[Intro]
[The band launches directly into a fast gallop while the three-note motif cuts through both guitars.]

[Verse 1]
At midnight, bells divided dark from darker still to come,
The watchmen crossed the western wall; the courthouse yard was numb.
I carried one small lantern and the archive’s lower key,
The true accounts lay hidden where the judge would never see.
I passed the cells and heard no voice; the new chains lined the floor,
Fourteen warrants waited with their ribbons by the door.
I opened up the ledger where the first red name remained,
Then placed the dry arrest lists where the oil had lightly stained.

[Pre-Chorus]
Not the town.
Not the grain.
Only pages built to bind.
Only tools of ordered crime.

[Chorus]
Burn the ledger, not the houses, not the harvest, not the street.
Burn the lists that turn suspicion into shackles at our feet.
Burn the ledger; let the seal split open in the heat.
No flame can raise the murdered, but it can deny repeat.
Burn the ledger—let the crimson ribbon char.
A book that feeds the gallows must not govern who we are.

[Verse 2]
The flame took first the outer edge, then travelled through the thread;
Elsbeth’s name curled upward, black around the written red.
I watched the false confession crack and Peter’s sentence pale;
Mara’s altered testimony lifted lightly from the scale.
The wax seals formed small crimson pools that ran across the stone,
Like boundary marks dissolving where the stolen fields were shown.
I did not call the fire clean; I did not call it grace—
I watched the tool of future trials collapse within its case.

[Pre-Chorus]
Smoke moved low beneath the beam.
Leather tightened, split the seam.
Every column lost its frame.
Every margin shed a name.

[Instrumental Refrain]
[Twin guitars restate the chorus melody as the burning pages collapse.]

[Guitar Solo]
[An extended twin-guitar solo moves from the descending judgment motif into Mara’s melodic phrase and Peter’s unresolved cadence.]

[Bridge]
The archive door struck hard behind;
The witchfinder entered with the watch aligned.
He saw the ashes, saw my hand,
Then smiled: “The guilty burn what they cannot withstand.”

[Breakdown]
I said, “Your proof was manufactured.”
He said, “Your soul has been enraptured.”
I said, “The fields were sold before.”
He said, “Confession—write one more.”

[Build-up]
They bound my wrists with Peter’s chain.
They struck my mouth when I spoke his name.
A fresh book opened on the stand—
A younger writer raised his hand.

[Final Chorus]
I burned the ledger, not the houses, not the harvest, not the street.
I burned the lists that turned suspicion into shackles at our feet.
I burned the ledger; still the seal survived the heat.
A page can stop one sequence, but the living must defeat
Every ledger, every method, every profitable scar—
No book alone builds gallows. Men decide what records are.

[Outro - Lead and Gang Call and Response]
Lead Vocal: Who burned the register?
Gang Vocals: The clerk they now accuse.
Lead Vocal: Who wrote the first red name?
Gang Vocals: The clerk who learned to choose.
Lead Vocal: Who owns the final judgment?
Gang Vocals: Not paper, seal or flame.
Lead Vocal: Who stands before the courtroom?
Gang Vocals: The next recorded name.

[Outro Coda]
[The guitars repeat the judgment motif, then one lead refuses the final descending note.]
The ledger burned.
The law remained.
My wrists were bound.
The page was changed.