Indra's patrol returned on the fourth day, dust-covered and grim from whatever they'd found at the raided settlement to the northeast, and word of Tirtayasa's own attack reached him within minutes of dismounting.
He came to the family's door himself that evening rather than sending Wayan ahead of him, and something in his weathered face carried a weight Rama hadn't seen from him before — not suspicion this time. Something closer to reckoning.
"I have questions," Indra said, through Wayan's careful translation, "but I do not think I am the right person to ask them anymore."
The royal messenger arrived two days after that, riding alone on a horse considerably finer than anything Tirtayasa's own stables kept, dust-streaked from hard travel but carrying himself with the specific bearing of a man accustomed to formal rooms rather than village squares.
