Music

(Intro) (Low, rhythmic drumming like a slow heartbeat. A single, mournful cello or a deep, droning choir.) (Verse 1) The sky was a wound that refused to close A white-hot wind where the river froze No hands to hold it, no stone to bind Just the screaming light and a fevered mind The harvest is burning in a cold, blue flame And the children are calling a god with no name. (Chorus) (Voice drops to a low, weary chant) Oh, the voices in the ash, they are crying for the rain To wash away the magic and the hunger and the pain We are tinder for the lightning, we are dust before the gale We are begging for a master, we are praying for a veil Before the slate was broken, before the bone was sworn We were dying in the shadow, before the Vestra were born. (Verse 2) A mother's touch is a cauterized scar The cradle is charred by a falling star We hid in the caves where the silence is deep But the hum in the air wouldn't let us sleep It's a power untamed, it's a world set on fire And the smoke of our lives is the only pyre. (Bridge) (Tempo slows further; voices become a desperate whisper) Give us a cage for the storm... Give us a hearth for the heat... Build us a wall made of iron and rock To keep the wild pulse from our feet We'll pay in our blood, we'll pay in our breath Just give us a life that isn't a death. (Chorus) (Harmonies swell, heavy and dissonant) Oh, the voices in the ash, they are crying for the rain To wash away the magic and the hunger and the pain We are tinder for the lightning, we are dust before the gale We are begging for a master, we are praying for a veil Before the slate was broken, before the bone was sworn We were dying in the shadow, before the Vestra were born. (Outro) (The music fades to a single low note) The wind is rising... The ash is falling... Someone... anyone... Bind the light. Before we all burn white.

(Verse 1) The architecture was never meant to hold the sea I am a house of matches in a gale, bending at the knee They carved the runes in heavy stone, they bound the Vestra in Then pressed the glowing shards of slate beneath my living skin My pulse is rhythmic thunder, a heavy, iron beat While the earth beneath me blackens just to touch my weary feet. (Pre-Chorus) The mirror is a stranger, looking back with hollow eyes Is this the cost of godhood? To watch the person die? I'm just a brittle container for a star that's gone insane I feel the jagged slate fragments grinding in my veins. (Chorus) I was born of slate and bone, but I'm breaking into light A vessel made of common clay to house the endless night The more I am a weapon, the less I am a man Channelling the Vestra with a trembling, human hand Don't call it a blessing, don't call it a throne With a heart of etched slate, I am born of slate and bone. (Verse 2) My memories are fading, bleached by the inner white The smell of rain, the taste of bread, are losing to the fight The conduit is hungry, it's drinking from the soul Every shard of rune-etched rock is taking full control The power doesn't use me, it erases who I was Turning empathy to ashes, just because... it simply does. (Bridge) The slate is hard, but even slate will shatter The Vestra burns, and bone will surely fray What's the soul but cooling matter In the path of cosmic spray? I am the sheath, the sword is screaming I am the dam, the flood is dreaming Stay away... stay away. (Outro) Fragile... So fragile... A heart of stone, a soul of Vestra. Keep the spark, lose the heart. I'm almost... Gone.

(Verse 1) I am the marrow in the mountain's bone, The silent pulse beneath the standing stone. A river of light, a wild, unwritten ghost, Wandering the edge of your hollow coast. You are the cup, and I am the wine, A mortal skin for a breath divine. (Chorus) O, Vessel of the Silent Tide, Where the dawn and the darkness bide. In your palm, the world's heartbeat slows, In your blood, the final ember glows. Will you weave the stars into a crown of peace, Or bid the breath of every living soul to cease? (Verse 2) The sky is a veil that is wearing thin, Waiting for the storm to let me in. I could be the rain that heals the burning wood, Or the fire that ends what the ages stood. The chaos screams for a master's hand, To mend the rift or break the land. (Bridge) One path leads to the quiet of the grave, One path leads to the world we save. I am the power, but you are the will— The hand on the hilt, or the wind in the chill. Choose now, while the sun still clings to the hill. (Chorus) O, Vessel of the Silent Tide, Where the dawn and the darkness bide. In your palm, the world's heartbeat slows, In your blood, the final ember glows. Will you weave the stars into a crown of peace, Or bid the breath of every living soul to cease? (Outro) The thread is thin. The choice is deep. The world you wake, Or the world you sleep.