Echoes of the Forsaken Citadel
A knight whose armor wore the scuffs of years,
Whose cloak, once dyed with pride’s vermillion flame,
Now hung in tatters, steeped in lonely tears.
The road had carved his soul to splintered stone,
Yet still he sought what restless hearts decree:
A thing unnamed, a sigh, a fleeting tone—
The ghost of freedom’s unclaimed melody.
Before him loomed the citadel’s remains,
Its turrets clawing at the starless veil,
Where ivy choked the bones of dead domains,
And whispered winds composed a dirge so frail.
Through gates that groaned like souls mid-final breath,
He stepped, each footfall echoing a vow
To find what life, what light defies this death—
A spark unbound by time’s relentless plough.
The hall was cavernous, a hollow throat
That swallowed echoes of his clinking mail.
Shadows, alive, in spectral vapors float,
And brushed his cheeks with tales too grim to tell.
Yet there—amid the decay’s artistry—
A flicker danced, a luminance unsure,
As if the dark itself yearned to be free,
And birthed a flame no ruin could obscure.
She stood where moonlight pooled on fractured floors,
A figure wrought from mist and memory,
Her gown the gray of shores abandoned by shores,
Her eyes two pools of drowned eternity.
No mortal flesh, yet neither phantom’s guise—
A liminal lament, half-born, half-air,
Her voice the sound of horizons that lies
Beyond the grasp of hands that clutch despair.
“What knight,” she murmured, “dares to walk these halls,
Where silence feasts on dreams left unfulfilled?
What folly guides you through these crumbling walls,
To seek what time and fate have sworn to shield?”
He knelt, though steel protested with a cry,
And met her gaze—a challenge, soft yet dire.
“I seek no treasure vaulted toward the sky,
But answers whispered by your ghostly choir.”
A laugh she spilled, like rain on rusted strings,
“You speak of freedom, knight, yet bear its weight.
Your armor’s song, the burdened clang it brings—
Is this not chains of your own choosing’s make?”
The words struck deep, a lance through myth’s disguise,
Yet still he pressed, “What binds you to this place?”
Her form then wavered, veiled by anguished skies,
“A vow unkept… a face I can’t retrace.”
She led him through the labyrinth of loss,
Where frescoes peeled to ash beneath their tread,
To gardens strangled by the nightshade’s gloss,
And thrones where spiders spun crowns for the dead.
Her tale unfurled—a lord’s betrothed, confined,
Her spirit tethered by a promise sworn
To guard a truth no mortal tongue could find,
Till dawn’s first blush on some unfound morn.
“He rides no more,” she sighed. “His bones are dust
That feeds the roots of yews in yonder glen.
Yet here I linger, bound by love’s unjust
Decree—to wait, though worlds may rise and end.”
The knight, whose heart had long been sheathed in frost,
Felt fissures spread—a warmth he dared not name.
“What key,” he pled, “could break this timeless cost?
What blade could sever fate’s unyielding claim?”
Her fingers brushed his gauntlet—frost and fire—
“One act alone: a soul to take my stead,
To bear the weight of this unquenched desire,
To love the shadows where my light was shed.”
And there, beneath the arch of ruined years,
He made his choice—no whisper, but a roar.
“Then let these walls, which drank your captive tears,
Enthrall me, that your chains may bind no more.”
No sooner spoke than stone and specter wailed,
The castle shuddered, ancient gears awake.
Her form began to fade, her essence paled,
As iron vines crawled forth his soul to take.
“Wait!” cried the knight, now thorn-bound, roots entwined,
“Tell me your name, ere light forsakes my eyes!”
But she was gone—a breeze, a breath resigned—
While through his veins spread dusk’s uncountable sighs.
The moon withdrew. The stars drew cloaks of gray.
Where once a knight knelt, now a statue stood,
Its visage wrought from grief and disarray,
One hand outstretched to where the phantom would
Return, perhaps, when centuries conspire
To twist the tale—but legends seldom bend.
The citadel, with slow, voracious ire,
Ate every hope, and called it “journey’s end.”
And in the village leagues beyond the waste,
They speak of lights that dance where none should tread,
Of armored footsteps fading into haste,
And lovers’ ghosts by morning’s blush unwed.
But stones, which keep no ledger of the true,
Guard secrets in their marrow—cold, complete.
For freedom’s price, they murmur, none can rue,
When paid in full by hearts that dared to beat.
