The Tide-Stones

A ring of pre-Imperial standing stones on the south headland, carved with the marks of the high and low waters and a drowned-rite the Ashen Temple abhors — Hessk pilgrims still leave salt here.

Older than the Imperium, older than the Temple that condemns them: grey stones incised with tide-marks so precise the Hessk still read them to predict the great spring slacks. The carvings record a drowned-rite prayer in a script the orthodoxy has never managed to erase, only to forbid. The salt offerings left in the cup-marks never quite dry out. The stones know when the Wrack-Maw opens.