Sinking into Sunlight
He was seventeen now—old enough to work, to carry a blade.
Lately, people had started saying he looked just like his father.
His grandfather said it most often, with pride and wonder in his voice.
Collin didn’t remember much of Jiah, not really.
But the eyes—deep and storm-blue—he remembered those.
He caught glimpses of them sometimes in the lake’s reflection.
Intense. Restless. Always thinking. Just like his father.
Splash!
Collin jumped, setting the narrow skiff rocking from side to side.
Ice cold water ran down the ends of his dark sandy locks and over his face and neck.
His heart pounded violently behind his ribs.
The dream still tugged at him—something about a voice he thought he’d forgotten—but the image dissolved before he could see it clearly.
Aries sat at the front of the canoe with a mischievous smile. He held a dripping oar aloft, looking as though he was ready to send another spray of water over his dozing passenger. “Oops. Did I disrupt your beauty sleep?” He grinned, raising the dripping oar for another strike.
It was too hot. The kind of heat that turned thoughts to syrup and made even blinking feel like work.
Collin’s head buzzed, thick and dull. His limbs felt boneless, useless, like he’d melted into the bottom of the canoe.
He let one arm dangle over the side, fingers drifting in the icy water below.
The shock of cold sent a brief jolt up his arm—but not enough to make him move.
Even that felt far away. He couldn’t muster the energy to speak, let alone sit up.
The heat had sunk into him, slow and heavy, and all he could do was float.
It was a windless summer morning in late July, the kind that felt suspended in time.
The vast mountain lake lay perfectly still, its glass-like surface mirroring the unblemished expanse of the sky.
Sunlight danced across the shimmering blue, blurring the boundary between water and air.
Aside from the faint ripple of the lake and the distant song of unseen birds, the world held its breath in hushed tranquility.
Collin had grown up hearing how the North Town lake fed all of Crimisa.
Now, drifting in its center, it felt like the lake held the last bit of peace left in the world.
In long-lost legends, the valley was often referred to as the Moon Valley.
From high atop the hilltop, as the moon rose each night, it looked as though the moon were rising from deep within the lake itself.
The massive lake sprawled at the valley’s heart, its dark waters threading into a web of slender streams and creeks that spilled life into the outlying villages.
Dense forests pressed in along its edge, wild, ancient, and bountiful with game no matter the season.
Atop a generous northern hill, a colony of lavish cottages caught the sun in glinting angles of glass, their balconies and gardens overlooking the lake like thrones.
These homes belonged to village stewards, captains, merchants with deep coffers, scholars with rare books—names whispered with deference through the land.
To the east, where the shore softened into humble mud and gravel, the North Town village circle huddled by the water’s edge.
Its narrow stone streets pulsed with movement: merchants barking from cluttered carts, smoke curling from stuffie taverns, and the mingled scent of baked roots and charred meat drifting from family kitchens tucked above bustling storefronts.
Just beyond this crowded center, a broad road unfurled like a ribbon, guiding travelers away from the dense valley and toward the vast, humming square of Chroma.
The canoe drifted lazily toward a white wooden buoy, its paint chipped and sun-bleached.
Dozens like it bobbed across the lake, scattered like pale sentinels.
Aries reached over the side, tugged the buoy up from the water, and examined the snarl of fishing lines dangling beneath.
Each gleaming hook shimmered—stripped bare.
He growled in frustration and flung the buoy back. “Every last one’s been picked clean!”
Collin yawned lazily. “Maybe if we stopped using mystery meat and desperation as bait, we’d actually catch something with gills.”
Aries let out a chuckle of agreement, but his laugh was drowned out by another strident splash. Collin fully expected to be drenched, but when not a single drop fell on him, he sat up and searched for the source of the disturbance.
An empty skiff was drifting a few dozen yards away. There was no sign of the rower. Around the craft, the water rippled as though something had just fallen overboard.
“She has the right idea,” said Aries.
Collin shaded his eyes with one hand, blinking into the glare. When the abandoned canoe drifted closer, he leaned forward, pulse quickening, a wide grin tugging at the corners of his mouth before he even realized he was smiling.
Dragonfly frolicked beside her canoe like a duckling splashing in a pond—hardly graceful, but lit from within by a kind of bliss.
She swam ahead a few easy strokes before letting herself drift lazily back, limbs loose, unhurried.
Her hair, a bright sheet of sunlight, floated around her shoulders in an ethereal halo.
The locals called the color North Town Gold.
It was warm and rich, like standing in the middle of a summer day.
Then, with no warning, she sank—vanished beneath the surface in a rush of tiny silver bubbles. Collin held his breath without meaning to.
She surfaced a heartbeat later, grinning, on the far side of her canoe. With a quick motion, she grabbed the edge and threw one leg over. Then came the inevitable tumble—limbs flailing, a splash—and she landed with a thud in the boat.
She’d gone swimming in nothing but her linen chemise and underskirt, and now her soaked clothes clung to her like a second skin, every curve and line of her body outlined in light and water.
Quickly, she tugged on her overskirt and blouse with practiced ease, then twisted her hair into a tight coil, squeezing it dry over the side.
Sunlight scattered through the droplets like tiny stars.
She gave her long locks a brisk shake, then ran her fingers through to separate the strands.
At last, she picked up her oars, locked them into place, and set her craft into motion.
Dragonfly of North Town was a quiet spell spun in sunlight—enchanting in ways Collin could never quite name aloud.
She moved through the world like glinting water, shifting her shape to match its rhythms, reserved and elusive one moment, teasing and radiant the next.
He’d always admired her strange grace, but lately, he felt a more insistent tug.
The girl he used to chase along the lake’s edge was vanishing.
In her place stood a woman whose beauty left him breathless, whose laughter curled in his chest like fragrance he couldn’t exhale.
He found himself watching her too long, speaking too carefully, wishing—though he wouldn’t yet admit it to her—for more than just memories between them.
Her canoe drifted level with the boys’ stationary craft.
Droplets still clung to her lashes and the tips of her hair, catching the sun like beads of glass.
She’d been out in the heat for some time—the sharp flush of sunburn blooming across her collarbone.
The light, airy blouse she’d tugged on clung to her damp skin, translucent in places.
The top buttons were left undone, revealing the soft curve of her neckline and just the faintest glimpse of cleavage.
And Collin forgot to breathe.
His eyes lingered—too long—on the hollow of her throat, on the single golden strand that slipped over one shoulder and curled along the rise of her breast. Heat surged into his face, rushing all the way to his ears. His heart tripped into a wild rhythm, every thud impossibly loud in his chest.
Say something. Witty. Charming. Anything.
But his mind, unhelpfully, chose that exact moment to vanish. Not a single word would come.
So he just smiled. Or tried to. It was the best he could do.
Dragonfly offered a shy smile in return, but the moment their eyes met, hers darted away. She gave a small tug at the top of her blouse, a subtle, nervous gesture—as if she knew exactly where his gaze had lingered.
Collin’s mouth went dry. A strange, soaring tingling crawled across his scalp.
His eyes, unbidden, dropped to her lips—the soft curve of them, the way they held a trace of her smile.
How many times had those lips haunted his thoughts?
He ached to touch them, just lightly, to trace the fullness of her bottom lip with the tip of his finger.
The desire to taste her, to feel the shape of her mouth against his, rose like a tide inside him.
Would she shiver when he kissed her—like a leaf trembling on a branch?
No. He clenched his jaw. Don’t think of that now.
Dragonfly glanced quickly at Aries. She motioned vaguely to the far side of the lake, saying, “The lines over there haven’t yet been checked.”
Inside her canoe, several large, glassy eyed fish with their mouths wide open lay on the bottom. A few even had the hooks still embedded in their cheek.
"Fantastic! Thanks," Aries said with renewed vigor. He picked up his oars and began rowing energetically in the direction she indicated. "There is always a good haul over there!”
Collin barely heard Aries's eager remarks. His mind continued to linger on Dragonfly as she paddled for shore.