Author

Henry Szabranski

Henry Szabranski lives in Buckinghamshire, UK, with his wife and two young sons. They all enjoy a good fairy tale.

Cast Down

The smooth skin and delicate ear of the actual broken and discarded God. Vast and intricate fragments cast down upon the land and sea. Frost-rimed fingers curled in the mountains like the stark ribbed fossils of ancient leviathans. Silt-washed toes in the ocean, warmed by the…

The Key To El-Carim's Heart

Although I was almost invulnerable to physical attack due to my fighting prowess and the great height and scale of my fortified tower, she somehow slipped through my defenses and made me fall in love with her. I knew it was a ruse, some devilish trick of hers, but I could not…

The Bargain

The water's glassy surface reflects the boardwalk and the mist that drifts above it. Pine scent lingers in the chill air. The only sounds are the clomp-clomp-clomp of your feet, the slow rumble of the bicycle's tires across the uneven planks, the tick-tick-tick of the chain…

Three Kisses: The Mirror of Reason

She was all shining, all glittering ice as she rose on a whirling column of white. The impossible tower grew taller and thinner, leaning over until it finally disintegrated into a shower of crystals. When the plume cleared, the Queen was gone. The little girl waited, but there…

Three Kisses: A Royal Breakfast

Thorns tore at his fingers, arms and face, but there was no turning back. Even the grisly sight of his predecessors hanging impaled and decomposing on the tangled branches overhead failed to slow him down. He was a Prince, by God, and not to be denied. He hacked a path through…

Three Kisses: Defenders of the Crystal Casket

The Prince tethered his white stallion near the base of the hill and climbed up the wooded slope. As he approached the summit, the clouds parted and the rays of the setting sun highlighted the gold and crystal casket nestled in the glade. It gleamed with a pure, blinding light:…

Mortless

Simon would not say goodbye this time. He had worked hard enough, sacrificed enough, paid enough, to not say goodbye to his wife ever again. He leaned his head against the glass wall of the pod and stared inside at River's freshly printed body. She looked up at him, smiled and…

Amy's First

The angel floated just below the rafters of Amy's bedroom. It glowed like a Christmas ornament: rainbow colours shimmering across its translucent, slow-sculling wings. Its soft radiance filled the darkened room. Amy lay still, hardly breathing. An angel had finally appeared,…