The Shadowed Road

If I could choose my way
I'd never leave this place
This forest dreams in greens and golds
I'll never see again
But I hear the quiet call
A portent drifting dark and cold
For the road ahead is shadowed
And there ruin waits untold
But I will not turn away.

I roam this bloodstained road
Through the mountain paths to the gates of bone.

I swear by the grey boundless sea
One day I will return
But my home is corrupted
and all gods to fall
The forest will burn.

So I'll leave on the path I must take
Crushing fate, I'll never forget
That hope is as dim as ghosts
In the dens of their hosts
I'll hold to it.

Beneath this crumbling world I saw
A truth as dark as a thousand unseen winters
Our doom was written in our souls
But I will claim it as my own.

I once dreamed of a place
Where all things of old stories dwell
I longed for it, now I see
That where there walk dreams
Nightmares linger as well.

This is my road, through wandering shades
For the promise I made
Through hidden vales
All the shapes that haunt us
I will contend.

The road has burned my world away
Did I think to come this far unchanged?
But I feel a sense of clarity
I've never known before
That with death so close behind me
I can see the bitter dawn
Into the plains of ash
I'll leave the world that was behind
Though I walk into the dark
I walk at last with open eyes.

Behold my empire
The ruinscape
The broken bonds that held us.

I wonder how I came this far
Through terrors dread
The road won't destroy me
I'll follow where it leads.

The truth is ever near
Look into the dark
If you will look into the dark.

Ever will I walk upon this shadowed road
This ravaged path where phantoms roam
For if all things must end
I'd walk among the ashes of the dawning shadowed world.