[Intro]
Two boys stood where the torches spat,
One wolf-prayer, one shaking hand.
The fathers of law looked down at that,
And called it justice for the land.

[Verse 1]
Narfi stared at the iron floor,
Vali clawed the bolted door.
Loki spat, but his throat went dry,
When childhood looked him in the eye.
No feast-lord laughed, no hammer swung,
No saga rose from any tongue.
Only ropes and a god's command,
Only fear in a brother's hand.

[Pre-Chorus]
They changed one son with curse and cry,
Set fang on blood beneath the sky.
A family broke in a ring of spears,
And law grew teeth inside their ears.

[Chorus]
Sons beneath the knife, sons beneath the knife,
Kin made cord for a father's life.
The gods may name it debt and right,
But frost took root in that red night.

[Verse 2]
Vali ran with a beast inside,
Narfi fell where the shadows dried.
The guts were drawn, the knot was blessed,
Warm as guilt on Odin's chest.
Loki roared till the stones turned pale,
Sigyn screamed through the mountain veil.
No oath survived that butchered breath,
No crown came clean from borrowed death.

[Chorus]
Sons beneath the knife, sons beneath the knife,
Kin made cord for a father's life.
The gods may name it debt and right,
But frost took root in that red night.

[Bridge]
A punishment can build a throne,
A punishment can rot its bone.
When fathers bind with children slain,
The world keeps count in ice and pain.

[Breakdown]
Cord of blood.
Cord of son.
Cord of law.
Never undone.

[Final Chorus]
Sons beneath the knife, sons beneath the knife,
Kin made cord for a father's life.
The gods may name it debt and right,
But frost took root in that red night.
Sons beneath the knife, sons beneath the knife,
The winter learned its first true rite.

[Outro]
Under stone, the warm cords tightened,
And every star above them whitened.
