I watch the city burn, these dreams like ashes float away...
Lilitha frowned, her brow furrowing at Ruan’s response. “All I know of Romek’s dreams for Taiga are what he told me, what he told the fairies when he begged them to give him a safe place to raise his family, to shield them from the chaos of a world remade. Maybe you knew him better. You were here, saw what his leadership looked like. What title he claimed or didn’t claim. He only ever called it home, to me.”
Her face fell a little, the quiet echo of old heartache drawing her focus inward. He’d called himself her father, too. Maybe the words he said didn’t matter as much as his actions, and he’d never had much time to be a father to her once the fairies had banished her from his home.
“I am no queen, Ruan. But this is my home - mine not in defiance of you or yours or any claim you still hold over it, but in defiance of any who would drive me out, or make it a place where I no longer feel safe. Where I no longer feel Singe is safe. What would you expect of me, in a time like this? To let just any stranger stroll in and call this land his?”
She blew out an impatient breath, shaking her head. “For the first time since Taiga burned, there is an opening for someone to come in and claim it, for anyone who’s so inclined to try and turn what has been a free land into just another kingdom, full of politics and feuding and drama that Taiga doesn’t need. I won’t apologize to you for doing my best to keep that from happening.”
Sparks flashed in her eyes, and she huffed out an impatient breath, neck arching and nostrils flaring. “I’m not a queen, but this is my home, and no one is going to take it from me again. Not the gods themselves, not a plague sweeping through the world, and sure as hell not some random stranger walking in fresh from the Meadow thinking there’s a throne to be had. I’ve made it known Taiga is inhabited, but that doesn’t mean I have any interest in ruling.”
...your voice I never heard, only silence.