Verse 1 In the kingdom of sacred feral youth I stole a relic from our ritual feast White vertebra beneath pale winter sun Picked clean by things never seen Talisman carried through the crowd Like a saint carries relics under shroud Not knowing I had raised a standard Not knowing I had called one home Chorus We thought we were boys killing time The old gods knew otherwise A bone A scar A forge A fire Invisible hands drew the lines Verse 2 Arm out - asked to see the relic once I answered in an elder tongue A screech and a slash and a dance Blood and laughter, tooth and stone Around the desks our battle ran Until the elders broke the spell Yet from that wound a brother rose As strange as any tale could tell Bridge Years beneath the summer forge Steel screaming into shape Neither knowing what's in store Neither knowing what would stay Final Chorus Across the street from tortured iron We fed our shoes into the flame The smoke climbed upward like an offering The darkness answered with our names We danced around a dying fire As countless had always done Thinking we were ending something Not knowing the rite had just begun
