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There was no time for dressing properly. Melantha raced back to the closet nook, grabbed a dark gray, wool dress, and put it on over her nightgown. She tugged on trousers underneath her dress, then shoved her feet into wool stockings and her fur-lined boots.

As she clasped her fur cloak around her throat, the wall of ice blasted apart, shooting shards of ice across the room and sending Rharreth and Zavni stumbling.

Melantha shrieked and shielded her face. Ice stung her hand and the exposed skin of her forehead.

When she dared to lower her arm, Rharreth had regained his balance and had magic swirling around his left hand, the sword still in his right and the elven dagger in his belt.

A line of troll warriors poured into the room, but they did not charge. Not yet. Instead, they parted, allowing a figure to stride through their midst, his face shadowed in the faint light of the torches in the passageway, his ax resting lazily on his shoulder.

“Drurvas.” Rharreth growled, flexing his fingers on his sword’s hilt.

This was not a random attack. This was a coup.

She did not need gloating from Drurvas to figure that out. Drurvas was Rharreth’s cousin. The only reason there could be for him launching an attack on Rharreth in the middle of the night was if he planned to take the throne for himself.

Melantha did not have time to stand there, frozen in place. Locating a leather pack in the back of the closet, she started stuffing Rharreth’s warm clothes into it, along with anything else she thought would be helpful. For what, she did not know.

“Rharreth, you have been deemed unworthy to rule Kostaria.” Drurvas’s voice rang hard against the stones. “You are weak.”

“Why? Because I have married an elf and brought peace to Kostaria?” Rharreth’s snort was loud in the confined space. “You would not think my elf bride was weak if you had ever seen the numbers she has been able to heal with her magic. She has shown me that there is more to strength and honor than the ability to make war. There is great strength in compassion. In healing. Yes, even in peace. Our people need time to heal and rebuild. Peace, not war, is what our people need right now, and I will fight with everything in me to obtain that for them.”

Melantha turned as Rharreth was finishing his speech. He faced the crowd of troll warriors, his shoulders straight, his head held high.

Some of the troll warriors shifted, but most were still stone-faced. A few glanced over at Melantha, their eyes hard.

She was the reason for the coup. If Rharreth had married someone like his shield sister Vriska or another of the female troll warriors, he might not be in this situation. The warriors might have tolerated a temporary peace treaty with Tarenhiel, but they did not want an elf as their queen nor did they want the more permanent peace with Tarenhiel that she represented.

Drurvas shook his head, swinging his ax down from his shoulder. “The fact that you believe that just shows how unworthy you are to be our king. You will weaken Kostaria. It is with a heavy heart that we must take this action.”

Did any of his followers really believe that?

This was not about preserving Kostaria. This was about power. Drurvas had seen an opportunity to seize the throne, and he was taking it.

Drurvas lunged forward, swinging his ax. Rharreth stepped to meet him, blocking with his sword. His magic clashed against an answering blast from Drurvas.

The other troll warriors rushed at Zavni and Rharreth, raising swords, axes, and daggers. More magic filled the air, and Rharreth was hard-pressed trying to single-handedly block all of them.

Melantha growled and charged forward, setting the pack of supplies on the bed as she passed. These trolls claimed honor, but then they charged fifteen to two, as if a mass assassination was somehow honorable.

They hated Farrendel’s assassination of Rharreth’s father, but at least Farrendel did it one on one.

Zavni grunted, blood welling from his left side near his hip. His stumble backward gave the troll attacker an opening to Rharreth. Trying to fend off magical attacks with one hand and Drurvas’s ax with his sword in the other, Rharreth shifted, but he could not block the oncoming strike.

Melantha let the fury in her chest fill her as she leapt forward, a war-scream bursting from her. She knocked aside the oncoming sword with her dagger, as Rharreth had shown her.

As she had practiced with Rharreth, she used the shorter length and thus quicker recovery time of her dagger to strike at the troll’s chest, expecting him to block her thrust.

But, he must have been too shocked at her attack to move. Her dagger hit resistance but still crunched into the chest in front of her. Blood spattered, and the troll collapsed, dragging the dagger from Melantha’s hand.

She stumbled back, her lungs feeling like they were frozen inside her chest. Her stomach gave a sudden lurch, and she doubled over, vomiting onto the floor.

Even as she heaved until nothing came out, that fiery heat filled her chest. She had always had a tough stomach. It came with being a healer.

But this...this was different. This was gory and bloody and the smell...her stomach was heaving yet again.

She did not have time for this. She gritted her teeth and willed her stomach to settle. This was a battle. She did not have time to huddle in the corner, helpless and as weak as these trolls thought her to be.

She rushed into the battle again, this time unarmed since her dagger remained in the chest of the troll she killed. Dodging a strike and using Rharreth as a shield, she called on her magic, reached over Rharreth’s shoulder as he blocked an attacker’s strike, and pressed her fingers to the attacker’s hand.