Bram de Vries

Wren stood tall and held the cracking egg up for the riders to see. He shouted that the egg was hatching, and that no one would chain this dragon. The…

The old healer took one look and got to work with herbs and warm broth. The dragon recovered, but the healer warned that the queen would hunt them bot…

To Wren's shock, the queen wept when she saw the living dragon. She had thought all hope was lost. She knelt, thanked Wren, and swore the dragon would…

Wren built a signal fire on the ridge to call the wild folk who lived beyond the peaks. They had always honored dragons. By nightfall, riders with pai…

Wren froze. The order said to deliver the egg sealed and whole. A hatched egg would be worthless to them. He sat on a flat rock, cradled the egg in hi…

Vesna raised her hands slowly. "Fine. I'll carry them." She let them re-strap the sled, smiling and easy, until the rifleman turned to watch the trail…

The lid came up and a pale face stared back at her. A child, curled in the crate with blankets and a water flask, eyes wide with terror. There were th…

Vesna resealed the crate and kept climbing. Whoever needed these papers needed them badly enough to risk Ember Pass in winter. That was reason enough.…

Near the top, the sled hit a rock and a crate split open. Vesna froze. Inside, packed in straw, were rows of small sealed vials glowing faintly green.…

Vesna refused to gamble on the killing slope again. She took the long ridge route, twice the distance and twice the cold. Her hands went numb and the …

Vesna left the sled and climbed fast up a side gully to get above them. From the ridge she watched the followers reach her abandoned cargo and start p…

Vesna waited until the four passed, then doubled back down the mountain with the sled, taking the long ice route they'd never expect. By gray dawn she…

Dana told him everything, gently. Eli listened, then shook his head. "He doesn't get my face at his bedside," he said. "But you can take him a message…

Eli stood at the foot of the bed. "Why?" he asked. "Why did you do it?" Frank's eyes filled. "I was drunk and angry and you were small," he said. "The…

Dana decided to find the son before she promised Frank anything. The old paperwork gave a name: Eli Mooney, now thirty-one, living two towns over. On …

I ignored Dunmore and dove again at dusk to get answers myself. The house was waiting. But this time the front door, which had hung open all day, was …

Halfway up, my lamp caught a row of photographs still hanging on the wall, glass intact. A family of four, smiling on a dock. But in every single phot…

I opened the clean door. The room was dry inside, actually dry, no water at all, like the lake refused to enter. A family of four sat on the bed, smil…

I grabbed the shiny fork to bag it as evidence. The second my glove closed on it, the water went ice-cold and the lake floor trembled. Reyes' light cu…

We swam toward the candle light, because we were paid to catalogue everything. It hung in a back room over a cradle of waterlogged wood. The cradle ro…

Instead of running, I wrote back. With my own glove I dragged a word in the silt: WHO? The dried mud rippled and rearranged itself, letter by letter, …

Mara makes a choice. She won't hide the machine from him anymore. 'Sit in the chair,' she says. 'I'll show you the loops. You need to see how you die,…

It holds. Saturday plays out and Eli comes home at dinnertime, soaked from rain but very much alive. He has no idea anything happened. Mara drops into…

Mara cuts the thread. The needle hums and the basement flickers. When the light steadies, the calendar on the wall reads Sunday. Saturday afternoon is…

At 2:15 the lights flicker, and Vesna finally sees it: a thin crack in the air above the door, where the second keeps tearing open. That's the real wo…

Calder's device misfires. Vesna's lands clean. His timeline folds shut and he flickers like a bad signal. But just before he vanishes, he leans in and…

"Then let's not," Vesna says. "Both futures die if either of us cuts. So we both put our devices on the table. Slowly." Calder studies her for a long …

Vesna refuses to believe him. "Nice story. You just want me to look away." She keeps her eyes on Calder and grabs her own device. But as she moves, th…

Vesna stands and walks straight to the woman. She catches her elbow just before the doorway. "Careful," she says, "the step's slick." The woman smiles…

They drive home slowly, both shaken. Over the next months Mara keeps having flashes: the truck, the bridge, a basement full of light. One night she fi…