[Intro]
[Piano plays the broken-horn motif as a slow six-eight lullaby.]

[Verse 1]
The scabbard split beside the evening fire,
Its leather shrank, its threads began to tire.
A folded strip slid free from underneath,
Still smelling faintly of tobacco leaf.
I knew the hand before I read the line—
The narrow “I,” the crooked “r”—his sign.
My father’s script, condemned when I was ten,
Had crossed the grave to speak to me again.

[Chorus]
They blackened my father’s name in every book and frame,
They called his mercy treason and his silence shame.
He let the city curse him, let the gallows claim
The man who kept the northern road beyond Haldren’s flame.
My father’s blackened name was never black at all—
It was ash he wore to hide a spark behind the wall.

[Verse 2]
[Father]
“My son,” he wrote, “I failed you as I chose.
I fed the court a road that no one knows.
They broke my hands, but maps require a mind;
I placed the truest path where none would find.
The sword you hold once guarded Vaelgrim’s sleep;
Its rust is proof the oath was ours to keep.
Do not forgive the lies I made you bear—
Just reach the blue-ice mountain. He waits there.”

[Chorus]
They blackened my father’s name in every book and frame,
They called his mercy treason and his silence shame.
He let the city curse him, let the gallows claim
The man who kept the northern road beyond Haldren’s flame.
My father’s blackened name was never black at all—
It was ash he wore to hide a spark behind the wall.

[Instrumental Break]
[Cello carries the father’s melody while clean guitar answers each phrase.]

[Bridge]
I remembered how I would not take his hand,
How soldiers led him barefoot through the land.
I joined the crowd to prove his stain was mine;
He turned once, calm beneath the gallows sign.

[Build-up]
I pressed the letter flat against the blade,
And spoke the first true prayer that I had made:
“I cannot give you back the years they stole,
But I can carry what you died to hold.”

[Final Chorus]
They blackened my father’s name; I’ll set the record right,
Not as a flawless hero, but a man who paid the price.
He let his child despise him so the dragon kept the night;
Now every step I take restores one stolen light.
My father’s blackened name will stand when false crowns fall—
The ash he wore has marked the road beyond the northern wall.

[Outro]
I placed his letter where my heart would feel,
Then wrapped his name around the rusted steel.
