Free Fiction to Rule Them All

I love Beneath Ceaseless Skies Thursdays.  We have some very good free fantasy today thanks to BCS, Paizo, and PodCastle.  And there's good dark fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Remember, nothing lasts forever on the internet, except anything embarrassing that you post, so get the fiction you like before it is gone.



[Art from "Best Served Cold" linked below]






Fiction
• At Author's Site: "Waltzing on a Dancer’s Grave" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Dark Fantasy.
     "When Greta arrives at Grayson Place with her ballet company, her memories haunt her. Karl Grayson died there twenty years earlier, but she returns to the mansion for the company’s fiftieth-anniversary gala anyway, just as he wished. Karl’s death freed her once. Or did it?"

• At Beneath Ceaseless Skies: "Artificial Nocturne" by E. Catherine Tobler. Fantasy.
       "Rosemary and mint drip from the impossibly long fingers of Maman Floss as she spreads cooling bat grease across my shoulder. I keep my eyes closed, her voice wrapping around me in a contralto so soothing I forget the constant pain that radiates from shoulder to fingertips."

 • At Beneath Ceaseless Skies: "Last Rites for a Vagabond" by Justin Howe. Fantasy.
      "Wraiths, like dark whispers— And Beryl danced with them in the abandoned house, alder-wood sword in hand. Steady then. Masterful in deed and action. Not what he was, but something more: an exorcist."

• At Daily Science Fiction: "Join Our Team of Time Travel Professionals" by Sarah Pinsker. Science Fiction.
     "The sounds of half-tuned electric guitars blasted from the doorways of Manny's and Sam Ash, dueling across the grimy patch of 48th St known as Music Row. Magda waited until the group of time tourists she was following had turned the corner, then plunged her arm into the nearest garbage can. Her hand encountered something slimy."

• At Pathfinder: "Best Served Cold  - Chapter Three: An Array of Evils" by Ari Marmell. Fantasy.
      "The other, the speaker, was a scarlet-haired half-elf who wore his chainmail awkwardly. His sleeves shone gold in the brigands' torchlight, and his left hand fiddled absently with a silver pendant that dangled from his neck."

Flash Fiction

• At Every Day Fiction: "Filling" by Lindsey Barlow. Horror.
• At Nature: "Surrendered Human" by Deborah Walker. Science Fiction.
• At 365 Tomorrows: "Mom And Pop Only" by Clint Wilson. Science Fiction.

E-Books
At Free eBooks Daily:

• Prince of Alasia by Annie Douglass Lima. Action Adventure / Fantasy. 
• Tannic and the last Woolly Mammoth by Jay Grewal. YA Adventure.
• Ships of My Fathers by Dan Thompson. Science Fiction.
• The Keeper and the Rune Stone by Paige W. Pendleton. YA Fantasy.
• Ghosts of Rosewood Asylum by Stephen Prosapio.  Paranormal Suspense.
• Fettered Soul by Caprice Hokstad. Fantasy.
• The Survivors by Daniel Harvell. Fantasy. 

Audio Fiction
• At Beneath Ceaseless Skies: "The Girl Who Welcomed Death to Svalgearyen" by Barbara A. Barnett. Fantasy.
     "Adda looked up and down the snowy lane, but Grandma Marit had already disappeared into the darkness. The only movement came from flickers of firelight sneaking out of neighbors' windows. The darkness groaned in annoyance at the tittering flickers, who flitted up and down the sides of the box-like wooden homes. The flickers skipped over the ground and tickled Adda's feet, even through her heavy boots."

• At PodCastle: "The Secret of Calling Rabbits" by Wendy Wagner. Fantasy.
      "The breeze shifted as Rugel ran, and he caught a scent upon it, sweet and strong, a scent that reached into the depths of his memories and twanged them. He lost his footing at the power of it, and he threw himself into a bush beside the path, gasping. He preferred running to hiding, but he couldn’t run with that scent thickening the air."