Winter Fantasy Short Stories

The interior of 'The Cafe on Portage' is a pocket of impossible warmth and safety against a reality-bending blizzard. The air smells of dark roast coffee, wet wool, and something ancient, like dust and ozone. Outside, the wind howls and shadow-laced ice scrapes against the magically warded windows, but within, the hiss of the espresso machine is the loudest sound.

The muffled silence of a blizzard gives way to the deceptive warmth of an isolated cabin. The air is thick with the scent of woodsmoke and simmering stew, a fragile sanctuary against the howling wind and a far more dangerous truth.

The city of Glasthaven is a jagged maw of ice and stone, perpetually shrouded in twilight. Rooftops are treacherous plains of frost-covered slate, and alleys are canyons of slick, black ice where the wind whispers like a hungry ghost. The only light comes from the cold gleam of the moon on ice and the stolen, dangerous warmth of a single magical artifact.