Her coat wasn't the only thing that used shine fire-bright.
There used to be more to than just the flecks of gold that catch and gleam in the Tephran sunglow. There used to be more than just the red glint of a spark catching the daylight. There used to be more.
There used to be a part of Lilliana that would have once shone for someone like Warden. It might have come from a speculative tilt of her slender head. It might have come from the questioning brilliance of her blue eyes. It might have come from a smile that would have tempted the world to hold itself together while it fractured apart. The woman standing in front of Warden has never been a fighter; she has neither the build nor the heart for a fight like that. But Lilli, despite the dubiety of those who know her best, has never been left unguarded or undefended.
Her smile has always been her shield.
It had served as her protection, a barrier from the ragged edges of their harsh reality. It had been a barrier to keep the dark out while drawing out the warmth in someone else. Her smile had been the thing of summer meadows and wildflowers. Her smile been the dawn, of the light to come. It had been illuminating and warm and kind. It had been something she had never hesitated in sharing. It had been wide and wild and daring, full of open spaces because Lilliana would have illuminated everything and everyone she could. It had been a smile that had tempted the stars and it had brought the whole sky crashing down.
@[Warden] can't see it because her future has already come and gone.
If he had called himself the Harbinger of Death, if he had acclaimed himself the Watcher of Endings, heralded himself as a Prophet of Desolation, she could have told him there are so much worse things than dying. There is grace in death. There is peace, she thinks. There is agony in living. (It is seeing dearest friends lined with the scars she should have worn. It is not stepping foot in a kingdom because of knowing that she had broken something sacred and in turn broke herself, unable to put anything back together. It was not being able to hold her youngest child to her breast and whisper to her about all those wonderful places the Winds blow, about all the things the stars might dream.)
"I can't do that," Lilliana says. Even if she thought herself capable of keeping her emotions in control to keep the vision away from Brazen, there is no room for lies in the North. Not anymore. Not for her. The Redwoods are too clustered, the ledges of Nerine too high and the Isle aspires for new heights. "I can't keep that from her." The chestnut mare states looking up into the pale face of Warden. Is that what he does? she wonders. He carries around these visions of doom and death and destruction and then harbors them? Tephra might as well be a sea for the way he drowns in despair.
Lilliana swallows because there is nothing else to do. The way that the horned stallion answers her broaches no room for argument and yet-
And yet.
She catches a shine in the back of her mind that isn't her own. There is a blazing that isn't her. There is a burning that becomes an ember until finally, it becomes nothing at all. It all becomes ash. It all turns to dust, as Warden sees them. As he sees all their Endings.
"Have you ever been wrong?"
It isn't, You are wrong.
It isn't, Fate needs to change.
It isn't what it might once have been.
(There used to be more.)
But this, this might be a start. A beginning.
Remember when our songs were just like prayers
Like gospel hymns that you caught in the air?