Short Stories
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Following The Current
How do you plan your goals? Coral-singer Delian Tidescale drifted through the kelp forest gardens of Pearlheart, her scaled hands moving in practiced patterns as she coaxed new growth from the luminescent fronds that swayed in the city’s artificial currents. The kelp responded to her touch with gentle pulses of blue-green light, each strand reaching Continue reading
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The Compass Within
Kharis Sandstrider pressed her palm against the crystalline surface of the scrying bowl, feeling the heat that radiated from its core—a fragment of concentrated ruby dust that held the memories of a thousand desert storms. The bowl’s surface shimmered with heat mirages, but these weren’t the false visions that plagued ordinary travelers. These were deliberate Continue reading
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The Tired Ink
What is a word you feel that too many people use? Master Scribe Veridan Ashworth set down his silver-nibbed editing quill with the deliberate precision of someone exercising extraordinary restraint. The manuscript before him—the seventh he had reviewed this morning for the Lumenvale Literary Guild—bore all the hallmarks of what he had come to recognize Continue reading
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The Stillness Between Storms
What brings you peace? The crystalline chimes of Lumenvale’s evening bells echoed across the Merchant Quarter as Kieran Nightwhisper pressed his forehead against the cool glass of his workshop window. Below, the silver canals reflected the dying light of the Crystal Spires, their prismatic glow slowly shifting from gold to deep amber as the day Continue reading
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Dreams Above the Clouds
What profession do you admire most and why? The crystalline alarm chimed through our family’s modest quarters on Westwind Platform, but I was already awake, pressed against the transparent wall with my nose creating small fog patches on the cool surface. Six-thirty in the morning, same as every day for the past three months since Continue reading
Chadwick Rye 