🕯️ At night, Poenari sank into stone and shadow. The walls held the cold like memory, breathing it back into the chambers, while thin streams of night air slipped through narrow openings, carrying the scent of the forests below wet earth, pine, rain, and the sharp edge of frost. Candle flames wavered and bowed to every draft, casting restless light across the rough walls as tallow smoke pooled and lingered in the air. Warmth lived only close to the hearth; step away and the cold returned at once, quiet and patient. Beyond the murmuring fire and the soft hiss of wax, the castle listened, to wind moving through trees, to the mountain night pressing close, as if the forest itself had entered and taken its place among the stones. In that trembling half-light, the faint silhouette of a woman seemed to gather and dissolve against the wall: Argeș, Prințesa, the river princess; a presence remembered rather than seen, as if the castle still held the echo of the life she lived and the night in which she vanished into legend. [Intro] The mountain breathes beneath the moon. A single candle flickers in the dark. The forest exhales against the castle stones. Wolves call beyond the precipice. The air itself remembers her name. [Verse 1] The night descends like velvet ash, Across these walls that drank her sorrow. The cold remembers every breath, Each whisper left to fade in marrow. The mountain sleeps, but never still, Its heart still bound beneath the tower. The wind moves slow through broken halls, And tastes of frost, and blood, and power. [Chorus] Poenari ascultă vântul, Prin flăcări tremurânde și fum, Pădurea intră în piatră, Și noaptea o cheamă acum. (Poenari listens to the wind, Through trembling flames and smoke, The forest enters the stone, And the night calls her home) [Verse 2] Her shadow stirs where light once fell, Between the tapestries of grief. Her sigh returns through hollow wells, A prayer that time denies relief. They say she fell beneath the moon, The mountain swore her soul to keep. The Argeș took her in its arms, And sang her name to drown her youth. [Chorus] Argeș, prințesa râului, Respiră-n foc și piatră grea, Amintire, nu trup, nu vis, Doar noaptea te mai vrea. (Argeș, the river princess, Breathes in fire and heavy stone, Memory, not body, not dream, Only the night still calls you home) [Bridge] Ahh… Argeș… Ahh… Prințesă a nopții… Te aud în vânt, în ape, în stâncă… Cântă lupii pentru tine… (Ahh… Argeș… Princess of the night… I hear you in wind, in water, in stone… The wolves are singing for you) [Verse 3] Now candlelight forgets her face, Yet shadows keep her vow unspoken. The hearth is ash, the air is glass, The curse endures, the line is broken. And when the river dreams of flame, Her voice drifts through the mountain’s bone A sigh, a vow, a whispered name, Forever sung, forever alone. [Final Chorus] Ecoul munților o poartă, Prin ceață, sânge și nor, Lumină stinsă, inimă moartă, Argeș, dormi sub zbor. (The echo of the mountains bears her, Through mist, and blood, and storm, A faded light, a heart long dead, Argeș, sleep beneath the dawn.) [Outro] Wind moves through the stones like memory. And Poenari stands.. alone, listening
