[Verse 1: restrained warmth, purposeful, shadowed by war] We learned to move between their armies, open doors they thought were sealed, wipe the brandings from the captive, leave before the horns could sound. Every stronghold had a weakness. Every master had a fear. Every victory brought another hundred voices drawing near. Fella-sahn laughed across the table, maps and messages between. For a while the work was simple: find the chain and set them free. And I still wrote to those who'd listen. I still wrote to those who would not. There are minds that pride has hardened. There are choices not yet lost. [Chorus: melodic lift, hopeful but ominous] There is always one more answer, one more path we haven't tried, one more word that might remind them who they were before their pride. If another day of waiting leaves their captives still in chains, then I choose, and bear the choosing. I will answer for the pain. [Verse 2: darker, morally uneasy, increasing tension] Then the choices grew less simple. Every road divided twice: save the passage, lose the refuge; save the many, spend a life. I learned what a life was worth when weighed against a hundred more. Learned how quickly calculation learns the language of a war. Fella-sahn brought me his objections. I could answer every one. If we waited, they would find us. If we faltered, they had won. Then one victory revealed I had not told him what I'd planned. What he thought had been our purpose had been cover for my hand. [Pre-Chorus: intimate confrontation, tension held back] "You sent them there believing that the feint was truly meant. We're supposed to be better than this." I told him what their deaths had bought. [Chorus: conflicted, darker melodic variation] There is always one more answer, one more path we haven't tried, one more move that costs us dearly, one more reason to decide. They were never bent or broken. They met death still as themselves. I believed that should have mattered. He asked if I could hear myself. [Verse 3: searching, troubled, not angry] I did hear him. That was harder. He was not some frightened fool. He had stood beside me from the first and knew precisely whom we fought. But knowing what the cost had been could not unmake the need I saw. I had counted every consequence. I could justify them all. Still I wrote to Ghilan'nain. I remembered what she'd been: restless hands and boundless questions, making beasts no one had seen. I told her brilliance need not master. She told me I had chosen bounds. There were heights I would not reach for. Then we found what she had found. [Instrumental: sudden rupture, familiar motifs warping and decaying] [Verse 4: uncanny body horror, alien and deeply disturbing] In the chambers underneath her, something ancient breathed again. Not a weapon made for battle. Not a thing that should have been given flesh to spread corruption, given purpose, given form. I had known it when we made it. I had helped contain it once. Tarasahl was still there breathing. Ghilan'nain had made her proof. Blight beneath her skin was spreading. There was nothing I could do. She called me greater than the others. [voice faltering, horrified] I could not save her. [dark, controlled] I made certain what was in that place would never leave the room. [Instrumental: grotesque corrupted motif, unstable rhythm, mounting horror] [Verse 5: nightmarish existential horror, genuine fear] I had ordered deaths in battle. I had sent friends into risk. I had learned to speak of losses as the price resistance gives. Those were horrors I could measure. This was something else entirely. I knew what slept beneath our world. [terrified realization] I knew what waking it could mean. And they meant to use it. [stark, horrified] Not contain it. Not destroy it. [palpable dread] Use it. [Bridge: horror remains underneath, desperate urgency] All the letters. All the warnings. Every argument I'd made. Every hope that one among them might remember and refrain. I had watched them choose dominion. I had watched them choose the chains. But this could leave no world behind us where their victory had a name. [quiet, shaken] There must still be someone. Someone they might hear. Someone who has stood among them and restrained them all these years. [Final Chorus: urgent, desperate hope over lingering darkness] There is always one more answer. There must still be one to try. One more voice that they may listen to before we cross this final line. I have fought them. I have warned them. I have watched them choose the worst. But if she sees what they are reaching for, she'll understand the danger first. She has stopped them from their madness. She has made the proud concede. If there is one voice they'll answer, if there is one they may heed— [Outro: grave, horror unresolved] I have asked my enemies for reason. I have asked my friends for trust. Now they reach for what we buried. [quiet certainty] And I know who I must ask.
