[Intro]
[Nyckelharpa recalls the opener’s melody while cello answers with the rising Frostheart motif.]

Crows in the morning,
Crows in the snow—
No smoke from the longhouse,
New roof-beams below.

[Verse 1]
[Female Lead]
We cleared every stone where the great hall had burned,
Set aside weapons that families returned.
The throne’s melted silver was weighed into shares,
For nails in the harbour and wheels for new chairs.
The Iron King stood before those he had chained;
No torture, no pardon, each witness was named.
His sentence was labour rebuilding the shore,
With guards chosen yearly and law over lord.

[Pre-Chorus]
[Female Lead]
They asked me what crown should replace what was gone,
What seal should be pressed on the laws from now on.
I brought out the circlet, smoke-blackened and thin,
Then set it before them and did not put it on.

[Chorus]
[All Voices]
The crown is cold, but my blood still burns,
Not for a throne, but for all that returns.
The crown is cold; let its old circle end,
Let power have doors every hand can defend.
The crown is cold, and no birth makes it wise—
A homeland stays living through thousands of eyes.

[Verse 2]
[Female Lead]
We built a round chamber where no seat stood high,
With windows facing mountain, harbour and sky.
Siv kept the wolf-cloth with its missing crown,
The miners chose judges from village and town.
The children painted paws on the newly cut beams,
Eight white for the wolves and one gold at the seam.
At dusk, from the ridge came a far, single cry;
The scar-eyed wolf’s place stayed open and dry.

[Pre-Chorus]
[Female Lead]
I carried no weapon when winter returned,
Only the lesson that sacrifice earned.
The dead are not ladders by which we ascend;
We honour their choosing by how we defend.

[Chorus]
[All Voices]
The crown is cold, but my blood still burns,
Not for a throne, but for all that returns.
The crown is cold; let its old circle end,
Let power have doors every hand can defend.
The crown is cold, and no birth makes it wise—
A homeland stays living through thousands of eyes.

[Instrumental Break]
[Cello plays the old descending motif while nyckelharpa answers with its transformed rising form.]

[Verse 3]
[Female Lead]
Some still called me queen when they passed in the square,
Some used my first name, and I welcomed them there.
A title can carry affection and blame;
It need not be law simply because it remains.
I kept my mother’s knife in a plain cedar case,
Not proof of succession, but part of her face.
Frostheart lay buried beside the white fur,
Its song in our music, no longer in her.

[Bridge]
[Female Lead]
One evening the lake turned transparent and blue,
But no queens appeared and no voices came through.
For once, winter offered no command and no sign—
Only cold honest water and one face that was mine.

[Breakdown]
[The arrangement narrows to floor tom, cello and unaccompanied lead voice.]

[Female Lead]
The hall can burn.
The blade can break.
The wolf can die
For the choice she will make.

[Build-up]
[The opener’s 6/8 march returns at half its former intensity as communal voices enter.]

[All Voices]
The baker has one vote.
The fisher has one.
The child asks questions
Of what we have done.

[Final Chorus]
[All Voices]
The crown is cold, but our blood still burns,
In bread shared at winter and bridges returned.
The crown is cold; let its closed circle end,
Let power have doors every neighbour can defend.
The crown is cold, but the north is alive—
Not one royal body, but thousands who strive.

[Final Refrain]
[Lead voice and close communal vocals sing without the ancestral choir.]

[Duet]
Crows above the new hall, wheel and cry,
Snow is writing white across the sky.
The crown is cold, but our blood still burns—
Not for vengeance now, but for what the living learns.

[Outro]
[Nyckelharpa completes both versions of the Frostheart motif and ends on an unresolved open fifth.]

[Female Lead]
Eight wolves crossed the ridge
In the first morning glow.
One set of tracks joined them—
Then vanished in snow.
