Failed Future (Air Awakens: Vortex Chronicles, #3)

by Elise Kova

for every dream that failed to make room for the one that came true

People I love… Love… She loved him. Her heart felt like it had just shattered into a thousand pieces only to have them all start beating in unison—a chorus that sang for Taavin alone.

“Maybe we’re meant to hurt and be hurt. Maybe we’re just meant to burn.” Vi took a small step away from him. Taavin caught her wrist. Sparks crackled, bright yellow, tangled with a hazy blue glow that Vi knew as the hallmark of his magic—of Yargen’s power. “Fine,” he breathed. “If we’re meant to burn, then we burn together.”

“If we’re meant to burn, then we burn together.”

“Perhaps you’re right about us burning together, because only you can set me on fire.”

“I need you to accept that this, however perfect it can feel, isn’t. I want you to stay with me despite that fact. Stay with me because it is messy, and raw, and something we need but may also be terrified to want.”

“Everything.” There was no hesitation. No holding back. “She is everything.”

She loved him. And he loved her… despite both of them knowing better. Despite neither being brave enough to say it in such plain terms. Those facts made no difference in the end. They had fallen in love despite themselves. They just had yet to be brave enough to say it aloud.

“Should you want it… allow my arms to be your home. Here is home. Because, as I told you once, here is where you are safe.”

Imperfection fit them both well. Maybe life had carved enough parts out of each of them that they needed each other to feel whole.

You should never underestimate a Solaris… least of all my daughter.”

She was the fire of her forefathers. She was the bitter ice that had hardened her. She was the frozen flames of the Goddess herself embodied in crystal: hard, unmoving, unfeeling.

“Count your blessings,” Vi whispered. “The last time someone betrayed me and my family, I killed her. But I guess I really did love you, Taavin. Because here you stand, and here you’ll stay.”

She let the fires within burn. Until there was nothing left but ash.