#Chapter 195 – Love and Hope

Lila I sat propped against the headboard, my arms cradling both of them, their tiny bodies swaddled in linen, pressed close to my skin. My children. The words still felt impossible. I had dreamed of this moment, feared it, prayed for it in quiet broken moments. But the reality of their warmth against me, their breath tickling faintly at my collarbone, was more overwhelming than I could bear. For the first time in years, I wasn’t hollow. I wasn’t a shadow of what I had been. Ruby blazed inside me, fierce and whole, her presence flooding every inch of me like wildfire racing through dry grasses. I could feel her in my heartbeat, in my breath, in the way my body hummed with power even after all it had endured. You did it, she whispered, her voice fierce with pride. You brought them into the world. I knew you could do it. Tears welled and I tilted my head back closing my eyes as I let the sensation wash through me. For so long, Ruby was lost to me in the poison, silenced. I h