Caitlyn

I spoke when silence was required

I chose the moment, not the rule

They called it rupture, called it heresy

I called it acting while they froze

They didn’t bind me in the square

No fire, no crowd to bear my shame

They reached inside my memory

And broke it carefully, by name

They left the body breathing still

A mind with corridors erased

Doors that open into nothing

A will restrained, but not replaced

The forest took what they discarded

Roots where memory used to be

Every time it moves through me

It takes a piece and leaves the key

It hurts to carry borrowed balance

It hurts to serve what does not plead

I bleed in bark and ancient hours

A living wound they choose to need

I walk the edge of Runda’s shadow

Where trees remember older wars

They do not bless. They do not comfort

They answer hunger with a law

The sisters of Hillia spoke of order

Drank too deep from what was sealed

They named it duty, named it wisdom

I felt the ground scar over the wound

They feared a woman with intention

Unbound by doctrine or decree

So they made absence of my past

And called that mercy done to me

The forest took what they discarded

Roots where memory used to be

Each time it speaks its will through me

Another fragment breaks in me

They broke my past to render silence

To make me harmless, still, and clean

Now something older fills the hollow

And takes its payment in between

I remember fire without faces

I remember hands that chose control

They could not kill what questioned order

So they dismantled me instead, whole

Exiled, not absolved nor ended

Not dead enough to leave the field

A vessel walking broken borders

Between what must and should not yield

The forest does not call me chosen

It calls me when the balance fails

I answer with what still remains

And pay in blood and broken trails

I do not ask to be restored

I do not ask to be set free

I stand where Krovaris keeps bleeding

And let the roots decide through me

I learned the paths before the names

Mud, bark, wind, and breath

The forest never promised mercy

Only balance paid in steps

I stand where lines are drawn in dirt

Not for crowns, not for praise

I stand because the line must hold

And someone has to stay

I listen to the ground

Before the noise arrives

When quiet tightens first

I already know the price

I hold the line

I do not bend

No orders shouted through the trees

No banners in the wind

Loyalty is not a word

It’s movement, breath, and skin

They ask me where my faith resides

If oath or steel or tree

I answer with the simplest truth

It lives with those with me

The forest doesn’t shield my hands

It doesn’t call me right

It only keeps the tally true

And asks me for the same

I hold the line

I do not bend

I’ve buried friends beneath the leaves

I’ve watched good ground turn red

The forest keeps the measure clean

It counts the living and the dead

It doesn’t crown. It doesn’t save

It answers cost with cost

I stay because the ground still holds

What others chose to drop

Each arrow counts

I stay

The ground waits

I loose

I learned to stand behind a shield

Before I learned to pray

Steel first, breath next

That’s how you stay

The world does not reward the just

It only tests the strong

So I carry what must be done

When right and wrong are gone

I don’t ask if I will fall

I ask how long I stand

Azhgaron hears no pleading

Only what my hands command

I carry what they won’t

That is the oath

I’ve stepped between the weak and fire

With nothing left to prove

I’ve watched the cost outlive the cause

And still I choose to move

My shield is scarred, my stance is fixed

My breath is cut and thin

But duty does not loosen grip

When doubt moves in

Faith is not a spoken vow

It’s weight you never drop

I don’t fight for what I’m owed

I fight so others stop

I carry what they won’t

That is the oath

They sing of honor after death

I deal in broken ground

No witness but the fallen men

No glory left to count

If this is all the good I do

Then let it end right here

Standing while the world gives way

So others disappear

I carry what they won’t

That is the oath

They killed my parents in the open

And walked away like nothing moved

I learned what screams are worth in alleys

I learned what silence makes you prove

They measured me in easy places

Too small to matter, safe to miss

So I became the space between them

The overlooked, the practiced twist

I don’t chase comfort. I chase patterns

A glance, a pause, a name misplaced

I keep my face where it belongs

And let the fools reveal their waste

Information is coin

I don’t spend it twice

I fight with daggers when it’s needed

But thinking cuts before the steel

A door left cracked. A guard too kind

A lie that almost sounds too real

I don’t attach. I don’t confess

I don’t forgive to feel okay

I take the facts. I keep the edge

I live to make it to next day

They want a story, want a wound

They want a girl who breaks and cries

I give them calm. I give them fine

And keep the hunger in my eyes

Information is coin

I don’t spend it twice

In Krovaris, truth is priced in blood

And loyalty is rented out

So I stay small. I stay unseen

I learn what power whispers about

No hymns for me. No clean escape

Just routes, and names, and ways inside

I do what works. I take what lasts

And let the rest of me divide

Information is coin

I don’t spend it twice

A step

A shadow

Gone

At dawn we count the targets

At dusk we count the bolts

Hands steady, eyes unshaken

Clean breath, clean release, clean faults

We guard the roads for Krovaris

We keep the hunters back

We teach the young to hit the mark

And never lose the track

But someone watches from within

A smile that doesn’t reach

A ledger balanced far too well

A lesson not to teach

Clean shot. Clean breath

Trust costs

Drasar calls it discipline

He calls it staying sharp

He knows the rot can wear a face

And speak in practiced parts

So we keep ranks and keep our silence

We train until it aches

And when the arrows fly too straight

We ask what hand it takes

A whisper in the record room

A seal that breaks too clean

The forest hears the smallest step

And keeps what it has seen

Clean shot. Clean breath

Trust costs

An arrow doesn’t choose its target

It only serves the draw

A guild can call itself protection

And still become a claw

So we aim true. We speak less

We watch each other’s hands

Because a clean line on a map

Can hide a knife in sand

Clean shot. Clean breath

Trust costs

String tight

Eyes up

Release

We ride at first light, armor closed

Names swallowed by the helms

The oath was sworn to crown and land

Not to the way it fell

We lift the fallen from the road

We share the last of bread

Then ride again when orders come

Where better men have bled

Azhgaron teaches discipline

To stand when lines collapse

He never said the world was just

He said to hold the path

We ride by oath, not crown

Honor holds, even when it fails

The hooves keep time like hammered iron

A pulse that will not ask

We guard the weak, we keep the peace

And wear the cost as mask

A tyrant wears a lawful seal

A law can still be wrong

We do not choose the shape of truth

We choose to ride along

Steel remembers every fall

The saddle every mile

If honor breaks beneath the load

It breaks without a smile

We ride by oath, not crown

Honor holds, even when it fails

If duty feeds a broken throne

Then duty shares the blame

We know the weight. We take it still

And carry on in name

There is no hymn for this return

No end that sets us free

Only the road, the sound of hooves

And what we choose to be

We ride by oath

Gallop fades

Armor breathes

Onward

We keep the light contained

We name the lines, we seal the blood

All things must know their place

Order is mercy, order is peace

So we are taught to believe

The gift was given, not to all

Only to those who carry the seal

Question is fracture

Doubt is decay

What must be taken

Was never yours to weigh

By blood, by right

By what was chosen

We guard the gift

We bear the burden

We cleanse the past to save the future

We cut to keep it pure

What breaks is weak, what bleeds is flawed

What endures is ours

Memory bends

If truth requires

Sacrifice

By blood, by right

By what was chosen

We guard the gift

We bear the burden

If the land screams, it is necessary

If minds break, it is clean

The cost is high, but order stands

And order must be seen

By blood, by right

We remain

Remain

The field breathes wrong

Mud takes weight

Steel finds bone

Arrows fall before the scream

Horses break the ground apart

Shields shatter under names

That won’t be spoken when this ends

Hold

Hold

Don’t think

Blood in the mud

Steel won’t stop

Hold the line

Hands numb, arms burning

Orders lost in noise

Friends fall where they stand

No time to close their eyes

Hold

Hold

Still stand

Blood in the mud

Steel won’t stop

Hold the line

Farms burn past the ridge

Children run with nowhere left

Victory tastes like iron

And screams don’t care who’s right

Blood in the mud

Steel won’t stop

Hold the line

Krovaris stands

But it bleeds