[Intro]
[Acoustic guitar and cello leave long spaces between phrases.]

[Verse 1]
[Female Lead]
The hut had one blanket, one stool and one cup,
A chimney of stone where the smoke gathered up.
Outside, the wounded lay row after row;
Inside, one small flame made a gold in the snow.
Siv placed the king’s letter beside my bare hand,
Then left without anger, awaiting command.
The seal showed an anvil pressed over a crown;
I broke it and studied while the fire burned down.

[Refrain]
[Female Lead]
The last warm fire asks nothing of me,
Only sit, only breathe, only cease to be queen.

[Verse 2]
[Female Lead]
“Come to the fjord before tomorrow’s first bell.
Your people receive grain; your wolves will be spared.
No village need suffer, no hostage need fall,
If you enter alone through the eastern gate.”
His mercy had columns, conditions and cost;
A neat little bargain for all we had lost.
I pictured full storehouses, medicine, bread—
Then pictured one scaffold and my severed head.

[Refrain]
[Female Lead]
The last warm fire asks nothing of me,
Only sit, only breathe, only cease to be queen.

[Verse 3]
[Female Lead]
Would surrender be courage if thousands could eat?
Would pride be the sin if I stayed on my feet?
The questions moved closer than wolves in a ring,
Each wearing the face of a reasonable thing.
I laid down the broken axe, iron and haft,
Then burned half the letter and rescued the last.
The terms were still legible, folded and small—
Enough to say yes, enough to end all.

[Cello Solo]
[Cello plays the two-note fragment repeatedly without completing the Frostheart motif.]

[Bridge]
[Female Lead]
The scar-eyed wolf lay down beside the flame,
No mother’s reflection, no ancestral claim.
Her trust was more brutal than any decree—
She would not make virtue or coward of me.

[Verse 4]
[Female Lead]
I stepped to the door with the terms in my coat,
The gale found the burns at the edge of the note.
Below, in the camp, people argued till dawn:
Some wanted surrender, some wanted war.
Not pieces on maps and not mouths I could trade,
But people entitled to choices they made.
I turned from the fjord and walked into their fire—
Not bearing an answer, but naming desire.

[Chorus]
[Female Lead]
At the last warm fire, no ruler stands alone;
No life can be bartered as though it were owned.
At the last warm fire, let every voice be weighed;
Peace bought without consent is another kind of blade.
The crown is cold, and my blood barely burns—
So I bring you the offer, and the choice now returns.

[Build-up]
[Low electric guitars enter beneath the acoustic pulse as multiple quiet voices join.]

[All Voices]
Some chose the grain.
Some chose the fight.
We spoke until morning
Made ice-fields shine—
No life traded for mine.

[Final Chorus]
[All Voices]
At the last warm fire, no ruler stands alone;
No life will be bartered, no village be owned.
At the last warm fire, every voice was weighed;
We rejected iron mercy and the contract of the blade.
At the last warm fire, the frightened chose to stay—
Not for a queen’s survival, but to shape another way.

[Outro]
[Acoustic guitar completes the Frostheart motif for the first time in the song.]

[All Voices]
We burned the last page.
No cheering began.
The fire gave warmth.
The people made plans.