The Drowned Road

The Mirrenmere custom of navigating by tidal timing — reading the bare-and-flood cycle of the Sunken Stair Road as a language of safe windows and lethal floods.

The region's people do not think in distances; they think in tides. You do not ask 'how far to the next island?' — you ask 'is the span bare or drowned?' and then you wait or you run. The Silt Hands pilots learn it young; travellers from the inland Vale learn it the first time a crossing fills beneath their feet.