[Intro]
[Male Vocal]
Under the beam where the ash marks spread,
Odin counted what the dead had said.

[Verse 1]
I hung my laws on spear and word,
On open scar and witness heard.
I trusted iron, oath and hall,
The public blow, the answered call.
But GOOL-vayg walked from the killing fire,
With gold in ash and a thread like wire.
FRAY-yah's craft moved under the skin,
A door where the war-hands could not win.

[Pre-Chorus]
Call it shame if the loud men must,
Call it dirt on the king’s old trust.
A ruler who sees only sword and stone,
Will wake one day on a borrowed throne.

[Chorus]
Odin learns the hidden thread,
Not from triumph, but from the dead.
Odin learns the hidden thread,
Gold was the bait and the war was fed.
Bind the word, bend the breath,
Rule is a loom between life and death.

[Verse 2]
[Duet]
FRAY-yah watched with her hawk-eyes cold,
As I asked for the art I had tried to hold.
No feast could soften the price I paid,
No carved excuse could clean the blade.
She showed me knots in a cup of rain,
Names that loosen, names that chain.
She showed me how a whisper thrown,
Can move more gates than a battle stone.

[Pre-Chorus]
I felt the old hall shift and lean,
As if each beam had always been
A thread in hands I had not seen,
A king’s red cloak with a woman’s seam.

[Chorus]
Odin learns the hidden thread,
Not from triumph, but from the dead.
Odin learns the hidden thread,
Gold was the bait and the war was fed.
Bind the word, bend the breath,
Rule is a loom between life and death.

[Instrumental Break][Tagelharpa repeats the three-note motif while drums slowly move from sparse toms into double kick.]

[Bridge]
I will not say I came unscarred,
I will not call the lesson hard.
Hard is the child beneath the shield,
Hard is the mud in Asgard’s field.

[Breakdown]
[Harsh Vocal]
No roar. No crown.
Only thread pulled underground.
No boast. No cheer.
Only power learning fear.

[Final Chorus]
Odin learns the hidden thread,
Not from triumph, but from the dead.
Odin learns the hidden thread,
Gold was the bait and the war was fed.
Rule is a loom between life and death.
And the old spear bows its head.

[Outro]
Under the beam where the ash marks spread,
A new kind of war woke inside his head.