[Intro]
[Five angular guitar strokes interlock with three bowed tagelharpa notes.]

[Verse 1]
At first I thought the blood had dried
In crooked tracks beneath my side.
Then every track unhooked from skin
And turned its sharpened edges in.
One mark stood upright, split at crown;
One crossed itself and pointed down.
One bent like knees beside a grave;
One held the shape a closed mouth gave.

[Pre-Chorus]
No hand had cut them into wood.
No teacher named them bad or good.
They moved below the root in time
And hammered silence into rhyme.

[Chorus]
The shapes beneath the root now rise,
Red little laws with angled eyes.
One binds the wound, one wakes the dead,
One turns the spear, one seals the thread.
I grasp them not—the shapes grasp me
And name the god I cease to be.

[Verse 2]
A mark for cattle, loss and gain,
A mark for hail that strikes the grain.
A mark for journeys, wheel and road,
A mark that shares or breaks a load.
They were not letters dressed in red;
They held the acts for which men bled.
Each angle carried deed and sound,
A narrow law beneath the ground.

[Chorus]
The shapes beneath the root now rise,
Red little laws with angled eyes.
One binds the wound, one wakes the dead,
One turns the spear, one seals the thread.
I grasp them not—the shapes grasp me
And name the god I cease to be.

[Instrumental]
[Angular guitar and close unison voices trade five-note cells while drums alternate 5/8 and 10/8.]

[Verse 3]
I saw a rune that dulled a blade,
Another kept a promise made.
One opened locks inside the mind;
One made the living tongue unkind.
One called a fever from the vein;
One laid forgetfulness on pain.
I reached; they sank another span,
As though they measured what I am.

[Bridge]
[Runes]
Do not call us gift or guide.
We carry cure and harm inside.
The hand that writes may heal or bind;
The mouth that names may guide or blind.
[Male Vocal: Odin]
Then teach me how the signs are known.
[Runes]
First lose the name you call your own.

[Break]
I gave the well my outward sight.
The tree had taken day and night.
The spear had opened blood and blame.
The runes now asked my final name.

[Buildup]
I loosed my grip upon the king.
I loosed the hall, the crown, the ring.
I loosed the father, guest and lord—
Each title fell beneath the cord.

[Buildup II]
The shapes rose closer, red and clear.
They waited just beyond the spear.

[Final Chorus]
The shapes beneath the root now rise,
No longer laws with foreign eyes.
One holds the wound, one names the dead,
One joins the severed word and thread.
I know them now—they enter me
And kill the god I used to be.

[Refrain]
The shapes beneath the root arise;
Their sharpened grammar fills my eye.

[Outro]
Nine forms hover.
Nine forms turn.
I open my hand.
The angles burn.