The Gatefeast Rite

The Gatefeast Rite renews a major undergate with food, iron gifts, repair crews, smoke, public oath-speaking, and work done where everyone can see whose hands stay clean. Clans bring offerings as if feeding a guardian that might otherwise bite them. Children carry bowls. Smiths bring nails. Wardens name cracks in the stone. The rite is communal, ugly, ancient, and sincere. In Kharod, gratitude often has soot under its nails, and beauty is a gate repaired before hunger teaches it to fail.