🕯️ 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] [Verse 1] The night sinks into stone and shadow, The walls breathe the cold of memory. Mountain air slips through the cracks, Carrying the scent of wet earth and pine. [Chorus] Poenari ascultă vântul, Prin flăcări tremurânde și fum de seu, Pădurea intră în piatră, Și noaptea ia loc printre ziduri. (Poenari listens to the wind, Through trembling flames and tallow smoke, The forest enters the stone, And the night takes its place among the walls.) [Verse 2] Near the fire lives the warmth of the lost, Footsteps of ghosts fade into silence. Upon the cold wall a shadow gathers A woman of water and night. [Chorus] Argeș, prințesa râului, Încă respiră în piatră și foc, Amintire, nu trup, nu vis, O legendă ce nu moare. (Argeș, the river princess, Still breathes in stone and flame, Memory, not body, not dream, A legend that does not die.) [Bridge] Ahh… Argeș… Ahh… princess of the night… Ahh… I hear you in the wind… Ahh… your echo through the mountains… [Final Verse] In trembling light she fades, A presence remembered, not seen. The castle breathes her story again, As the night swallows her once more. [Outro]
