[Intro]
[Galloping drums enter beneath guitar and nyckelharpa playing separate halves of the Frostheart motif.]

[Verse 1]
[Female Lead]
At sunrise the smith’s daughter opened his kit,
Laid Frostheart’s pieces where firelight hit.
“The head cannot mend without losing its grain,
But broken is shape, not the end of a name.”
She forged one short edge for the near press of war,
One wedge for the chains on the harbour store.
No jewelled new weapon, no legendary brand—
Two useful pieces for two willing hands.

[Pre-Chorus]
[Female Lead]
Siv took the wedge and I carried the blade;
Neither was whole, yet a purpose was made.
The pack watched quietly beyond the frost—
Nothing returned to the shape it had lost.

[Chorus]
[All Voices]
A crown of teeth and trust, no circle made of gold,
A promise freely offered, never purchased, never sold.
A crown of teeth and trust, with room to leave the line;
You walk because you choose the road, not because the road is mine.
Let old thrones call it weakness, let the Iron King distrust—
The strongest bond in winter is a crown of teeth and trust.

[Verse 2]
[Female Lead]
We mapped the south tower with charcoal and thread,
Marked where the prisoners worked and slept.
The fishers would cut every mooring at three,
The miners would open the cells underneath.
The shepherds would guide all the children uphill,
The monks tend the wounded behind the old mill.
The wolves chose the ridges; no person assigned
A path to the creatures with ancestors inside.

[Pre-Chorus]
[Female Lead]
I named my proposal, then others revised;
The plan became stronger before all our eyes.
Command was no jewel to clutch to the chest—
It lived in correction and changed for the best.

[Chorus]
[All Voices]
A crown of teeth and trust, no circle made of gold,
A promise freely offered, never purchased, never sold.
A crown of teeth and trust, with room to leave the line;
You walk because you choose the road, not because the road is mine.
Let old thrones call it weakness, let the Iron King distrust—
The strongest bond in winter is a crown of teeth and trust.

[Guitar Solo]
[Lead guitar states one half of the motif while nyckelharpa completes each phrase.]

[Bridge]
[Female Lead]
I will enter the harbour where prisoners lie,
But no life behind me is ordered to die.
The north is not saved by the blood in my vein—
It lives where a thousand make choices again.

[Breakdown]
[The rhythm strips to bass, toms and alternating communal lines.]

[Call and Response]
[Female Lead]
Teeth for the chain.

[All Voices]
Trust for the hand.

[Female Lead]
Teeth for the tyrant.

[All Voices]
Trust for the land.

[Female Lead]
Teeth when he threatens.

[All Voices]
Trust when we plan.

[Female Lead]
No crown above us.

[All Voices]
Together we stand.

[Build-up]
[Triplet drums rise while the reconstructed motif passes rapidly through the ensemble.]

[Female Lead]
The white wolves ran first over storm-planed ground,
Not summoned by trumpet, not leashed to a sound.
We followed their tracks as the morning grew bright—
Not subjects of vengeance, but makers of right.

[Final Chorus]
[All Voices]
A crown of teeth and trust, no circle made of gold,
A promise freely offered, never purchased, never sold.
A crown of teeth and trust, with room to change the line;
We walk because we choose the road and make the purpose align.
Let the Iron King call weakness what no tyrant can adjust—
The strongest bond in winter is a crown of teeth and trust.

[Outro]
[The full Frostheart motif is played by the ensemble without the sound of an axe.]

[Female Lead]
Siv raised the chain-wedge.
I raised the shorter blade.
The pack crossed the sunrise.
The final march was made.