Sun Kissed

Prologue - Riverfolk (EDITED)

Big thanks to @lavenderstar for creating the book trailer! Please go check out her story Ballad of the Mountain Fox. You won't regret it!

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Prologue: Riverfolk (EDITED)

Freshwater.

Rivers.

That's all the Encantado had ever known.

Water.

And heat. The heat of the Amazon.

Was there a world beyond this river, the Encantado wondered.

Of course there is, he reminded himself. Paradise. The dolphins called it Encante.

The Encantado used to live in the Encante, but not anymore. He wanted to return. More than anything he wanted to go home. Back to his clan. Back to his master's palace.

Master . . . the Encantado brooded. Twenty years since he'd last seen his master. Since he'd last seen anyone. His only companion these days was an old guitar. He did not know how many hours he had spent strumming that guitar, singing until his voice left him, aching in his perpetual loneliness.

Rivers.

Despite the wealth of the life that they nurtured, rivers could be very lonely places. Especially for an Encantado like him. Encantados needed company. At carnivals they came alive. The music made for a strong elixir. They drank hungrily from the cup of dance, be it carnavalesca or batucada. Drunk on their romance, they owned the night. The Encantado wondered if he would ever know that world, that kind of love again.

Had I ever known love at all?

Like always, the Encantado escorted his pain to the back of his sensitive mind and buried it under the music of his guitar. He played and lost himself in blissful harmonies until his fingers could take no more and the sun had settled into its zenith. With raw, chipped calluses and a numbed heart, he took on his true form and slipped into the river.

This underwater world could not compare to the spellbinding waterways of the Encante, but after twenty years, the Encantado accepted it as home. He closed his eyes and let the current take him. As soon as the Encantado slipped into unconsciousness, a tremor of images pulsed through him.

Unfamiliar, passionate emotions gripped him violently, suspending him into paralysis.

What's happening to me?!

A vision passed. Pure. Blindingly vivid.

A girl. No, a woman . . . with red hair like his. Deep brown at the roots and blending into a shadowy red wine. At first her eyes were closed, but then they opened to reveal the sun.

Heat.

Her acidic gaze burned into him and he choked. There he was, drowning in the core of a star. The image of the girl faded out of existence, but her fiery presence remained and held fast to him. The young Encantado had already given in to her, yet he earned no relief. Sensations of affection and warmth came to life, and were set ablaze by overwhelming loss and regret.

The vision shocked the Encantado out of his true form. Disoriented, he managed to paddle his way to the surface. There he treaded water and coughed heavily. What should he do?

All around him, the answer was silent, cooling.

Water.

~

"I told you to never come here unless it was an emergency!" The Encantado's master bellowed in his face. The Encantado tried to ignore the fresh scent stinging his eyes and inhaled deeply.

Thinking of the girl from his dream, he asked, "Who is Maria?" That name was all that he was left with after the painful episode.

The incoming shout vanished from his master's lips as well as the breath from his throat. The Encantado looked on in curiosity as his master fumbled for speech like a child fighting to articulate his desires.

"How did you . . . ? What did she . . . ?" He glanced up at his student and suddenly drew a veil over his emotions.

"Nevermind," the master muttered before reaching for the back of the Encantado's neck and pulled his face into the flat of his free palm. The Encantado drew a sharp breath, afraid that he would be punished, but he felt no pain.

Then there was only darkness.