There was something unusual about the king. Tilda knew relatively little of men. She was a good girl who heeded her father and paid her respects to Brant each Somnday, and her few stolen kisses with Addan, the particularly handsome stable boy, precluded any great knowledge of the opposite sex.… Read the rest...

Firal had never seen snow; not the natural sort, anyway. All mages had to practice creating ice at some point, so clumps of snowflakes and pellets of ice were not so foreign as to be mysterious, but the idea of it falling from the sky was still strange. Other islands… Read the rest...

“You should have come, it was a lot of fun.” Vahn regretted the words almost as soon as they were out of his mouth. His friend’s expression didn’t change, though. He just stayed with his back against the floor, twisting and turning the bottle he held overhead, watching the tiny… Read the rest...

The winter air bit deep, no matter how many layers he wore. Everyone said he’d grow used to it, but as he adjusted the thick scarf wrapped so it just brushed his chin, Rune thought again of how he didn’t want to. Snow was as marvelous as ever; he couldn’t… Read the rest...

I was the first. A miracle and a monster, a mistake that should have been learned from. By all accounts, I should have been the last. Magic is a river. I was a child the first time I heard her say it, still learning to read, more interested in toys… Read the rest...

Thaddeus grunted as the light came on, pulling his jacket back up his to his shoulders before he’d even taken it all the way off. He’d expected he would have time to sort the work he’d accomplished this week, finally sending the pile of folders off to be filed. Instead,… Read the rest...

There had to be a key, she simply hadn’t found it yet. Twisting a curl of her black hair, the mage girl mumbled to herself as she paged back through her book. That was the way with everything; no matter how complicated a knot, as long as you kept picking… Read the rest...