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Discover weekly, the best short stories

Looking for a steady supply of fantasy short stories? Every week thousands of writers submit stories to our writing contest.

150+ Fantasy Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. Though fantasy is well known for its epically long sagas, fantasy short stories can deliver all the genre’s best attractions with one punch — or, shall we say, in one fiery dragon breath?

Fantasy Short Stories – Page 2 of 10

Weather the Storm

Submitted to Contest #332

The storm did not begin with thunder. It began with a whisper. Mara was alone on the hillside, cutting herbs for her mother’s remedies. The sky had been clear moments earlier, a lazy blue stretching over the valley. Now clouds gathered over the ridge, coiling inward like a hand preparing to close into a fist. She heard the voice before she saw the storm—soft, curling through the grass like smoke. “Child… come closer…” Mara spun, basket pressed tight to her chest. No one stood behind her. Only the slow-building bruise of cloud overhead. Her b...

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Rain and a Wulver

Submitted to Contest #332

By the time that winter settled in for good, every sound in the house had grown thin. The floorboards didn't pop as much, the stove didn't hum the way it used to, and even our voices felt smaller-like the cold had taken a little piece from each of us. We lived in a leaning two-story frame house on stacked stones at the edge of the woods, eight miles from town and a lifetime from anything that looked like help. The garden was a memory buried under crusted snow. The last rows of canned beans lined the shelf like tombstones. Daddy's lunch pail ...

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Cloud Nine

Submitted to Contest #332

Hammond was quite literally walking on clouds. Not just because today was day one of his big promotion. He was moving out of the mail room and up to the 113th floor of SkyCap Industries — 97 floors and 4 cubicles closer to Julie than he ever thought he’d be. He tried not to think about her too much, to not be weird about it, but he couldn’t help the way his pulse spiked every morning when he caught sight of her; the swaying of her short, orange hair as she stood before him in line for the bagel cart, or a few paces away at the crosswalk.But ...

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The Copper Leaf

Submitted to Contest #332

August always tumbled towards autumn just a little earlier than most in Brannagh’s Rest. It could be because it’s in the northeast, but could be because the old Irish soil the city’s ancestors brought with them insisted on maintaining its own calendar. By the first weekend, the evenings always carried a small bite; nothing fierce, just a nip that reminded the villagers to don a sweater before the sun dipped. It was this chill that Kiera Rose O’Connell, age nine and proud of it, loved most about the end of summer. It also meant the campfire n...

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A Solstice Festival: Changing of the Seasons

Submitted to Contest #332

“I hope I don’t get too hot in this leather vest,” Leominor fretted as he ran his fingers through his beard and long curly hair. “Are you sure about that jacket?” Kit’s questioned, “You don’t want the men in the audience to get the wrong idea.” He glanced down at the sheer caftan adorned with pressed flowers along the bottom hem and sleaves. Leominor laughed, “Not sure what you mean Kit. It pairs nicely with the dress you’ve chosen.”She twirled, sending the sundress made of sunflowers flying around her. “It is a special occasion.” It was not...

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A Journey from Hell

Submitted to Contest #332

"Is something on fire? What smells smoky?" the child asks, looking unreasonably excited at the prospect of a fire on a sealed, moving train. "I don't know sweetheart, but I don't think anything could really catch fire in this weather. Besides, we could always escape by jamming the door open and getting out into the rain," you reply, smiling down at him. You look back out the window, where rain is pounding, dragged into a backwards streak by the motion of the train. Disgusting, cold, watery rain. It is outrageous that today is the only day I...

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Only the rain remembers

Submitted to Contest #332

Only the rain remembers Where I'm from, rain tastes like sunshine. Not the warming kind - the burning kind. I was eight years old when the first rain came to claim me, when the mask of my idyllic home slipped, revealing the captivity woven into our family lore. Before the rain, everything was silent, unmoved, unaltered. Our days passed in the meadows surrounding our family estate - blissful, joyous, and unnatural. Almost as part of our routine, my sisters and I - Estelle the first, Magnolia the second in age - would spend our afternoons spra...

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The Weight of Water

Submitted to Contest #332

The rain hadn’t started yet—not quite—but the sky sagged with the threat of it, swollen and purple like a bruise across the spine of the world. Mara could feel the pressure in her teeth. Her father used to say storms warned those who listened closely. She’d never believed him until the day he died, lightning splitting the sky the same hour his lungs finally gave out.Now, she listened to the weather the way some listened to God.The road winding up to her brother’s house was narrow and carved into the hillside, a place where one wrong step mea...

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Where the Wind Leads

Submitted to Contest #332

The caves, well, the tunnels, they seemed like they would never end. But the stone wasn’t excavated. Not by man, at least. Didn’t look natural either. The rock was coarse, sure, but the shape… almost a perfect circle. They wound and twisted like some great creature’s veins. A maze. A gigantic maze hidden beneath Eldara. There was just the three of us. We were only looking for somewhere to sleep. Streets get far too cold this time of year, and when you can’t defend yourself, your options are slim. We just stumbled across the place by accident...

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Wizarding Agency for National Defense: Ice to Ski You

Submitted to Contest #332

Watching the snow fall, each flake as thick and fluffy as the last, my brain rejects what I’m seeing. See, the thing about snow is it usually falls down. This snow is falling up. Why is that? I look around, turning my ringing head left and right to see that I’m in a tree. Upside down. I’m dangling from the branches of a great big pine tree. What the hell am I doing up here? And why is it snowing? For some reason the first thing to come to my mind is that it’s mid June in New Hampshire. Okay, let’s take a moment and recollect my jumbled and t...

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At 11:59

Submitted to Contest #331

Michael Thomas woke to the sound of a single knock at the front door. The wind outside howled along the siding, rattling the gutters as snow hammered the windows in frantic bursts. For a moment he thought the storm had made the noise, but then it came again—soft and deliberate. He reached for his phone on the nightstand.11:59 p.m. His wife slept beside him. His infant son breathed steadily in the bassinet at the foot of the bed. Michael blinked into the dark, letting the sound settle into him. A knock at this hour made no sense. He eased him...

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Dreams by Dragons

Submitted to Contest #331

There is a periwinkle diamond singing to me beneath a thick layer of solid ice. I have never wanted anything more in my entire life. Well, maybe not my entire life, as I am only three winters along, and maybe there’ll be something sparklier and twinklier that’ll catch my heart three winters from now. Mama always says a dragon’s hoard is only as big as his heart, and a dragon’s heart can be as big as he can dream. This diamond’s as big as any I’ve ever dreamed of!But, well, maybe it’s not even a diamond. Could be aquamarine, or maybe a delici...

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How Valkyries Are Made

Submitted to Contest #332

Title: How Valkyries Are MadeHilde had abandoned the old gods—abandoned her oath—and now the storm came for her.Salt spray lashed her, but she didn’t flinch.She was already soaked; fear was the only thing she refused to wear.The longship lurched, hurled skyward by a wave, and her stomach twisted with it—sick as a dog that had fed on the dead.She gripped the rope as the wind bayed around her, thunder pounding like war-hooves across the clouds.The rope snapped.It ripped through her palms, flaying flesh. Hilde slammed against the deck as lightn...

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Another Winter Solstice

Submitted to Contest #331

**Content warning: physical violence and curse words.** The flurries floated leisurely into delicate heaps, the snow a blanket of crystal ivory on the ground. The two watched from inside her tiny one-room cabin, in new sufficient snowsuits, as they stared out of the large bay window. Looking at her watch, she took a deep breath. “10:33,” Lu whispered, biting her lip. She peered up at him with worry in her green eyes. “Almost midnight,” Gar reassured her, returning her stare, “we’re almost there.” He started to reach a soothing hand to her co...

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The Elven Dancer

Submitted to Contest #331

Through another set of eyes on the only girl, who hung outside of the newly built dance studio for humankind and elves alike. Curious about when she'd actually join it, he followed from a great distance behind her most of the week, to get home everyday. Never seeing nor crossing paths to notice where she lived around that neighborhood. Yet on this particular day, as he set foot on the concrete of the concrete. He glanced over to the art along the wall which the young girl peeked past. Eillieena tilted and tilted some more as he watched her s...

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