[Intro]
[Detuned twelve-string guitar picks seven-beat figures around one sustained high harmonic.]

[Verse 1]
I washed the knife in root-cold rain,
Then watched my face divide in twain.
One side was king, one side was prey;
The well received them both that day.
Mimir held neither cloth nor bowl.
He would not comfort what he stole.
The water waited, black and still,
More patient than a grave or will.

[Pre-Chorus]
I set my thumb beneath the bone.
No guard stood near; I stood alone.
The blade went in without a word—
The smallest sound I ever heard.

[Chorus]
An eye for the water, a wound for the word,
A bargain no throne and no army had heard.
I gave the well daylight from my face,
And memory opened its cold-rooted place.
An eye for the water—no witness, no plea;
The well took the world and returned it to me.

[Verse 2]
The blood ran warm across my hand,
A narrow river, bright and bland.
It struck the stones in measured drops;
Each drop erased a road that stopped.
I held the eye above the deep;
It looked awake, but could not weep.
For one brief breath it watched me there,
Then vanished through the water’s glare.

[Chorus]
An eye for the water, a wound for the word,
A bargain no throne and no army had heard.
I gave the well daylight from my face,
And memory opened its cold-rooted place.
An eye for the water—no witness, no plea;
The well took the world and returned it to me.

[Instrumental]
[The high harmonic cuts off; low guitar and tagelharpa continue the motif with one note deliberately missing.]

[Bridge]
The left side darkened, yet below
A second field began to glow.
I saw through silt, through root, through years,
Through infant laughter, widow’s tears.

[Breakdown]
[Elder Male Vocal: Mimir]
Drink now, oath-maker. Drink your due.
[Male Vocal: Odin]
The cup is red.
[Elder Male Vocal: Mimir]
The truth is too.
[Male Vocal: Odin]
Wisdom never comes without a wound.

[Buildup]
I raised the horn with shaking hand.
The water smelled of iron and sand.
My severed sight looked back at me—
A lantern drowned beneath the tree.

[Buildup II]
The root struck three notes through the stone—
I drank the memory not my own.

[Final Chorus]
An eye for the water, a wound for the word,
Now every dead generation was heard.
I buried my daylight beneath that place,
And thousands of endings poured into its space.
An eye for the water—the bargain was done;
I drank with one eye and arose without one.

[Outro]
My eye keeps watch where roots descend.
It saw the price.
It cannot end.
