Castle Beach

The narrow stretch of sand hugs the castle's seaward side, its pale grains darkened near the tide line where dampness seeps through like deliberate footprints. Claw marks score the wetter areas, eight-toed indentations radiating from the shoreline like the aftermath of a sudden retreat. The incoming tide hisses as it laps against scattered driftwood—planks of a small boat and what might have been part of the master’s fishing net, both grounded by salt and wear. Beyond the sand lies a jagged breakwater of black basalt boulders, their surfaces slick with algae and the sheen of the receding day. The distant castle walls looming over this strip of coast stand as both shelter and prison, their soaring silhouettes blotting out the stars and casting the beach into a quiet that is not peaceful but tense. Characters arrive with urgency, knees sinking slightly in the cool, compacted sand as they pivot to scan the horizon for the telltale wake of scaled progress moving through the water.