[Intro]
(Plucked lyre establishes a six-beat walking rhythm before drums and low guitars join.)

[Verse 1]
The root opened downward, a stair without stone,
Each step held a footfall, yet none was his own.
Behind him the sword stood alone on the height,
Its edge catching dawn in a thin blade of light.
He carried one feather, one harp split apart,
No shield for his body, no mail for his heart.

[Pre-Chorus]
The road to the living ran warm in his palm,
The road to the giants beat hard as a psalm.
The road to the dead breathed a frost through his coat—
Nine doors in the darkness, one song in his throat.

[Chorus]
Nine roads in the root, and none will leed me home,
Nine rivers under rock, nine mouths beneath the loam.
“Yai gor dair MIN-neh-neh groor,” let root and marrow know—
I walk where memories grow, where buried voices flow.
Nine roads in the root, though every road may sever,
The man may lose his footsteps; the tree will hold them forever.

[Verse 2]
A doorway of wheat showed a farmhouse at noon,
A doorway of ice held a pale, broken moon.
One smelled of hot anvils and wet leather ties,
One flashed with the gold of the one-handed god’s eyes.
But under their boasting, beneath shield and skin,
Each feared that the world would forget they had been.

[Pre-Chorus]
He struck the harp’s frame with the heel of his hand,
A rhythm rose upward through water and sand.
“The road is not glory, the road is not fame—
The root keeps the deed, not the carving of names.”

[Chorus]
Nine roads in the root, and none will leed me home,
Nine rivers under rock, nine mouths beneath the loam.
“Yai gor dair MIN-neh-neh groor,” let root and marrow know—
I walk where memories grow, where buried voices flow.
Nine roads in the root, though every road may sever,
The man may lose his footsteps; the tree will hold them forever.

[Percussion Break]
(Frame drums divide the six-beat pulse into nine accented strikes while the broken harp frame becomes percussion.)

[Bridge]
The first road asked for courage; he offered it his fear.
The second asked for wisdom; he gave the need to hear.
The fifth called him a coward for carrying no blade—
He answered, “Steel remembers each hand by which it’s made.”

[Build-up]
Five roads behind him, four roads below,
Frost in his beard and sap in his throat.
No horse, no vessel, no torch, no guide—
Only the tree breathing deep at his side.

[Final Chorus]
Nine roads in the root, and none will leed me home,
Nine rivers under rock, nine mouths beneath the loam.
“Yai gor dair MIN-neh-neh groor,” now bone and branch reply—
I walk where memories grow, though every god may die.
Nine roads in the root, nine wounds the worlds deliver,
The man may lose his language; the tree will keep the shiver.

[Outro]
The root became a roadway.
The roadway became rain.
Far off, a millstone turning
Ground hunger into grain.