[Intro - bare lute, winter wind] [Verse 1] In the Vale house beneath the rain, Where every loaf was counted, A boy stood over ledgers While the winter stores diminished. He knew which rooms were losing heat, Which boots had split with weather, Which servant hid a portion To keep her little brother fed. [Verse 2] His father taught him, “Count the cost. Let nothing go unmeasured.” His mother showed him how to mend A sleeve before the leather. He learned that care was useful work, That need must stay concealed, And every kindness bought a debt That must one day be revealed. [Chorus] Oh, the queen was cracked and white, The board was cold and bare. He learned to move the pieces first And ask who suffered there. [Verse 3] At nine, he broke the ivory queen. His father kept the splinter. “At least,” he said, “the flaw remains To educate the winner.” At thirteen, the queen was sacrificed. At sixteen, on the stair, His father caught him by the wrist: “Pride is not balance there.” [Verse 4] The hungry years came down like rain. The cattle sickened slowly. The house still served its polished meals While tenants emptied wholly. He changed the ledgers, moved the grain, Found shoes for those forgotten, And called each mercy “sound repair” So no one knew he’d softened. [Chorus] Oh, the queen was cracked and white, The board was cold and bare. He learned to move the pieces first And ask who suffered there. [Verse 5] Mara kept another book, With names beside the numbers: The girl who lost her father’s roof, The boy who stole from hunger. She wrote what Viktor’s sums concealed, The help and the humiliation. He saved a family from the frost And shamed the hand that saved them. [Verse 6] Then came a man with easy terms, Dry gloves and perfect credit. He saw the house, the empty stalls, The pride that would not leave it. He offered Viktor quicker roads Than patience ever made. The boy who’d spent his life as proof Mistook the price for aid. [Bridge - quiet, spoken-sung] No demon waited in the dark. No curse had yet begun. There was only a tired young man Who wanted to be enough. [Verse 7] He rode away to mend the house And left its lights behind him. The Patron’s road was clean and bright. No honest witness followed. In northern rooms, beneath the stone, They starved him into choosing. They taught his hunger how to speak And called the lesson freedom. [Verse 8] A message bore the name of Alice. A door stood open waiting. Veyne watched the last clear part of him Go silent beneath the feeding. He learned her name when all was done. He buried what remained. And every sense remembered her, But none of them could save her. [Chorus - darker harmony] Oh, the queen was cracked and white, The board was cold and bare. He learned to move the pieces first Until no living hand was there. [Verse 9] The Vale house lost its roof and lands. The servants scattered slowly. The official word said Viktor fled, A failure, proud and lonely. But Mara carried names away, And Alice’s absent traces. She saved the truth from being made A cleaner kind of falsehood. [Final Chorus - full arrangement] Oh, the queen was cracked and white, Still carried through the years. Not proof that Viktor should be loved, But proof that he was here. He was cruel, and he was useful. He was frightened, proud, and kind. The dead may leave a simpler tale. Mara refused to leave him blind. [Outro - solo harp] And somewhere in a ruined house, Beneath the dust and weather, A cracked white queen remembers What the living could not bear.
