[Intro]
[Verse 1]
The river took my eyes
And gave them back as something else
A current of aether, a glance through the threads
I do not see — I read the dead
The Flow was meant to save us
And it did, in its own quiet way
Thancred came back to colours
I came back to grey
[Pre-Chorus]
Don't mistake my blindness for weakness
Don't mistake the candle for the night
[Chorus]
I traded the light for the truth
The candle for the deeper flame
Some pay for their sight with gold
I paid with my own slow name
Don't mourn what I gave up — mourn what I lit
There are sights you cannot see in the day
I traded the light for the truth
And it costs me a piece every word I say
[Verse 2]
My old mentor warned me — said the eye that sees too much
Will see itself out of being, a candle in the rush
The Scions never noticed how the spell undoes me slow
Even Thancred — even him — does not know
The aether is a mirror that drinks back what it shows
And I am thinning with the years like the parchment knows
But I never sleep — I never blink — I read the world unending
Every wound in this room is a page turning open for me
And I would pay this price again
[Pre-Chorus]
Don't mistake my blindness for weakness
Don't mistake the candle for the night
[Chorus]
I traded the light for the truth
The candle for the deeper flame
Some pay for their sight with gold
I paid with my own slow name
Don't mourn what I gave up — mourn what I lit
There are sights you cannot see in the day
I traded the light for the truth
And it costs me a piece every word I say
[Bridge]
There are nights I dream in colours I no longer have
A meadow's exact green, my mother's blue scarf
I wake and I find them — the threads, the glow, the swarm
But I cannot remember warm
[Final Chorus]
I traded the light for the truth
And the truth is a debt I am carrying
Every spell I cast draws breath from your lungs
Your fading light, a candle against the ferry
But don't mourn what I gave — mourn what I take
The dark is full of teachers, the bright is full of lies
I traded the light for the truth
And the river still has not had its fill
[Outro]
In the Rak'tika dark
They called me Night's Blessed
And I was — and I am — and I will be
Until the river takes the rest of me
