“There is another way,” he said, his voice low, almost a whisper. “I abdicate. I open the treasury, pay the sorcerers’ ransom, and we flee. Become merchants in a land without magic. You’ll hate me. But you’ll live.”

But she would not return as his daughter.

Veerendra sat in silence, his hooded eyes fixed on the shard. He remembered the last time he had fought magic. He had won the kingdom but lost his wife’s sanity. He had seen what power did to a person.