///*****/// [Intro] Beyond the sleeping world lies a marble capital sinking slowly into a salt marsh, Where silence wears the color of a bruise. One spark survives beneath the weight of years, One human voice refuses to be used. [Verse 1] I carried doubt like water in a helmet, I carried blame like gravel in my boots. The climb exposed the weakness of my anger, Then showed me where a deeper courage roots. Not every battle asks a blade for payment, Not every victory needs a royal name. Sometimes the bravest act is standing open, And guarding one uncelebrated flame. [Pre-Chorus] Let the warning drums awaken, Let the hidden doors unseal. What was whispered now is spoken, What was wounded now is steel. [Chorus] The hollow king commands no dawn! Let the hammering heavens hear our cry. The hollow king commands no dawn! We were born to stand, not wait to die. Through the smoke, through the wound, through the night that calls us liars, We will carry living iron, we will carry living fires. The hollow king commands no dawn! Raise the truth until it cuts across the sky. [Verse 2] They promised peace, but sent us a ruler whose golden mask contains no living face. They dressed the oldest hunger up as law. I watched the faithful trade away their names, I watched the proud salute the thing they saw. Then in the ruin I uncovered twelve dim stars above an empty throne; No jeweled relic, only proof made bright. It held the warmth of everyone who fell, And showed my empty hands what they must fight. [Chorus] The hollow king commands no dawn! We were born to stand, not wait to die. Through the smoke and through the wound, carry the living fire. The hollow king commands no dawn! Raise the truth across the sky. [Bridge] If I return alone, remember this: we will carry memory beyond the falling walls. No monument can breathe for those it buries, No sacred word can make a falsehood clean. The future is not granted by the mighty; It starts wherever ordinary hearts convene. [Guitar Solo - a slow, mournful guitar solo built from vocal-like bends, ancient-sounding modal phrases and a final harmonized lament] [Rhythm guitars hold the central motif while bass and drums widen the battlefield.] [Verse 3] This is the tale of the spiritual collapse of an empire that mistakes wealth for permanence. The weak became a wall around each other, The lost became a road across the rain. We learned that hope is neither soft nor silent, It bites the hand that feeds the world despair. It lifts the fallen standard from the gutter, And makes a kingdom out of those who care. [Final Chorus] The hollow king commands no dawn! Let the last horizon answer to our cry. The hollow king commands no dawn! We have learned the dark can bleed and empires die. Through the smoke, through the wound, through the years that tried to break us, We are neither owned nor ended; every scar will remake us. The hollow king commands no dawn! Raise the truth until it cuts across the sky.
