[Verse 1: Quiet, observant] They dwell behind another's walls, their names diminished, rights denied. They bow their heads to pass the gates their fathers built on either side. The children learn which streets are theirs, which doors will open, which will close. And those who call themselves their masters speak of mercy as they go. [Instrumental] Beyond the cities, scattered clans keep watch beneath an open sky. They carry all that they can save and teach their children how to hide. They guard the embers of a people, make of endurance something holy. I once knew those who lived for wonder. [Softly] Now they live to see tomorrow. [Pre-Chorus: Wistful, rising] We had survived enough to flourish, to make of life a thing beyond the simple labor of enduring, the fear of all that might be gone. [Chorus: Melodic, indignant] And this is what the world has made: the hunted taught to bow their heads, the dispossessed denied a country, the living ruled by ancient dread. Their masters call it peace and order, declare the suffering deserved. I know the shape of such dominion. [Grimly] I have seen whom it has served. [Verse 2: Sardonic, increasingly bitter] The kingdoms raise their painted banners where older stones lie underneath. Each crown declares its reign eternal, each lord inherits stolen peace. They quarrel over lines on parchment, send the poor to settle claims, then write their triumphs into history and count the fallen as their gains. How swiftly men appoint themselves the measure of the world they know. They build their thrones on buried kingdoms, then boast of all they've overthrown. They walk among the broken temples, declare the fallen weak or vain. I wonder what their kings would answer if their builders rose again. [Pre-Chorus: Bitter, building] The names are changed. The thrones are altered. The old conceits remain the same. They build their laws upon possession, then call their conquests righteous claims. [Chorus: Forceful, disdainful] And this is what the world has made: new masters wearing older crowns, new laws to keep the weak in service, new kingdoms on the conquered ground. They call their victories the natural and rightful order of the world. I know the shape of such dominion. I know how easily it returns. [Instrumental] [Verse 3: Cutting, controlled anger] In Tevinter, the mage is master, robed in gold and steeped in lore. He speaks of greatness, blood, and lineage while slaves lie sleeping on his floor. He takes the works of those he conquered, claims their knowledge as his own, then calls himself the rightful heir to wonders he has never known. [Colder] And in the south, they fear the mage, confine the gift and bind the hand. They call the prison sanctuary, and name the jailer just and grand. They teach that spirits must be demons, that fear is wisdom, doubt a sin. And those who never touched the Fade presume to tell me what lies within. [Pre-Chorus: Rising anger] One makes a throne of stolen power. One makes a cage of frightened prayer. Each claims to guard the world from ruin. [Quiet contempt] And neither knows what once was there. [Chorus: Urgent, powerful] And this is what the world has made: the gifted taught to fear their hands, the powerful convinced of virtue, the bound forbidden to withstand. They call their laws the work of wisdom, their cruelties a sacred need. I know the shape of such dominion. I know the lies on which it feeds. [Instrumental] [Bridge: Reflective, gradually detached] Yet still they build. They love. They labor. They bury those whose lives were brief. They make their little songs and stories, find some consolation in their grief. They raise their children, tend their gardens, speak of futures they might see. And I have watched them from a distance, uncertain what to make of these. [Searching, darkening] For what is freedom to a people who have forgotten what it means? What is a life without the waking of the world beyond their dreams? They have no memory of the silence where once a thousand voices spoke. They cannot mourn what they have never known. [Hushed] They cannot see the world is broken. [Final Chorus: Grave, resolute] And this is what the world has made: a people severed from the Fade, who live within the narrow bounds of all that my own hands have made. They speak of love. They speak of freedom. They cherish all their fleeting days. I know the shape of what is missing. [Certain] I know what they were meant to be. [Outro: Cold, intimate] They grieve, and I can name the grief. They dream, and I can hear their dreams. Yet something in them does not answer. They are less than what they seem. [Quiet, final] I have walked among their shadows. I have listened. I have tried. But a shadow cannot know what it means to be alive. [Instrumental Outro]
