Lightbringer

Lyrics

They pray for the dawn.
They never ask what the dawn costs.

I failed in the water, I broke in the cold.
I splintered to fragments, a story untold.
I failed in the lion, I shattered on pride.
Fifty days in the fire, and nowhere to hide.
He swept up the pieces and started again,
A hundred days beating the iron, and then—
He called for the woman who anchored his life.

I am the Red Sword, the core of the myth.
The burning perfection you threaten them with.
But please leave me sleeping, please let me rust.
Do not make me do what the prophecies must.
For I know the toll of the light that I bring—
I only wake up when you kill the best thing.

I remember her skin. I remember the angle.
The slip of the ribs where the soft tissues tangle.
Forty-two pounds of pressure to clear the breastbone,
To sink in the one heart he claimed as his own.
Her soul didn't fly, it was pulled down the steel,
And I became something too heavy to feel.
My hilt mapped his grief till we shared the same hand,
Reaching to murder before he had planned.

Now I am a story you sing in the hall.
You wait for the hero to answer the call.
You polish the scabbard, you pray for the edge,
But you haven't looked at the drop from the ledge.
To hold me is easy. To wake me is hell.

I am the Red Sword, the core of the myth.
The burning perfection you threaten them with.
But please leave me sleeping, please let me rust.
Do not make me do what the prophecies must.
For I know the toll of the light that I bring—
I only wake up when you kill the best thing.

So keep your long winter.
Leave me in the cold.
I hear footsteps coming.
A new cycle told.
And she is walking right beside him, trusting his hand.
I don't want to shine.