The Orphan’s Lament: Echoes in the Derelict Keep

Here once his infant hands traced sunlit walls,
Now choked by thorns that guard the spectral halls.
A locket cold (his mother’s fading face)
Beats ‘gainst his breast, a relic of her grace.
Ten winters passed since carriage wheels fled fast,
Left him to howling dark, to die or last—
Yet through the years, one vision burned his night:
Her quill’s last dance, a letter sealed from sight.

Through yonder corridor, where moonlight bleeds,
He treads, a wraith drawn where his spirit leads.
The nursery door, ajar on hinges grim,
Exhales the scent of lavender grown dim.
A cradle splintered, veiled in cobweb lace,
A toy horse maimed, its joy effaced to trace—
Then, sudden! ‘Neath a floorboard’s splintered groan,
A chest of oak, by time and sorrow sown.

With trembling hands, he pries the rusted latch,
And there—oh, there!—a vellum’s poignant patch.
The wax yet bears her crest: a swallow’s wing,
The ink, though sallowed, flows like suffering.
“To you, my lamb, when years shall grant you strength,
I write what cruel decorum masks at length—
Not plague nor blade did sever our embrace,
But honor’s chains, and blood’s unholy grace.

“Your father’s name, a thunderclap malign,
Would see you hunted ‘neath the cypress sign.
Thus I, to shield your breath from war’s decree,
Forsook my claim to love, to life, to thee.
The servants swore to bear you safe, unknown,
To distant shores where seeds of truth are sown.
Yet in this keep, where first I heard your cry,
I’ve hid what judges dead—but shall not die.”

The hearth’s last cinder, winking in the grate,
Illumes a hatch where stone concedes to fate.
Down, down he climbs, the crypt’s black throat yawns wide,
His taper’s kiss on ancient bones implied.
A coffer rests, with seals of midnight wax,
Within—a crown? A dagger? Proof, yet tracks
Of footsteps fresh (but how?) imprint the mold—
A silhouette! A breath! A hand ice-cold!

“So comes the cub to claim the lion’s share,”
A voice like rusted chains grates through the air.
A figure steps—the steward, bent, unkind,
Whose eyes once feigned concern, now blaze maligned.
“Your mother’s ghost still haunts these vaulted eaves,
But I, who served her lies, now reap the sheaves.
That casket holds the will that names you heir—
Burn it, and wealth beyond your dreams we’ll share.”

The boy, transfixed, beholds the casket’s grain,
Then turns—oh, turns!—to meet the steward’s stain.
“Shall I, for gilded lies, her truth betray?
Her heart, entombed, still lights this grim decay.”
With sudden force, he smites the rotting crate,
The steward’s blade thirsts for his ribs’ red gate—
Yet as steel sings, the ceiling groans, cascades,
And centuries of stone scream from their shades.

A pillar splits, the crypt’s lungs gasp their last,
Both souls embraced by ruin’s dire blast.
The boy, half-crushed, his fingers trace the scroll,
Now drenched in life’s last, ardent, crimson toll.
“Forgive me, mother—I have seen your face…”
His breath dissolves where dust and darkness race.
Above, the dawn ignites indifferent skies,
While in the keep, one final swallow dies.