The Fortress and The Figurine by Szeker Brandi Elise

Author:Szeker, Brandi Elise
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Red Oak Publishing LLC
Published: 2024-10-31T00:00:00+00:00

17. New Smile

Ruth

We pull up into the grand Demechnef estate driveway at the same time as Niles and Marilynn.

I can hardly keep my eyes open from exhaustion. My clothes are wet and cold with sweat, sticking to my clammy skin like a glove. But as Warrose opens the trunk to pull out my new moving chair, I feel another zing of adrenaline and excitement fire through me.

Niles and Marilynn get to see it! They get to see me move around on my own!

I sit up straight, waiting for him to open my door.

“Hi—that’s a new smile,” Warrose greets, grinning back at me.

“I want to get in by myself,” I tell him eagerly.

He nods, signaling for Niles and Marilynn to come to us. “I’m right here if you need me.”

My arms are boneless and feeble as I try to use my upper body strength to grip the arm rests and slide myself from one seat to the other. I groan and whimper as I collapse onto the moving chair.

Warrose leans down, kisses me fiercely on the cheek, then turns me to face my friends.

“What’s this?” Niles asks, inspecting the fine details of the carved wood.

“I can move myself around now!” I practically wheeze yet say it all with a wide grin.

“Really?!” Marilynn stands in front of me, looking flushed and a little clammy herself.

“Warrose made it for me!”

It takes a few long seconds for Niles to understand. His beautiful eyes shift from me, to the wheels, to Warrose, then back to me again. He starts to cry in his hand.

A lump instantly wells up in my throat, pushing tears back to the surface when I was so sure I lost them all when I met the Winter Storm Lions.

Marilynn places a hand on his back as his heartbreaking sobs hit us all so hard. It seems the trauma of that prison can slam into us at any time. We can try to mask it, hold it in a dark, untouched place of our minds, but it always comes back in moments that take us by surprise.

And my new chair has taken him by surprise.

Niles kneels down to hug me, gripping a hand on the back of my curly hair, and placing a quick kiss on my forehead. “It’s beautiful, Ruthie. Fuck, I’m so happy right now.”

“Me too,” I tell him.

He stands to face Warrose, holding out his hand to shake. But as Warrose glances down at Niles’s hand, they move in for a hug. Niles sobs into Warrose’s massive shoulder, saying, “thank you” and “it’s a work of art” and “we’re going to make it out of that hell one day.”

Marilynn traces her hands over the carvings of animals and gargoyles along the trim of my chair. Her full-lipped smile is all-knowing, ancient, and full of a future we have yet to see.

“You know what it looks like?” she asks.

“What’s that?”

Her deep, ocean-blue eyes find mine. And they burn like a blaze of forest fire into my soul.

“A throne.”

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