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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

Glamour Whore

Submitted to Contest #310

Content warning: This story contains explicit sexual imagery, graphic violence, and strong language.Riley smashed the $1200 Fender Stratocaster guitar against the floor. It exploded into a shower of wooden shards. His guitar player, well, ex-guitar player, now, Eric, had just quit Riley’s band (and brainchild), Bathroom Head. Six years of sticky-floored dive bars, sticky-fingered, druggie band mates, and a host of other undignified rock-n-roll clichés, were all for nothing. The 4-piece, which had thinned down to a duo, was now a band of one....

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Its source, its power

Submitted to Contest #310

You've been speaking for a long time under the fluorescent lights. You can hear their buzz braiding with your voice. But the people in the folding chairs around you don’t seem to mind. In fact, some of them lean in. “I guess I always felt like I had this little bit of magic. I dunno. It sounds childish.” “But I felt like if I wanted something bad enough, believed it would happen, and wrote it down, it usually happened the way I wanted.” It was more than that. You could charm your way out of a hostage situation. You could land a first class ...

13 likes 4 comments 4
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Ctrl+Alt+Delete

Submitted to Contest #310

He hadn’t written for years and now led a quiet, somewhat grumpy life in Chiang Mai. Once mildly famous for a debut novel in the ‘80s, he’d since produced nothing but half-finished drafts and the occasional smug email. As a 68-year-old (but only ever admitting to 55), he lived in Chiang Mai, a small city in northern Thailand. Popular with tourists, there was something exciting happening nearly every night of the week. So, his limited writing skills, such as they were, didn’t bother him - as long as his royalty cheque kept arriving. Whenever ...

18 likes 9 comments 9
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That Red String Around Your Neck

Submitted to Contest #310

*Mention of light physical violence and/or suicide* “The horse raised its front two legs and let out a hellish scream. The fighting spirit seemed to return; a peculiar gleam shining in the eyes of the previous hopeless soldiers. They all watched as the man atop the horse gazed at what was left of the ally soldiers. It was as if they were afraid of his gaze, but trustful at the same time. Even as their numbers dwindled and the casualties increased, measly bandaged limbs and bloody wounds would not stop these seemingly ordinary soldiers.“Com...

6 likes 1 comment 1
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Saving Ancestors' Stories Forever on Voyages of the Destiny's Dreams

Submitted to Contest #310

Even the stories, themselves, were afraid of being forgotten. They needed to be remembered forever, whether by oral telling or by written word. The stories carried the uniqueness that made Mariposa's people distinctive. The wisdom in the stories inspired, uplifted, and guided their lives. The beliefs gave their lives meaning, purpose, and sacred connections. For thousands of years, the stories and wisdom of Mariposa's ancient ancestors flowed through the spirals of time and space, passed along by the spoken word. Then Mariposa's generation p...

14 likes 10 comments 10
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Lit from the Inside

Submitted to Contest #310

Shelf Discovery was a book club who could argue about anything. They'd had mudslinging over misery memoir, locked horns over lauded literature, and even come to blows over blistering biography. An improbable group of six, they’d begun as a meeting between friends which grew over the years. Their meetings were sporadic, their membership was eclectic, and their book choices, chaotic. But a more passionate bunch of readers you could not find anywhere. They read like their lives depended on it and argued like every word was theirs. But even the ...

5 likes 1 comment 1
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The Invisible Writers' Meeting

Submitted to Contest #310

Invisible Writers’ Meeting Chaz Pallas The Invitation “Invisible Writers’ Meeting on Tuesday at 246 Robin Ln at 7:30PM,” according to a handwritten note on a three by five card pinned to the laundromat bulletin board. Sean arrived to find an overgrown, vacant lot with scattered chairs and miscellaneous pieces of discarded furniture. He checked his watch and saw that it was the right time and wandered into the lot. As he walked among the weeds, fireflies, and broken furniture a mist appeared giving off a variety of hues and a distinct herbal ...

2 likes 0 comments 0
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The Melancholy Machine

Submitted to Contest #310

In the taxonomy of sorrows, there exists a particular species of grief that feeds upon itself—the melancholia that blooms in the aftermath of perfect beauty. It is a cultivated thing, this despair, as deliberate as any gardener's roses, and twice as thorny. Edwyn Silversong discovered this truth piece by piece, like a man assembling his own gallows from driftwood, though he would not understand he was both architect and fuel for an engine that ground the very cosmos until the final nail was driven home. The silence that followed his performa...

15 likes 2 comments 2
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The Winding Ivy

Submitted to Contest #310

The library was quieter than normal. Every patron had found a corner to read in silence. Nisha exhaled. The calendar stated that the library was having a local writer’s event. This was supposed to be an opportunity for Nisha to promote her art work to local writers, an opportunity to get hired to do cover art or other book artwork. Instead the day, like many other days, was shaping up to be a failure.“Good morning Melissa,” Nisha said, weaving false positivity into her voice.“Oh, my favorite artist! How are you today?” Melissa’s lips spread ...

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Chariot Argon

Submitted to Contest #310

As I saunter the hollow streets of Nùs-Faddahd, my head raised high afore the suited people who looked low. The skies white and dreary, had opened for a sun that had lost its yellow glow. It was black now. Our sun was now black. But our buildings were carved from a platinum mountain atop the Erroneous Peak. None spoke, all silent. The skies had not granted us that right. To revel and cheer. Frolic was no more since that day. The day of the Black Sun. The day our king was coronated before the people. Every year on that day, we make way to let...

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A Struggling Author Learns How To, "Auth"

Submitted to Contest #310

A Struggling Author Learns How To, "Auth" Once upon a time in a huge metropolis called Danville, Va., there lived a great artist named Vincent Van-Stop. Well, actually his given name was Vincent VanGo The 26th, but he didn’t want to be affiliated with that crazy painter. His girlfriend, Trixie, told him she did not want to have his ear as a present. She loved the mountains and would much rather him take her up there where her ears would pop because she had an exceptionally strong attraction towards, “mountain-ears.” She also liked, ...

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The ARC Arthurian Readers Club

Submitted to Contest #310

Of course, it would be quite improper to take five over excitable dogs to a meeting of The ARC Arthurian Readers Club. But Little Plump Jo did not need her five over excitable canine writing companions, the Dabrowski Dogs – Intellectual, Sensual, Emotional, Psycho Motor and Imaginational, to be with her physically to know pretty much what thoughts and opinions they would have. Often people thought that Little Plump Jo may be slightly mad; as she tended to suddenly burst into tears or into gales of laughter at the mental pictures the thoughts...

7 likes 3 comments 3
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The Vanishing Guides

Submitted to Contest #310

Margot owned The Gilded Page, a quaint bookstore tucked away on a cobbled side street, its windows brimming with antique tomes and sun-faded poetry. Patrons knew Margot as quiet and clever, the sort of person who could find you the right book even if you could not name it. It has been a family business since her great-grandfather opened in the 1880s. But what no one else knew—what not even her closest friends suspected—was that behind a shelf of encyclopedias, a hidden door led to a room that had belonged, for generations, to the secret soci...

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The Price of Ink

Submitted to Contest #310

What if a writer could create tangible reality by writing words, instead of a sensory one? That question popped into my head upon reading my latest rejection letter. “Aimless, boring, derivative” was the feedback. The accompanying $375 writing class pitch is salt in the wound. The letter burns in my pocket. Aimless.Boring.Derivative.The words chafe. My apartment mocks me. I have enough rejection letters to paper the walls. My notebooks and legal pads could build a fort behind which I hide in shame while my father wags his work-worn finger wi...

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If Wishes Were Horses

Submitted to Contest #310

An aspiring author needs to write to get experience. I had a good name to write under, I didn’t even need a pseudonym. Sapphire Squires. A romance novelist’s name if ever I heard one. I decided to write in a journal about people I know, for practice on character development. No one would ever see what I wrote. Just wishing to improve.Be careful what you wish for. As the saying goes, there’s more tears shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones. I wonder. From my journal: My co-worker Peggy. I met Peggy a few weeks after I’d started my o...

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RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

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