Track 10 · Romantasy
The Tidebound Novitiate
An academy on a tidebound coast. Look for this book on the shelf — it isn't there. Yet.
- Length
- 4:18
- BPM
- 88
- Key
- D minor
- Tier
- D — Cinematic-Theatrical
The phantom track
This codes a book that doesn’t exist on the shelf yet.
The phantom track. The album's only song that codes a romantasy book that doesn't exist on the shelf. Listeners working the puzzle will Google the recognition flags and come up empty — the book is an unannounced *Skarn Reach* novella that exists only in Aurora Lyra's drafts. When the cipher is cracked and the novella drops, this track becomes the trailer for what was hiding in plain sight all along. The recognition flags are deliberately tide-bound, scholarship-coded, and memory-coded — territory no current romantasy bestseller occupies.
Lyrics
The Tidebound Novitiate
[Verse 1] the conservatory keeps the books the kingdom won't allow the saltwater erodes the page in time the deposed prince translated what the bell could not endow I learned the language of the older crime [Pre-Chorus] (building dread) a crown that bites the temple, woven from the gull-bone reed the seal taken in saltwater, a fading kind the curse of forgetting comes in tide-times to the ones who read the curse of forgetting steals the name behind [Chorus] the tidebound novitiate the cliff-side conservatory the deposed prince who tutors the curse of forgetting the tidebound novitiate the bell at low tide ringing the name I cannot remember the sea returns the singing [Verse 2] he was a prince in someone else's century, brought low he taught me what the conservatory hid the tide-bell rang at moonset for the names we had to know the names I never learned to keep undid [Pre-Chorus] (thicker, taiko entering) a crown that bites the temple, woven from the gull-bone reed the seal taken in saltwater, a fading kind the prince beside the cliff-edge knew the language I would need the curse of forgetting steals the name behind [Chorus] the tidebound novitiate the cliff-side conservatory the deposed prince who tutors the curse of forgetting the tidebound novitiate the bell at low tide ringing the name I cannot remember the sea returns the singing [Bridge] (stripped, ethereal vocalise overhead) Sometimes the curse of forgetting will leave a single word sometimes the tide returns the syllable that cannot stay the deposed prince in his exile-writing keeps a thing unheard the tidebound novitiate forgets the curse to pray [Final Chorus] (full Tier D theatrical peak) the tidebound novitiate the cliff-side conservatory the deposed prince who tutors the curse of forgetting the tidebound novitiate the bell at low tide ringing — the name — and the name — and the name returns the singing [Outro] (taiko + ethereal vocalise tail) the tidebound novitiate (the cliff-side conservatory) the tidebound novitiate (the deposed prince who tutors)
Cipher
This track contributes the letter S.
The cipher rule across all fifteen tracks: the first letter of the first line of the bridge.
“Sometimes the curse of forgetting will leave a single word”
Solved the full passphrase? Enter it on the quiz page →