INTRO (Wind. Silence. Sparse piano.) No flames. No screams. No furnaces. The deeper I descended, the less Hell resembled punishment. And the more it resembled absence. VERSE I The storm had died a thousand miles above The engines choked and fell still The towers of Dis were distant memories Buried beneath sheets of crystal ice A continent of frozen silence Stretched beyond the edge of sight Mountains carved from ancient sorrow Glittered beneath a starless night Every step cracked like broken glass Across the motionless sea As if the world itself resented The act of being perceived PRE-CHORUS No wind disturbed the endless plain Even echoes froze in place CHORUS The Frozen Kingdom Where all movement ends A palace built from loneliness And unfinished amends The Frozen Kingdom Beneath the shattered sky The deepest wounds are not the ones That bleed, but those that die VERSE II Far below the ice I glimpsed Shapes suspended in the deep Kings and traitors, saints and tyrants Locked within translucent sleep Their faces held the same expression Not of terror, not of pain But the vacant look of memories Unable to remain The ice preserved their final moments Every betrayal perfectly clear A museum of human fracture Displayed for every century to hear INSTRUMENTAL SECTION (Slow, spacious prog passage) [Clean guitars ring through vast reverb] [Sparse bass notes pulse like distant sonar] [Synth pads drift like polar auroras] [The melody from Gate of the Hopeless returns at half speed] VERSE III Then on the horizon I saw movement The first I'd witnessed in an age Three immense black shapes unfolding Against the frozen haze Not flying. Not walking. Only shifting. Like mountains remembering they were alive. Each movement sent fractures racing Across the endless ice below And every crack released a whisper From souls entombed long ago PRE-CHORUS The silence bent around the shapes As if sound itself were afraid CHORUS The Frozen Kingdom Cathedral made of frost Every empire, every promise Every victory lost The Frozen Kingdom Final depth below Where time becomes another thing Too frozen to flow BRIDGE I fell to my knees upon the glacier Unable to explain the fear Not fear of death. Not fear of pain. But fear of meaninglessness. The realization that oblivion Was colder than any fire. The realization that hatred, greed, and violence Eventually exhaust themselves.
