The Ash Tithe

The Ash Tithe is paid in ore, charcoal, labour, captured arms, repair crews, and the miserable hours that keep gateworks alive. It funds defences and feeds war forges, but it also lets powerful clans measure weaker ones in public until arithmetic becomes humiliation. Vesha Ruk's predecessors learned generations ago that unpaid walls collapse before unpaid pride does. The tithe hall smells of ash, wax, rust, sweat, and ledgers chained too heavily to steal. It is beautiful because every clan can see what survival costs. It is dreadful because everyone can see who cannot pay.