[Intro]
[The descending three-note motif is played by bowed lyre, then answered by low guitars and floor toms.]

[Chorus]
Crown of embers, bend your flame,
Iron remembers what fire claimed.
No throne can stand on burning ground,
No living hand deserves this crown.
I bear its heat, I bear its blame,
Till frost and ash erase my name.

[Verse 1]
Roof-beams split with resin cries,
Black sparks climbed the winter skies.
Twelve doorposts leaned into the blaze;
Carved wolf-heads vanished in the haze.
I crossed the yard through sparks and sleet;
A child's small shoe lay at my feet.
The iron scorched my brow instead.
I raised no crown above the dead.

[Pre-Chorus]
The well lay choked with beam and stone.
The wounded called, then ceased to moan.
No horn replied beyond the wall,
Only the burning rafters' fall.

[Chorus]
Crown of embers, bend your flame,
Iron remembers what fire claimed.
No throne can stand on burning ground,
No living hand deserves this crown.
I bear its heat, I bear its blame,
Till frost and ash erase my name.

[Verse 2]
My thanes came out through smoke and snow,
With splintered shields and faces low.
One carried grain, one bore a blade,
One led a frightened child away.
They asked which road the king would choose,
What ground to hold, what blood to lose.
Behind us, home became a pyre;
Within the cloth, the iron held fire.

[Pre-Chorus]
No map could lead us out of grief.
No god had sent a sign of relief.
But thirty faces watched my own.
Their need outweighed a fallen throne.

[Bridge]
It once served harvest, oath and law;
Now cracked iron was all I saw.
A king is not the chair he owns,
Nor praise cut deep in standing stones.

[Guitar Solo]
[Melancholic twin-guitar harmonies expand the three-note motif over a slow shield-beat rhythm.]

[Breakdown]
No gold above them.
No boast beside them.
No feast can wake them.
No god will guide them.

The living breathe.
The living bleed.
The crown is ash.
The crown must lead.

[Final Chorus]
Crown of embers, hold your flame,
Carry the living, count the slain.
No throne remains on burning ground,
Yet duty lives beneath this crown.
I bear its heat, not for my fame.
I walk until their names remain.

[Choir]
Raise no crown above the dead.
Guard the road that lies ahead.
Raise no crown above the dead.
Guard the road that lies ahead.

[Outro]
The eastern roofs collapsed in red.
The frost drew close around the dead.
I turned from all that I had known,
A king with neither hall nor throne.
