“When my father finally took me home, my grandfather tried to kill me. Only”—she takes a bite of the dessert and grins—“he couldn’t. I was protected by some kind of magic he didn’t understand. That pissed him off immensely, and my existence became even more like sand in his eyes.” She eats some fries with relish. “I turned sixteen, and the waters of the rivers and the lakes started talking to me. I discovered I am a magic user. He almost lost his shit then.”

“You’re his heir?” Paheli asks, her eyes shining with glee.

“Yep.” Tabassum Naaz grins back, and for a second, they’re almost friends. “Everyone believes that he has the power to choose his heir. In fact, most of my cousins are counting on it and suck up to him, trying to get into his good graces and be chosen as the Dar. Only when the rivers and the lakes started talking to me did I understand that the position of the Dar is chosen by the magic.”

“I suppose he didn’t take you being chosen as heir too well?” Valentina asks.

Tabassum Naaz’s smile is very warm as she looks at Valentina. “You could say that. He tried to kill me again, and when he didn’t succeed, he threw me out of the house, saying my behavior was wanton. He tried to have me killed by others, but magic is strange. It reads intent, and every time he tried to hurt me, it rebounded on him.”

“But he can still hurt your parents,” Talei says, and the smile disappears from Tabassum Naaz’s face.

“Yeah. Which is why I’m here, living in a place I’m not familiar with, trying not to draw attention to myself.” She rubs her face and grimaces. “It sucks.”

“Since you’re his heir, can’t you replace him?” Paheli asks, her eyes wide with the same hope glinting in Taraana’s.

A strangely bitter smile lifts Tabassum Naaz’s lips. “It doesn’t work that way.” She sighs. “The only way to instate a new Dar is to remove the old one. And the only way to remove the old Dar is to kill him or have him drop dead. And I don’t think my grandfather is kind enough to do that.”

A shocked silence fills the room. Murder is not one of the choices on our list.

Tabassum Naaz smirks at us. “So, when you say you want to remove him from power, I really don’t mind. In fact, I would thank you. But you are overestimating your skills. It’s like you’re dogs, growling at a mountain. You might annoy the mountain, but in the end, you will be buried by it.”

“Is there really no other way than for him to die?” Paheli asks softly. “He was in prison for a long while. Can’t we send him back there?”