1. INCARNADINE

I dream of drowning
In tides of guilt
The waves I sink beneath
Grow red with blood you spilled

Wished upon the shore
The corpse of a love I forswore
I'd never ask you to forgive
Even if you could absolve my sins

The storm shave come
Could I have known
My hands stained incarnadine
Yet still they reach for you

I summoned the storms
My voice has called these blackened waves
But wind and rain and storm can never wash
The blood that stains my touch

My beloved drowning
A face I once knew
A call for salvation, it calls me to my tomb

Was I ever the one you knew?
Or just a reflection of hopes now lost?
I fear you should flee, I fear you should stay
I am a sinking stone, don't chain yourself to me

I swore no storm could break these bonds
No raging waves could tear my hand from yours
And as this tempest drowns us still I cling
Until the end

I am a sinking stone, I'll drag you below the waves


2. A WOUND UNHEALING

Can retribution
Heal the wounds that time can't touch
And though I know that another's pain
Won't resurrect the past
Still I confess, I crave more than penitence

Pain's dark roots
Another's rotting wounds
To stitch the flesh
Or to speed the work of time

I could not protect
I can't take your pain
Futile retribution
Is all that remains

Please retribution,
Heal these wounds that time forgot
And though I've cut the hand that spilled
The blood that once was spilled from you
Dreams of grace now turn to poison in my veins

I've cut the hand
New blood heals no wounds
My futile retribution
Is all I have


3. ANGEL OF MERCY

Everlasting guilt
That sacrifice cannot erase
To strive and suffer, all in vain
No deed can now reverse the sands of time

To curse the choices you once made
Will not sever the strands of self
To strive for virtue till the end of age
Will not cast blame anywhere else

The curse of all who grow and change
Is that the world cannot forget
A softened heart and chastened mind
Cannot uncast the stones they now regret

Yet you are cursed to linger onwards
Past hope of healing or amends
Persist within guilt everlasting
The tides of time can't wash away our sins

You curse the choices you once made
No noble end offered by hands of fate
Memory is kind, absence forgiving
Angel of mercy, angel of death


4. THE SWORD OF THE SLAIN

You come before me with hands bound
A body bent in silent plea

Now is your chance to be heart so take it, I'll listen
But know the chains you've forged
Are yours and I but hold the key

Don't say I turned my back on you
You knelt and you pled and you failed
Don't say my judgment wasn't true
These chains are yours
And I know one hundred
Two hundred years can't be wrong,
And I know one hundred
Two hundred, three hundred years,
Have built the earth we stand on

Regret, Repent, Damnation
Regret, Repent, Damnation

I amt eh voice of the voiceless
I am the sword of the slain
By my hand you are crucified
By my hand you are saved
Avenger, redeemer, salvation, damnation
You are condemned

Bow your head and feel
The weight of all you've done
You forge the chain, I turn the key

Don't say I turned my back on you
I am the voice of the voiceless
Don't say my judgment wasn't true
I am the sword of the slain
And I know one hundred
Two hundred years can't be wrong,
They speak through me
And I know one hundred
Two hundred, three hundred years,
Have built this legacy


5. RUIN

(Instrumental)


6. THE PENITENT

Judgment comes
For what I've done
My soul is but a deed

This life I've known
Broke my will, turned me to stone
I forged my fate as I faltered

My mind betrayed
My heart beat cold
I forged my fate as I faltered

Bind my hands
Curse my names
Nevermore shall I falter

Judgment comes
Act and actor become one
Oh, to trade my soul for another

My dreams of what could be
Taken by life's tragedies
Long before I took them from another


7. ARMOURED IN SHADOW

Once I lived within walls
Each stone a story, a calming word
Sheltered within its towering embrace
I faced each day armoured in shadow

The veil is torn
By hidden claws revealed
The bounds of possibility
Are lost becoming nothing

I will never trust again
I will never heal
I will never feel again
Not in this life, not in this skin

My sanctum's walls turn to ash
All they ever were
Each stone a lie, a hopeful thought
I face each day exposed and frail

Nothing can be undone
Nothing can be done
Are my wounds traced too on their skin
A mirror of scars
Do I haunt you as you haunt me


8. ...AND THE THORN-CHOKED FLOWERS GROW

Past all of living memory
Lie graves for all of those unnamed
Lie those whose deeds prepared our way
No one to make amends
And this cannot be mended

And yet this sin it lingers
Nothing stays buried forever

Those who made this world are gone
Yet their horrors still remain

And if all graves were marked and mourned
The blooms they fed still bear their thorns

Recite the script as written
Its words will mark your grave

And still roots drink from the blood-soaked soils
And the thorn-choked flowers grow

And if there was a new beginning
It is our nature and our fall

We were not made to live in eden
We were not made by will at all


9. BETWEEN THE SEA AND STARS

The moonlit glow, it sweeps across the ocean waves
The horizon blurs between the sea and stars

If I sail beyond the parchment's edge
Disappear into the night
If I sail beyond the reach of mortal hands
The distance cannot make this right

If the damage can't be mended
Is it wrong that I cannot remain
If the fault is beyond any hope of healing
Is there a reason to stay?
Somewhere far away