[Intro][Cello drone under slow toms; Hel enters dry and close before the heavy guitars rise.]

[Verse 1][Female Vocal: Hel]
Down here the dead do not flatter kings,
They arrive with frost in their wedding rings.
They tell me how laws look under the clay,
How crowns sound hollow when breath goes away.
I keep the benches, I keep the bread,
I know the weight of the uncounted dead.
Half of me warms when a child is named,
Half of me smiles at the gods ashamed.

[Pre-Chorus][Female Vocal: Hel]
Root to water, water to chain,
Every exile learns the same pain.

[Chorus][Female Vocal: Hel with Gang Vocals]
Niflheim Answers Back through bone and black,
Through the frozen gate and the wolf’s torn track.
Niflheim Answers Back to the ocean’s ring,
Banish the child and the child becomes king.

[Verse 2][Female Vocal: Hel]
My brother below feels the anchors grind,
Every drowned sail is a stitch in his mind.
My brother above pulls the ribbon raw,
Every locked breath is a verdict on law.
We do not meet, yet the cold roads know,
Salt and fang and under-root snow.
Father, do you hear us beneath your name?
We were made by love, then sharpened by shame.

[Pre-Chorus][Female Vocal: Hel]
Root to water, water to chain,
Three broken cradles remember the same.

[Chorus][Female Vocal: Hel with Gang Vocals]
Niflheim Answers Back through bone and black,
Through the frozen gate and the wolf’s torn track.
Niflheim Answers Back to the ocean’s ring,
Banish the child and the child becomes king.

[Instrumental Break][Tagelharpa motif passes from cello to distorted guitar.]

[Bridge][Female Vocal: Hel]
I was not given mercy, so I learned the door.
He was not given shoreline, so he learned the shore.
He was not given trust, so he learned the tooth.
All three of us were fed the same truth.

[Breakdown][Female Vocal: Hel]
Open for the nameless.
Close to the proud.
Quiet for the grieving.
Loud for the loud.

[Final Chorus][Female Vocal: Hel with Gang Vocals]
Niflheim Answers Back through bone and black,
Through the frozen gate and the wolf’s torn track.
Niflheim Answers Back to the ocean’s ring,
Banish the child and the child becomes king.
Niflheim Answers Back; let Asgard hear,
The dead know the shape of a kingdom’s fear.

[Outro][Female Vocal: Hel]
A horn has not sounded, but roots can hear,
A scale can tighten, a chain can steer.
In the cold where the buried keep their vows,
Hel lifts her cup to the unloved now.