[Intro: distant storm, low string drone, langspil solo motif] [Choir, wordless hum, rising] [Icelandic accented lyrics] [Act I: The Ash That Remembers] [Verse 1] Under the ash where the old bell drowned, A name kept warm in the frozen ground. Ash-heavy winters sealed her door, But Katla remembered what the world ignored. [Verse 2] They buried her sword in a stranger's hand, They buried the queen with the wrong command. But grief has a hinge, and the hinge has rust, And Katla is patient, and Katla is just. [Pre-Chorus] So wake the drum, unquiet one, The storm remembers what they said was done. [Chorus] Þórdís, Þórdís, daughter of fire, Rise with the longship, rise through the pyre. Crown made of ember, throne made of stone, Katla remembers and calls you home. [Choir, call and response, Icelandic/Norse-style chant] Vakna, Þórdís, vakna. [Act II: The Storm Claims Its Own] [Verse 3] A fool came asking if a woman could hold A kingdom of glass in a kingdom of cold. She measured his silence, she weighed every stone, And taught him the cost of a borrowed throne. [Verse 4] Nine ships came hunting the ghost in the bay, Nine ships turned back with less to say. Not a queen of mercy, not a queen of tears, A queen who outwaited a thousand years. [Chorus] Þórdís, Þórdís, daughter of fire, Rise with the longship, rise through the pyre. Crown made of ember, throne made of stone, Katla remembers and calls you home. [Bridge 1: instrumental] [Langspil and lead guitar trade phrases] [Half-time war drums, then full orchestral swell] [Choir rising underneath] [Act III: What the Mountain Kept] [Verse 5] She was a girl once, laughing on the shore, Before they told her what a girl was for. She refused to kneel by the hearth and wall, She learned to stand where kings would fall. [Bridge 2: quiet, langspil prominent, near a-cappella choir] [Choir, hushed, Icelandic/Norse-style chant] Eldur í beinum, eldur í blóð. [Langspil solo, sparse strings, soprano held note] Hope was the ember they could not put out. Fate wrote her ending, so she crossed it out. [Final Chorus: brighter lift, full orchestra, choir, double-time guitars] Þórdís, Þórdís, daughter of fire, Crowned by the mountain, raised from the pyre. Every ash-queen the ages tried to erase, Katla remembers. Katla never forgot. Rise, rise, rise. [Verse 6 / Outro] The longship is quiet. The storm has passed through. Somewhere an ember still answers to you. [Outro: langspil solo alone, choir hum fading, single sustained soprano note, silence]
