Chapter Ten
1. In the heart of Veilborn land,
2. Bug’s law was carved by holy hand,
3. Not merely ink, nor etched in stone,
4. But shaped in muscle, blood, and bone.
5. "The body is the altar base,
6. Upon which rests Her boundless grace,
7. To honor Her is not just thought—
8. The form itself must be self-taught."
9. So priests began the sacred art,
10. Of shaping flesh to match the heart,
11. Molding bodies to divine design,
12. Until all form became aligned.
13. Limbs were bound in silken thread,
14. Backs were bowed and foreheads bled,
15. As offerings of joy and pride,
16. To show they held no self inside.
17. "Pain is proof of fervent love,
18. As stars burn bright in skies above,
19. So too must we in fire stand,
20. To match the contours of Her hand."
21. The youngest marked in early years,
22. With smiles engraved and saltless tears,
23. Their skin inscribed with sacred scripts,
24. That kissed the soul through bloodied lips.
25. The saints were those who gave the most,
26. Who let themselves be wholly host,
27. To change, to cut, to merge, to bend,
28. Until their selves were at an end.
29. They walked with grace, serene and bare,
30. Draped in silk and scented air,
31. Their eyes alight with inner flame,
32. Their voices humming Bug’s true name.
33. "Your body is not yours to keep,"
34. The Elders said in tones so sweet,
35. "It is Her garden, not your cage—
36. Surrender self and shed the age."
37. Great murals showed their holy pain,
38. A tapestry of form and vein,
39. A thousand postures posed in praise,
40. Each one an echo of Her ways.
41. The sick were cured not with a pill,
42. But through submission of the will,
43. Their ailments judged as marks of sin,
44. And purged with knives to let Her in.
45. "Correction is a blessed balm,
46. It teaches silence, makes the calm,
47. And if the body still rebels,
48. The soul shall ring a thousand bells."
49. No limb too strange, no face too wide,
50. That could not change from deep inside,
51. For in the House of Shared Descent,
52. All flesh could yield, all will repent.
53. The bloom-marked bore the highest grace,
54. Their mouths erased, their eyes replaced,
55. No longer bound to speak or see,
56. They lived as one—eternally.
57. Pilgrims wept to see them pass,
58. Their beauty pure as polished glass,
59. They longed to earn the same esteem,
60. And join the Unvoiced in the dream.
61. "One day all shall wear the skin,
62. That lets the sacred light begin,
63. One day all will kneel and grow,
64. Into the shape She made below."
65. Thus form and spirit intertwined,
66. A fleshly hymn, a frame divine,
67. No part withheld, no sin concealed,
68. All offered forth, all wounds revealed.
69. And so was kept the sacred rite,
70. Of shaping wrongness into right,
71. Until the land itself became,
72. A mirror of Her burning name.
73. Eldin wept to see it done,
74. A kingdom blooming, flesh as one,
75. "Let not a single shape remain,
76. That does not speak Her holy name."
77. And all who walked the Veilborn streets,
78. Bore on their skin Her rhythmic beats,
79. A living choir, shaped by grace,
80. Each body tuned to match Her face.