The Gorgon’s Toll

He walks the fields where crowns were sown… Where iron roots have split the stone… No prayer was heard… no banner saved… Only the lines… the earth has claimed… He marks the blood beneath the skin… Counts every name… and draws it in… No throne too high… no lord too small… He tends the land… that feeds on all… And you can feel it… in the ground… A silent pull… a tightening sound… He takes the line… and drains it slow… From root to crown… he makes it grow… No king remains… no blood kept whole… All that we are… becomes his toll… his toll… his toll… He shapes the fields… with bone and soul… Each life a seed… he claims, he sows… No name survives… no heart is spared… We are the crop… he always reaps… He is the hand that never shakes… The quiet cut… no sound it makes… No rage, no fire… no need to call… Just patient eyes… that watch us fall… Empires fade like summer grain… Dukes and barons… all the same… A careful hand… a measured role… He breaks the line… to feed the whole… You hear it breathing… under stone… A harvest not… by scythe alone… He takes the line… and drains it slow… From root to crown… he makes it grow… No king remains… no blood kept whole… All that we are… becomes his toll… He shapes the fields… with bone and soul… Each life a seed… he claims, he sows… No name survives… no heart is spared… We are the crop… he always reaps… No storm will warn… no bells will ring… No final word… no reckoning… He does not rush… he does not roam… The world itself… has made his throne… he tends… he waits… he knows… He takes the line… he drinks it whole… From flesh to crown… from crown to soul… No throne endures… no blood is owed… All roads we walk… are roads he sows… He shapes the fields… of crown and bone… Each life we live… was never our own… And in the end… when all is told… We fed the hand… that takes the toll…