Crown of Night

No saint. No king. Only shadow. Born under winter’s breath and wire, they hunted hands that sang to fire; witch-burnt squares and iron rain— I learned to love the taste of pain. They named me heretic, monster, liar; I kept the embers, fanned them higher. If mercy would not cross their line, I’d raise a wall to buy us time. Power keeps a ledger written in the dark; every gift a wound, every promise a mark. I tore the world to build a wall of night, not for a crown, but a refuge from their light. Call me the blight, the breaker of the sky— I am the shelter where the hunted do not die. No saint, no king—only shadow and my right. A boy with names like borrowed blades, a mother’s warnings, winter parades; General by day, by midnight—myth, the Fold my oath, my fatal gift. They called it evil; I called it shield— merzost took its tithe, and would not yield. For every Grisha burned or drowned, I swore to sew the night to ground. Mercy is a rumor told by those who never bled; justice is a hunger that I chose to keep unfed. I tore the world to build a wall of night, not for a throne, but to drag us into life. Name me the storm, the wolf behind the rite— I am the shadow drawing borders with a knife. Then light arrived with a mortal face, sun in her veins, unmaking grace. I reached, I begged the dark to bend— love is the curse I could not mend. If truth is cruel and legends lie, let legends speak the reason why: a thousand screams became my choir, and still the hunted climbed the pyre. “Coronam Noctis, tene, tene— sanguis meminit, lucem preme.” (“Crown of Night, hold, hold— blood remembers; press the light.”) I tore the world to build a wall of night, stitching our graves into something like a right. Hate me, praise me—shadows never ask; I am the guardian welded to the task. No saint. No king. Only shadow. Only night. If monsters guard the gate, then let me be— the last black star above the Unsea.