[Intro — Mydaal, early morning, before the city wakes] She has the sight now And she uses it To go home
She did not expect it to hurt this much
[Verse 1 — the city, alive and beautiful] The bells are ringing over the market The way they have rung for three hundred years The baker’s daughter is carrying bread Still warm from the oven Still smelling like everything safe
The blacksmith is already at work The sound of it carries three streets The children are at the fountain Fighting about something the way children fight about things that don’t matter and are therefore everything
The church is full this morning
It is always full
The candles have been lit The robes are white The light through the windows does exactly what it was designed to do
It makes everyone feel chosen
[Pre-Chorus] She loved this city
She loves this city
She would burn for this city She has burned for this city She has carried this city In her chest Since the first morning She understood what it meant to protect something
[Chorus] And then the rumors start
The way the rumors always start Quiet Between two women At the edge of the market
Did you hear Did you hear Did you hear about the purple woman
[Verse 2 — the stories, growing] She tempts the men
That is the first one She comes to them in dreams She comes to them at the crossroads She offers them things a wife cannot offer And they follow her south And they do not come back
She kills without reason
That is the second one Villages emptied overnight No warning no mercy Just the mist And the morning after Just the silence
She takes the children
That is the third one The ones who carry the wrong kind of light She finds them She marks them She experiments on what she finds She feeds the results to the dark
And the market woman nods
And the woman beside her nods
And the third woman walking past Catches the edge of it And carries it to the next street And the next
And by afternoon It is not a rumor anymore
It is simply what is known
[Pre-Chorus 2] And Elara stands in the fracture Watching the city she loves Spread the thing That aimed her
[Chorus] And then the rumors start
The way the rumors always start Quiet Then louder Then the truth of the city
Did you hear Did you hear Did you hear about the purple woman
[Bridge — Elara recognizes herself in every face] She was there
She was there at the market She was one of the women She nodded
She was the one who carried it to the next street
She sat in that church In the white light In the chosen feeling And she heard the priest name the purple woman with exactly the right voice the voice that makes a monster out of a woman on the floor of her castle who does not want the battle
And she believed it
She believed all of it
Every story Every experiment Every child taken in the night Every man who never came back Every village silenced by the mist
She believed it Because she loved this city And this city Taught her what to believe Before she knew there was a choice
[Pre-Chorus 3 — breaking] She watches the church Fill up this morning
She watches them kneel
She watches them trust the voice at the front of the room
She was them
She is still them in every timeline where nobody gave her the sight [Final Chorus] The wicked teachings Did not come from the wicked The wicked teachings Came from here From these bells From this market From the white robes and the chosen light and the morning she stood in this very street and nodded
The wicked teachings Made her what she was Before she was anything else They were in the bread They were in the bells They were in every story That the city told itself To feel safe While it aimed her Like a weapon At a woman on a cold floor Who had done none of it
[Outro — Mydaal, still beautiful, still ringing its bells] The children are still at the fountain
The bread is still warm
The bells are still ringing
This city is going to burn
She saw that too In the sight
And she loves it anyway
She cannot stop loving it
That is the worst teaching of all of them
Love the city Believe the city Be the weapon the city needs
And never never ask what the city is aiming you at