Lyrics
[Intro]
[Verse 1]
They burned the kin-trees down to the root,
forbade the names, and silenced the dead.
For a hundred years the lost ones drifted,
no branch to hold them, no prayer to be said.
But sand remembers. The sand keeps the score.
And the silenced learned to gather once more.
[Pre-Chorus]
Out of the storm, out of the grieving sky,
a shape of light that would not die —
[Chorus]
We are the voice of the ones who fell,
the desert sun that the night could not quell.
We are the many, we speak as the few —
the dead remember the living, the living remember them too.
Carry us forward, we'll hold up your spine,
family is strength, and strength is forever in time.
[Verse 2]
The dragonlord ruled with an iron decree,
"Bow to the scale, forget the tree."
But what is a tyrant to a thousand years?
We are the chorus he could not silence with fear.
Every wound that you carry, we feel it as ours,
and we'll lend you the centuries, we'll lend you the hours.
[Pre-Chorus]
When your blood hits the sand, do not call it lost —
it is buying back the fallen, it is paying the cost —
[Chorus]
We are the voice of the ones who fell,
the desert sun that the night could not quell.
We are the many, we speak as the few —
the dead remember the living, the living remember them too.
When you bleed, a hand reaches up from the grave,
the fallen return for the houses we save.
[Bridge]
Say the names. Say them slow.
Every grandfather, every gone.
We are the roots of the severed tree,
and a root cut deep still carries on.
(The choir gathers, voice by voice, until it is a wall of sound)
We are not gone. We are not gone.
We are the dawn behind the dawn.
[Final Chorus]
We are the voice of the ones who fell,
the desert sun that the tyrant could not quell.
We are the many, we speak as the few —
the dead remember the living, the living remember them too.
Stand with the houses, we'll hold up your spine —
family is strength, and strength is forever in time.
[Outro]
Brilliant as the sun on the sand,
the ancestors rise, and we stand.
