[Verse 1] I hear them from above the spires A thousand voices calling into stone They built their faith for someone to receive it But the thing they served has gone back home
The candles in the nave still burn for nothing The priests still read the words they do not know I see the women kneeling in the darkness Asking the ceiling for somewhere to go
[Pre-Chorus] And I see the scar Still written in the architecture The places where the truth was walled away I see what they were given in place of what they needed I see the cost of what they were made to say
[Chorus] I hear everything I see everything The prayers still rise The answers never came I do not speak I do not reach I watch the faithful fall apart below me Looking for a name
[Verse 2] A child kneels where her mother taught her A man stands at an altar no one tends A girl looks at the cross and finds it hollow She is waiting for the meaning to begin
The old religion built its walls around them And when the walls came down the people fell They do not know what held them was a prison They only know that something broke the spell
[Pre-Chorus 2] And I see the scar Still carved into the stonework The names they would not let the people keep I see the prayers they answered with a silence I see three hundred thousand years of sleep
[Chorus]
[Bridge — then. The Raven.] Then.
From the east — A dark shape on the sky Not a sign — a presence Not a sound — a why
And the people lift their heads They have not looked up in years And the Raven circles once Then lands
And something in the air Shifts
Like a door they didn’t know was closed Opening
[Outro] They do not know my name yet But they know this is from me
They do not have the words yet But they know this is a key
The old religion falls like ash Into the ground below And in its place A feather lands
And the people start to know
The House of the Raven. It begins here. With a bird. With a breath. With a people Who were finally Ready To believe in something True.