When Bard’s parents named him, they bestowed on him one of the greatest gifts in Valoria. Storytelling. Except that required him to speak in front of a crowd. And for Bard, that was a task as insurmountable as facing a dragon.
Read it now
Everyone dreams of finding their one true love at a grand ball. I happen to be at a grand ball at the moment, but there’s no time for Handsome Prince Sightseeing.
Only murder.
Don’t fret—I’m not here to take a life.
I’m here to kill dreams. It’s my duty.
I clung to the yardarm as wind whipped across the deck of Brume de Mer, spraying ocean mist into the captain’s face.
“With a stiff wind and a swift current, we’ll be in the West Indies in no time, lads. Where rum and our profits await!”
“Death’s Door to your right, Z.”
“Do you have to call it that?” I say into the comm of my stolen suit. Sweat dampens my forehead as I turn the corner on Dad’s spaceship. The giant metallic door I meet certainly seems like it would hide world-eating tech.
“How are you solving these cold cases, Officer?” Chief Stanford lowered the report to his desk, shaking his head in disbelief.
Officer Alvin Waters scratched the back of his neck and shrugged. His observational skills had led to his interest in law enforcement, but he never imagined
Announcing the winners of the “Encore: Animal Kingdom” July 2026 flash fiction contest!
Read it now
The first thing that struck Rell was the silence. It wasn’t the absence of sound. No. The crowd still breathed, shifted, whispered. But the shape of it. A hollowed silence, like lungs emptied and waiting to be refilled. It gathered around the
Read it now
“See?” Joler exclaimed, waking me up. “I beg Crobet to train with me every day, but he just sits there!”
“Why haven’t you been training?” Turgess snapped. “You’re getting flabby!”
I shrugged, regretting giving them the access code to the underground command center. “When was the last threat?
Martha scanned the pews as she entered the sanctuary, one hand slipping almost unconsciously into her bag. Her fingers brushed the spines of two books, one as thick as her fist and one as thin as a pencil. The thick one was, of course, her Bible.
Read it now
Have to get out of here. No time to waste. I weave through the long corridors at the edge of the army base, counting turns, counting breaths.
The vials jangle in my pockets, though I’d wrapped them in paper before leaving the lab. If they break
As usual, morning in the village was quiet. Until I saw Martha.
She was hauling boxes into the street outside her cottage. Everyone knew her as the widow who hadn’t left her home since her husband’s death five months ago. A porcelain lamp shattered against
The first ring came to me in the night, carried by servants of the Undead King, iron masks concealing their faces.
The bird was dying when I found it. When I stroked its soft head, I felt its life—a fierce little thing, bright as a
Recent Comments