttered. “Please.”

He didn’t stop to question. Quickly, he started on the first buckle. Pain seared the side of his hand when it brushed the breastplate, and he hastened his efforts until finally, she was able to roll to her side and shake the piece from her body. Ber searched her stomach for any sign of a puncture wound, but there was nothing.

But for some reason, he couldn’t feel relief. “I don’t understand.”

“Ria enchanted the armor,” Tes said, tossing aside the padding and lifting her dress to her waist. She shifted her leather jerkin, and finally, he could see the blisters forming along her burned skin. “I think it absorbed the metal blade.”

Though he knew it wasn’t fair, his anger flashed. “And burned you in the process?”

Tes scowled. “Andsavedme and our child in the process. Think, Ber. Melting metal requires heat, and even if it’s done magically, all that energy has to go somewhere. There was padding to save me from the worst of the burns. It hurts, but I’ll take this pain over the alternative.”

“That’s a fair point,” Ber said, but he couldn’t stop the fear still coursing through him. “But I’ll feel better when the healer I summoned arrives to check you.”

His wife grabbed his hand and squeezed. “I know.”

“Congratulations.” He brushed a kiss across her lips. “You did it. Presuming he’s dead, of course. I haven’t checked.”

She nodded. “The power passed to me while I was struggling with the breastplate. It was surprisingly painless. Or maybe I was too distracted to notice.”

The healer rushed in, and while she tended to Tes’s burns, Ber saw to the last of the traitors. The royal guard captured and bound those of Ryenil’s soldiers who had decided not to fight. They would spend time in the dungeons until their loyalties could be determined by truth spell.

The others were given no quarter.

“All is well now with the queen, and your babe is unharmed,” the healer assured Ber as she helped Tes to her feet.

The tension in his chest eased, and he could finally breathe again.

As the last traitor was hauled out of the room, an unnatural silence descended. Some of the nobles gaped at the scene from the doorway, and the palace soldiers turned toward Tes. Admiration filled Ber for his wife, who stood tall like the queen she now was. He could feel that hint of uncertainty inside her, but no one else would know. All that anyone could see was strength.

Her gaze slid over the room—even passing over her father’s bleeding corpse—before moving to the nobles lingering at the doors. “I am Queen Etessa Bryamiri, so claimed upon the death of my treacherous father. The mantle of power properly passed to me with his last breath. Does anyone wish to challenge me?”

The silence only grew deeper, no one offering assent or argument.

Since everyone else appeared frozen in place, Ber dropped to one knee. “Long live the queen!”

The palace guard followed suit almost at once, but the nobles were slower. Still, one by one, they sank to one knee, their voices echoing through the doors as they repeated the words. Not that Ber was foolish enough to believe that meant full support. No doubt, they would fight for power in the background for some time.

But that was a problem for another day.

As the criesof support faded into echoes, Tes strode toward the dais, her pace measured and sure. Nerves coiled within her, but so, too, did power. She’d done it. Truly done it. And as she passed her father’s corpse, the only regret she could feel was for a life that never could have been. Not with the choiceshehad made. She couldn’t find pity for the person he’d actually been.

She took the throne with casual ease, though she surely looked a sight. If a painting was done of this moment, would they show the wrinkles and bloodstains marring her overdress? Would future generations gaze up at the image of her proud but exhausted face? In truth, she hoped so. All should see that liberation from evil took its toll.