Ruya Lily appeared across the entire ocean. She was so beautiful I hated her. Red hair swayed long behind her and red silk covered her arms outstretched. Her smile was warm and bold. She smoldered like the shield mountains. Ocean waves swashed through her skirts as she hovered there. If you squinted hard enough, you…Continue Reading “Ruya Lily”
Each winter at The Ordering, the ribbons were handed out. Every girl who had entered her thirteenth year was ordered to attend. “Mother, I’m frightened,” said Anja. “Hush,” said her mother. “Of course you are. I was frightened too.” “But you are so very pretty, and I am not.” Her mother slipped behind her daughter’s…Continue Reading “The Witch’s Garden”
When the birds first appeared no one knew where they came from, what species they represented, or why they swarmed into the trees of the world. Their inexplicable arrival mystified people all over the Earth, confounded ornithologists, and left scientists incapable of providing an explanation for their presence. When Michael first saw the birds for…Continue Reading “In the Time of the Birds”
The troll lived under the same bridge for a thousand years, eating the forgotten, lost, despicable, and despairing people unfortunate enough to stumble over him. All trolls needed three things to survive: flesh, water and emotion. They didn’t all have to come from the same source, but without a steady supply of the three, the…Continue Reading “The Bridge Troll and the Refugees”
Once upon a time there was a long, grey, two-headed worm. It poked out one head in one town and stuck out its other head in the next town over. It let insects march through its fibrous belly, a highway with no off-ramps. Many of the insects died along the way not really comprehending how…Continue Reading “Griefworm”
When Sven feels his hand catch on the bottle’s neck, it takes all his resolve to convince himself that he hasn’t doomed everything. Door-Bend isn’t the sort of place where one can recover from a mistake. The neighborhood is wedged between a mountain peak and an armor heap, and reeks of barrel-fires. Because City Hall…Continue Reading “The Door-Bend Incident”
A thin line of sunlight crept across the pews, the only hint that the sky was still there. Stained glass windows bathed the cathedral in light and color as the priest droned on. That one line was the only real, convincing evidence that the world outside was the same as it had ever been. To…Continue Reading “The Girl Who Always Looked Up”
I remember when all of the trees died and their dryads with them. The death, like many things, came from below. “The humans brought this,” some dryads whispered, their voices cracking with fear. Horror stories were carried to us on the wind, whispering of gnawing vermin. At night, I slipped inside my sapling and shivered…Continue Reading “A Perennial’s Chorus”
The Golden Goose – whose feathers were not so golden anymore, making it truthfully more of a tawny goose – looked out of its good eye at the Child. “Can you lay eggs?” the Child asked. It jammed a sticklike finger between its big, white teeth. “I don’t know,” the Golden Goose replied. The Child…Continue Reading “Margot and Tolye Brave the Wasteland”
“You must have the Dragon Chilli, for the heat. You’ll need to chew and swallow, fast. The faster those juices get into your system, the better this will work.” The young shop assistant scratched the flaky skin on the back of his hand. “This is the only way to take dragon form. Well, not the…Continue Reading “The Dragon Spell”