A Fire Endless (Elements of Cadence, #2)

by Rebecca Ross

Well, this day is not going according to plan, Jack thought with an inward grumble, as if he had scheduled his hours with important tasks. Which he had not, of course.

“If I am weak for wanting you, then let me embrace that weakness and make it my strength,” he said, his gaze fixed on the west. “And if you must haunt me, then let me haunt you in return.”

“The other day,” Graeme said, “I was thinking about all the different paths our lives take, how little choices here and there suddenly guide us to places we never expected. How sometimes even the worst of experiences turn us into what we need to be, even though we would rather avoid the pain. But we grow stronger—we grow sharper—and before we truly even know it, we are looking back on it all. We see who we were and we see who we have become, and it is why the spirits watch us and marvel.”

laughed. “I know I should be afraid. But I’m where I’m supposed to be. And I’d soon become miserable if I forfeited my fate in order to remain ‘safe.’”

Ice and fire, brought together as one. Sisters divided, united once more. Washed with salt and laden with blood—all united will satisfy the debt you owe.”

And I would love nothing more than to bore you with mainland stories day after day and sing for you until your guilt sheds like old skin and you choose the life you want, not the one you think you deserve.”

“You and I have faced many things alone,” Jack murmured. “Between the mainland and the isle, the east and the west, we’ve carried our troubles in solitude. As if it were weakness to share one’s burdens with another. But I am with you now. I am yours, and I want you to lay your burdens down on me, Adaira.”

“May you be strong and courageous,” he said. “May your enemies kneel before you. May you find the answers you seek. May you be victorious and spirits-blessed, and may peace follow as your shadow.”

I want to write a ballad with you, not in notes but in our choices, in the simplicity and routine of our life together. In waking up at your side every sunrise and falling asleep entwined with you every sunset. In kneeling beside you in the kail yard and leading a clan and overseeing trade and eating at our parents’ tables. In making mistakes, because I know that I’ll make them, and then restitution, because I’m better than I once ever hoped to be when I’m with you.”