The Forbidden Kiss of Life: International Affairs

By Olivette Devaux

Water-walkers, flood-makers, soul-stealers: your neighbors.

In this between-the-books offering in the Disorderly Elements world, Ash Ravenna explores his Czech mother's heritage. While teaches his family new techniques between the banks of Prague's Vltava river, realities of his existence stun him. Among their arcane, secretive skills, forbidden knowledge reigns supreme.

As he deals with his people's monstrous heritage, the teacher becomes the student.

And what Teresa teaches him may be life-changing.

This story first appeared in the Heart's Kiss Magazine.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mugen Press
• Release date: Jan 26, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386182207

Olivette Devaux

Olivette Devaux focuses on writing stories of love, where adventure is always an element. Whether contemporary or paranormal, and regardless of sexual orientation, she likes to leave both her characters and her readers with a happy ending. Olivette writes thrillers and speculative fiction as Kate Pavelle, and YA science fiction and fantasy as K.S.Pavelle. She's hard to reach, because she believes her readers would rather read her books than her social media posts. If you ever need to bribe her, try either orange peel dipped in dark chocolate, or chardonnay.

Book preview

THE FORBIDDEN KISS OF LIFE

A DISORDERLY ELEMENTS SHORT STORY

THE AIR WAS FRESH WITH the tongues of autumn fog which lapped at the surface of the Vltava River like playful dogs. The sun had not quite come up yet, but the darkness of the post-equinox night broke with a swath of a pale gray stripe of light to the east. The sky brightened grudgingly, heavy with the rain to come.

This Saturday morning, the streets of Prague were still. The locals were sleeping in, securely warm behind closed doors. Their coffee would await them, and pastries, but that would come later. For now, Ash watched Teresa, his cousin as well as a young rusalka-in-training.  

Back in the States, Ash was an elementalist. A water-whisperer. Rivers and streams spoke to him, and sometimes, they obeyed his polite requests.  Here in Bohemia, however, he was called a vodník, a waterman. The term harkened back to old fairy tales, and even nowadays, children were warned to stay away from swift-moving streams.

"Don’t go in, the vodník would drown you. The cautionary words were as commonplace as saying Gesundheit" when someone sneezed.

He was appalled. He would never drown anyone. Of course he’d never capture their soul and keep it under an upside-down tea cup. No, he would not make a collection to show off, nor would he use the souls of others to bolster his own power.  When their elderly aunt told stories of the days when their kind ruled the rivers, he learned that even though Teresa was just another water elementalist in the States, here she was a rusalka, a being that might lure a swimmer into the deep. The opera Rusalka formed a part of the nation’s consciousness.

Ash looked to the other bank of the river, where the old buildings of Kampa island rose from the fog. He was an elementalist, not a vodník.

The whole soul-stealing idea was preposterous.

It was a concept as antiquated as coal-powered stoves, and those days were long gone. The