The fourth hour of daylight found Misaki in his workshop, hands steady as he marked measurements on a length of Tra'sho'ven sky-cedar. The lightweight wood felt almost hollow under his fingers, yet when he tested its flex resistance, it proved remarkably strong. Perfect for the cart platform.
So far, life on Vulcan had been challenging but manageable. Survive the crash landing. Heal the wounds. Learn the systems. Build the tools. Integrate into the community. Each problem had solutions, each obstacle could be overcome with effort and planning.
Misaki allowed himself a small smile as he aligned his marking blade. Two weeks to prototype completion. Three weeks until the merchant caravan. This was progress. Real, measurable progress toward something stable.
Then he heard the screaming.
Not one voice. Many voices. Overlapping, discordant, carrying terror and grief in equal measure. The sound came from the village center, growing louder by the second.
Misaki dropped his tools and ran.
Outside, chaos. Villagers poured from their dwellings, drawn by the commotion. The fourth hour meant most people should still be sleeping or just beginning morning routines, but the entire population of M'lod seemed to be converging on the central square. Misaki pushed through the crowd, his smaller frame allowing him to slip between bodies that stood frozen in shock.
The village center had transformed into a scene from a nightmare.
Seven chiefs stood in a loose circle around Shy'yao. Misaki recognized none of them except through second-hand descriptions - these were leaders from neighboring villages, settlements that dotted the region within a day's travel of M'lod. Their clothes bore road dust and sweat stains. They'd ridden hard through the night.
One of them - a tall man with iron-grey hair and a face carved by decades of sun and wind - gripped Shy'yao's shoulder like a drowning man clutching driftwood. This had to be Uyr'chev, chief of Kor'mali village. Shy'yao's oldest friend. Misaki had heard stories about their forty-year friendship over communal dinners.
"It's real," Uyr'chev said, his voice cracking. "Shy'yao, by all the celestial bodies, it's real. The proclamation came yesterday at sunset. Royal heralds in every village square. King's Guard enforcing attendance."
Shy'yao's ancient face had gone grey. "Tell me exactly what was said."
Another chief stepped forward - a woman whose left arm ended at the elbow, old injury from some past conflict. "I'll tell you word for fucking word. I memorized it." She closed her eyes, and when she spoke again, her voice took on the formal cadence of official proclamation:
"'By Royal Decree of His Majesty King Ashtherion'vaur, Sovereign of Ul'varh'mir, Defender of the Chakra Faithful, Keeper of the Seven Sacred Flames. Let it be known throughout all territories, villages, and settlements under Our divine authority: Mana users are hereby declared enemies of the kingdom and enemies of the natural order. These practitioners of hell-born power have corrupted the sacred balance of chakra with their demonic arts. They are abominations. They are corruption made flesh. They came from hell, and to hell they shall be returned.'"
Silence. Absolute silence. Even the morning wind seemed to hold its breath.
"'Effective immediately,'" the woman continued, "'all persons capable of mana manipulation must present themselves to the King's Guard for registration and processing. Those who resist will be eliminated. Those who harbor them will be eliminated. Those who fail to report them will be eliminated. The purge begins in one month's time. Twenty-eight days from this proclamation, the kingdom will be cleansed.'"
A sound rippled through the crowd. Not quite a gasp, not quite a sob. Something primal and terrified.
Misaki's mind raced. Mana users. He'd learned the distinction in his early weeks on Vulcan. Chakra users drew power from their spiritual energy centers, channeling elemental forces through meditation and internal cultivation. Mana users drew power from external sources - the ambient magical energy that permeated Vulcan itself. Different methodology, same ultimate effects.
Most villages had both. M'lod's population was primarily chakra-based, but the neighboring settlements...
"How many?" Shy'yao asked quietly.
"Kor'mali is seventy percent mana-capable," Uyr'chev said, and his voice broke completely. "Seventy percent. My wife. My children. My grandchildren. All of them. All of them." He was crying now, openly, tears streaming down weathered cheeks. "The tax collectors came this morning. New rates. Triple the previous collection. They said it's to fund the 'cleansing operations.' They took everything. Everything we had stored for winter. They said we should be grateful we're being allowed to finance our own purification."
Another chief spoke up, a young man barely into his thirties. "Del'marxo village is ninety percent mana users. We're all dead. We just don't know when yet."
"Val'thorin is eighty-five percent," said another.
"Kresh'yula is sixty-two percent."
"M'yara'kesh is seventy-seven percent."
The numbers piled up like bodies. Percentages that translated into lives. Families. Generations.
Misaki looked around at the M'lod villagers. Shock painted every face. Horror. Disbelief. This was the peaceful era. King Ashtherion'vaur was known for taxation and bureaucratic tyranny, not genocide. The kingdom had problems, yes, but not... not this.
"There must be a mistake," someone said from the crowd. "The king wouldn't—"
"THE KING HAS GONE MAD!" Uyr'chev roared, whirling on the speaker. "There's no mistake! No misunderstanding! The proclamation was crystal clear! Hell-born corruption! Demonic arts! Enemies of the natural order!" He grabbed his own hair with both hands, pulling hard enough that Misaki feared he might rip it out. "They're calling my wife a demon. My children. My grandchildren. DEMONS!"
A woman from one of the visiting villages collapsed to her knees, keening. The sound was inhuman. Grief beyond words. Her village chief - a stocky man with battle scars crossing his face - tried to comfort her, but she pushed him away and continued that horrible, broken sound.
More villagers from M'lod pressed forward, asking questions, demanding clarification, seeking some angle that would make this make sense. But there was no angle. No clarification that would help.
Shy'yao raised his hands, calling for quiet. The gesture took several attempts before the crowd settled enough to hear him.
"How long do we have?" he asked.
"Twenty-seven days now," Uyr'chev said. "We rode through the night to warn you. To warn everyone. The proclamation said one month. That was yesterday."
"And the King's Guard? Their movements?"
"Already mobilizing," the one-armed chief reported. "We saw three military columns on our way here. Infantry, cavalry, supply wagons. They're not just making threats. They're preparing for war."
"Against their own people," Shy'yao said softly.
"Against mana users," Uyr'chev corrected, and his voice carried bitter emphasis. "The proclamation was very specific. Chakra users are sacred. Mana users are hell-spawn. The king is dividing us. Turning the kingdom against itself."
Misaki felt sick. He'd read about this pattern in Earth's history. Scapegoating. Othering. Creating an enemy within to consolidate power or distract from other problems. It always started with rhetoric. It always escalated to violence.
A young girl pushed through the crowd - couldn't be more than twelve years old - and grabbed one of the visiting chiefs by his cloak. "My cousin lives in Kor'mali," she said, her voice small and terrified. "My cousin Reya. She's mana-capable. She's nine years old. She's NINE. What's going to happen to her?"
The chief looked down at the girl. Opened his mouth. Closed it. What could he say? What answer wouldn't be a lie?
"I don't know," he finally whispered.
The girl started crying. Others joined her. The crowd's shock was breaking into raw emotion. Fear. Anger. Despair. Parents clutched children. Partners held each other. The elderly stared into nothing, having lived long enough to remember other atrocities, other purges from other eras.
Torran's voice cut through the chaos, deep and commanding. "What are we going to do?"
Every eye turned to Shy'yao.
The old chief stood silent for a long moment, two hundred seventy-six years of experience weighing every word before it left his mouth. When he finally spoke, his voice carried the weight of absolute certainty.
"We survive. We protect our own. And we remember that kings are mortal, but communities endure." He looked at each visiting chief in turn. "Gather your people. Anyone in immediate danger - mana users who can't hide their abilities, families with young children - send them here. M'lod will shelter them."
"That's treason," someone whispered.
"Yes," Shy'yao agreed. "It is."
Uyr'chev gripped his friend's shoulder again, but this time with desperate gratitude instead of despair. "Thank you. Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet," Shy'yao said grimly. "This is only the beginning. The storm is coming, and it will break us all before it passes."
Misaki stood frozen at the crowd's edge, his cart prototype forgotten, his peaceful plans shattered. The world had just changed. The rules had just been rewritten.
And twenty-seven days remained before the killing began.