I Kept My Hands Clean for Seris | Celtic Folk Ballad

She swore her hands would never draw blood again. Then the iron closed around her shins, and something else began to bleed for her. A Celtic lament of linen-wrapped hands and warm ash where every step falls. The Vicarious Road, part 1 of 3 (Victim) Relic: Let the Road Provide Your Hands -    • Let the Road Provide Your Hands | Celtic M...   Legend: coming soon All songs: Reimagined Relics    • Reimagined Relics   Music generated with SUNO. Lyrics, lore and concept by me. If the road stays with you, subscribe for the next chapters. [Intro] Beneath a roof of painted doors I did the city's will, Nine hundred times and more I made a beating heart lie still. Then I wound my palms in burial cloth and swore by morning grey That nothing warm would bleed by me until my dying day. [Verse 1] They closed the iron round my shins, as black as starless stone, And roots as fine as horses' hair went drinking at the bone. I raised my knife, the edge went soft as moonlight on the fur, But where my heel came down in soot, the ash began to stir. An arrow found my shoulder once, I only wore a bruise, While something knelt and cracked for me and paid what I would lose. Now every step I leave behind is warm ash on the ground, And underneath my heels at night I hear a crowded sound. [Pre-Chorus] I never struck, I never cut, I never closed a hand, The road does all my bleeding now across the salt and sand. And when I ask what pays for me, the iron will not say, It only hums of where roads meet and pulls me on my way. [Chorus] I kept my hands clean for Seris, wound in linen white, I walk the ash by day and hear it weeping in the night. My shins are grown with iron roots, my scars have gone to snow, And something kneels and breaks for me wherever I must go. Oh, the law was sharp, the block was cold, I chose it once before, Now I'll never lift a blade again, I'll never close a door. I kept my hands clean for Seris, clean as winter bone, But the road beneath my blackened feet is not my road alone. [Verse 2] We passed a town of reeds and smoke where hollow men came on, I stamped my heels and two great shapes rose up against the dawn. The water walled, the marsh went black, I never touched a soul, The village gave me bread and salt and called my mercy whole. But the weaver's silver trees went grey along the topmost bough, And a little boy said, "I know her face, she visits me somehow." I tore the buckles till I bled, the red would not come down, And deep inside a kneeling chest went dark a little town. [Chorus] I kept my hands clean for Seris, wound in linen white, I walk the ash by day and hear it weeping in the night. My shins are grown with iron roots, my scars have gone to snow, And something kneels and breaks for me wherever I must go. Oh, the law was sharp, the block was cold, I chose it once before, Now I'll never lift a blade again, I'll never close a door. I kept my hands clean for Seris, clean as winter bone, But the road beneath my blackened feet is not my road alone. [Bridge] I looked in glass of salt and found no face of mine at all, But a girl with Seris' eyes who pressed her palm against the wall. She wore my linen on her hands, a city at her back, Then the mirror cracked, the warm ash poured, and all the glass went black. Oh, it whispers now in Seris' voice and offers me release, A thousand years where no one died and every road meant peace. My knife is soft, my fists are glass, I cannot wound the thing, So I'll stamp once at the turning wheel and let the iron ring. [Final Chorus] I kept my hands clean for Seris, wound in linen white, I walk the ash by day and hear it weeping in the night. My shins are grown with iron roots, my scars have gone to snow, And something kneels and breaks for me wherever I must go. Oh, the law was sharp, the block was cold, I chose it once before, Now I'll never lift a blade again, I'll never close a door. I kept my hands clean for Seris, clean as winter bone, But the road beneath my blackened feet is not my road alone. So bury me where the doors were drawn, beneath the empty block, With linen white upon my hands and ash upon the rock. I kept my hands clean for Seris, though the price I cannot name, And no one born will ever come to sing me praise or blame. [Outro] The painted doors have peeled away, the court is still and wide, I lie beneath the block alone where once my sister died. Clean the linen, clean the hands, and cold the ashen floor, And something small goes walking out the gate I closed before. #CelticFolk #DarkFantasy #AIMusic