Regicide

Carl meets Annie Risk and falls for her. Hurt by a recent relationship, she resists becoming involved. A chance find offers distraction. Carl stumbles across part of a map to an unknown town. He becomes convinced it represents the city of his dreams, where ice skaters turn quintuple loops and trumpeters hit impossibly high notes.... where Annie Risk will agree to see him again. But if he ever finds himself in the streets on his map, will they turn out to be the land of his dreams or the world of his worst nightmares?British Fantasy Award winner Nicholas Royle has written a powerful story set in a nightmarish otherworld of fathers and sons, hopes and dreams, love and death.

The winner of two British Fantasy Awards, Nicholas Royle is the author of a short story collection, Mortality, two novellas – The Appetite and The Enigma of Departure – and five novels, including Counterparts, The Director’s Cut and Antwerp. He teaches creative writing at Manchester Metropolitan University and reviews fiction for the Independent. He runs Nightjar Press, which specialises in publishing original short stories as signed, limited-edition chapbooks. He has also edited numerous short story anthologies.