They decided over the last of the cooking fire's embers, no ceremony to it, just Sekar finally saying "we go" and Rama nodding because there was nothing left to argue against once she'd said it. Their daughter slept through the entire decision, and neither parent woke her for it. Some choices, Rama thought, watching her small chest rise and fall in the dark, belonged to the people carrying the weight of them, not the person they were meant to protect.
The messenger left the following morning with their answer, formal and brief, exactly as Sekar had worded it. Sartika insisted on writing a second letter of her own to accompany it, dictating slowly to Ratna while the scribe's bandaged head still ached from the raid, sealing it with something pressed into wax that apparently carried her own small, local authority — enough, at least, to be recognized on sight by whoever read it at the other end.
