The inexorable wheel of time continued to turn, grinding away the days until a full half-month had vanished into the humid atmosphere of the settlement. For Fuyu, life had become a strange, oscillating rhythm between the visceral physical toll of the fields and the midnight sanctuary of the hut. The late-season crops were heavy and ripe, but a shadow hung over the harvest. Insects—small, iridescent beetles with an insatiable hunger—had begun to bore into the stored grain, a slow rot that threatened to turn their hard labor into dust.
When the Village Chief's personnel arrived at the hut, their presence was like a cold wind. They moved with a mercenary efficiency, demanding the stored crops as part of the tribal quota. Manu, his face flushed with a youthful, impotent rage, stepped forward to block their path. He remembered his mother's command to wait for Rana's return, and he wanted to prove himself the new master of the house through sheer, lithic defiance.
