Ryazan, one of the grandest cities in all Rus', lays along the war path of thousands of Tatar warriors eager to seize the spoils of a short-fought campaign: the women of the city and gold from its treasury. Having set up camp on the riverbank outside the city, they await a reply from the envoys of Grand Prince Yuriy. As the Grand Prince deliberates, his brothers both caution and counsel him. If Ryazan falls, the rest of Rus' may be next ─ an outcome his people grow ever more wary of, turning to priests and heretics alike as rumor and fear run rampant inside the city walls. Finally left untended, the Polovtsian princess Yanay, conquered once before, now belonging to one of the Grand Prince's brothers, quietly observes these developments. She prays to her old gods when she can and aligns herself with a young Tatar captive and quick-thinking kinsman, all the while secretly seeking her freedom and revenge. ──────── ☽ ◯ ☾ ──────── A retelling of the Siege of Ryazan complete with rageful women and warrior princes; gods both kind and cunning; and sin aplenty. Copyright © 2026 Elle Chaika Open Novella Contest 2026 | Prompt No. 45 »Kings have honor, soldiers are brave, poets have heart, and all I have is rage!«

Weimar Republic, 1932 Democracy is already on its deathbed when young Frenchman Yves Crèvecœur arrives in Magdeburg as an exchange teacher. Soon, however, the gothic halls of the Luisengymnasium reveal two sacred truths: The classroom is a battlefield of politics. And: You can not be neutral when fascism threatens to devour what you love. ▪︎▪︎▪︎ ONC entry for prompts 80 and 57 "Monsters don't live under our beds. They live in the recesses of our minds." "Everyone loves the polite, charming student on campus. Except when you walk into the room. For some reason, you're the only one they treat with icy distance. You're determined to find out why."

It is the fall of 1598 when Gábor Hunyadi, the first general of Emperor Rudolph II., arrives at Čachtice castle. Not long after, he is dead and his successor Vilmos Tóth finds himself confronted with the mystery surrounding the case he now has to solve. Although he soon finds a confidant in the widow Dorottya, his key witness of all people doesn't talk - and seems to suffer from acute amnesia. And then there is the deceased general's nephew who has apparently disappeared without a trace... ─── ⋆⋅♱⋅⋆ ─── My entry to the OpenNovellaContest 2026 ©2026

** 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝 - 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐬.** In the dirty mining town of Dragon's Creek, no one believes in heroes. People trust in alcohol, guns, and the fact that death is faster than any prayer. The mountain is rich, the whiskey cheap, and life worth less than a bullet. Madame Scarlet's world consisted of booze, her saloon girls, and the art of making drunk men and penny-pinching dwarves understand where their filthy hands had no right to be. Then the damn mountain collapses. The mine swallows most of the men, spits out gold, and buries any form of order. What remains is grief, greed, and a mining town that is suddenly open to gold diggers, fanatics, and all kinds of scum. Along with the new scum arrives a priest in town - and Preacher Solomon Knight comes not only with his dogs, but also with his own ideas of mercy and order. As he speaks of salvation, he uses dark magic and drowns people in holy water. As if that weren't enough, the nights suddenly no longer belonged to the living. All that can be found are the leftovers: corpses torn apart, disembowelled, and picked clean to the bone. The mountain was sacred. Now it is hungry. Welcome to Dragon's Creek. Those who pray will die on their knees. Those who survive better load their guns.

Spring always comes quietly. The first flower blooms in an ordinary garden, the kind that people walk by without a second glance. But this one is different. It opens a door. As the seasons shift, secrets begin to unravel-rivals tied together by an ancient weapon that stubbornly refuses to stir unless they stand together, a dragon feared by all but hunted unfairly, a god forgotten for so long who has begun to interfere once more. Worlds collide. Legends come alive. Magic seeps into the ordinary. Spring is not merely a season in this world. It observes. It recalls. It decides. Some are drawn through doors hidden behind flower petals. Some fall in love with people who feel peculiarly, inexplicably familiar. Some are asked to safeguard that which the world insists must be destroyed. And some discover that destiny is not about strength-it's about who you'll stand beside when the world starts to bloom. 🌸❀ 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐒 𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐒 ❀🌸 is a tale of boundaries and gentleness, rivalry and loyalty, the subtle power of beginnings, and the things that stir when the world turns a new page. For once Spring learns your name, it never forgets. "And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul." ~John Muir

A loyal hound will drink saltwater. In the Kingdom of Bevran, vagabonds are offered shelter within the walls of the castle. Orthrus, tired of running for his life, scavenging off of the dead, and never escaping the cold, couldn't think of anything better. But it seems the Queen of Bevran has secrets, plans for invading the Kingdom of Khis. Orthrus and his fellow vagabonds seek to understand how they fit into all of this, what purpose they serve in their Queen's grand schemes. What Orthrus can't figure out is why the Queen would keep her desires secret when Khis is their enemy, the reason Bevran has fallen into ruin. Any Bevrani would devout themselves to defeating their oppressor, no? When the truth comes out, Orthrus must decide on what he's willing to sacrifice in order to survive. ♙♙♙ For the Open Novella Contest 2026 | Cover designed by me | Prompt 80 Current Word Count - 4,058

"A prophecy speaks of a rare moment when all nine realms align and a single flower blooms with the power of eternal beauty. But if the flower is plucked, it will wither at once and with its death, everything will fall, leaving only you behind."

In 1897, Charlotte Moreau has been in an abusive marriage for years and the only solace she has is in the quiet moments when her husband and children are asleep. She often spends time by the lake and usually finds it a place of solace until one day when she receives a message in a bottle from her former best friend Marie who passed away. She encounters a friend of her acquaintance, Julien Deroche, a man she despises. She begins to argue with him, telling him to leave her alone. She begins to argue with him, telling him vicious things and to turn the other way when they cross paths. When she goes to the woods to find a new place to escape from her daily hell, she encounters Julien and must come to terms with what happened to Marie because Julien knows the truth. And because of their connection to Marie, she begins to soften toward him until she begins seeing him every day in this isolated place. But then Charlotte realizes that she has fallen desperately in love with him. And her husband begins to suspect something when she has dirt on her dress nearly every day. She must choose between her heart and her duty to her husband and children.

The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon meets The Haunting of the Hill House (the Netflix series) in this tale of paleoanthropological terror that plays with the famous theory of the uncanny valley by Masahiro Mori. *** PhD student Giselle Brown is at her hometown to complete her dissertation in peace, hardly expecting anything surprising to happen. Her life is muddled as it is; she doesn't need more trouble to spice it up. But when the bones of a human cadaver are discovered by the local anglers, which turn out to be the remains of her long-lost mother, Giselle's life is thrown into a tumult. Twenty years ago, Giselle's mother, Julia Brown, had disappeared from their house, leaving behind a trail of heartbreak and despair. The police never found her mother, which drove her father to suicide, her older sister to turn mute and to be admitted in a mental institution, leaving the full onus of raising Giselle on her grandmother. Her mother was more a legend in their house than a person who haunted their every action and Giselle's most haunting thoughts. Somewhere deep down Giselle had always sought answers to what happened to her mother and the disturbing facets of the last week she was with their family. Now, with the corpse recovered and identified, the investigation that had once gone cold resumes upon Giselle's insistence. Yet things get stranger as the police uncover the most bizarre facts about the cadaver and details about the last days of Julia's life. Giselle is plagued by reflections that are not quite hers, shadows that stretch too long, figures appearing at the edge of the woods close to her home and a lingering sense of being watched. Giselle doesn't know what to do. Can she really trust her mind? Or is nothing as it seems? For Julia Brown had unearthed a secret that humanity must not know, and now her family must pay its dues... *** An ONC 2026 entry

Alec Monroe has a gift, and Paul Barrington wants to profit by it. Neither understands the true cost of their arrangement. The Great War casts a long shadow in 1926 Philadelphia. Prohibition is in effect, but largely ignored in the city dubbed "wet as the Atlantic." Séances remain popular, despite the efforts of men like Houdini to reveal mediums as frauds. Class, social, and racial boundaries are razor sharp. Against this backdrop, Paul enlists Alec to help him defraud Henri Deschamps, a wealthy scholar of antiquities from France. Little does Paul know that Henri holds more power than money can buy, and Alec is the key to unlocking it. ONC Prompt 72: A real necromancer sits in on a fake séance. [Author's note/trigger warnings: This story uses period-appropriate language, including terms related to race and sexuality, and discussions of mental health, including suicide.] [All rights reserved. This story is 100% human-generated. No part of this story may be used for the purpose of training A.I.]